This Story Is Not Flat and Static

It's more than enjoyable, this Lenten season, to be looking  at the unique qualities of four different witnesses; telling of the events that led Jesus to the cross.  I am finding that the differences in each testimony offer an interesting glimpse of how personalities differ in their observing and experience of the world, as well as a potent reminder that the story of Jesus is not a flat and static conveying of information but a story as alive as the One who was tortured at the hands of the powers of this world.

For instance, as Roy Harrisville, in his writing of Fracture, observes, Matthew's passion narrative and greater gospel presents "the way of the humiliated Christ." In looking at Matthew, I'm finding the interplay between power and control an interesting dynamic on which the writer has chosen to focus. Over and above the shared motif of Mark, Matthew seems to add a dimension of inquiry about power and along with it, the hint that all is not as it seems: Who wants control? Who thinks they're in control? Who is really in control? Harrisville compares it to the paradox and reversal at the heart of Jesus's ministry, the passion itself enacting "truths earlier hidden in the predictions and parables."

Thus, where Mark's decisive crowd before Pilate yells, "Crucify him" (15:13 and again in 14b) and Luke's crowd similarly, if more emphatically in the Greek, yells, "Crucify, crucify him!" (23:21), Matthew's crowd twice yells, "Let him be crucified" (27:22b and 23b). It seems to me there is a hint of a distancing of responsibility. The crowds indeed want the crucifying done, but done to Him by someone else. Luke seems to further draw the distinction of choice and control, adding of his crowd, "And they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed" (23:23).

Matthew's account seems at first passive in the "who" of the act of crucifying, a crowd calling for death at a distance. Later Pilate, too, wants to distance himself from this responsibility, adding a hand-washing scene unique to Matthew's narrative. "I am innocent of this man's blood,” says Pilate, "see to it yourselves" (27:24). The people, preferring control over the risk of release, answer, "His blood be on us and on our children" (27:25).

Matthew's interplay of power and control is made all the more potent now phrased in terms of blood. Like pastor shared a couple of weeks ago with his teaching of Jesus's parable of the "tears," there is a jarring sense of mysterion (new word), and to me, Matthew seems to suggest there is one in control indeed, but it is not the one who seems to be holding the power. The image of Christ's blood upon this blind—though professing to see—crowd and their children is chilling. For unknowingly, they have declared the very thing the humiliated servant has set out to do.

Harrisville illustrates this all the more profoundly in his commentary on Matthew's telling of the Last Supper and the curious words of Jesus about the "blood of the covenant," now explained in the passion narrative:

"The statement about the 'blood of the covenant' (26:28) will have its explanation in subsequent events, in Judas's confession ('I have sinned by betraying innocent blood' [27:24]), in Pilate's avowal of innocence ('I am innocent of this man's blood' [27:4]), and in the people's accepting responsibility for Jesus's death ('his blood be on us and on our children!' [27:25]). All these will be the 'many' for whose forgiveness the blood of the covenant is poured out."

Father, God, I thank You this morning for the opportunity afforded me and those in the New Community class to consider the study of Who Is This Man. It continues to show me the impact Your Son has had and is having on my life. Thank You for widening my sight to the story of Jesus as he moved toward the cross, told through those eyes that remind me He came for a world of unique individuals and is a story of power and weakness that continues to turn my common assumptions and experience on its head. Like the parables, the way of the humiliated Christ confounds me, approaching in power, though hidden in the unlikely gift of a servant.  Amen