Tag: Jesus

Red Letter Year: 6/10

Matthew 27:27-44

27 Some of the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into their headquarters and called out the entire regiment. 28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. 29 They wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head, and they placed a reed stick in his right hand as a scepter. Then they knelt before him in mockery and taunted, “Hail! King of the Jews!” 30 And they spit on him and grabbed the stick and struck him on the head with it. 31 When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified.

32 Along the way, they came across a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene, and the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross. 33 And they went out to a place called Golgotha (which means “Place of the Skull”). 34 The soldiers gave him wine mixed with bitter gall, but when he had tasted it, he refused to drink it.

35 After they had nailed him to the cross, the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. 36 Then they sat around and kept guard as he hung there. 37 A sign was fastened above Jesus’ head, announcing the charge against him. It read: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” 38 Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.

39 The people passing by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery. 40 “Look at you now!” they yelled at him. “You said you were going to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. Well then, if you are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross!”

41 The leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders also mocked Jesus. 42 “He saved others,” they scoffed, “but he can’t save himself! So he is the King of Israel, is he? Let him come down from the cross right now, and we will believe in him! 43 He trusted God, so let God rescue him now if he wants him! For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” 44 Even the revolutionaries who were crucified with him ridiculed him in the same way.

Comments

When we read the story of Jesus’ death it is natural to ask the question, “why did Jesus have to die?” Throughout the history of the church, various answers have been given, most of them having some basis in the letters by Paul and others that make up much of the New Testament. Whether it is part of a cosmic battle between God and Satan, some form of ransom payment for our sin-bound selves, the ultimate moral example, or the requirement of God’s justice, each of these explanations (often called “atonement theories”) has been the ‘soup of the day’ at various times. The trouble is, each of these explanations are built on oblique references that then get over-narrated at the expense of the actual story we have here that tends to get under-narrated.

Even modern attempts like The Passion of the Christ do not properly narrate Jesus’ death as the the Gospels present it. Unlike Mel Gibson, Matthew does not linger on the gory details. Over narrating those only serves to detract from the story Matthew is telling. All four Gospels are remarkably similar at this point. As much as we may want to ask why, they tell us what happened. We find the same in Acts where this narrative is an essential part of the core Gospel that gets repeatedly shared; not why Jesus died, only that he died. If Matthew offers us any explanation, it would be that Jesus died because he insisted the Temple be a house of prayer. John will tell us that he died because God loves the world so much. But for some reason, those never became the basis of popular theories.

You may have noticed that even at the foot of the cross the religious leaders were still asking for a sign. Still looking for something they could believe in on their own terms. We do the same when our explanations become more determinative than the story of what actually happened. We want to focus on the ‘back story,’ as if the ‘real truth’ lay somewhere behind what Matthew tells us. But that is not the case. Explanations are fine so far as they go, but none of them tell the real story. The real story is right above, just scroll back up.

The New Living Translation (NLT)Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale HousePublishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Red Letter Year: 6/7

Matthew 27:11-26

11 Now Jesus was standing before Pilate, the Roman governor. “Are you the king of the Jews?” the governor asked him.

Jesus replied, “You have said it.”

12 But when the leading priests and the elders made their accusations against him, Jesus remained silent. 13 “Don’t you hear all these charges they are bringing against you?” Pilate demanded. 14 But Jesus made no response to any of the charges, much to the governor’s surprise.

15 Now it was the governor’s custom each year during the Passover celebration to release one prisoner to the crowd—anyone they wanted. 16 This year there was a notorious prisoner, a man named Barabbas. 17 As the crowds gathered before Pilate’s house that morning, he asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you—Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” 18 (He knew very well that the religious leaders had arrested Jesus out of envy.)

19 Just then, as Pilate was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent him this message: “Leave that innocent man alone. I suffered through a terrible nightmare about him last night.”

20 Meanwhile, the leading priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be put to death. 21 So the governor asked again, “Which of these two do you want me to release to you?”

The crowd shouted back, “Barabbas!”

22 Pilate responded, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?”

They shouted back, “Crucify him!”

23 “Why?” Pilate demanded. “What crime has he committed?”

But the mob roared even louder, “Crucify him!”

24 Pilate saw that he wasn’t getting anywhere and that a riot was developing. So he sent for a bowl of water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. The responsibility is yours!”

25 And all the people yelled back, “We will take responsibility for his death—we and our children!”

26 So Pilate released Barabbas to them. He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified.

Comments

This passage has  been used at times to justify the worst treatment imaginable of Jewish people, as if the targets of modern violence were somehow responsible for the death of Jesus because of what v. 25 says. Whatever the crowd said on that day, we know this is not how God works (“the soul that sins will die” sets aside all notions of inherited divine punishment). It also goes against what we have learned so far this year about putting ourselves in the place of the people in these narratives. The Jews here were the “people of God,” those who had  a special relationship with Yahweh through divine revelation and grace. And yet, given the choice between Barabbas and Jesus, they choose the patriot, the man of violence, the one willing to go to war with Rome. They reject the one talking about a new kingdom, the man of peace, the one willing to accept violence without responding in kind.

The question for us is not what this means for modern Jewry, but what choice we will make – because the choice remains ever one to make, Barabbas or Jesus. We cannot not count on help from whatever human political systems are in place, they are perpetually as pragmatic as Pilate was, their relationship to justice is ambivalence (at best) and their power never extends farther than appeasing the next angry mob and its unholy demands. Those of you in the United States need to be aware that its justice system is filled with the same sort of deal-making that Pilate attempts here; we settle for a managed approximation of justice (and that is putting the matter charitably). The true work of justice must be the work of the people of God bringing in the kingdom that Jesus makes possible. Hard work for those who remained enamored with Barabbas.

The New Living Translation (NLT)Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale HousePublishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.