(Wash hands in front of folks.  Monologue begins...)

Ah, that's better.  What is it about water that feels so good?  That cleanses the heart as well as the soul?  It's gone now.  I'm done with this man.  No more judgements about him.  No more dreams from my wife.  Just peace.  Just silence. By the time I dry my hands, he will be just a memory, won't he?

But his face...there was something there - what was it.  It's the eyes.  The eyes that looked right through me.  It was as if I was on trial?  As I asked him about truth, it felt like he was searching me for my truth, my story.  But it was about him, wasn't it?  Whether he was what he said he was.  I know who I am. Procurator.   Governor of this land. Head of this rabble.  But it feels like he was inviting me to something more...a chance to do something right perhaps. So why don't my hands feel clean?  This ceremonial washing has always done it before.  Just a splash of water, and I don't have to notice all the times my hands are dirty.  I can pretend that my world is clean and ordered and together. What is it about this man makes me wish I had decided differently?  That calls me to look again at how my choices and hands are complicit with other's cruelty and petty concerns.  The Sanhedren - they had their own purposes in bringing him before me.  Everyone does.  Why do I feel as twisted as their reasoning?  Theirs is the truth of minds that wanted to keep their position secure.  The threat of the peasant was enough to have them quaking in their boots.  How they clung to their privilege.  Maybe that's what he was saying with his eyes.  I cling to my security.   This bowl - this fine linen towel - are made by people who have to work years to earn what I make in a few hours.  Slaves kept in submission by their poverty and my desires.   But that is the way of the world, isn't it?  How did this man get me thinking like that?  Why can't I get him out of my mind...  He is a danger, you know.  He really is subversive.  Better for everyone that he is gone.  Better for everyone that he is dead.  Really, it's for the best, isn't it...  But I've said that for many things.  Am I rationalizing?  All these years, have I just been kidding myself?  Better make sure that he is done for.  It's a stupid request - to post a guard at the tomb of a dead man.  But, it's better for all that that this kind of truth stays buried.  The kind of truth that makes you look at the world with eyes wide open.  People aren't ready for it.  I'm not ready for it.  Maybe that's why my hands still feel bloody.  There is too much truth in this man. Too much truth in him.  But it will be buried with him in the tomb.  And there the truth will stay. The guard will see to it, I am sure.  I am sure... I think...

There is a story about Pilate's wash bowl.  On the eve of the crucifixion it disappeared from the palace.  Nobody knows who took it.  At any rate, ever since that time, the wash bowl is abroad in the land, carried by infernal hands wherever it is needed, and men are constantly performing imperceptible ablutions therein.  The statesmen who suppresses principles because they might endanger the success of his party; the good citizen who will have nothing to do with politics; the editor who sees a righteous cause misrepresented and says nothing; the preacher who sees the rich exploiting the poor and dares not tell him to quit because the rich pay his salary; all these are using Pilate's wash bowl. Listen! Do you hear the splash of water near you?

Though there are a thousand roads of prayer to take through Holy Week, I invite you to listen for the splash of water in your own life.  Where do your hands want to wash themselves from involvement in the life of Jesus?  Where, like Pilate, do you wish to wash away the guilt that calls you to the truth...  Where do you avoid living the passion of Jesus, the love of Jesus, and even the suffering of Jesus into our world?   For the bowl is still out there... (splash some water...)