Jesus is judged expendable, brutally tortured and killed.
The suffering experienced by Jesus is awful.
Is it uniquely awful?
My early religious education and experience encouraged the idea that it was.
It took me a while, as I became adult, to shake this off.
Now, I realise that appalling brutality towards the innocent
has been present through history right up to today.
At the moment, my mind is on children in Syria and Yemen,
innocent victims, judged expendable.
Yes, what happened to Jesus was truly awful,
but it was not uniquely awful.
The treatment of Jesus is just typical of what humanity is capable of.
Nowadays, we are well aware of our interconnectedness.
Arms sales from this country contribute to the situation in Yemen.
Many aspects of how we live, for example, of our dependence on oil,
when we trace through their consequences around the world,
contribute to conflict, exploitation and innocent suffering.
We are not directly involved in crucifixion brutality,
but neither are we wholly insulated from it.
In Jesus, God enters fully into human history,
and embraces its awfulness:
through doing so, he intercedes for our forgiveness,
and his prayer is heard.
It is accomplished.
As we approach the cross today, we do so in sorrow,
in sorrow for our own individual failings, of course,
and also, on this day, in sorrow for the failings of humanity.
When we reach the cross, we honour it, as a sign of our gratitude
for forgiveness, for salvation, accomplished in Jesus.