“Pilate finally broke…’Have it your way,’ he said. ‘Crucify him.’

It was like a hammer blow. I collapsed onto a nearby step. How could it have come to this? In some absurd way I wanted us to all start again, to go back to the warm shores and gentle hills of Galilee, to feel the freedom as we walked those sunlit roads and shared the delight of the people as they listened to Jesus and were healed of so much illness. I wanted the camaraderie, the serious discussion, the practical jokes, the vision of a new nation, a new world.

But the dream had crumbled to dust. What lay ahead was a nightmare.”

John the disciple, in “The Journey” by John Pritchard