Did  you expect it to go any other way? It makes a difference though to hear the words clattering out into the waiting room. The weight of the apprehensive moment. Yes, but he could have died at any time. He could have been stillborn, or slaughtered with the Innocents. He could have died on the road, or of sickness, or by accident. He was always going to die. Conceived as our mortal flesh, he bore our infirmities. Yes, and we killed him deliberately. We put on the black cap and pronounced his death. ‘Take him out and crucify him.’ There’s the Doppler effect in the crowd below, shouting ‘CRUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM!’ the pitch dropping as it passes where you stand.

Remember the carpenter’s bench; the smell of the cut wood. Cedar, cypress, pine, or oak. Light coming through the door. Or an overcast day, with the sawdust trodden down. Remember learning the names of trees: cedar; cypress; pine. He knows how to bend to lift this beam and how to straighten his back. He’s done it before. This is sound wood, and it will bear him. This is the oak of Mamre under whose shade Abraham sat until the three angels appeared. This is the cypress that made the rafter over Solomon’s bed. This is the cedar from the forests of Lebanon, the very image of majesty. This is green wood. He bends and lifts it. And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord; I bring low the high tree, and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.

‘My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ It’s one thing to say it, another to witness. The sheer weight of the cross was unexpected, as was the mass of human depravity, ignorance, cruelty, apathy; the sediment built up since before the Flood. A man fell among thieves, who stripped him and left him bleeding. He never said a mumbling word. These are the street sounds of Jerusalem, layers of them, all the various accents and dialects of those come up for the Passover; throat-clearing, street vendors, laughter, excuses, curses. The sound of a slap and a child’s wail. The cattle are lowing, and the sheep and goats bleat together in one herd. Hobnailed sandals scrape the stone. The man falling makes almost no sound.

Nothing can be said to console her.  No one is more painfully aware.  A sword will pierce your own soul too.  Her son is perfect.  He has held her finger in the grip of his hand, she has kissed the soles of his feet.  She remembers the day of his circumcision: a bridegroom of blood you are to me.  FIrst blood shed since the cord was cut. 'Who is my mother?' he asked 'Who are my brothers and my sisters?' For three years she stepped aside, now she has come up to Jerusalem.  She takes her place by ths die of the road of sorrows to see him and be seen in that firstl ong look between mother and child. 'I now see bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, myself before me.' 'Woman, behold your son.' She sees the place under his rib where the sword will go. 'Behold your mother.'

He didn’t choose to help. He was compelled. With half an eye they could see he was up to the job; hewas a big guy up from the south. O Simon from Cyrene, father of Rufus and Alexander, you were the first to take up your cross and follow. Your cross is the cross of forced labour: your yoke chafes and your burden is as much as you can bear. Jesus is walking in front of you, you are hard on his heels. What brought you to Jerusalem? Were you here for the Passover? Going up to the Temple to make the sacrifice and eat the lamb? Pharaoh enslaved us and laid burdens upon us, and look, here we are. Blessed are you, O Lord our God, who brought us out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall not oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not oppress a stranger, for I, the Lord your God am holy. Even here, even in occupied Jerusalem. Your children will praise your name.

WHAT became of that woman who stepped into the line of traffic and wiped his face with her veil? She will keep this cloth forever because it smells like his sweat, and because it absorbed a little of his blood, and, it may be, tears and phlegm. She covered her hair modestly before she went out; she covered her face so no stranger would see it; she never told her name. She touched him, not with the hem of her garment, but with the whole cloth. Consider what this means, and whether you’d have dared do it. Without asking, she unveiled herself to wipe his thorn-crowned face. He is printed in molecules of blood and sweat. ‘Thy face, Lord, will I seek,’ we say, and through her came to see his face and live.

DOES his foot hit a stumbling-stone? Maybe one of the Stolpersteine standing proud of the road on the way to Golgotha? Or does he fall beneath the burden of our sins? Not ours. Mine. He falls the second time because of me. My fault. I put out my foot and tripped him. What can I say? I couldn’t resist the temptation. The work of an instant. He was looking so pathetic, I couldn’t bear it. The whole crowd needed a pratfall to relieve the tension. For my sins, I couldn’t bear his sorrow. So he fell for my sins? That’s about it. In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread by the roadside, watching him fall and be hauled back onto his feet. Remember, thou art dust and to dust shalt thou return.

THE daughters of Jerusalem are crying, genuinely crying. They are office cleaners, night shift nurses, shopping cart women, security guards on the Métro, clerks in bodegas, nail artists, students, policewomen, sex workers, all their wet faces turned up; a river of faces. Do not be afraid. When you are living in a world of lies, hearing the hard truth is a comfort. Well, you don’t need to be afraid any more. It’s good to see the truth and know it for certain, that Love, unimaginably vast and powerful, eternal, magnificent, working wonders; is infinitely vulnerable to rough handling.

O FELIX culpa! Happy fall! Don’t you see? Jesus falls because he comes down to us, and always has, and we are there on the ground looking up. He came down to be among us. He lowered himself to the ground with becoming gravity, gravity which he himself had created. Willingly accepting the accidents of our nature, humbling himself, going into exile. This falling is a blessing: he touches the earth and blesses it. Jesus, there he is, on hands and knees among the broken vessels. He gathers grace. What he made he can mend, even what we have marred. Holy Jesus, full of grace, you emptied yourself for our sake to fall broken by the stones of your own city. However low I fall, let me not fall far from you.

They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture.

HIS mother wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, and from that moment to this Jesus has never been seen naked. Do you see him now? Or are you distracted by the soldiers gambling? Or wondering about the seamless garment?

None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him to uncover their nakedness: I am the Lord.

We have stripped our Lord naked as the day he was born. Jesus is shivering. His knees are skinned like a child’s; his back cross-hatched with blood, like a slave’s. Are you ashamed that your eyes are drawn irresistibly to the centre of the picture? You want to see, see for yourself, despite yourself. You want to see the organs of generation, the sign of full humanity, vulnerability, and covenant. You want to see Jesus naked as Adam in Paradise, naked, but woefully battered by the Fall.

Except I shall see in his hand the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

SO much happens so fast once you get outside the city limits. Three men to be crucified and raised up to view. The crowd stands back, nervous to the point of laughter. Where are the friends that followed him? There’s one. And there are the muffled women. The nail sinks into flesh, descends through tendon, bone, wood. And another. And another, and the rich, ferrous smell of blood. The man knows what he’s doing. This will hold. ‘If you are the Messiah, get down from your cross,’ cry the priests and the officials. ‘If you’re the Messiah, save yourself and us,’ Gestas says out of the corner of his mouth.

He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

‘I sin every day without repenting, the fear of death disturbs me. Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ Jesus replies somehow, turns his head, makes the connection. ‘This is the truth. Today you shall be with me in Paradise.’ Then, after a few more words, the last breath rattles out, and his face changes. Later they said that that the sun was eclipsed, the veil of the Temple torn, the dead rose from their tombs. Maybe so. Isn’t it enough though that he died? He shrank somehow into himself. The eyes became jelly, the mouth hung open a little, the skin of his face went yellow and grey. Jesus of Nazareth. King of the Jews. One soldier, the one not occupied breaking legs, pushes up with his lance, an iron willow leaf fixed on a pole. The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Thick blood and thin water splash over his feet onto the ground. I can see it all.

PILATE gave permission. Why not? He had nothing against the Nazarene, who was in any case, dead. And Joseph of Arimathea knew how to ask such a favour. Joseph was hauled out of the pit by his brethren. Jesus is taken down from the cross by Joseph; by Joseph, by bald-headed Peter, by Nicodemus, who’s stopped being worried about appearances, Two men on ladders, one with the pincers to pull out the nails. Gently. Not that gentleness matters to him now, but not a bone shall be broken. This is not the kind of work we’re used to. Let’s get it done before it’s too dark to see. Gently now, before rigor mortis sets in.

BEFORE sunset and the appearance of the first star in the sky, just before the beginning of the sabbath, two men enshroud a body. Never have they done this work before. Though well-versed in the laws and traditions involved in the task, their hands lack skill. Wash the body. Lay it out. Fetch the clean linen cloths. Fold the shroud like this, and the other cloth over the face. In every fold, pour spices. Spices and more spices; myrrh and aloes. Thou wilt not give thy holy one to see corruption. Jesus never hesitated to touch the dead—the widow’s son being carried out of Nain for burial, Jairus’ little girl laid on the bed while the mourners wailed outside. Every touch tells them: Jesus is dead, as dead as earth. They know when one is dead and when one lives. While still inside the tomb they pray: ‘Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honoured, adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, beyond all the blessings, and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever uttered in the world; and let all say, Amen.’