Chapter 6: The Via Dolorosa

The soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium courtyard where the entire battalion had gathered. They stripped him and tied him to a post. The Roman flagellum was not an ordinary whip — it was a leather strap embedded with pieces of bone and metal, designed to tear through skin and muscle. It was used to bring a condemned man to the edge of death before crucifixion, so he would die faster on the cross. When it was over, Jesus was barely standing.

Then the mockery began. They threw a scarlet robe over his torn shoulders. They twisted together a crown of thorns and pressed it onto his head. They put a staff in his right hand, knelt before him, and called out:

SOLDIERS“Hail, king of the Jews!”— Matthew 27:29

They spat on him, took the staff, and struck him repeatedly on the head driving the thorns deeper. When they finished they stripped off the robe, put his own clothes back on him, and handed him the cross.

He was despised and rejected

A man acquainted with grief

We hid our faces from him

And counted him as nothing

He was pierced for our transgressions

Crushed for the wrong we have done

The punishment that brings us peace

Was laid upon the innocent one

By his wounds we are healed

By his wounds we are healed

The Lord has laid on him

The sin of us all

Jesus turned to the women who had followed him weeping through the streets.

JESUS“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me. Weep for yourselves and for your children. For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”— Luke 23:28, 31

Two other men were being led out alongside him to be crucified.