Pilate

Who is this man they send me

Why is his fate brought to me

Who is this man?

They say he is called Jesus

They say he's a Galilean

But who is he?

He says nothing to my questioning

But what he doesn't say says more

This man who Caiaphas calls a criminal

But who is this man?

If Caesar knew what I would do

To release this proclaimed King of Jews

I would suffer the fate

That I sentence him to

So out he walks

To bear a cross

On which he shall die

Because I fear, my life

I hear

My wife's cries

For this man.

Yet I know he is no mere man.

Judas

What have I done!

What have I done!

Oh, my sweet Lord, what have I done!

Why did I betray him, oh why!

My holy God I traded away!

These coins, what do they matter!

The priests will surely kill him!

Why did I do this!

Why do I regret!

I followed him for three years of my life

I'd seen the miracles he performed

Yet I went seeking out, to give out his locale

Just take it back, it's blood money

I have no use for it

And I sat there, and played innocent

As we ate our Seder meal

And that night I came to him

With a kiss I sealed my deal

I cannot endure this

They bought me this field

I cannot go on

Remembering what he said to me

I'll get a rope

I'll rap it tight

And on this say we both shall die.

The Soldiers

"Long Live the King of the Jews"

Is what the soldiers shout

"Long Live the King of the Jews"

Before he is to be nailed to a cross!

"Take your crown, your scepter too, don't forget your robe!"

Jeers and taunts to this man about to die!

His crown pricks into his skull and covers his robe with blood

His own clothes lays on the ground

As they gamble for it

And the King's scepter is used to beat him with

This man who just came back from being whipped!

The sadistic laughs of these Roman Guards

Who've killed so many before

Such pleasure that they get

From wielding this sick power

What do they care if another prophet dies

If a man covered in blood bleeds more

Just kill the man is their command

The rest is just for fun.

Simon the Cyrenian

I am a simple country man

Cyrene is my home

I traveled with my two sons

To go to Jerusalem

I came to celebrate the Exodus

Of my people from Egypt

But as I entered the city gates

I met much confusion

Before me was a ghastly sight

A man covered in blood

Thorns stuck out from around his head

He wore a royal robe

Yet on his back he was carrying

Two boards of wood

Each one easily looked

Heavier than him

The man fell before my feet

A Roman soldier grabbed at me

He wanted me to walk with him

To carry this cross for him

This must have been some criminal

I do not know

I wondered how all these people

Came on this Holy Day to see such sorrow

I tried to cover my face in shame

Being humiliated this way

Forced to take up somebody else's cross

To help some thief or murderer

As we passed the people

They hurled such insults

People came to spit on him

I got covered with their spit

It seemed they hated me too

For walking with this man

The guards said head for the hill

The one called "Skull"

I wondered what he could have done

To merit all of this

How could these people hate him still

While he was suffering like this

I tried to help him but I knew

All I really could do

Was send him straight to death

What did he do to deserve this!

I knew he must have been

The worst kind of man

But as I looked into his eyes

I didn't understand.

Why did they hate this man?

The Officer

I've been stuck in this post for years

The armpit of the Empire

a noble Roman soldier

Stuck keeping these Hebrews in line.

As always they wanted me

To watch out over the new bunch

Of criminals, who were condemned to crucifixion

But, they heeded me, it wasn't the same today

It was always bad for us during Passover

But more so today

One man sentenced was Jesus

Some peasant carpenter

I'd heard his story being told

Another so-called "Savior"

So many people flocked to seeking

As this man died

I waited there patiently

Hoping the crowds would subside

The man died at three o'clock

It had all gone to plan

We'd worried his followers would revolt

But what happened was much worst

For the second he called out to his God and died

The earth itself trembled

The sky turned dark

And rain and thunder came from nowhere

The guards ran to get the bodies down

But I just knelt to the ground

As buildings in the city tumbled

This all started when he died

This is how I came to realized

That nothing this man had said was lies

This man was God

The one true God

And that is how on the same day I helped to kill Christ

I became a Christian

Joseph of Arimathea

I watched as he hanged there

Suffocating slowly

I wished then that I had been open with my faith

I followed Jesus, he was my way

But I was so afraid of my fellow council members

That I had not voted to release him

But to send him to the governor.

But now, as he lay lifeless, I refused

To deny him any longer

I went to Pilate and asked

To keep the body

I lay Jesus in my tomb

I gave him my burial cloth

Whoever saw me do it, I no longer cared

The money that I had spent

It did not matter

This was my king, he deserved the best

That his mother could not give

With Nicodemus I rolled in the stone

Christ was dead.