Then they beat Him on the cheeks, pushed Him, dragged Him with beatings to Jerusalem. Thus was the beginning of the slaughter of the One who saved the world. And the continuation was with the high priest Caiaphas, there, in the assembly of the worst enemies of Christ, they mocked Him, beat Him, covering His face and boldly asking: "Who are the prophets who have struck Thee?" and spat on Him. The mockery continued all night, they beat the Lord all night, and early in the morning they took him to the praetorium to Pilate for trial.

You have heard about this unjust judgment in the Gospel reading, you have heard that Pilate, although he was convinced of the innocence of the Lord, even moreover, considered Him righteous, nevertheless, frightened by the cries of the angry crowd demanding His crucifixion, handed Him over to scourging. And something terrifying began, for you must know, you must imagine what this terrible Roman scourging is.

The whip with which the unfortunates were beaten had a short handle and a whole bundle of straps, tightly woven and intertwined with copper wire, and pieces of bone were tied into these whips in places. With this terrible whip, with a swing, from the shoulder, they beat the Lord Jesus. The scourging was so terrible that often those who were scourged died from it. During the scourging, the blood of the unfortunates flowed like a stream, pieces of skin and muscles were torn off.

And this our Redeemer endured from the power of the devil, and this He endured for all of us, accursed and sinners. The terrible scourging was over, they took off His purple robe, but probably they left the crown of thorns, which they beat with a stick, so that the thorns of the crown would pierce the holy head of the Lord, and large drops of blood would flow down His face. They led him, led him to execution, led him along a narrow street, for all the streets of the eastern cities are narrow.

This street still bears the name given to it by Roman Catholics: Via dolorosa – the path of sorrow. Along this sorrowful path they drove the Lord Jesus, placing a heavy cross on Him, for the condemned to crucifixion himself had to carry his terrible cross to the place of execution. The Lord Jesus Christ carried him for a short time and fell under the weight of the cross... They lifted Him up with beatings, again forced Him to carry the cross, but He fell and fell.

Then, seeing that He could not bear the cross, they stopped a certain Simon of Cyrene, who was returning from his field, and they ordered him to carry the cross of Christ. Oh, blessed Simon, did you know what kind of cross you were carrying? Of course I didn't. And now he knows, for for bearing the cross of Christ, I have no doubt, he was worthy of the Kingdom of God. The Lord Jesus Christ was accompanied by a huge crowd of people, for it was the days of Passover, and on these days a great multitude of people gathered in Jerusalem, who came to the feast. About a hundred thousand people gathered.

A great crowd followed the Lord Jesus. There were men, there were women. Both had different attitudes to what they saw, to how they tormented and tormented the Lord Jesus. The women cried, wept bitter tears, they wept. they wept, for their hearts were soft and sensitive. They could not see such suffering, such a mockery of the Sinless One.

And the Lord, seeing them and hearing their weeping, opened His mouth, which had been silent for a long time, and said to them: "Daughters of Jerusalem! Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are coming in which they will say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not begotten, and the breasts that have not nourished. Then they will begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do this with a verdant tree; then what will happen to dry?" (Luke 23:28-31).

With the verdant tree, full of life, with the Bearer of life, with the Giver of life, what will happen to the dry tree of the Jewish people, who rejected the Messiah, who gave Him over to such a terrible, such unimaginably painful punishment, what will happen to him? We know what happened to him, we know how these prophetic terrible words of Christ came true over Jerusalem. We know how the Roman generals Vespasian and then Titus came and razed all of Jerusalem and the temple of Jerusalem to the ground.

We read in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, contemporary with Christ, what indescribable horrors took place at that time, how terrible was the punishment of the people who crucified their Messiah. This came to pass, as every word of God must come true. Let us leave the women, let them cry pure tears. Let's look at the men, at this great crowd that followed Jesus, at those who surrounded Him close at the end of the narrow Via Dolorosa, and came out on the hill of Calvary. What kind of people are they? What was going on in their souls?

How, how could they rejoice at what they saw? How could the very people who only six days ago greeted the Lord Jesus with great joy and glory at His entry into Jerusalem, shouting, "Hosanna in the highest!" and spread their garments under the feet of the donkey on which He was sitting, how could they, these same people, cry wildly at Pilate, "Crucify him, crucify him!"? What is this?

How can we understand the strange transformation of their hearts, which recently glorified, and now wildly demand crucifixion? I will try to explain this with my weak mind. All those who carefully read the Gospel, and especially the fourth Gospel of John, should know that the Lord amazed and confused people with His words unheard of by the world. They must know that He called Himself the bread of life that came down from heaven, said that it was necessary for salvation that people should eat His Flesh and drink His Blood.

These words deeply embarrassed the people, perplexed them, and aroused the fury of many. When they heard that He called Himself the One who came down from heaven, they grabbed stones to beat Him, considering Him a blasphemer. These words of Jesus did not fit into the consciousness of people so much, they were so unbearable and incomprehensible to them, that even many of His followers, of His disciples, who always followed Him, departed from Him, ceased to follow Him.

And the Lord turned to His closest twelve apostles with the question: "Do you also want to depart?" Blessed Peter answered for all: "Lord! Who should we go to? Thou hast the words of eternal life" (John 6:67-68). Thus, during the entire life of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth, the minds of the Jews were tormented by contradictory thoughts: on the one hand, they saw that He was the greatest miracle-worker, and then, when they heard words about His Divinity that did not fit into their consciousness, they grabbed stones to beat Him, considering these words to be blasphemy.