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¹ Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.

John 19:1

Late in the night (possibly around midnight) while Jesus is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, a group of guards arrive with weapons to arrest Jesus. All of Jesus disciples become afraid and ran away – even Peter who just a few hours earlier said he would rather die than betray Jesus. Jesus is dragged to the house of the high priest Caiaphas. A place that is still known today with a high degree of certainty:

In front of a Kangaroo court hastily convened in the middle of the night by His own Jewish leaders, Jesus is put on trial. They bring false witnesses and attempted to trap Him so they could put Him to death. They want to maintain both their authority over their own people and the precarious peace they have with the conquering Romans. After what is assuredly hours of grilling, they condemned Jesus when He says that the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the Power.

Early morning, Jesus is dragged before the local Roman governor Pilot and questioned. He’s brought out to the crowd. Exhorted by the temple officials, the crowd calls for Jesus’ death. In an attempt to calm the crowds, Pilot takes Jesus and has him beaten severely – by scourging.

What can one say? First, how alone and abandoned Jesus must have felt. Just earlier in the week, Jesus entered Jerusalem to people cheering in the streets with palms and songs. He had spent the entire previous day celebrating Passover with His beloved disciples – including the events of the Last Supper. All of them were gone. They ran away when He was arrested. Peter denied Him just hours after saying he would willingly die with Jesus. Judas literally betrays Him with a kiss. The temple officials were trying to get Jesus sentenced to death at a rigged trial in the middle of the night. Not one person came to his defense. The first lashes came from those he loved and was trying to save.

Jesus was almost certainly physically and emotionally drained. He had participated in a day full of Passover celebrations they day before. He went to the garden to pray around midnight and the other disciples fell asleep. He was arrested, dragged to court in the middle of the night, and put on trial. He’d likely been up for around 30 hours.

Now he is scourged in an attempt to appease the crowds. Historians note that not everyone even survived a Roman scourging. The beating is severe and bloody. The man who others was just days before greeted as Hosanna is now stripped and beaten with a scourge whip. These whips had multiple cords with bits of bone or metal attached. Lacerations were deep – exposing sliced flesh down to the muscle or even the bone. Victims who survived were often half-alive when this was finished. Even contemporaries like Cicero considered it the most extreme and cruel form of punishment.

—–

I knew what was coming. I drove here and there to many doctor’s appointments to get my verdict. I lost count the number of needles I had in me over the next few weeks (I hate needles). I got painful physical exams, colonoscopies, CT and MRI scans with nasty-tasting marker dye drinks, x-rays, unpleasant diets, and medications. I had very difficult conversations about survival rates and treatment options. None of this was anywhere near what Jesus was experiencing physically; but none of it was pleasant. It was a little bit of physical scourging. Despite all the supportive friends and family – you do feel alone with these verdicts. It was in those moments that I definitely felt the presence of Jesus. I talked pretty directly with him about what was going on. Reflecting on what he went through – he knew all too well what getting grim news was like.

They say you learn who your true friends are when things go wrong. Jesus was abandoned and even betrayed by his own followers when He was arrested. I was blessed to have a supportive girlfriend, coworkers, friends, family, and faith community to share the journey. I gave thanks to God for that. But there is, however, nobody that can live a possibly terminal illness diagnosis but you.

Even if the room is full of family and friends – it is you alone who is going to walk through that door to eternity.

Emotionally, I woke up every morning and sometimes my first thought was that this had just been a bad dream. Maybe now that I’m awake it would be gone – only to have reality come flooding back in.

My future plans were ripped away. Who doesn’t make plans for the coming year, our career, our relationships? In the blink of an eye, long-term plans are pulled away. I should have known better. We all know things end, but we tell ourselves that day will be a long way off. It’s a dangerous trap.

² I will praise the Lord all my life;
    I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
³ Do not put your trust in princes,
    in human beings, who cannot save.
⁴ When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
    on that very day their plans come to nothing.

Psalm 146

When you strip away the temporary things of this life that will all be left behind when you die – you quickly realize the only thing that matters is your relationship with Jesus. You will be stripped of the trappings and the stinging truth laid bare.

1. Consider the uncertainty as to the day of your death. One day your soul will quit this body–will it be in summer or winter? in town or country? by day or by night? Will it be suddenly or with warning? Will it be owing to sickness or an accident? Will you have time to make your last confession or not? Will your confessor or spiritual father be at hand or will he not? Alas, of all these things we know absolutely nothing: all that we do know is that die we shall, and for the most part sooner than we expect.

2. Consider that then the world is at end as far as you are concerned, there will be no more of it for you, it will be altogether overthrown for you, since all pleasures, vanities, worldly joys, empty delights will be as a mere fantastic vision to you. Woe is me, for what mere trifles and unrealities I have ventured to offend my God? Then you will see that what we preferred to Him was nought. But, on the other hand, all devotion and good works will then seem so precious and so sweet:–Why did I not tread that pleasant path? Then what you thought to be little sins will look like huge mountains, and your devotion will seem but a very little thing.

3. Consider the universal farewell which your soul will take of this world. It will say farewell to riches, pleasures, and idle companions; to amusements and pastimes, to friends and neighbours, to husband, wife and child, in short to all creation. And lastly it will say farewell to its own body, which it will leave pale and cold, to become repulsive in decay.

4. Consider how the survivors will hasten to put that body away, and hide it beneath the earth–and then the world will scarce give you another thought, or remember you, any more than you have done to those already gone. “God rest his soul!” men will say, and that is all. O death, how pitiless, how hard thou art!

5. Consider that when it quits the body the soul must go at once to the right hand or the left. To which will your soul go? what side will it take? none other, be sure, than that to which it had voluntarily drawn while yet in this world.

Introduction to the Devout Life – St Francis DeSales, Pt1, ch 13

How is your daily relationship with Jesus? Are you ready to stand before Him with what you did with the gift of your life? Do you have sins that have crept into your life or have unforgiveness in any relationships? Have you forgiven even those who were happy to hurt you?

Have I grown complacent and let distraction enter my life? Have the cares/concerns/plans I am making in this world choking the Word in my life so I spend more of my day following my own plans instead of talking with and following Jesus?

³⁴ “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. ³⁵ For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. 

Luke 21:34

The good news is you can turn again today. Do not wait! Jesus is an infinite ocean of mercy – but we must ask Him for forgiveness and turn again to follow Him. We must do it now – because tomorrow is not guaranteed. Do not let the day catch you like a thief in the night. Time is much shorter than we think, and when it is over there is no more time to fix wrongs or seek reconciliation.

²⁵ “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. ²⁶ Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

Matthew 5:25-26

I spent a lot of time searching my soul with Christ and found serious gaps. I scheduled a general confession and the sacramental Anointing of the Sick. I asked for my friends and family to pray for me – and I prayed for them.

Lord Jesus, strip away from me the sins and lies I have wrapped myself in and the false comforts that have made me slow and tepid. Fill me with the Spirit of conversion so I may turn to you once again with my whole heart.