Meditation or Dramatic Reading for Holy Week

Dramatis Personae:

Narrator

Marcus Flavius, a Roman soldier

Jacob, a Jewish Citizen

Jesus

Centurion

The Disciple Peter

Narrator: In what follows I’d like us to focus our thoughts on Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. Let’s meet some locals:

Marcus Flavius: My name is Marcus Flavius and I’m a Roman soldier; I've been assigned to help maintain the peace in this City.

Suddenly I see a big procession approaching,

an ordinary-looking man riding on a donkey - nothing special about that.

But why are they all cheering:

Crowd: “Hosanna to the Son of David!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Marcus Flavius: It must be to do with this strange religion of theirs.

They’re not doing any harm, I suppose, not disturbing the peace or anything, rather like a crowd watching the gladiators in an arena …

They’re making a mess though, throwing palm branches all over the road.

So today we see the man whom this new sect see as their Leader, looking very ordinary and riding on a lowly donkey.

His friends say he’s fulfilling an ancient prophecy; somebody called Zechariah, or so I understand.

Narrator: You can find this prophecy in Zechariah 9 verse 9.

Marcus Flavius: Who is this man?

Oh well, I suppose we’ll just carry on with our normal work;

We’ll just wait and see what happens;

Probably don’t need to get involved,

Jacob: It’s Monday; my name is Jacob and I’m a Jewish citizen in Jerusalem.

People are starting to go into the Temple.

This is Passover week and we have a lot to prepare.

We need to go to the Temple to offer a sacrifice.

I don’t have the right money with me to buy a lamb.

They’ll have to change my money for me at the Temple.

Wait a minute – what’s happening? This man Jesus is shouting at them:

Jesus: “My house shall be called a House of Prayer,

But you have made it a thieves’ lair”!

Jacob: Then there’s Jesus again; he's up at the front, talking to all these religious leaders. He sounds as if he knows what he's talking about, even more than the Scribes and Pharisees do. They won't like that

(Pause)

although some of them seem to be listening carefuly to him…

Jacob: Then on Thursday evening he goes for a walk in Gethsemane with his friends.

But wait; surely he knows the leaders want to arrest him?

Does he deliberately want to get caught?

(Pause)

Then the soldiers arrive, and – yes, they do arrest him!

(Pause)

Narrator: Then they have some kind of trial and they seem to have found him guilty. Pilate wants to release him, but the crowd shouts:

Crowd: CRUCIFY HIM!

Pilate: Shall I crucify your King!

Crowd (Louder): CRUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM!

Narrator: On Friday we see him carrying his cross up the busy market street bustling with shops and street traders; this is known since the 16th century as the Via Dolorosa (The Way of Sorrow); he’s on his way to Golgotha, a rocky outcrop that looks like a skull, where criminals were often taken and made to suffer crucifixion, the most agonising, painful and long drawn-out death imaginable; he was bruised and beaten, his physical strength gone.

(Pause)

During his three hours of excruciating pain, he quotes from Psalm 22:

Jesus: “My God, why have you forsaken me?”

Narrator: Then right at the end he shouts aloud,

Jesus: “It is finished!”

Narrator: The work that his Father God gave him to do, to defeat sin and Satan,

is completed at this point. And then he dies.

Narrator: A Roman centurion, a pagan and a foreigner, said,

Centurion: “Truly this was the Son of God”.

Narrator (in a subdued voice):

Thank you, Jesus, thank you!

(Pause)

Then during the afternoon, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate if he could remove the body from the cross, so that he could take it away for burial before sunset, as was the Jewish custom. This man may have been a blood relative of Jesus.

(Pause)

On Saturday during the Sabbath, his body lies in the tomb;

cold, dark and alone.

(Pause)

Then life in Jerusalam goes on much as normal

The City and its life have now put Jesus out of their minds.

Jacob: I am a loyal Jew and I have seen a troublemaker removed and executed. Surely that must be the end of the story?

Narrator: Now we move into the mind of Peter, James and John and the other disciples.

Peter takes up the narrative:

Peter: What do we do now?

We are beyond devastated.

We are totally lost.

Heartbroken.

Aimless.

What went wrong?

Jesus, you were supposed to save the world!

It wasn’t supposed to end like this!

(Pause)

All we could do was to go to our special place,

The Upper Room where we used to meet.

Where Jesus had told us to

break and eat bread to symbolise his body

and drink wine to symbolise his blood.

We could only wait and pray, wait and see;

what would God do next?

23rd March 2026

Peter Sebborn

Christian.Footsoldier@gmail.com