https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=HSvhRGRfsxM
So in the Sorrowful Mysteries, it’s Jesus is in the garden and praying with his disciples, and he is taken away to Pilate. He’s, he’s, Judas is, is, tells the, tells the police where he is. And so they, they take him, they take him away. And so now he’s with Pilate, and then he goes to Pilate and Pilate as is. This, and this is very interesting, what happens with Pilate, or at least it, I’m starting to understand what it means, and it’s quite interesting. So Pilate gives the crowds and us a choice. Who does Pilate release? Jesus, the king of the Jews, in whom Pilate finds no guilt, or Barabbas, is that how you say his name? A violent revolutionary. Jesus’ accusers ask for Barabbas. How does the story relate to our lives? It’s interesting. One of the really interesting things about that story is that in some of the early versions of the Gospels, like the early text and some of the early commentaries, it says that Barabbas’ name is also Jesus. And so it’s actually like two, two saviors, because Jesus is the savior, right? He’s a, it’s a, and so it’s Joshua, right? Jesus is Joshua, the one who saves the, who kind of saves, who takes the promised land. And so in a way, it’s two visions of how to bring change to the world. Like how, how is it that you change the world, right? How is it that you, how do things change? And so you have the one which is the violent revolutionary, not just violent revolutionary, but also like a murderer and a criminal. And then you have this figure that spoke and healed and, you know, he’s, in a way, it almost ends up making you feel like on the one hand, it shows you that speech is the true way to transform reality because Jerusalem gets destroyed because of people like Barabbas. I mean, because of the Romans, but like the conflict between the Romans and people like Barabbas is what causes the destruction of Jerusalem just a few years after the resurrection of Christ. But Christ ends up transforming Rome in the long term. So, you know, 30 years after the death of Christ, approximately Rome is destroyed, but 300 years after the death of Christ, Rome is transformed by Christ. So there’s a, there’s a bigger story going on. Obviously people will say that it’s not there because the gospel was written for the change happened, but we can see that it really is a choice between the two. And right now it’s such a great vision because we have this situation where we, some people want that Barabbas character and they want the revolutionary or they want just the social change without the deeper spiritual transformation. And I think that it’s useful to meditate on that for us right now, but the deeper spiritual change or the change of your own heart is the one that ends up causing true change in the long term. Because it doesn’t set up the problem with social, like political change is that it always sets up a dialectic, you know, so every action causes a reaction, right? So it’s not, you can see it in a lot of the political activism today, people go out in the street and do things. And then they’re surprised to see that there’s a reaction to get arrested. They don’t understand why they, you know, or counter protests come in and stop them or confront them and they don’t understand why it’s like, yeah, that’s how the world of politics works. But when you transform people from the inside, then that transformation doesn’t cause that dialectic conflict. It’s more like a seed planted, which then gathers things together and produces fruit in the long term. So that’s what I think we’re seeing there. So later in the story, Pilate is not ready to condemn Jesus to death. Instead, Pilate has Jesus flogged. In the process of torturing Jesus, the soldiers, ironically, coronate him king. They crown Jesus with thorns and dress him in a purple robe. Then the soldiers mockingly but truthfully hail Jesus as the King of the Jews. How does this story resemble our choices? I don’t, that story, that story is one of the, I think that moment is one of the most profound moments in scripture. I don’t know how much it resembles our lives because I don’t think we reach that level. In terms of Christ, what you’re seeing is you’re seeing Christ transform, I mean, you could say, you could, you could see it in a way. What you’re seeing is that you’re seeing Christ secretly transform his suffering into glory. That’s what you’re noticing. And so everybody thinks this is happening, but what’s truly happening is an actual worship of the King. So it’s like a double irony, you know, that’s what’s going on in that story. And the ultimate example of that is in the crown of thorns because the thorns are the consequence of the fall in the story of Genesis. So it’s one of the main consequences God tells Adam and Eve, he says, Adam and Eve, you have to leave the garden, you know, you have to work and the world will produce thorns. And those thorns are like the opposition of the world. They’re, they’re, you know, basically a bunch of spiky things in the world that will hurt you if you’re not careful. And so they’re an image of death, they’re an image of death, they’re an image of multiplicity as well, breakdown, because it’s not one point, it’s many points, but it’s all these spiky points that are, that are pointing in every direction. And so here in this story, Christ takes the very consequence of death, the very consequence of the fall, and it’s put up into, it’s made into a crown. And so it actually, it really is an image of changing death into glory. And I think that in a way it really, that’s the story of Christ, right? That’s what Christ does all the time. That’s what, that’s the, that’s the operation that he brings is. So it does resemble a little bit kind of what Jordan says, where it’s like, it’s not about avoiding suffering. It’s not about avoiding hostility, avoiding all these things. But there’s a way in which through, through an inner transformation, you can, those can be transformed into glory, or you could say transformed into purpose, transformed into meaning is a simpler way of saying it. And so, so it gives meaning to, to our sacrifices, it gives meaning to our, to the obstacles we face. It changes their nature.