“Pilate was amazed that he was already dead.”
Why should Pilate be amazed? He had Jesus viciously scourged. Did he misjudge how close to death Our Lord already was after this scourging? Perhaps.
But perhaps we ought to remember Our Lord’s words from the cross, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” What would St. Dismas have thought to have heard His voice? Would he have recalled the Song of Solomon: “The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills.” Christ the bridegroom doesn’t walk. No, He runs to his beloved, calling each of us by name as He does so. The bridegroom calls in the Song, “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.” His Father sees us while we are “still a long way off.” Again, God does not walk, but He runs to us. “He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him…Then the celebration began.”
Christ tells us that, “I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” He had made a promise to Dismas. To Adam and Eve. To Abraham. To his foster father, Joseph. Perhaps the truth is this: Christ finally lays down His life of His own accord because He could not bear one second more of being without His beloved. For today, this very day, Good Friday, is the one and only time that anyone can ever say to us, “I am dying to be with you,” and truly mean that declaration in all of its glorious senses.
The wedding guests awaited the Bridegroom for millennia. “O you who dwell in the gardens, my companions are listening for your voice; let me hear it. Make haste, my beloved…” Christ lays down His life because He is in haste—it is His wedding day. “Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come...”
On the cross, “He had no form or comeliness that we should look at him.” But now is the time for the completion of all things. “It is consummated.” Now will His beloved finally behold the Bridegroom. “Let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is comely.”
No, Christ could simply not wait one second more.
He runs to meet us.
“My beloved is mine and I am his.”