Mark 15 is the chapter I found hardest to prepare for. Not theologically — but emotionally. Reading it slowly, paying attention to the details, sitting with what actually happened — it's a lot. And I think the right response is to let it be a lot rather than process it too quickly into comfortable doctrine.

We walk through the trial before Pilate, the release of Barabbas and what it means that we are all Barabbas, the flogging, the crown of thorns and what thorns meant in Jewish scripture, Simon of Cyrene pressed into carrying the cross, six hours on Golgotha, three hours of darkness at noon, the cry from the cross, the curtain of the temple torn from top to bottom by God himself, and a Roman soldier who sees how Jesus dies and says what none of the disciples are there to say. Part one of two.