A conversation with Jesus: ‘I did it for you’

In the first in a series of articles by St Paulinus, Guisborough, parishioner IAN MCLEAN, a meditation on what Jesus suffered for us all…

I recently had a conversation with Jesus. Well, I say a conversation, but if truth be told it was for the most part pretty much a onesided conversation, as he didn’t appear to want to say much other than to lift his head to offer me the occasional enigmatic glance.

“So, Lord Jesus, here I find you, on a cold Palestinian night in the Garden of Gethsemane. Your friends are all sound asleep some distance away and you are alone, wrapped in your cloak for warmth, speaking with your Father.

“Surely you must have felt some bitterness that those who had walked in your footsteps along your chosen path for the past three years were asleep while you, knowing what was to come, prayed in anguish to your Father to ask whether you really had to drink the bitter cup which you knew to be your destiny?

“And as you prayed, suddenly the noise and the shouting, the flickering light of torches as the mob approached, to find yourself ultimately betrayed by one you had called as your own. Betrayed with of all things, that token of love – a kiss – forever now on the lips of Judas, a betrayal of God’s only Son.”

“Lord, should we strike them with the sword”?

“Why did you let this happen? Why didn’t you let your followers fight to free you from the hands that sought to bind you? Taken bound before the council, they ask of you…”

“Are you the Messiah, the Son of God”?

“Your own lips condemned you. Why could