Good Friday, 2011 Matthew 27:24-26
Steve Thayer, in his mystery novel Saint Mudd, writes a scene set in rural St. Cloud Minnesota during World War I.
The German immigrant family, was sitting down to supper when the screen door was torn off its hinges and five neighbors burst in. The intruders were yelling, “…Kaiser lover” and “German scum.” They did not know, and did not care, that the man they were wrestling from the house had a son serving in America’s elite Rainbow Division fighting in Europe.
His daughter Roxanne was nine. Her mother grabbed her and hurried her through the broken door. Outside, her father had his hands tied behind his back, with a rope around his neck. He was being led, sometimes dragged down the dirt road that led to the railroad tracks.
It was a hot muggy summer night of the kind when the skin burns until late and the mosquitoes are thicker than dark. Tears were streaming down her mother’s face. Roxanne remembered the terror, repeating “Daddy” over and over again as they ran down the road after him. They stayed a stone’s throw behind the sordid parade. In his broken English her father kept shouting over his shoulder, “Go back home. Take Roxy and go back home.” But they never went back to the farm house. They followed their man to a clearing by the track where more men and a bucket of hot tar were waiting for him.
Her father was stripped naked, thrown to the ground, and beaten. He pleaded to the sky, “Bitte, Gott, nicht vor meinen Frauen. Please, God, not in front of my women.”
Her mother held her close and tried to cover Roxanne’s eyes but she witnessed everything, she watched others dip sticks in the potbelly bucket and coat his skin with tar. She stared bewildered as they sprinkled blood stained feather over this fallen body. They laid a splintered railroad tie across his shoulders and strapped his arms to it. Then he was stood up and pushed over the sharp cinders to the tracks. To nine year old Roxanne he looked like the pictures on the Sunday school walls, his arms forming a cross, the blood and sweat trickling down his face, his sad eyes begging for help, knowing there was no help. The St. Cloud dirt farmer was chased down the tracks with sticks thrashing his buttocks until they bled. This went on for a half-mile before he finally collapsed.
We’re across the line,” one of the men declared. “Don’t ever come back to Stearns County, sauerkraut.” It was finished. The men walked away.
Mother and daughter helped their man to the edge of a swampy lake and tried their best to clean him up. They dressed him in his underwear as he lay on the soggy back, crying, blood running out of one nostril. Mosquitoes hummed and large black flies buzzed about his wounds. It was the first time Roxanne had seen a grown man cry.
The Gospel of Matthew is not a mystery novel but is the account of the mystery of God’s steadfast love revealed in the very real life and death of His son Jesus. The people who manhandled and abused him did not know nor did they care that the one they were pummeling and leading to his crucifixion was God’s love for humanity and God’s salvation of humanity from all the atrocities committed by humanity.
Like the men who walked away from the German immigrant dirt farmer, so those who participated in the atrocity of Jesus crucifixion walked away from it. It was over and done wit, as far as they were concerned and as far as God was concerned. Ironically, they had just celebrated Passover the evening before, where they praised and thanked God for saving them from bondage, slavery and death. They walked away from God’s Son dying on the cross in order to get ready to worship the heavenly Father that Friday evening at sunset. But they could not walk away from it. They had called out during Jesus’ trial that his blood be upon them and their children. They were guilty of the blood of Jesus who was God’s sacrifice for the sin which they had perpetrated. In TV cop show speak, they were the perps. Pilate could not wash his hands of his responsibility. Though he refused to take part in Jesus’ crucifixion, by doing nothing to stop it, he too was guilty of Jesus’ blood. The water that washed his hands did not cleanse his heart. That he allowed the atrocity to proceed in order to restore peace would not wash. His innocence was compromised by the actions of his soldiers who beat Jesus, and mocked him before running him out of the city to Golgotha, the place of the skull.
Who is able to claim innocence for the blood of Jesus? Who is able to walk away from the responsibility for his death? Not Peter who denied him. Not Judas who betrayed innocent blood. Not the rest of the disciples who fled. Not the religious leaders who held council meetings on how to get rid of him. Who is innocent? No one. Not you. Not I. The Reproaches we will sing cut to the heart as Christ speaks to us, “What have I done to you, O my people, wherein have I offended you? Answer me?”
We have much for which to answer. Every time we have let evil be done and have done nothing we become responsible for Jesus’ blood. The sin of omission is as serious as the sin of commission. Every time we have mistreated another person in word, thought or deed, Jesus blood is upon us. Every time we have done anything to hinder his ministry, we have crucified him again. Every time we have made fun of one of the least of our brothers and sisters we have mocked Christ. Every time we have fled Jesus rather than confess him, every time we have denied being one of his disciples either by our silence or by our tongue, his blood is on us.
Here is the Good thing about this Friday. The blood of Jesus shed this day is also good for us. For living in faith under the cross of Christ, every time we do something against Christ the blood of Christ covers our sin. Every time we do or say or think something hateful, the steadfast love of God forgives us because of Jesus’ blood. In the end we who watch all the going on this day can do nothing other than confess with the Centurion, “Truly this was the Son of God.” And in humble and hearty thanksgiving follow Jesus to his resurrection.
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