reason that, according to Rutledge, "we simply cannot have a sanitized Christianity" (10), or one that glosses over the gross indignities connected with the Passion. That would include not only the physical brutalities connected with the execution itself but also the contrast between the psychological and spiritual cowardice of the apostles and others who desert Jesus. As Rutledge comments in that regard: "While the Master is on his way to his trial, torture and death, everyone else is protecting his own flanks" (10).
However, the whole point of the story of the Passion is to distinguish spiritual toughness from spiritual cowardice. The injustice of the condemnation, which is accounted for when the priest C
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