Woodlawn Evangelical Lutheran Church           

Introduction – The words of Jesus Christ, spoken as he was crucified by the Roman Empire on a hill called Golgotha, still echo in our ears nearly 20 centuries later: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34) Those words certainly applied to the Roman soldiers who were responsible for the actual execution of Jesus. But they can be applied to many others who were with Jesus during the last hours of his life.

            Did people really not know what they were doing when they turned their backs on Jesus and had him killed? How could Jesus make such a statement? Certainly ignorance is no excuse when it comes to such a horrible crime as killing an innocent man?

            These people did not know what they were doing, because they could not see how God would use these events to bring about the greatest rescue operation of all time. God used the most horrible events to bring about the greatest blessings for all people. Through the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, God snatched our human race from the jaws of hell. Did anyone understand at the time what great good God was accomplishing? Even the disciples who had walked so closely with Jesus, seemed miles away when the time for his sacrifice came. Their eyes burned with tears as their Lord and Master was arrested and killed. Their Rabbi, who had shown them a new way and had shown them clearly the face of our Father in heaven, would no longer be with them.

            This year, during our Wednesday Lenten services, we are going to put ourselves in the shoes of those who were around Jesus in the final hours before his death. And we will see the need for Jesus to pray for us, “Father, Forgive Them!” Tonight, we join the mob gathered in the courtyard of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea at the time of Jesus Christ:

 “Now it was the governor's custom at the Feast to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Barabbas. So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, "Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?" For he knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him.

While Pilate was sitting on the judge's seat, his wife sent him this message: "Don't have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him." But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed. "Which of the two do you want me to release to you?" asked the governor."Barabbas," they answered. "What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?" Pilate asked. They all answered, "Crucify him!"

"Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!" When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. "I am innocent of this man's blood," he said. "It is your responsibility!"

All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!" Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. (Matthew 27:15-26)

 1. “Let his blood be on us and on our children!”? How could they shout such a thing? To find the answer, we have to look at the world in the way the people in the mob did. All their lives they had been waiting for the Messiah. From little on up, their heads and their imaginations were filled with him. They wanted him to come so much they could taste it.

How their hearts would soar on the Sabbath when one of the prophecies of the Messiah was read! From earliest book of Genesis to the most recent book of Malachi, the Holy Writings announced the promises again and again. They told of the place where he would be born. They spoke of the wonders he would bring about. They spoke of his triumph after suffering, of the eternal crown that would adorn the head of the heir to the throne of great King David. The Israelites wanted this—but maybe not the same way the writers of the Old Testament meant it. They wanted to be rescued, but not with the same salvation promised in the words of the prophets.

The Israelites were being pressed under the thumb of an occupation force. They were living as a conquered people, in a backwater province of the Roman Empire, and that infuriated them. It wounded their national pride. It was a slap in the face of their prestigious title as God’s chosen people. They could wait for a savior to rescue them from their sin and from eternal death; but they did not want to wait for a savior to rescue them from the power of Rome.

So the popular imagination wove together a great fantasy about the coming of the Messiah and his Kingdom. King Messiah would appear and majestically enter the courts of the great temple. He would raise his voice, and armies would flock to his call. Together, they would go out from the Holy City of Jerusalem, rank upon rank of soldiers, invincible in battle, to bring vengeance on the Romans and upon all enemies of God’s chosen people. King Messiah would rule the known world. Jerusalem would become the greatest city in the world, and all people would finally acknowledge the greatness of the people of Israel and of their glorious Messiah-King.

For a while it seemed that Jesus of Nazareth truly fit the mold of the Messiah. Many people echoed the sentiments that the Pharisee Nicodemus had uttered in the dark of night: “No one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him” (John 3:2). “When the Christ comes,” some asked, “will he do more miraculous signs than this man?” (John 7:31).

When Jesus fed the five thousand, what had their reaction been? They had been of a mind to force him to become their king. They had been so enthusiastic about Jesus that he had difficulty sending them away while he went into the hills to pray. The day after, they had searched and searched for him, drooling at the thought that the days of the Messiah were finally at hand and their glorious kingdom would finally be established.

On the Sunday before Passover (which was part of that Feast mentioned in our text), all the talk was about how Jesus had raised his friend Lazarus from the dead in the town of Bethany. Stories of Jesus’ power were traded were traded back and forth. And then he entered the city, just like the prophet Zechariah had predicted, “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9) The cloaks came off and were laid before his feet. The palms branches were cut and strewn in his path. The shouts of the crowd began: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matthew 21:9).

But how quickly the scene changed over a few short days! On Friday, many people gathered in the courtyard outside the governor’s palace. Had they shouted praises to the king? Pilate brought Jesus out. “Here is the man!” (John 19:5). And what did the people see? A man. A man who had been whipped and was bleeding. A man who had been beaten and hardly had the strength to stand up. His royal robe was the red cloak of a Roman soldier and thorn branches were woven together as a crown and put on his head. The Romans were laughing at him—and, through him they were laughing at the hopes and dreams of those who would have him as their king. Here’s your King! Here’s your Messiah! Here is the man who was going to conquer Rome; see him now conquered by Rome!

And the mob erupted in anger at Jesus. In their eyes he had betrayed his promise to them. He was no conquering king, no Messiah like they had wanted all their lives. He had played up their hopes and then left them out in the cold; that’s what he had done! And they were angry with him! Let him die! Let him die by the cruelest torture imaginable! Crucify him!

Those who were in that crowd despised God’s great plan of salvation when it did not meet their expectations. Forgive us Lord, when we despise your great salvation! Your innocent blood is on our hands, too! It is on the hands of the next generation as we pass our guilt on in our corrupted human race. We are all guilty of driving you to your death because our sinful nature would have its way with our lives. It doesn’t want to admit that we need a Savior from sin when are disobedient, unfaithful, lazy, unkind, immoral, jealous, and demeaning. Our sinful nature wants all the blessings without any of the responsibility. Our sinful nature wants the glory of being a Christian with the name of Jesus on our badges so everyone can think we are great and don’t need anyone’s help, not even God’s help!

But we must not forget the type of Savior Jesus is: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. . . . For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:12, 13) That is what Jesus told the people who wanted the glory instead of forgiveness for their sins. When your sinful nature wants to join the mob and prefers a Savior who brings wealth and power over a Savior who takes away the guilt from your soul, in faith cry out, “Forgive us Lord, when we despise your great salvation.” And then you can shout, “Crucify him!” Not because you are angry at Jesus for disappointing you, but because you know full well that he is your only hope for peace in this life and eternal rest in heaven.

2. That mob in Pilate’s court that day couldn’t have cared less about forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. They wanted freedom and blessings then and there, and Jesus wasn’t about to deliver them. And so they rejected him, utterly and finally. And what good came of it?

As the Jewish disciples proclaimed Jesus Christ as the Savior of the World, perhaps some of their hearts were changed when the gospel was announced to them on the Day of Pentecost, less than two months later, when 3,000 were added to the number of believers. But those who remained in their unbelief and kept looking for their Messiah continued to be disappointed. The Messiah they demanded never showed up. Within 40 years of the day they shouted for Jesus’ blood, their city and their temple were destroyed by the legions of Rome. Within another 70 years, the failed revolt of a would-be messiah named Bar Kokba resulted in the Jews being exiled from the Holy Land.

God had never promised them a hero to save them from Rome. He had promised and had sent his Son to save them from the devil. But many died in their sin and unbelief. They traded their souls for a dream that would never come true.

False hopes are the curse of many people who rely on the ideas and ideals of this world instead of following the one who has established his kingdom of grace through his sacrifice for our sins. How often do people think that human ingenuity will be able to put an end to poverty and warfare, sickness and yes, maybe even death? How often do people fail to recognize that we who are trying to solve the problems of this world are the heart and core of the problems of this world? How many people would label the beliefs of Christians like us as detrimental to human progress?

Like Pilate, many people have washed their hands of Jesus and proclaimed him a nuisance, trying to ignore him and keep him out of the picture. Others just wish he would die and be gone forever. But we know that Jesus Christ is Lord. He sits at the right hand of God the Father, directing all the affairs of our world for the good of those whom he has called into his eternal kingdom. Pilate was blind that day. He was ignorant of the true God. If he was religious, he most likely followed the religion of Rome, the worship of the Emperor and the petty gods of nature. The crowd was blind that day. They were looking straight at their King, but did not see him. They did not see that they were part of Isaiah’s prophecy:

“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,       yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:3-5)

Conclusion – “Let his blood be on us and on our children!” How horribly wicked people through the ages have tried to fulfill this curse that the Jewish mob in Pilate’s court called down on themselves and on their children’s children! Many false Christians and rabid pagans tragically have felt that any cruel treatment against the descendants of Israel was justified by this one passage from the gospel of Matthew.

This, of course, is nonsense. Even though the words were spoken in foolish unbelief by some of the people of Israel, God has not called us to be agents of vengeance on unbelievers. He has called us to proclaim the good news about that man who was put on trial, rejected by people he came to save and sent to his death. God has called us to lead people to see the need for that king to come and conquer, but not with tanks and guns, not with bombs and airplanes. That king needs to conquer the unbelieving soul.

He has already taken away the curse of sin, the accusations of the devil and the sting of death. You have heard that proclaimed once again today. Now proclaim it to others, so that they might cry out to our Lord with us: “Forgive us Lord, when we despise your great salvation!” Through the Holy Spirit may we all be led to repentance and peace in Jesus Christ, our King. Amen.