The events we are here to reflect on today have in numerous ways been presented to our imaginations through painting, music, drama, film, poetry and prose. Every theologian, writer and creative artist has put something of him or herself into a representation of these scenes for their age. So the characters in this story have been dressed in the clothes of every age and have been made to tell their story in every language on the planet. But what if we try to put these characters back into their own setting? What if we try to tell the story in its own clothes?
Scholars have argued for nearly two centuries now about the facts of Jesus trial and condemnation. In some periods there has been intense scepticism about our ability to say what happened. We have after all four accounts, which are similar in outline but different in many of their details. The first account in Mark’s gospel was written down at least thirty years after the events. Its author takes the oral tradition and applies it to the needs and questions of his community. The process of adaptation and redressing began early, in each of the four gospels. More recently, however, some scholars have become more optimistic about what we can know, partly because we now know more about the Judaism of Jesus’ day. We may not be able to write the inner biography of Jesus and his contemporaries, but we can know what shaped their actions and influenced their thoughts.
So what I want to do this afternoon is to look historically at the death of Jesus from four different angles. First the view of those who were immediately responsible for his death the Roman army of occupation; then from the view of those who handed him over to the Romans the Jewish authorities; thirdly through the eyes of his followers who stayed closest to him at the end the women at the cross; and then finally I want to think about the significance which Jesus himself might have found in his death.
Though this is an attempt at historical thinking it is not therefore a detached exercise unrelated to our own concerns. As we ponder this history we may come across themes that are not irrelevant to the preoccupations of our own immediate history. Of course times change but the more closely we pay attention to the humanity of those whose lives are very different to ours, the more we might unexpectedly learn about our own humanity.