Our Sacrifice

When the governor took custody of the teacher, he beat him. The soldiers made a crown for him out of thorns and pressed it into his head. They also put a royal purple robe on him and mocked him as king. They punched him and laughed. But after all this, the governor told the crowd, "I find no fault in him." Still, the religious leaders cried out, "Crucify him!" When the governor heard that the teacher had called himself the Son of God, he was afraid. He questioned him again, but the teacher reminded him that any power the governor had, came from God. The governor wanted to release him, but the crowd insisted that they had no king but Caesar. So, the governor gave the teacher over to be crucified. Carrying a wooden cross, the teacher was led outside the great city to a place called the Skull. There the soldiers nailed him onto the cross he had carried and placed him between two thieves. They placed a sign above him declaring him to be the people's king. The soldiers then divided up his clothes to keep for themselves. There at his cross, the teacher's mother and some of his students stood as his life passed away from him. The teacher looked at them and said to one of his students that he would now have to care for his mother. He then bowed his head and gave up his spirit. When his followers took his dead body from the cross, they wrapped it in linen with spices, laid him in an empty tomb in a garden, and rolled a large stone to cover the entrance.