The soldiers jerked him to his feet.

Those not involved in the scourging had twisted together an assemblage of thorns from a nearby jujube tree, fashioning a crude crown. Protecting their hands from the long, sharp thorns with rags, they unceremoniously forced it down on his head. Blood spurted in the usual profusion produced by scalp wounds. Mercilessly, it coursed down his face and neck. They clothed him once again in the purple robe provided by Herod and in mock adulation approached him in a circular line, again and again, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!"

They struck him in the face with their fists, leaving red welts and abrasions and blood on their knuckles. And as he fell from each blow, he was jerked into a standing position again; and as they struck him again, they released him, laughing as he fell in a bloody heap. Big soldiers with powerful, sweating arms. They struck him because they were men of violence and loved an excuse to shed blood. But, in this case, they struck him primarily because of their hatred for the Jews. To them, Jesus had no identity. He was a symbol. An effigy to be despised, demeaned and ultimately destroyed. Pilate watched with a mixture of curiosity and amused disgust.

"So," he continued, arms folded across bronze chest armor, a smile of nonchalance on his lips, an air of authority in his demeanor, "Look here, I find no basis for a charge against this man." For this he had ordered Jesus to be whipped and unmercifully battered? Pilate found it titillating to employ this sordid spectacle for his sport. His display of calmness was a mere ploy for political expediency. There were people taking notes of this squalid affair. Notes that would be read by superior Roman eyes. Pilate protected himself while charming himself in the process. The life of Jesus meant no more to him than the life of a slave in the arena, to be wantonly sacrificed to beasts, a life to be forfeited for the sake of entertainment.

The Romans brought Jesus out on the portico before the populace wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Standing between marble columns with Jesus at his side, in theatrical gesture Pilate lifted his arm toward him shouting, "Behold your King!"

Incensed, agitated, the crowd roared back, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

The governor shouted back, "Then you take him! You crucify him! As for me, I have no charge against him." Thus, maneuvering the Jews in theatrical deception, he did not realize that he himself had been maneuvered.

This declaration, this charge, discomfited the Jewish leadership. After much conspiratorial and agitated discussion among themselves, the priests said to Pilate, "We have a law! Our law stipulates that this man must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God. That is blasphemy of the rankest order . . ."

Pilate did not hear the sentence completed. Now it was his turn to be discomfited. Correlating the notion that there was a remote possibility that Jesus might be the offspring of a god with the dream of Claudia somewhat disquieted Pilate. After all, he was not a man wholly insensitive to the adulation of Roman gods.

When he heard this, he turned to Jesus and asked, "Where do you come from?" but Jesus gave him no answer. "Do you refuse to speak to me?" said Pilate, amazed. This sordid lump of tortured flesh could not possibly be the son of a god! He dismissed the Jewish superstition completely. "You simple fool, don't you realize I have the power to crucify you or let you go?"

"You have no power at all, Pilate," Jesus croaked from sheer exhaustion, his voice breaking, "were it not given to you from above. Those who handed me over to you are guilty of greater evil than yours."

Pilate was moved. This is curious. Could this wholly defeated man actually have compassion for me? What composure! He is magnificent! Merciful gods! What am I thinking? The governor felt queasy. He decided to do what he could, within the parameters of political propriety, to release Jesus instead of Barabbas, but the Jews loudly countered, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar."

He had not realized it until now, but Pilate was trapped, caught in an irresistible tide of destiny. He felt helpless as though events were being controlled by a force he didn't understand and could not bring to heel. He moved to the stone pavement where was erected the Roman Judgment Seat. There he sat and slumped. He motioned for Jesus to be brought out and to be stood before him. It was the day of Preparation for Passover Week. The crowd restless, hot, angry.

"Cru-ci-fy! Cru-ci-fy!" escalating to a rhythmic, insistent chant.

"Bring me water," he said to a slave, "in a basin!"

"Take him away! Take him away! Cru-ci-fy! Cru-ci-fy!"

The water came. The slave stood at Pilate's side, holding the basin. Once again, Pilate appealed to the Jews, "Shall I crucify your king?"

"We have no king but Caesar," the priests shouted. "See here then," cried Pilate, standing, his regal white and scarlet robe fluttering in the quiet breeze. Holding his hands in the air for all to see he spoke loudly, forcibly, "I wash my hands of the blood of this man--this righteous man!" He plunged his hands into the basin.

The effect was galvanizing. A lone, solitary voice from somewhere in the crowd shouted, "His blood shall be upon us . . . and upon our children!" Murmurs of approval.

Exhausted and resigned, Pilate nodded assent to the centurion in charge and handed the prisoner over to be crucified. He was loath to look into the eyes of this simple carpenter from Nazareth, but something within him forced him. He was met with a gaze that seared him. Eternity seemed to pass in the merest touch of eye contact. With a jerk, the soldiers took Jesus away.

There was another who looked into the eyes of Jesus; the centurion who sat astride his stallion, but Jesus was too broken, too crushed to notice.