What Would We Have Done?

Before I get to the question that is the title of my message this morning,
I’d like for us to do a reality check.
You see, I believe that when it comes to the majority, if not all, of people in the story of Jesus’ passion and death,
they were merely acting according to form.
In other words,
they were just doing what they always do.

Take the religious folks in the gospels.
The scribes and Pharisees.
The leaders of the church, so to speak.
The Bishops, the District Superintendents, the pastors,
the members of church committees,
and the prominent laity who make sure the church runs as it should run –
smoothly and efficiently.
If there is one thing these folks don’t want,
it is someone who rocks the boat,
someone who threatens their positions of power and influence,
someone who calls them on their hypocrisy,
and Jesus is that someone to the extreme.

Jesus has confronted them time and again.
He has told them that they were more concerned with their own status than they were with the spiritual well-being of the people.
He has criticized their infatuation with temple and had driven their lackeys, the moneychangers, from that holy ground with a whip.
Jesus has even called them names like “you brood of vipers” and “white-washed tombs.”
In fact, Jesus has taken every opportunity possible to criticize their rules and regulations that keep the ordinary people from experiencing the fullness of God in their lives,
whether it is their onerous laws regarding the Sabbath,
or their sense of religious superiority over others.

It got so bad that Caiphas, the leader of the Sanhedrin, the governing body of the Jewish faith,
was led to proclaim,
It is better for one man to die, meaning Jesus of course, than it is for the nation, meaning our way of life, our positions and authority, to perish.
It’s easy to se why the religious folk acted as they did,
they were just doing what they always do.
They were acting out for their own preservation.

Then there’s the mob outside Pilate’s palace.
The people who got worked up into a frenzy and demanded Jesus’ death.
They were just acting like mobs from the beginning of time have acted.
Crying out for blood,
wanting to be entertained by the suffering of others,
and willing to do or say anything to get their way.
“We have no king but Caesar” they had shouted.
“His blood be on us and on our children,” they had screamed.
And later on,
they would gather round the cross,
mocking and taunting Jesus,
spitting at him,
and joking that is he really was the Son of God,
then why in the world didn’t he do something about his predicament.
Any divine being worth his salt could easily handle this situation,
and yet Jesus let them drive the nails in his hands and feet and raise him high on a cross for all the passing world to see.
So naturally the mob ridiculed Jesus.
Who could blame those people?

Take Pilate.
Pilate is a consummate politician,
He rules the land with a firm grasp on what he can and cannot do,
and what he can and cannot allow.
Expediency is word that governs his own life.
What is the expedient course of action to take is what he wants to know when faced with any situation.
And like any politician,
Pilate rarely makes a decision before checking to see which way the wind is blowing.
Further, like many politicians, Pilate lacks the courage necessary to act on his convictions.
So it is no surprise that he ultimately orders Jesus’ crucifixion.
Oh he doesn’t want to do it.
All the gospels speak of his reluctance to order the death of Jesus.
Even his wife comes and tells him she has had a bad dream about this Jesus, and warns him to have nothing to do with this Jewish Messiah,
but when push comes to shove,
Pilate follows the whims of the crowds,
Crucify him, they shouted.
Give us Barrabas, they demanded,
and so he does.
And yes, Pilate tries to wash his hands of the whole matter,
but, of course, no amount of soap and water can remove the blood from his hands.

That Pilate is merely doing what all politicians do is best seen in a conversation he has with Jesus in John’s gospel.
After the religious authorities have brought Jesus to him on charges of treason against Rome,
Pilate asks, “`Are you the King of the Jews?’
Jesus answers, `Do you ask this on your own,
or did others tell you about me?’
Pilate replied, `I am not a Jew, am I?
Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me.
What have you done?’
To which Jesus said, `My kingdom is not from this world.
If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.
But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’
Pilate asked him, `So you are a king?’
Jesus answered, `You say that I am a king.
For this I was born, and for this I came into the world:
to testify to the truth.
Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’
Pilate asked him, `What is truth?’

For Pilate, truth is what you make it.
Truth is malleable, subject to change,
It is never fixed for people like Pilate,
and they conveniently make truth into what is most manageable and marketable for the moment.
Given what he is,
and who he is,
we really cannot expect any better of Pilate, can we?

And let’s not forget the soldiers who carried out their grizzly task.
What about them?
They were only following orders,
they would say.
But “only following orders” has led to one injustice after another since the beginning of time.
Jesus’ crucifixion . . .
The inquisition in Spain . . .
The trail of tears in America . . .
The holocaust in Germany . . .
And the list goes on and on.
The soldiers were only doing what they have always done.

But what about those who were close to Jesus?
How do we explain their actions?

There is Judas,
who betrays Jesus.
We don’t really know what his motivation for doing this was,
but we do know that he sold his friend out for 30 pieces of silver.
After spending all that time with him,
walking the same dusty trails and roads with him,
listening to Jesus speak and teach for months,
for Judas it comes down to this:
a bag of coins and a kiss of betrayal.
And the others?
What about Matthew and John, Andrew and Thomas and the rest of the gang, save Peter?
What do we make of them?
When Jesus is betrayed and arrested,
what do they do?
You know what they do.
They run like scared rabbits from the garden.
They flee the scene of the crime,
and, as far as we know, only one of them,
John, the youngest, has the courage to even show up at the cross.
Cowards they were.
Afraid that they too would find themselves hanging on a tree,
merely because they associated with this radical rabbi.

And then there’s Peter,
who denies even knowing Jesus.

Yes, out of all the disciples,
Peter was the only one to try to defend Jesus,
striking out with a sword,
and he was the only one to follow after Jesus when he was arrested.

Peter  even went as far as the courtyard of the High Priest’s house,
but when push came to shove,
when questioned about his association with a known criminal rabble-rouser,
when it came time for him to stand up for his friendship and his friend,
he bluntly declares for all to hear,
I do not know that man,”
And at the very moment he says this for the third time,
a rooster crows,
and Luke tells us that Jesus,
handcuffed and captive,
looked over at Peter,
and Peter seeing his friend,
ran out into the night, weeping bitter tears.

And that brings me to the title of my sermon this morning.
What would we have done?
If we had been there,
would things have turned out any differently?
To answer this and to end my sermon this morning,
I turn to the writings of Lois Cheney,
a nun, whose work I discovered almost 25 years ago,
and whose words still have the ability to haunt my thoughts.
She wrote:

The ancient Hebrews were so tied by tradition they couldn’t recognize the Messiah when he was right there in front of them,
and he was crucified.

The disciples, who walked and worked with the Christ,
were very afraid of him;
they hoped, but they also doubted,
and they ran that night,
and he was crucified.

The common people mobbed him,
showed him their sicknesses and sores,
and they threw down an aisle of palms for him and sang to him,
and he was crucified.

His family was embarrassed, and stood outside,
and wished he’d come home,
and he was crucified.

Would we crucify Jesus today?
It’s not a rhetorical question for the mind to play with.
I believe,
We are each born with a body, a mind, a soul, and a handful of nails.

I believe,
When a man dies, no one has ever found any nails left,
clutched in his hands
or stuffed in his pockets.

God is No Fool, Lois A. Cheney, Abingdon Press, 1969, pp. 40-41