THE VOLUNTARY PASSION (THE CRUCIFIXION)
'He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross' (Phil 2,8)
(From the Bible the work reference tracks produced by Mosaic School of Friuli and, in short, the comment / explanation of Paul Orlando author of the sketches. Photo: Ulderica FROM WELL)
Jn 19.14-19
It was the Preparation Day of the Passover, about noon. Pilate said to the Jews, "Behold your King." But they shouted, "Go! Street! Crucify him. "
Pilate said, 'Shall I crucify your king? ". The chief priests answered: "We have no king but Caesar." Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.
And they took Jesus, and carrying his own cross he went out to the Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified him with two others, one on one side and one on the other, and Jesus in the midst.
Pilate also wrote a title and put it on the cross; it read, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."
From heaven the Father's hand indicates the Son, Jesus, leading the patibulum on the shoulders, while the stipes of the cross has already driven on the height of Golgotha. At a certain distance there are Mary, John and the other women.
The scene here who has wanted to portray - a time before the terrible nailing - reminiscent of the sacrifice of Isaac. Which, according to the patristic tradition, is offered as a voluntary victim, bowing his head and carrying on his shoulders the wood of sacrifice.
Jesus, Son of God, agrees to be killed and to share the same fate as the first man died, Adam (whose skull is in the darkness of the cave under the cross). Therefore the Father's hand this time doesn't stop the unjust sacrifice, because Jesus did not passively endured the cross, but climbed up voluntarily.
He wanted to make a choice of love, as explicitly expressed during dinner, at that last day before Easter: "on the night he was betrayed, he took bread, gave you thanks and praise, broke it, gave it to his disciples ... ". By the time he was betrayed!
He gives his life, without expecting to be loved in return. Experience, indeed, abandonment and rejection, precisely by those to whom he had sacrificed -for love- its most valuable asset: its proximity to the Father.