Nicole Berlucchi, Writer on a Mission

Image used with permission of Tribe of Many Arrows.
Check them out on Etsy: TribeofManyArrows – Etsy.

For the month of October the “That We May Imitate What They Contain and Obtain What They Promise” series will take a daily look at one mystery of the Rosary and how we have the opportunity to imitate it and rejoice in what it promises us.

Today, we look at the second Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary: The Scourging at the Pillar

So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas to them and, after he had Jesus scourged, handed him over to be crucified. Mark 15:15 (NABRE)

I was a little perplexed at the lack of description around Jesus’ scourging. It’s a mystery that I have always visualized vividly, where my mind tends to cringe over the brutal beating and pain that took place and yet these verses are short and to the point. No description. I suppose part of this was that the people initially reading the Gospels were intimately familiar with a Roman scourging, and probably did not need the details laid out for them. Perhaps writing about it was painful for the Gospel writers.  I suppose also the Holy Spirit places us there in the scene with Jesus, so that we do not need much description around what He would look like being beaten with a muti-pronged leather whip with sharp nails or iron balls attached. We can imagine the shocking pain Jesus must have felt each time one of those scourges made contact with his body. How to imitate this mystery then feels a bit like a mystery…but yet, we are invited to consider how to imitate this mystery.

1. Know in satisfying a vengeful crowd, there is no satisfaction at all. The crowd chose to release a murderer into their midst simply to put Jesus to death because He challenged the way they thought about things. Pilate does not make the decision because he feels it is the right decision. He makes the decision because he does not want to deal with the reaction of going against the crowd, but we know from the Gospels that Pilate was not at peace with decision, nor was his wife. When your decisions are based on others’ emotional reactions, instability occurs. You have lost your power when decisions are no longer rooted in your values but instead fear of becoming the crowd’s next victim. Never let fear outweigh your faithfulness to Jesus.
2. Joining a crowd mentality is unmerciful. I often wonder if I was present when Jesus was alive would I stay convicted about Who He is or would I follow the crowd, getting swept up in hearsay, influenced by the powers that be. We see it today where situations can be misrepresented and take a serious toll on a person’s reputation or career. This mystery reminds us of how Jesus needs us to stand up for those who don’t have a voice in the midst of an angry mob. He reminds us to form our own opinions of what we know rather than what people are telling us to think. He shows us in this mystery how wrong the crowd can be, how wrong the prideful righteous can be, how harmful it can be, how painful a crowd’s condemnation can be. Don’t be like Pilate handing over a person for further lashing out by others. Be the person who remembers excessive abuse, even in the form of gossip, is unmerciful.
3. Suffer for the Truth. I feel myself zeroed in on Jesus’ inaction here, His humility. He is allowing this to happen to Him for the sake of God’s will.  Jesus does not argue, does not pull away. We know He is God and could alter this very moment, but Jesus understands this is part of a larger plan. Jesus understands that pain and suffering will be worth it if we place total trust in God. This scourging is the result of Jesus speaking the truth. He would not deny who He was in order to save himself from retaliation by the high priests and the crowd. He would not list out all of the shortcomings of the high priests to Pilate, all the reasons His arrest does not make sense. In today’s society, Catholic voices are often a lightning rod for attack. People do not try to understand what we are trying to communicate about our beliefs; they only want to say that we are wrong. They want to point out that we stand contrary to popular secular opinion and therefore we are wrong or outdated or naive. They might not scourge us with whips anymore but one might argue that insults can be just as cutting. Often times it is easy to get angry at someone who is falsely accusing you or who is belittling your beliefs. In retaliating against people, the argument begins to outweigh the issue. It no longer is about what the truth is but instead about winning the argument. Jesus shows us the most powerful act is to state your truth and be willing to suffer any consequences that come with it, rather than trying to argue your way around things. We need to be like Jesus and stand in the truth, aware that any suffering on the account of Jesus will be worth the eternal reward.
4. Suffer for love of others. This will be a common form of imitation amongst the remaining mysteries. The bottom line is Jesus endured His scourging for us. It was a part of the penalty for our sins. He did not offer the suffering of His body to show His own might (though it did do that). He offered the suffering of His body for love of us so that we would be able to enter eternal life with Him. He shows us that everyone is worth suffering for. He shows us that even the mightiest should suffer for the lowliest. HE shows us that even the most worthy suffer for the unworthy. He shows us that there is no greater love than laying one’s life down for another. He did it for you, so that you might do it for others. Whether prayers, physical pains, fasting or almsgiving, there are a number of things to offer to God for love of others, for blessings in their lives, for healings, for conversion. God uses our suffering for His glory, just as Jesus’ suffering and death resulted in the ultimate glory of the Resurrection and Ascension.

While in the joyful mysteries, we experienced much of Mary’s humility; in these sorrowful mysteries, we are seeing the humility of Jesus Himself. He allows Himself to be brought before an angry mob for sentencing, to be shouted at, degraded and treated like a criminal. He allows Pilate to question Him but does not force His hand one way or another. Jesus allows Pilate to decide His fate. He allows his body to be brutally and unjustly scourged in order to serve God’s justice for our sins. He suffers humiliation after humiliation to produce the fruit of mortification in us, to give us strength to withstand the crowd, to stand for truth, and to suffer for others.

Visit Tribe of Many Arrows on Etsy. These images are used with their permission, and I am grateful for these beautiful creations accompanying my reflections this month.

If you missed last week’s reflections, catch them here: Annunciation, Visitation, Birth of Jesus, the Presentation, and the Finding of Jesus in the Temple.