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Early in my ministry, I remember someone coming up to me about the Passion reading during this week. Fortunately, my pastoral ability of forgetfulness means I can no longer remember who it was. I think she was a she, so we’ll call her Martha for the sake of the story.
Martha asked me why the whole congregation has to take on the role of the crowd for the Passion, especially as they have to say “Crucify Him, Crucify Him!” She insisted that she wouldn’t have said that in Jesus’ time so she wouldn’t say it now.
I actually had some admiration for Martha for her insistence that she would have stayed by Jesus no matter what, and why wouldn’t she? This is our Lord after all. As the hymn states it, this is the one who is our master and our friend.
But would we stand by Jesus in His time of need? None of us can say for certain, though we can look at the examples of virtue in our Lord’s day to get a sense of where we might stand.
The greatest examples of virtue and following the Law, would, of course, have been the religious leaders, such as the chief priests. These are the ones who put Jesus on trial. One of them, Caiaphas, the high priest that year, is the one who suggested that it would be better for one person to die for the whole people. He says this back in chapter 11 of John right after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Instead of being awed by this miracle, by this act of something new, the chief priests gather in fear of the impact of what Jesus has done. They fear what the Romans will do to them because of Jesus. It is then that Caiaphas suggests Jesus might die instead.
Even as they put Jesus on trial, it is clear they do not understand Him, nor do they wish to take the time to do so. Jesus points out that He’s done nothing in secret, and that they’ve had a lot of time to hear his teaching. This somehow earns him a slap. Even Pilot, when the chief priests send Jesus to him, doesn’t understand Jesus or that His role doesn’t quite fit into the earthly idea of a king as Jesus came to “testify to the Truth.”
In the end, it’s not even that the chief priests, the paragon of virtue in their day, arrange for Jesus’ death. They make certain that Jesus gets put to death in one of the worst ways imaginable. They made sure Jesus endured being nailed to two planks of wood that were then hoisted up so that Jesus would last only as long as His arms and legs had strength to heave Himself up and down so His lungs could continue to fill with air. They even pushed for Barabbas’ release to do so, listed as a bandit in John and as an insurrectionist in Luke’s Passion read this past Sunday.
Perhaps we wish to turn to the Disciples instead as examples of virtue and standing behind Jesus. Yet where are they? All of them have fled as soon as it is clear Jesus will be taken by the authorities. Peter, their so called leader, denies that he even knows his Lord. It is only the Beloved Disciple who we hear of at the Cross, ready to follow Jesus’ dying wish that he take care of Jesus’ mother.
We often like to think that who we are or who we belong to as a group makes us better. As both the Disciples and the chief priests show, it does not. One group put Jesus through a torturous death while the other abandoned Him.
We are sadly numbered with them both. We have often turned our back on our Lord. Jesus wouldn’t even have had to die if not for our sins and those of the whole world. It is appropriate that we join in with the crowd yelling “Crucify Him!” for we are no better. This is the lesson I tried to impart to Martha so many years ago. In the end, she did decide it was, in fact, appropriate for her to join her voice with the crowd.
Knowing our responsibility in Jesus’ death is sobering. Yet we do have hope. As our reading from Hebrews reminds us, the Holy Spirit testifies to us in the words of the Prophet Jeremiah saying “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
For now, we wait in the reality of Jesus’ death and all which that means for the world and for us. We will receive the hope Hebrews reminds us when our waiting is soon over as the sun sets on Holy Saturday.