So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” Then the people as a whole answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” So he released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.
-Matthew 27:24-26
It is Good Friday. On this day we remember and embody the story of our Lord Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. While reading the traditional scripture passages for this day, I am struck by how beautifully upside-down God’s kingdom works. Who wins a war by dying? Who heals people by suffering? Who gives life to others by bleeding? “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1 Cor. 1:25). In Christ, God once and for all dismantled human notions of power and wisdom.
The Passion story is heavy with irony. For example, as Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he is hailed as the Messiah, the King, the One who will overthrow Rome and reestablish Israel’s superiority. The irony comes in that these people are half right. Jesus is their king. He is their Messiah. But he is not the kind of King that they were expecting. He is not the warlord king who will perpetuate human pride by winning through strength of arms. No. Instead, he is their suffering king. He is their servant king. He is their suffering servant.
Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed… Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great. (Isaiah 53:4-6, 12a)
Jesus is a true king only because he lovingly serves. He only has power because he triumphs through weakness. Another example of the irony is in the sign nailed above Jesus’ head on the Cross: “Hail, King of the Jews.” Again, the sign is truth. What the Romans and chief-priests intended for mockery and slander is in fact a statement to the whole world that Christ is the king they’ve been waiting for.
Matthew 27:24-26 contains a profound example of this great irony. Pilate, knowing that Christ is innocent and blameless, publically “washes his hands” of the situation, a gesture that would have legally ensured his innocence. In response, the bloodthirsty crowd cries, “His blood be on us and on our children!” In other words, “we will take responsibility for his death; if there is guilt attached to this act, let it fall on us and our descendants.” How interesting. They claim Christ’s blood as a means to an end: his death. They claim their own guilt and condemnation! “They lie in wait—to kill themselves! and set an ambush—for their own lives!” (Prov. 1:18)
But Christ’s blood is accomplishing exactly the opposite! His blood is procuring their salvation, not sealing their damnation. He pours his blood willingly. We know from the Old Testament that blood symbolizes life. When given in sacrifice it consecrates, sanctifies, atones, forgives, cleanses, etc. This crowd, which is an embodiment of humanity’s total and disgusting depravity, is willing to heap condemnation on their heads just to see Jesus killed. However, in doing so they are allowing Jesus to pour on them the blood of salvation. Now, of course, Hebrews 10:29 warns that there is great punishment for those who have “profaned the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified.” But isn’t it amazing the way Jesus is subversively “winning” in the midst of this evil? Jesus did not come “into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him!” His blood speaks a better word than guilt, condemnation, evil, murder. His blood speaks the word of salvation, of cleansing, of renewal, and of freedom. Praise God that Christ’s “blood be on us and our children,” because “even though you intended to do harm, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today” (Gen. 50:20).
