Things are hardly ever the way they appear and certainly not on Calvary’s hill. The Passion story from Luke makes the turning tables graphically clear. The king is crucified. The court of law is not legal. Justice is not done. Even the Roman governor can find no crime in this man. The evidence is compromised. Everything points the other way. So why does Jesus have to die?

It’s a case of “inside every silver lining there’s a big dark ugly cloud.” Into every life some rain must fall. Even roses have thorns. Coming to terms with the suffering of Jesus means coming to terms with these reversals in our world, coming to terms with our own suffering.

So we must ask, what has the death of one man on a garbage heap on the other side of the world 2,000 years ago to do with my own dark ugly cloud? …