When things get mixed up… there is chaos, confusion, people get… lost.
This was what we were up to and our condition was rather… desperate – we needed help.
Someone came – Someone with a capital S…
But… things got mixed up for him as well.
He had come as a servant but they made him a king! 
A case of… ‘mistaken identity’?
Pilate stood his ground: “What is written is written” (Jn.19:22).
Worse still: He was the Word,
but the religious leaders of his people used the word of God – their Torah – to condemn him!
They had tried more than once:
“The Law of Moses commanded us, what do you say?” (Jn.8:5)
Finally they had come up with: 
“You don’t seem to have grasped the situation at all!
You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people
than that the whole nation perish.” (Jn.11:50)
And the text goes on:
“He did not speak in his own person, it was as high priest that he made this prophecy.”
They were afraid to lose to the Romans their ‘’Holy Place’ so… they were ready to kill the Holy One…
And they did, they obtained from the Roman procurator what he did not really want to grant them:
the condemnation of an innocent…
Today, as we look at the Crucified one, we remember his Seven Last Words.
For many years, Christians have meditated on them.
But… do we remember with the same faithfulness all the other words he spoke during his life on this earth?
Do we recall especially the ONE word he left us as his testament?
“Love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn.13:35)
It is perhaps more challenging, more demanding, more directly addressed to each one of us
than the seven others we have chosen to list and remember with devotion?…
Note: Another reflection is available on a different theme in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/vendredi-saint-annee-c-2019/