Bit of a Bugger Being Crucified at Easter

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that the people might enjoy a four day weekend.

I have a question about Easter.  Were the Roman soldiers paid penalty rates for crucifying Jesus on Good Friday?  And if the answer is "yes" wouldn't it have made more sense to put it off for a couple of weeks and then do it during normal business hours?

One can imagine Pontius Pilate sitting in the prefectural palace tearing his hair out at the wages bill.  Of course he may have been hoping that ticket sales would defray the cost.  If Jesus had been crucified on a rainy Tuesday with everybody at work he would have been looking at a zero turnout.  Then there's t-shirt sales, sideshows, rides for the kids.  Actually, the more I think about it the more I suspect Pilate was not so much tearing his hair out as he was rubbing large fistfuls of coins over his body and calling for the list of irritating religious figures to see if he could do the whole thing again next weekend.  Fortunately then, as now, the Middle East didn't exactly have a shortage of such people.

Naturally the soldiers involved would have had their own grumbles.  I mean penalty rates are all very well but they were probably looking forward to some time with the family over the long weekend.

"Why did I have to get assigned to this?  I promised the wife I'd take the kids out this weekend."
"Did you have plans?"
"Yeah, I was going to take them to the crucifixion."

Which helps to explain why one of the less recorded episodes of the entire affair is a six year old voice piping up,

"Stick the spear in him again Daddy," followed by,

"Quiet son, I'm working here," while a centurion bellows at the hapless soldier that Bring Your Kids to Work Day was last Thursday.

Still I'm sure that at least some of the soldiers were glad to get out of a midday meal with the in-laws.  They would stand there weeping crocodile tears and piously claiming that duty called while Mrs Legionnaire banged crockery around and muttered under her breath.  These were probably also the ones who diced for Christ's clothing afterwards, anything to avoid spending quality time with the family.  Some families are like that.

So I guess I have the answer to my question.  Pilate made a sound and fiscally responsible decision to crucify Jesus when he did.  It was certainly better than some of his decisions.  He was eventually recalled a few years later under a bit of a cloud, it having been determined that he was a little too brutal in crushing a Samaritan revolt (which to the modern mind makes about as much sense as being attacked by the Red Cross).  Pilate must thus be the only Roman official who was recalled for being nasty to the natives.

Things went downhill for him from there.  According to our sources he got caught up in the institutional psychosis that formed the reign of Caligula and committed suicide, quite possibly in self defence.  Fortunately for his sense of outrage he was safely dead before Vespasian and Titus slaughtered half of Judea and rather than getting recalled used the pile of bodies as a springboard to the imperial throne itself.