one man to die for the people

Psalm 2 1. Lord, God of my salvation, I have cried before You by day and by night. 2. Let my prayer come into Your presence. 3. Incline Your ear to my entreaty look to my soul and set her free. 4. Snatch me away from my foes. 5. For you are the One who took me out of the womb- you have been my hope from my mother's breast. 6. Upon You I was cast from the very womb of my mother. 7. From my mother's womb You have been my God, do not leave me alone. 8. You know how I am reproached, how confused I am, and how much I revere You. 9. Those who oppress me are before Your eyes. 10. My heart has grown accustomed to unhappiness and reproaches. 11. And I endured it when one person who should have sympathised with me, did not, and when I could not find anybody to console me. 12. God, wicked men have risen against me, and the whole gathering of them sought to have my soul, and they did not keep You before their eyes. 13. I have been taken for one of those who go down into the lake. 14. I have been loosed among the dead like a man without help. 15. You are my most Holy Father, my King and my God incline to my aid, Lord God of my salvation.

One man die for the people This is the psalm Francis wrote for Matins, for those small hours of the morning when things are darkest. John 11:49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! 50You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” The Christ is about to appear before the Sanhedrin and Jesus speaks of the God of  his beginnings who drew him from Mary’s womb and succoured him at the very breast of his mother. Casting or placing a child upon the lap of another is to acknowledge that one as mother and protector even though another has brought us forth into light. So Jesus was placed upon the breast of He who created all things. Yet his words reveal confusion, why would God, his mother abandon him to the oppressors? Moving onwards Jesus acknowledges the unhappiness he experienced when reviled by the very ones he created, abandoned by even his beloved disciple. That one person who should have sympathised with him and did not, we know the disciples abandoned Christ when he was arrested in the Garden, and we know of Peters’ denial. Reading of that time in the Scriptures the focus always seems to me to be on the accusers, Caiaphas, Pilate, and I do not experience the desolation of the innocent one dragged there to be judged. Guilty and the entire world redeemed: and innocent and we remain lost in our selfishness and in our inhuman acts towards our fellows. Once that sentence was passed on our Creator it was as though Christ was already dead, taken for one who goes down into the lake and loosed among the dead like a man without help. Death must be a lonely, personal time as we prepare to breathe out our last before we go down into the silence or to sleep until the last days. For an innocent condemned to die for the sake of someone dying: