"You cannot crucify this man," I want to have said, "unless you crucify me with him." And maybe another would have said the same thing. And another, and so on, until the list of victims became so long and included so many influential people, that they couldn't have crucified any of us. But I was afraid no one else would join me, leaving me to sacrifice myself horribly, to no purpose. And so I left him. Only two justly condemned robbers share his misery. After him this day, they are the most innocent of us all.
"Give us Bar-Abbas!" the crowd had shouted, naming the prisoner they sought to free. As for Jesus, "Crucify him!" The voices calling to free Jesus were few, and quickly cowed into silence. How neatly we divided into those calling for his death, and those not resisting it. No, my gambit wouldn't have worked. But there is a gray zone between the persecutors — the Roman Governor, the Chief Priest and council, the angry crowd, the Roman soldiers — and the victim, Jesus. And I am in it — made less human because I did not stand up for what makes me human.
I stand with others like myself, and Peter, alternately a bully and a coward, who wounded the priest's slave when Jesus was arrested, and then lied about even knowing Jesus when someone asked him. But I can take no comfort from that. I am responsible for my own inaction. I want to feel that I am better than Judas, the betrayer. But without unresisting people like me, corrupted by our simple desire to survive, his betrayal would not have brought Jesus to this.