Every once in awhile, I get to use my brain for simultaneously artistic and intellectual purposes, like writing this monologue that I got to perform at our church's March 16th Lenten service. To God be the glory...
Blood. And Water. What are the two essentials in the Jewish system for cleansing impurity? It’s blood and water.
When I married my beloved, I never dreamed it would bring me to this place. Well, I knew it would bring us to Judea. After all, it was Pilate’s appointment to prefect of Judea that finally prompted that handsome bachelor to permit us to set a date for our wedding. I was so young and idealistic!
A couple months after our wedding, we arrived in Caesarea. The town was more sizable and cultured than I had imagined it. Valerius Gratus, the preceding prefect, was was a kind man who offered my husband the most valuable information and advice regarding governing the Jews that he had received so far.
We knew little of the Jews who occupied this area of the great Roman empire. There weren’t many in Rome, and those who we knew did little to prepare us for this lot my husband was to govern. “A Jew in his homeland and the Jew in foreign countries are cousins, not brothers,” Gratus explained, “Here in Judea, the people think it’s heresy not to be ruled by their own priests. Their normal form of government, they insist, is a theocracy, a rule by God. Foreign control is considered a temporary arrangement, a punishment. They await the Messiah to suspend this arrangement of foreign control.” I was eager to learn more about these Jews.
The traditions and beliefs of the Jews were peculiar to me. They were offended shortly after we arrived because my husband displayed the standards at the palace in Jerusalem. Because Caesar’s face was on the flags, hundreds of Jews gathered in protest, beseeching my husband to take them down. They even came in from the countryside. Gratus had reminded Pilate to be firm; but talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place! Pilate was left with the choice to either massacre the hundreds who had gathered when they refused his order to disperse, or to appear weak and remove the standards. But my husband acted very statesmanlike, and I was proud of how he handled his first major problem in Judea. He explained to the crowd, “I had to test your sincerity in this matter. I see now that the military standards in question are truly offensive to you and that you are not simply testing Roman policy. I will transfer this cohort back to Caesarea and send another in its place without the iconic insignia.” The crowd left in peace and I knew that my husband would be a worthy leader with a very promising future in the Roman empire.
Life after that settled into a routine as we adjusted to our new life far away from Rome. Our marriage is a good one. Perhaps the reason we hold one another so closely is because there aren’t many Romans like us in Judea.
I suspect things go well between Pilate and I for another reason, though: I knew when to keep my mouth shut. This is not always easy when interesting news or a problem has been shared in my presence. But I know that my husband will not bow to the wishes of a woman, especially when other influential men are around. I learned early that my influence is best used when the two of us are alone, when the intensity of the situation has quieted a bit. It is then that I can share my ideas and thoughts--the truth I see in the situation. I try to do so gently, subtly, but my passion for religious and political scenarios tends to get the better of me. And I may know when to keep quiet, but that does not mean I am afraid to share my candid opinion when the situation calls for it. Pilate respects me and he does care what I think. After all, several of my ideas have been well received and I’ve learned several days later how he’s incorporated them into his decisions.
Pilate and I debate politics with a passion, but we are so different when it comes to religion that our discussions on the matter seem to just go in circles. I have spent my life searching for truth, seeking wisdom from the gods. The Jews, with their one God, well, this was so different than what I knew in my polytheistic upbringing and I wished to learn more about their practices, their customs, and yes, their omniscient God. Pilate considers himself an “enlightened skeptic”. “The search for truth,” he says, “is noble enough, but who ever really finds it?” This is his way of keeping the entire matter of religion at arm’s length where it will not affect his reasoning and sensibility. In reality, it is this almost-fear of that which cannot be explained that has now left him nearly absent of his senses completely.
What I’m talking about is Yeshua, Jesus. I had first heard of him through Cornelius, one of the commanders of our troops who has become a good friend and confidant to Pilate. There were many reports on this prophet. Several said he raised his friend, Lazarus, from the dead. Lazarus had fallen ill and had been dead for three days before Jesus raised him. Pilate was not to be convinced. “How do you suppose the two of them pulled that one off?” he mused. But Cornelius spoke to the doctors who cared for Lazarus, who confirmed the man was indeed dead. I began to wonder as the stories about Jesus traveled around if there was any truth to the “Messiah-Anointed One” theory. If he was the Jew’s Messiah, what did that mean, exactly?
I could hardly wait to accompany my dear husband to Jerusalem over the Jewish Passover. This time, Cornelius confided in me, he believed Jesus would be in Jerusalem to celebrate with his disciples and I hoped to catch a glimpse of him, or even better, to invite him to the palace to dine with us so that we could perhaps talk with him about what he was doing and what it all meant. But that never did materialize.
I heard he was in the temple early in the week, that he had become angry with the money changers for turning “his father’s house,” he called it, into a den of robbers.
I was determined to see this man for myself and so the next day, surrounded by a bevy of my attendants, I got to hear Jesus speak in the temple. How I desired to get close to him, but I didn’t want to cause a scene, so I stayed back and listened. One of my attendants gave me a running interpretation of what he was saying, since I don’t understand Aramaic. The pharisees were trying to trap him about paying taxes, but he handled it well, and their trap failed to ensnare him. Then a lawyer asked him what the greatest commandment was in the Torah, the Jewish book of law. My servant girl told me this was a terrible question as the law was supposed to be equally great in all its parts. I’ll never forget what Jesus said: “God is one. Love him with all your heart, soul and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
His statement took my breath away. A religion based on love? A God who desires love? It was so different than what I knew. Yet, if this was the truth...was it even possible?
Just a couple days later, Pilate was holding court. He had a full docket, but that didn’t stop the Sanhedrin, the governing board of Jewish affairs, from demanding his time. The Sanhedrin had arrested Jesus and brought him to Pilate asking that Pilate permit them to put Jesus to death. Curious, Pilate actually heard the case instead of simply deferring to the judgement of the Sanhedrin. Then troubled by the obvious innocence of the accused and the growing mob of angry people, he tried to pass Jesus off to Herod, who is also in Jerusalem for the Passover, since much of what Jesus did, happened in Herod’s territory. It wasn’t long, though, and the crowd was back, asking--no demanding--that Pilate put Jesus to death.
Not feeling well, I had slept late into the morning. I had a troubling dream that involved this Jesus and when I heard that he was in fact at the palace, that my beloved was being asked to judge him, well, I didn’t waste any time sending him a message warning him to leave this innocent man alone! But he didn’t. He explained later that he was stuck in an impossible position, with a crowd threatening insurrection, yet having blood on his hands if he condemn the innocent man.
I understand that our very lives hung in the balance. If he declared Jesus’ innocence, the mob would have turned on him and the soldiers. Word would have gotten back to the emperor, a Jewish sympathizer as of late, and we would have been recalled to Rome in shame and then exiled to an island or worse yet, put to death. But it was against the very principle on which my noble husband stood to condemn an innocent man. To have acquitted him would have been a supreme act of altruism.
Pilate ceremoniously washed his hands of Jesus’ blood. Then the crowd called to him, “May His blood be on us and on our children.” It was their way of assuming accountability for these actions. Only know do I understand the significance.
They took Jesus and crucified him. Because of the severe beating he endured beforehand, Jesus hung there just a few hours before he died. Then a couple of his friends took his body and buried it in a tomb.
What if Jesus was the Son of God? What if this all didn’t HAVE to happen? What if Jesus COULD have defended himself and chose not to? What if he suffered of his own choosing, for a purpose far bigger than I can even comprehend?
It was reported Sunday morning, just a couple days ago, that Jesus body was no longer in the grave. Pilate was convinced the disciples had stolen it from right under the noses of the large guard. When he realized they would have likely slept in shifts, and that none of them would have slept through the noise of moving away that large stone, he shifted his focus to what could have happened that Friday night, before the temple guard had been posted. That too fell apart when Pilate discovered that the guard indeed had looked in the tomb to confirm the body was in there before they sealed and guarded it. Could Jesus have risen from the dead? It was beginning to seem as though a divine intervention was the most probable possibility!
This evening we attended a dinner party. We women dined separately from the men, as we often do when we’re in Jerusalem. The talk at our table centered around the missing body of Jesus. Joanna, one of the ladies at the table, had seen the empty tomb herself on Sunday morning. After much coaxing, I got her to tell me her story.
The group of women, early on Sunday, went to the tomb to properly anoint Jesus’ body with spices as is customary at burial. They were unable to do it right away because they had to wait for their Jewish Sabbath to come to an end. There was an earthquake that had rolled away the stone. When they looked in the tomb, the body they expected to see, wasn’t there. A radiant personage told them that Jesus who was crucified was not there, that he had risen just as he promised. Then he told the women to go quickly and tell his disciples. On their way back to Jerusalem, Joanna said, they suddenly saw Jesus in their path. As they fell before him in joyful adoration.
Pilate and I arrived home a short time ago and I shared with him what Joanna had said. Of course he discredited the whole thing as “foolish woman talk”. But when I told him that Jesus’ disciples also saw Jesus after he had shown himself to the women, that men would give an account of this Living Jesus, he immediately summoned those who were directly involved with Jesus’ death, and has been interviewing them ever since. Yes, at this late hour!
He’s speaking now to the centurion who was in charge of the crucifixions that day. He had ordered the breaking of the legs of the two men crucified with Jesus, but because Jesus had been dead for a good hour, he didn’t break Jesus’ legs. Instead he thrust a spear into Jesus’ side. When the centurion told us what happened next, I nearly fainted and had to step out. He explained that blood and water flowed from Jesus’ side.
Blood. The sign of his life flowed upon those standing beneath his cross...and water--the spirit within him poured out upon the world. Death, far from ending Jesus’ life, became the moment he shared his life with all who stand below the cross.
Surely this man was the Son of God!
Blood. And Water. What are the two essentials in the Jewish system for cleansing impurity? It’s blood and water.
When I married my beloved, I never dreamed it would bring me to this place. Well, I knew it would bring us to Judea. After all, it was Pilate’s appointment to prefect of Judea that finally prompted that handsome bachelor to permit us to set a date for our wedding. I was so young and idealistic!
A couple months after our wedding, we arrived in Caesarea. The town was more sizable and cultured than I had imagined it. Valerius Gratus, the preceding prefect, was was a kind man who offered my husband the most valuable information and advice regarding governing the Jews that he had received so far.
We knew little of the Jews who occupied this area of the great Roman empire. There weren’t many in Rome, and those who we knew did little to prepare us for this lot my husband was to govern. “A Jew in his homeland and the Jew in foreign countries are cousins, not brothers,” Gratus explained, “Here in Judea, the people think it’s heresy not to be ruled by their own priests. Their normal form of government, they insist, is a theocracy, a rule by God. Foreign control is considered a temporary arrangement, a punishment. They await the Messiah to suspend this arrangement of foreign control.” I was eager to learn more about these Jews.
The traditions and beliefs of the Jews were peculiar to me. They were offended shortly after we arrived because my husband displayed the standards at the palace in Jerusalem. Because Caesar’s face was on the flags, hundreds of Jews gathered in protest, beseeching my husband to take them down. They even came in from the countryside. Gratus had reminded Pilate to be firm; but talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place! Pilate was left with the choice to either massacre the hundreds who had gathered when they refused his order to disperse, or to appear weak and remove the standards. But my husband acted very statesmanlike, and I was proud of how he handled his first major problem in Judea. He explained to the crowd, “I had to test your sincerity in this matter. I see now that the military standards in question are truly offensive to you and that you are not simply testing Roman policy. I will transfer this cohort back to Caesarea and send another in its place without the iconic insignia.” The crowd left in peace and I knew that my husband would be a worthy leader with a very promising future in the Roman empire.
Life after that settled into a routine as we adjusted to our new life far away from Rome. Our marriage is a good one. Perhaps the reason we hold one another so closely is because there aren’t many Romans like us in Judea.
I suspect things go well between Pilate and I for another reason, though: I knew when to keep my mouth shut. This is not always easy when interesting news or a problem has been shared in my presence. But I know that my husband will not bow to the wishes of a woman, especially when other influential men are around. I learned early that my influence is best used when the two of us are alone, when the intensity of the situation has quieted a bit. It is then that I can share my ideas and thoughts--the truth I see in the situation. I try to do so gently, subtly, but my passion for religious and political scenarios tends to get the better of me. And I may know when to keep quiet, but that does not mean I am afraid to share my candid opinion when the situation calls for it. Pilate respects me and he does care what I think. After all, several of my ideas have been well received and I’ve learned several days later how he’s incorporated them into his decisions.
Pilate and I debate politics with a passion, but we are so different when it comes to religion that our discussions on the matter seem to just go in circles. I have spent my life searching for truth, seeking wisdom from the gods. The Jews, with their one God, well, this was so different than what I knew in my polytheistic upbringing and I wished to learn more about their practices, their customs, and yes, their omniscient God. Pilate considers himself an “enlightened skeptic”. “The search for truth,” he says, “is noble enough, but who ever really finds it?” This is his way of keeping the entire matter of religion at arm’s length where it will not affect his reasoning and sensibility. In reality, it is this almost-fear of that which cannot be explained that has now left him nearly absent of his senses completely.
What I’m talking about is Yeshua, Jesus. I had first heard of him through Cornelius, one of the commanders of our troops who has become a good friend and confidant to Pilate. There were many reports on this prophet. Several said he raised his friend, Lazarus, from the dead. Lazarus had fallen ill and had been dead for three days before Jesus raised him. Pilate was not to be convinced. “How do you suppose the two of them pulled that one off?” he mused. But Cornelius spoke to the doctors who cared for Lazarus, who confirmed the man was indeed dead. I began to wonder as the stories about Jesus traveled around if there was any truth to the “Messiah-Anointed One” theory. If he was the Jew’s Messiah, what did that mean, exactly?
I could hardly wait to accompany my dear husband to Jerusalem over the Jewish Passover. This time, Cornelius confided in me, he believed Jesus would be in Jerusalem to celebrate with his disciples and I hoped to catch a glimpse of him, or even better, to invite him to the palace to dine with us so that we could perhaps talk with him about what he was doing and what it all meant. But that never did materialize.
I heard he was in the temple early in the week, that he had become angry with the money changers for turning “his father’s house,” he called it, into a den of robbers.
I was determined to see this man for myself and so the next day, surrounded by a bevy of my attendants, I got to hear Jesus speak in the temple. How I desired to get close to him, but I didn’t want to cause a scene, so I stayed back and listened. One of my attendants gave me a running interpretation of what he was saying, since I don’t understand Aramaic. The pharisees were trying to trap him about paying taxes, but he handled it well, and their trap failed to ensnare him. Then a lawyer asked him what the greatest commandment was in the Torah, the Jewish book of law. My servant girl told me this was a terrible question as the law was supposed to be equally great in all its parts. I’ll never forget what Jesus said: “God is one. Love him with all your heart, soul and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
His statement took my breath away. A religion based on love? A God who desires love? It was so different than what I knew. Yet, if this was the truth...was it even possible?
Just a couple days later, Pilate was holding court. He had a full docket, but that didn’t stop the Sanhedrin, the governing board of Jewish affairs, from demanding his time. The Sanhedrin had arrested Jesus and brought him to Pilate asking that Pilate permit them to put Jesus to death. Curious, Pilate actually heard the case instead of simply deferring to the judgement of the Sanhedrin. Then troubled by the obvious innocence of the accused and the growing mob of angry people, he tried to pass Jesus off to Herod, who is also in Jerusalem for the Passover, since much of what Jesus did, happened in Herod’s territory. It wasn’t long, though, and the crowd was back, asking--no demanding--that Pilate put Jesus to death.
Not feeling well, I had slept late into the morning. I had a troubling dream that involved this Jesus and when I heard that he was in fact at the palace, that my beloved was being asked to judge him, well, I didn’t waste any time sending him a message warning him to leave this innocent man alone! But he didn’t. He explained later that he was stuck in an impossible position, with a crowd threatening insurrection, yet having blood on his hands if he condemn the innocent man.
I understand that our very lives hung in the balance. If he declared Jesus’ innocence, the mob would have turned on him and the soldiers. Word would have gotten back to the emperor, a Jewish sympathizer as of late, and we would have been recalled to Rome in shame and then exiled to an island or worse yet, put to death. But it was against the very principle on which my noble husband stood to condemn an innocent man. To have acquitted him would have been a supreme act of altruism.
Pilate ceremoniously washed his hands of Jesus’ blood. Then the crowd called to him, “May His blood be on us and on our children.” It was their way of assuming accountability for these actions. Only know do I understand the significance.
They took Jesus and crucified him. Because of the severe beating he endured beforehand, Jesus hung there just a few hours before he died. Then a couple of his friends took his body and buried it in a tomb.
What if Jesus was the Son of God? What if this all didn’t HAVE to happen? What if Jesus COULD have defended himself and chose not to? What if he suffered of his own choosing, for a purpose far bigger than I can even comprehend?
It was reported Sunday morning, just a couple days ago, that Jesus body was no longer in the grave. Pilate was convinced the disciples had stolen it from right under the noses of the large guard. When he realized they would have likely slept in shifts, and that none of them would have slept through the noise of moving away that large stone, he shifted his focus to what could have happened that Friday night, before the temple guard had been posted. That too fell apart when Pilate discovered that the guard indeed had looked in the tomb to confirm the body was in there before they sealed and guarded it. Could Jesus have risen from the dead? It was beginning to seem as though a divine intervention was the most probable possibility!
This evening we attended a dinner party. We women dined separately from the men, as we often do when we’re in Jerusalem. The talk at our table centered around the missing body of Jesus. Joanna, one of the ladies at the table, had seen the empty tomb herself on Sunday morning. After much coaxing, I got her to tell me her story.
The group of women, early on Sunday, went to the tomb to properly anoint Jesus’ body with spices as is customary at burial. They were unable to do it right away because they had to wait for their Jewish Sabbath to come to an end. There was an earthquake that had rolled away the stone. When they looked in the tomb, the body they expected to see, wasn’t there. A radiant personage told them that Jesus who was crucified was not there, that he had risen just as he promised. Then he told the women to go quickly and tell his disciples. On their way back to Jerusalem, Joanna said, they suddenly saw Jesus in their path. As they fell before him in joyful adoration.
Pilate and I arrived home a short time ago and I shared with him what Joanna had said. Of course he discredited the whole thing as “foolish woman talk”. But when I told him that Jesus’ disciples also saw Jesus after he had shown himself to the women, that men would give an account of this Living Jesus, he immediately summoned those who were directly involved with Jesus’ death, and has been interviewing them ever since. Yes, at this late hour!
He’s speaking now to the centurion who was in charge of the crucifixions that day. He had ordered the breaking of the legs of the two men crucified with Jesus, but because Jesus had been dead for a good hour, he didn’t break Jesus’ legs. Instead he thrust a spear into Jesus’ side. When the centurion told us what happened next, I nearly fainted and had to step out. He explained that blood and water flowed from Jesus’ side.
Blood. The sign of his life flowed upon those standing beneath his cross...and water--the spirit within him poured out upon the world. Death, far from ending Jesus’ life, became the moment he shared his life with all who stand below the cross.
Surely this man was the Son of God!
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