Jn 19, 1-9 Crucify him, crucify him!

John 19

(Jn 19, 1-9) Crucify him, crucify him!

[1] Then Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged. [2] And the soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and placed it on his head, and clothed him in a purple cloak, [3] and they came to him and said, "Hail, King of the Jews!" And they struck him repeatedly. [4] Once more Pilate went out and said to them, "Look, I am bringing him out to you, so that you may know that I find no guilt in him." [5] So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple cloak. And he said to them, "Behold, the man!" [6] When the chief priests and the guards saw him they cried out, "Crucify him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and crucify him. I find no guilt in him." [7] The Jews answered, "We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God." [8] Now when Pilate heard this statement, he became even more afraid, [9] and went back into the praetorium and said to Jesus, "Where are you from?" Jesus did not answer him.

(CCC 423) We believe and confess that Jesus of Nazareth, born a Jew of a daughter of Israel at Bethlehem at the time of King Herod the Great and the emperor Caesar Augustus, a carpenter by trade, who died crucified in Jerusalem under the procurator Pontius Pilate during the reign of the emperor Tiberius, is the eternal Son of God made man. He “came from God,” (Jn 13:3) “descended from heaven” (Jn 3:13; 6:33), and “came in the flesh.” (1 Jn 4:2). For “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father…. And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace.” (Jn 1:14,16). (CCC 272) Faith in God the Father Almighty can be put to the test by the experience of evil and suffering. God can sometimes seem to be absent and incapable of stopping evil. But in the most mysterious way God the Father has revealed his almighty power in the voluntary humiliation and Resurrection of his Son, by which he conquered evil. Christ crucified is thus "the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men" (1 Cor 1:24-25). It is in Christ's Resurrection and exaltation that the Father has shown forth "the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe" (Eph 1:19-22).