April 13, Passion C (Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Luke 23:1-49)

They “stood at a distance, watching.” This detail in Luke’s Gospel haunts me: how Jesus’ friends and followers, including the women who have journeyed with him from Galilee, can do nothing but witness his suffering from afar. The sense of powerlessness they must feel, maybe even shame, is something we all have perhaps experienced at one moment or another. Today, we have more access than ever to witness atrocities. What does one do with such powerlessness? With the knowledge that sometimes bearing witness is all we can offer?

Like those witnesses at Calvary, I feel the familiar weight of helplessness—and sometimes a rush of shame at my own privilege to stand at a distance and watch.

But the gospel writer doesn’t condemn these distant witnesses. Their presence, even at a remove, is recorded as its own kind of testimony. They stay. They don’t turn away. Sometimes bearing witness, carrying the weight of seeing and remembering, is its own holy act. The women who watch Jesus die will become the first to proclaim his resurrection. Their seeming powerlessness transforms into testimony, their witness becoming a voice that lingers still.