Immediate Word

Passion Sunday again raises the questions about why Jesus had to die and who was to blame. That latter question is not unlike what we are hearing in the public arena these days regarding who is to blame for not preventing 9/11. So for our Immediate Word installment for April 4, we have asked team member Carlos Wilton to address the topic of "blaming," using the lectionary's gospel text from Luke 23 as a basis.

As usual, we've also included team comments, related illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon.


"Who's to Blame?"
by Carlos Wilton
Luke 23:13-25

The Message on a Postcard

The headlines are full these days of news about the congressional commission investigating the 9/11 attacks. "Who's to blame?" a still-stunned nation wants to know. Al-Qaeda is most directly to blame, of course, but our national leaders are going through the painful ordeal of asking who in our government -- if anyone -- might have been able to prevent the attacks. The questions are reminiscent of those asked during earlier national crises: "What did our leaders know, and when did they know it?"

There's nothing new about the question, "Who's to blame?" The church has been asking it for centuries, with regard to the death of Jesus. This year, the debate about Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ, has raised the blame question with renewed intensity. Was it the Romans who caused Jesus' death? Was it the Jews? If it was the Jews, then which Jews?

The extended Passion Sunday lection (Luke 22:14-23:56) provides many choices for addressing this topic, but our focus will be on Pilate's sentencing of Jesus (Luke 23:13-25). Who shouted, "Crucify him!" and how constrained did Pilate really feel to bow to the wishes of the mob? If it was God's will all along that Jesus die for the sins of the world, then to what extent do we, as penitent sinners, claim responsibility?

Some Words on the Word

So who's to blame in the death of Jesus? Our inquiry must start with the single individual who had power to decide his fate: Pontius Pilate.

Raymond E. Brown, in The Death of the Messiah, says:

Pontius Pilate was of equestrian rank, that is, of the lower Roman nobility, as contrasted with senatorial rank -- a status in life that suggests he must have had a military career before being appointed prefect. Pilate, Brown continues, had the second-longest tenure of all prefects of Judea: "Indeed, of the fourteen prefects/procurators in Judea in the era A.D. 6-66, Pilate, who ruled from 26 to 36, was equaled in administrative longevity only by his predecessor, Valerius Gratus, who served eleven years.... It is noteworthy that in his decade-long prefecture Pilate never removed a Jewish high priest -- Caiaphas had that religious role from 18 to 36/37, being removed finally by Vitellius, the legate of Syria, seemingly just after Pilate's own removal. Such stability was quite unusual, e.g. four high priests were deposed during the decade of Valerius Gratus' rule.... Moreover, when we evaluate Pilate's performance as governor, we should bear in mind that although after 31 Tiberius dismissed many who had been appointed ... Pilate remained in office another five years. These statistics caution against prejudging Pilate as irresponsible or extremely controversial.1

Pilate, in other words, was a strong and reasonably effective ruler. He enjoyed some considerable success, as is demonstrated by his relatively long tenure. Was this a man who, as the gospel writers suggest, was weak, waffling, and fearful of the high priest? Not likely. The historical evidence suggests that Pilate was the single person most responsible for Jesus' death -- although the gospel accounts tell a different tale. The gospel writers have other reasons for portraying Pilate as either a weakling, or disinterested in Jesus' fate.

Those reasons have everything to do with the time period in which the gospels were being written -- and not so much with the time period of the events they are portraying. The gospels are, in effect, a sort of revisionist history. Luke's account embodies the retrospective reflection of his own church community on the events of nearly a generation before. That revisionist reflection displays the fears and concerns of Christians in the chaotic days following the destruction of the temple (and much of the rest of Jerusalem) by the Romans in A.D. 70.

That disaster shifted the balance of power among the various factions of Judaism forever. For the early Christians of the gospel-writers' time -- many of whom had continued, until just before that time, to identify themselves as reformed Jews -- there were advantages to distancing themselves from Judaism. The Romans had resoundingly defeated the Jewish extremists in A.D. 70. The early Christians, it seems, had been on the sidelines of that dispute -- yet as a group whose roots were planted deep in Judaism, they undoubtedly feared reprisals. Although the Roman authorities had been complicit in Jesus' death, with the Zealots' defeat it was becoming clear that the survival of the Jesus movement depended on Roman tolerance. There would have been distinct advantages to shifting responsibility for the crucifixion from the Roman and the Jewish authorities acting in concert, to the Jews alone.

In his commentary on Luke, Fred Craddock traces other references in that book and its companion volume, Acts, that indicate the evangelist's true attitude toward the Jewish people:

Jerusalem, "killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you" (13:34), now kills another prophet. The early Christian preachers in Jerusalem would say to "all the people" (Acts 3:11) that they had delivered up and denied Jesus "in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Author of life" (Acts 3:13-15). Does this mean that Luke is not only pro-Roman but also anti-Jewish? Hardly. We have had repeated occasions to notice Luke's insistence on the continuity between Judaism and Christianity, on the adequacy of the Hebrew Scriptures to move their readers to faith in Jesus as Messiah, on the favorable view of Jerusalem and the temple, on the pious Jewish family from which Jesus came, and on the portrayal of Jesus as a true Israelite in worship and in obedience to the law of Moses.2

Craddock goes on to suggest that Luke's intention is not so much to cast blame as to issue a universal call to repentance:

Luke does not focus on the high priest or any specific group in the Jewish delivery of Jesus to Pilate. Throughout verses 1-25 Luke uses expressions such as "the whole company" (v. 1), "the chief priests and the rulers and the people" (v. 13), and "they all" (v. 18). But the whole of this Gospel up to this point argues against this being a broadside anti-Jewish portrayal. Rather, it is the basis for Luke's call to Israel to repent. Israel will be called to repentance just as Germany was, or as the United States has been. To pinpoint blame, to isolate a few as culprits might satisfy the law, but the problem is broader and deeper. Israel's Scriptures, said Luke, bear witness to the Messiah (24:44; Acts 3:21), but Israel rejected the Messiah. That fact does not end the story, however, for repentance and forgiveness are to be preached, beginning in Jerusalem (24:47).... Indictment, call to repentance, and the offer of repentance is no more anti-Jewish than Paul's indictment of Athens for idolatry (which he said was also done in ignorance), his call to repentance, and offer of forgiveness (Acts 17:22-31) is anti-Gentile.3

A Map of the Message

"Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn't matter, because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask ... for your understanding and your forgiveness." Former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke's March 24th testimony before the commission investigating U.S. government preparedness for the 9/11 attacks included this remarkable apology to the families of the victims. It was a rare admission from a public official.

Generally, government officials are much better at assigning blame than claiming it. But then, they're not unlike any of us in that regard.

"Who's to blame?" That's what the 9/11 Commission is trying to determine. And that's what a variety of commentators -- both from within the church and without -- have also been trying to determine about the crucifixion of Jesus, in light of Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ. The Newsweek cover story of February 16th emblazoned the question across America: "Who Killed Jesus?"4 and we haven't stopped talking about it ever since.

The Passion is a phenomenon, no doubt about it. Never before, in recent memory, has the person and work of Jesus Christ been so much at the forefront of our national discourse. The runaway financial success of Gibson's film -- one that all the Hollywood studios rejected as commercially unviable, despite the considerable star power of its director -- amply demonstrates the interest of the general public in this question of who Jesus is and what he does for us.

So who did kill Jesus? It's a difficult question to pose to a congregation, but a necessary one. It's difficult because an adequate answer requires a reliance on higher biblical criticism, which is likely to be unfamiliar territory to the typical church member. And it's necessary because if we preachers don't address it, some of our listeners are likely to default to the simplistic and racially incendiary answer they learned at an early age: that the Jews did it.

Of course the Jews did it! With the exception of the Roman occupiers, the Jews were pretty much all who were living in Jerusalem at the time. Yet it wasn't their Jewish-ness that was significant, but their fearful, mob mentality -- and their abject failure to recognize true salvation when they saw it. Such failure knows no race or ethnicity. It's something that likely would have happened had the Messiah been born in Beijing, or Calcutta, or Timbuktu, or even the distant Roman stockade-town of Londinium (London under the Roman Empire).

There's ample evidence that the church of a generation or so after Jesus crafted the story of the Jews' blood-guilt to answer the crying needs of their own time. (Indeed, it may well have been the turmoil of their own time that caused those early Christians to write down the Jesus-story at all.) With the temple recently destroyed and tens of thousands of Jews murdered, it appeared to many despairing observers that Judaism was no more. In those turbulent days, the phoenix-like rebirth of the Jewish faith out of the Diaspora synagogues -- a remarkable story in and of itself -- had barely begun.

The beleaguered early Christian community was trying to distance itself from what was left of mainstream Judaism. One after-the-fact theological explanation for that dreadful holocaust experience -- and one that did not risk offending the brutal Roman occupiers -- was that God had willed it, in punishment for Jesus' death. While the gospels themselves do not address the destruction of the temple (other than obliquely, as in Jesus' prophecy about not one stone being left upon another -- Luke 21:5-11 and parallels; see also Mark 15:58 and John 2:19), this milestone historical event is a sub-text influencing everything subsequently written.

To encourage our listeners to perceive this truth about the scriptures is a difficult task, but a necessary one. For years, we in the church have been teaching the gospels as straight historical narrative. Most of us preachers (or at least those of us from mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches) have learned as part of our seminary training that the scriptures are a vast and complex library of different types of documents, but we've found it difficult to communicate this truth to the people in the pew. This Sunday is one of those occasions when bridging the gap between the academy and the pew is essential.

The gospels are not a first-century version of CNN. They are proclamation: the product of the early church's theological reflection, in its own contemporary context, about who Jesus is, and why it's significant to tell others about him. The word "gospel" (euaggelion) may be translated "good news," but that doesn't mean the gospels are journalism, with all the modern professional standards of documentation that word implies. They are, rather, "news" in the sense that one person may excitedly ask another, "Have you heard the news?" When most of us hear that question and request an answer in response, we don't expect that answer to be free of the other person's distinctive viewpoint. Indeed, we may value the answer precisely because it includes the other's personal feelings and impressions.

So it should be with the way we approach the gospels. When we read Luke's account of the Jewish people shouting, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" and Pilate's magnanimous response, "Why? What evil has he done?" (23:21-22), we need to hear those words as arising out of the context of the late first-century church, convulsed with agony over the apparent wholesale destruction of the Jewish faith and way of life, and wondering where God was going to lead them in the future. Historical evidence suggests that Pilate, not the Jews, is the true villain of the tale: The crucifixion could never have happened without his active complicity, if not at his instigation. The latter first-century church found it easier and more sensible to blame the Jerusalem revolutionary mob -- whom the Romans had by then effectively destroyed -- than to blame the governor, whose successors' legions still exercised life-or-death authority over the cowed colony.

The true answer to the question, "Who killed Jesus?" is "I killed Jesus" -- or at least, "I would have, had I been there." Guilt for persistent and insidious human sin knows no nationality or ethnicity. For contemporary Christians to slough off our own sinful complicity onto the Jews, God's covenant people, is to demonstrate a particularly blatant and ugly evasion of responsibility.

For all the criticism of Mel Gibson's The Passion, along with charges from some quarters of anti-Judaism, it seems apparent that Gibson himself did not intend to single out the Jewish people for blame. This would seem to be evident from the small role he gave himself in the film. Gibson's million-dollar Hollywood face never appears on the screen, but it is his anonymous lower arm that flashes across the camera's eye, holding the mallet that bangs the nails into Jesus' flesh. This is a role any extra could have played, but Gibson chose to do it for personal reasons. It appears to be his own way of participating in the confession that ought to be the anguished admission of us all: "I killed Jesus."

1. The Death of the Messiah, Raymond E. Brown (Doubleday, 1994), 694-695.

2. Luke, in the Interpretation series (1990: Louisville: John Knox Press), 267-268.

3. Craddock, 268.

4. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4212741.


Team Responses

Carter Shelley responds: Carlos, this entry is one of your best ever, which is saying a lot. What I find so valuable about it is the incredible clarity you bring to each aspect of the Passion as presented by Luke. Even ministers and well informed congregants will find new insights from your material starting with Father Brown's background information on Pilate that belies his presentation in The Passion of the Christ (actually, I thought Mel Gibson played Pilate in the film); the excellent review of Luke's revisionist history within the context of the fall of Jerusalem and the felt need by first-century Christians to distance themselves from the Zealot rebels. There are so many fine stylistic touches such as "The gospels are not a first-century version of CNN," that I'm more inclined to give you an "A" rather than try to add more to a beautifully complete piece. Your use of Luke's word as a call to repentance finds its conclusion movingly provided in the final positive note that blends film with faith when you describe Gibson's cinematic decision to have his own arm be the one that hammers a nail into Jesus' body as he is nailed to the cross. That beautifully encapsulates the point Gibson, you and Luke all stress "I killed Jesus."

While my inclination is to say, "Amen Brother!" and leave it at that, here are a couple of observations stimulated by your own. I remain intrigued by the American desire to blame someone or something for every tragedy that occurs. It's hard for me to imagine that 9/11 could really have been avoided. Intelligence people, immigration interviewers, next-door neighbors, whatever. It just isn't possible to allow for every contingency or to anticipate every tragedy. Humans are not omniscient, though I guess it's comforting to believe that we could be. (Steven Spielberg's movie Minority Report starring Tom Cruise was not a big hit. It's premise is that policemen living in a future time would have the ability to know a crime a criminal will commit before it happens, thus, making it possible to prevent the crime by arresting the criminal before it's committed. Such an action not only lessens dramatic tension in the film, it also conveys a fantasy state in which human freedom is limited in a way that doesn't fit our own experience.) I understand that airplanes that crash need to be combed for clues to the cause of its malfunction so all of us will be safer when we fly the friendly skies. But life doesn't always provide an answer to everything that happens or even a villain for everything that goes horribly wrong in life. In life, there isn't always an answer. As Christians we find our answer in Jesus Christ, but that very answer raises many questions about life on this earth as we humans attempt faithfully to live it.

Your reflections on Pilate's political success as a procurator remind me that Pilate, known as a harsh and brutal ruler, came down hard on any whispered threat of rebellion by the Jews. Thus, as you state, he was not a man who evidenced much self-doubt in public places. Rather, he was successful exactly because he was swift and harsh in punishing any potential insurrections. In Jesus' own case, I suspect Pilate's policy would have been "better safe than sorry, better one less country bumpkin rabbi/savior than risk any possible future threat from the man or his followers." I doubt Pilate lost any sleep over Jesus' death. In films, it's only the good guys who forgive bad guys and let people go. No self-respecting villain of the 20 odd James Bond movies would ever have been so foolish.

If one chooses to select a more sympathetic portrayal of Pilate as the interpretive direction in which to take Luke's account, the best one yet remains Frederick Buechner's portrait of Pilate in Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Comedy, Tragedy and Fairy Tale (Harper and Row, 1977, 7-14).

It's not surprising the Christians post A.D. 70 and the fall of Jerusalem sought to disassociate themselves from the hell that descended upon the Jews after that final defeat. Christians themselves had already experienced their first big spate of persecution and martyrdom at the hands of Nero. I can't imagine they were looking for an opportunity to go through the same horror again any time soon.

The April 5, 2004 issue of People magazine has a cover story about Hollywood stars that practice and identify themselves closely with a particular religion. Among those individuals cited is Kirk Douglas who is Jewish. A letter from this octogenarian written to Mel Gibson appears in the issue. The energetic hero of Spartacus and El Cid recounts for Gibson the former's dismay at the anti-Semitism evident (intentionally or not) in The Passion of the Christ. Growing up Jewish in upstate New York, Douglas describes the abuse and social obstacles he repeatedly faced as a young boy as one of the "Christ-killers." It is my hope that those who see the film recognize its most potent message as the one Carlos identifies, "We all killed Christ." Or, to quote e.e. cummings: "In Adam's fall, we sinned all."

George Murphy responds: Carlos has quoted part of Raymond Brown's magisterial The Death of the Messiah. I would encourage anyone who is going to preach about responsibility for the death of Jesus to read the sections dealing with the Jewish and Roman trials of Jesus in Volume I of that work. This is not just because of the information that Brown provides about what is known about Jewish and Roman procedures at that time and the personalities involved, but because he is also much clearer than some writers about what we don't know. You sometimes find statements such as "the Sanhedrin never could have done X" or "Pilate never would have allowed Y" when in fact we're really not certain about those things.

Still, there are things we know. Jesus died on a Roman cross. Pilate was not the kind of mild-mannered and hesitant ruler pictured by Mel Gibson, and he wouldn't have had Jesus executed unless he wanted to. But there is no evidence for any direct threat that Jesus offered to Rome rule. What he did threaten was the religious leadership of the Jewish community. Somehow, and we simply don't know all the details, that was also perceived by Pilate as a threat to the order that he intended to maintain.

It was not only corrupt priests who might have wanted to eliminate Jesus. Brown's discussion on pages 391-394 of why "religious people" -- i.e., sincere and committed Jewish believers -- "could have disliked Jesus" is instructive. A cooperation between some of the Jews of Jerusalem and the Roman governor to eliminate what they both saw -- though in different ways -- as a threat is consistent with what we know. What is misleading about traditional accounts is their picture of Pilate as a reluctant executioner and of Jewish responsibility as extending to more than a small portion of the Jewish community.

Then why do the gospels tend to cast the blame for the crucifixion on "the Jews"? A desire on the part of the gospel writers to appear non-threatening to the Roman authorities is part of the answer, but not the whole story.

The first Christians were, of course, Jews who believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead and was the Messiah. Luke, in his gospel and in Acts seems especially interested in presenting the new movement to the Roman authorities in a good light. But he is also the New Testament writer who is explicit about the early Jewish Christians continuing to worship in the Jerusalem temple, thus picturing them as still part of the Jewish community.

The gospels were written after decades of acrimony between Christians - all of whom to begin with were Jewish -- and Jews who didn't accept Jesus as the Messiah. Centuries of "Christendom" have led us to think of Christians being in positions of power relative to Jews, but in the first century the roles were reversed. Jewish authorities in control of synagogues were in a position to oppose Christian preaching and exclude those who accepted Jesus as Messiah. Judaism was a legal religion (religio licita) while Christianity, as soon as it began to be seen as a separate entity, was not. Thus Jews could be in a position to cooperate in the persecution of Christians. (Acts 17:5-7 and 13 are biblical examples, while Chapter XIII of The Martyrdom of Polycarp is from the middle of the second century.) Of course the situation was changed radically when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the late fourth century.

But at the time the gospels were written, Christians had some reason to feel that non-Christian Jews were their enemies. It isn't surprising that some of that attitude was read back into the passion accounts.

I say that with some hesitation and frankly think that it might do more harm than good to emphasize Jewish opposition to Christianity in a sermon. We have a long history of blaming "the Jews," and some people will seize upon evidence of such opposition in the first century to continue those attitudes. Nevertheless, those who are going to preach about these matters need to be clear about what happened. Again, I would urge preachers to read Brown's balanced treatment.

The deeper question is, why have Christians felt that they had to single out one group to blame especially for the crucifixion. It's the very essence of the Christian message that Jesus bore all of our sins, and that he died for all people, Jews and Gentiles.

What is the point then of emphasizing -- and overemphasizing -- the role of Jews? It serves no theological function. But blaming "the other" can serve other functions -- and especially that of freeing ourselves from blame or responsibility. We can attribute the bad things that happen in the world to the others, and do that more easily if we think that they have some kind of primordial guilt.

We also, quite naturally, like to look back at the passion story from the standpoint of committed Christians whose sins have been forgiven. The sinners who were responsible for the crucifixion then seem to be on the other side of a great gulf. We are Jesus' friends, they are Jesus' enemies. But of course it isn't that simple. To the extent that we sin -- and we do -- we, not just "they," are the ones shouting. And Jesus' "Father, forgive them," is a clear indication that he does not want anyone to remain an enemy.

A sermon on the Sunday of the Passion shouldn't just be an exhortation to self-help, but an appropriate appeal to self-examination would be quite in order. Why do we find it so hard to accept responsibility for our actions when things turn out badly, and why do we find it so easy to blame others? If we can accept blame when we really are to blame then we can appreciate more fully what it means to say that Christ died for our sins. And we also ought to be able to get along better with other people.
Related Illustrations
Submitted by Carlos Wilton

The March 23, 2004 Christian Century (p. 23) contains a list of guidelines, suggested by the American Jewish Committee, for avoiding anti-Judaism in Christian passion plays. Many of them are equally useful in preaching about Jesus' trial and death. Here they are, in summary form:

1. Jesus must be depicted as a faithful Jew, not as someone opposed to the Torah.

2. The Hebrew Bible must not be seen as either outmoded or replaced by the New Testament.

3. Jesus and his followers, all of whom were Jews, should not be set in direct opposition to the wider Jewish community of the time. [The conflict] should not be presented as a clash of the "old bad guys" versus the "new good guys."

4. Jews as a class must not be pictured as money lovers and avaricious enemies of Jesus (this is particularly important in dealing with Judas and the thirty pieces of silver).

5. Crowd scenes must avoid depicting of bloodthirsty Jews eagerly calling for Jesus' death.

6. Jesus and "the Pharisees" -- who were not directly involved in the death of Jesus -- should not be represented as enemies. Jesus and the Pharisees shared as much in common as they had as differences between them.

7. First-century Judaism in the land of Israel should be shown in all its diversity and spiritual richness. There were many expressions of Judaism in that day, which enjoyed a certain unity but not unanimity.

8. Jewish religious symbols must be clearly and fairly presented, remembering that they would have had as much meaning to Jesus and his followers as to other Jews.

9. Pontius Pilate must not be portrayed as a weak, indecisive leader who is controlled by the high priest. Instead, Pilate (the only person specifically mentioned regarding the death of Jesus in the Christian Nicene Creed) should be accurately shown to be the ruthless, bloody ruler he was.

***

"Why do we so dislike to be told that the Jews are the chosen people? Why does Christendom continually search for fresh proof that this is no longer true? In a word, because we do not enjoy being told that the sun of free grace, by which alone we can live, shines not upon us, but upon the Jews, that it is the Jews who are elect and not the Germans, the French or the Swiss, and that in order to be chosen we must, for good or ill, either be Jews or else be heart and soul on the side of the Jews. 'Salvation is of the Jews.' It is in their existence that we non-Jews come up against the rock of divine choice, which first passing over us is primarily made by Another, a choice which can concern us only in that it firsts concerns Him and cannot affect us except in Him and through Him. In the 'lost-ness' and in the persistence of the Jews that Other One looks down on us; the Jew on the Cross, in whom is salvation for every man."
-- Karl Barth, "The Jewish Problem and the Christian Answer" in Against the Stream

***

J. Barrie Shepherd is now retired as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of New York City. He likes to tell the story of one time when he was flying back to the USA from his native Scotland. It so happened that, on that day, Shepherd was carrying back, for his church, a large Celtic cross from the Isle of Iona.

He had wrapped the cross carefully, in layers of paper and padding. Not trusting the baggage-handlers, he thought it best to carry it onto the plane himself. As he approached the airport X-ray machine, the guards eyed him up and down: his bundle looked suspiciously like an automatic weapon. When the image of a two-foot-tall Celtic cross appeared on the X-ray screen, the guards relaxed.

Early the next morning, Shepherd and his fellow passengers made their way into the customs area of John F. Kennedy Airport. "Do you have anything to declare?" asked the customs agent.

"Only this cross," Shepherd replied, still sleepy from his long flight.

The agent looked down, and scribbled something on a form in front of him. It was only later that Shepherd got to see what he had written: "Item of a sentimental nature. Of little or no value."

The customs agent's words were significant. The words he wrote down were perhaps correct from the standpoint of bureaucratic regulations, but in a theological sense they were all wrong. Yet isn't that very same description -- "Item of a sentimental nature, of little or no value" -- exactly what the world thinks of the cross of Jesus?

***

"The dominant religious tradition of the West was based on a set of four accounts of Jesus, each of which to some extent is riddled with anger at or even hatred of the Jews. The gospels were written, many historians tell us, some 50 years after Jesus' death at a time when early Christians (most of whom considered themselves Jewish) were engaged in a fierce competition with a newly emerging rabbinic Judaism to win the hearts and minds of their fellow Jews (some of whom were becoming Jewish Christians, retaining their Jewish practice but adding to it a belief in Jesus as messiah) and the minds of the disaffected masses of the Roman Empire (some Christians already having given up on converting Jews and beginning to think that the real audience for their outreach should be the wider world of the Roman Empire).

"The gospel writers sought to play down the antagonism that Jews of Jesus' time felt toward Rome, so they displaced the anger at his crucifixion instead onto those Jews who remembered Jesus as an inspiring and revolutionary teacher but not much more. The result is an account that portrays Jews as willfully calling on the Romans to kill Jesus, rejecting the supposed compassion of the Romans, and thereby earning the hatred of humanity for the Jews' supposed collective responsibility for this act of deicide. Conversely, Jesus' Judaism, his viewing the world through the frame of his Jewish spiritual practice and Torah-based thinking, is played down or at times completely obscured, so that the message of these professional 'convert the non-Jews' thinkers would not be undermined by a covert message (still advocated by some of the Jewish Christians at the time of the writing of the gospel) that to be a Christian one should also become a Jew.

"When Christianity gained state power in Rome in the fourth century of the Common Era, it quickly began to pass legislation restricting Jewish rights. And as Christianity conquered Europe in the ensuing centuries, spreading its story that the Jews were responsible for killing Jesus, the Jews became the primary demeaned-other of Europe for the next 1,700 years. Jews came to fear Easter because the retelling of the crucifixion story often led to mob attacks on defenseless Jews who were blamed for having caused the suffering of Jesus....

"Nevertheless, since the 1960s there have been thousands of sensitive Christians who have created a Christian spiritual renewal movement that rejects the teaching of hatred in the gospel by allegorizing the story and giving greater focus to the resurrection than to the crucifixion. Returning to Jesus' Jewish roots and refocusing attention on the bulk of the gospel, with its stories portraying a Jewish Jesus who builds on and elaborates the ancient Torah's commandments to 'love your neighbor as yourself' and 'love the stranger,' the Christian renewalists tended to see the 2,000-year history of Christian anti-Semitism as a distortion of the deeper truth of the gospel. Easter became a holiday to celebrate the rebirth of an ancient Jewish hope -- that the forces of hatred and cruelty manifested in the crucifixion could be overcome by a triumph of the forces of love, generosity, and kindness whose resurrection and ultimate victory were celebrated at Easter...."
-- Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, from "A Gospel of Love and Hope: Responding to Mel Gibson's Passion," in Sojourners Online

***

"My first faint glimpse of the 'problem' of the historical Jesus occurred in 1960 when I saw the Oberammergau passion play in a version unchanged since Hitler saw it in 1930 and 1934. I knew the story, of course, but something happened when I saw it as drama rather than read it as text. At the start of the play, the stage is filled with children, women, and men shouting for Jesus (our Palm Sunday). But by early evening, that stage is filled with that same crowd shouting against Jesus (our Good Friday). No explanation was made for that change, and no reason was evident for why any people were against Jesus. Furthermore, when the story is staged or screened as drama rather than heard or read as text, that Jewish crowd shouting for the Jewish Jesus' crucifixion takes on a central focus in the narrative. They, rather than Caiaphas or Pilate, seem in charge of the proceedings, responsible for the events, guilty of the results. The anti-Jewish, if not anti-Semitic, potentials in that passion story are emphasized even more on stage or screen than in text or gospel."
-- John Dominic Crossan, "Who Killed Jesus?" on Beliefnet.com, http://www.beliefnet.com/story/124/story_12479_1.html.

***

An exhaustive list of links on Gibson's The Passion of the Christ can be found at:

http://www.beliefnet.com/index/index_525.html

***

"I grew up on those pious Hollywood biblical epics of the 1950s, which looked like holy cards brought to life. I remember my grin when Time magazine noted that Jeffrey Hunter, starring as Christ in 'King of Kings' (1961), had shaved his armpits. (Not Hunter's fault; the film's Crucifixion scene had to be re-shot because preview audiences objected to Jesus' hairy chest.)

"If it does nothing else, Gibson's film will break the tradition of turning Jesus and his disciples into neat, clean, well-barbered middle-class businessmen. They were poor men in a poor land. I debated Martin Scorsese's 'The Last Temptation of Christ' with commentator Michael Medved before an audience from a Christian college, and was told by an audience member that the characters were filthy and needed haircuts."
-- Roger Ebert, in his review of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, February 24, 2004.

***

"We tend to misunderstand 'the passion of Jesus.' Spontaneously we think of it as the pain of the physical sufferings he endured on the road to his death. Partly that misses the point. Jesus' passion should be understood precisely as passio, passivity, a certain submissive helplessness he had to undergo in counter-distinction to his power and activity. The passion of Jesus refers to the helplessness he had to endure during the last hours of his life, a helplessness extremely fruitful for him and for us."
-- Ron Rolheiser, "The Agony in the Garden - The Special Place of Loneliness," at http://www.ronrolheiser.com/arc022204.html

***

In one of his books, concentration-camp survivor Elie Wiesel recalls the day in his teenage years when he, along with other inmates, were finally liberated from Auschwitz by allied soldiers. On that day, powerful, strong men broke down the hated fences of the camp, and released the emaciated prisoners.

Wiesel recalls one African-American solider, who, upon seeing him and his fellow prisoners, was overcome with grief. He fell to his knees, sobbing. The recently liberated prisoners walked over to the soldier, put their arms around him, and comforted him.

Is this not how we respond to the sight of the suffering Jesus? And does he not put his bloodied arms around us?

***

"Jesus Christ must suffer and be rejected. This 'must' is inherent in the promise of God -- the scriptures must be fulfilled. There is a distinction here between suffering and rejection. Had he only suffered, Jesus might still have been applauded as the Messiah. All the sympathy and admiration of the world might have been focused on his passion. It could have been viewed as a tragedy with its own intrinsic value, dignity and honor. But in the passion, Jesus is a rejected Messiah. His rejection robs the passion of its halo of glory. It must be a passion without honor."
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, trans. R.H. Fuller (London: SCM, 1959), 76

***

Many years ago, when the anti-Jewish pogroms were raging across eastern Europe, there was a Jewish gravedigger who saved many lives by hiding fleeing people in his freshly-dug graves. One night, as a young woman and her family were hiding in just such a grave, the young woman gave birth.

"This," the grave digger cried, "is surely the Messiah, for who else would be born in a grave?"

***

"There is no escaping the cross. Either you will experience physical hardship or tribulation of spirit in your soul. At times you will be forsaken by God, at times troubled by those about you and, what is worse, you will often grow weary of yourself. You cannot escape, you cannot be relieved by any remedy or comfort but must bear with it as long as God wills. For he wishes you to learn to bear trial without consolation, to submit yourself wholly to him that you may become more humble through suffering. No one understands the passion of Christ so thoroughly or heartily as the one who has suffered similarly.

"The cross, therefore, is unavoidable. It waits for you everywhere. No matter where you may go, you cannot escape it, for wherever you go you take yourself along. Turn where you will -- above, below, without, or within -- you will find the cross.

"If you willingly carry the cross, it will carry you."
-- Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

***

If when the doors are shut, thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of thine;
We know today what wounds are, have no fear.
Show us thy scars, we know the countersign.


The other gods were strong, but thou wast weak;
They rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God's wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds but thou alone
-- Edward Shillito

***

"One of the many things this story tells us is that Jesus was not brought down by atheism and anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion, which is always a deadly mix. Beware those who claim to know the mind of God and who are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Beware those who cannot tell God's will from their own. Temple police are always a bad sign. When chaplains start wearing guns and hanging out at the sheriff's office, watch out. Someone is about to have no king but Caesar.

"This is a story that can happen anywhere at any time, and we are as likely to be the perpetrators as the victims. I doubt that many of us will end up playing Annas, Caiaphas, or Pilate, however. They may have been the ones who gave Jesus the death sentence, but a large part of him had already died before they ever got to him -- the part Judas killed off, then Peter, then all those who fled. Those are the roles with our names on them -- not the enemies but the friends....

"A cross and nails are not always necessary. There are a thousand ways to kill him, some of them as obvious as choosing where you will stand when the showdown between the weak and the strong comes along, others of them as subtle as keeping your mouth shut when someone asks you if you know him.

"Today, while he dies, do not turn away. Make yourself look in the mirror. Today no one gets away without being shamed by his beauty. Today no one flees without being laid bare by his light."
-- Barbara Brown Taylor, "Truth to Tell," from The Perfect Mirror; reprinted in the Christian Century, March 18-25, 1998

***

"We remember your passion, Lord. It seems you're always on your cross, and your children cringing in some hole while bombs burst, or cheated in some supermarket, refused in some bank, cursed in some crowd; dying one way or another. And you refuse to quit your suffering and your crawling down into the holes where we hide, and you call us to share your suffering, but to remember the third day, and to keep moving. And we give thanks for that."
-- Lenten prayer of John Vannorsdall


Worship Resources
By George Reed

Opening

Music:

Hymns:

"All Glory, Laud, and Honor"
WORDS: Theodulph of Orleans, 8-9th cent.; trans. By John Mason Neale, 1851
MUSIC: Melchior Teschner, 1615; harm. By W. H. Monk, 1861
(c) public domain
as found in:

UMH: 280
Hymnal '82: 154, 155
LBOW: 108
TPH: 88
AAHH: 226
TNNBH: 102
TNCH: 216, 217
CH: 192

"Hosanna, Loud Hosanna"
WORDS: Jeanette Threlfall, 1873
MUSIC: Gesangbuch der H. W. k Hofkapelle, 1784; adapt and harm. By W. H. Monk, 1868
(c) public domain
as found in:

UMH: 278
Hymnal '82:
LBOW:
TPH: 89
AAHH:
TNNBH:
TNCH: 213
CH:

"Lift High the Cross"
WORDS: George William Kitchin and Michael Robert Newbolt, 1916, alt.
MUSIC: Sydney Hugo Nicholson, 1916
(c) 1978 Hope Publishing Co.
as found in:

UMH: 159
Hymnal '82: 473
LBOW: 377
TPH: 371
AAHH: 242
TNNBH:
TNCH: 198
CH: 108

Songs:

"All Hail King Jesus"
WORDS & MUSIC: Dave Moody
(c) 1981 Glory Alleluia Music
as found in:

CCB : # 29

"He Is Exalted"
WORDS: Twila Paris; Portuguese trans. Anon.
MUSIC: Twila Paris; arr. By Nylea L. Butler-Moore
(c) 1985 Straightway Music
as found in:

CCB : # 30

"Jesus, Name Above All Names"
WORDS: St. 1 by Naida Hearn, sts. 2-4 anon
MUSIC: Naida Hearn
Sts. 1 and music (c) 1974, 1978, 1986 Sprcipture in Song
as found in:

CCB : # 35

Call to Worship:

Leader: Behold your King is coming!

People: Hosanna to the Son of David!

Leader: Your King comes humbly.

People: May God's reign be in us and in our children.

Leader: Your King comes upon a colt.

People: Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven.

Collect/Opening Prayer:

O Christ who came willingly to Jerusalem knowing that death awaited you: Grant us faith to follow you in being true to our calling as God's children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

OR

O God you were with Jesus when he rode into Jerusalem on the way to the cross. You strengthened him with your Spirit and filled him with your love so that he was willing to confront the powers of evil and injustice. Help us as we sing, "Hosanna" to be so filled with your Spirit that we may also be fearless in confronting evil and injustice where ever we find them. Amen.

Response Music

Hymns:

"O Sacred Head, Now Wounded"
WORDS: Anon, Latin; trans. By Papul Gerhardt, 1656 and James W. Alexander, 1830
MUSIC: Hans L. Hassler, 1601; harm. By J. S. Bach, 1729, alt
(c) public domain
as found in:

UMH: 286
Hymnal '82: 168, 169
LBOW: 116, 117
TPH: 98
AAHH: 250
TNNBH: 108
TNCH: 226
CH: 202

"Were You There"
WORDS: Afro-American Spiritual
MUSIC: Afro-American Spiritual; adapt and arr. By William Farley Smith 1986
Adapt. and arr. (c) The United Methodist Publishing House
as found in:

UMH: 288
Hymnal '82: 172
LBOW: 92
TPH: 102
AAHH: 254
TNNBH: 109
TNCH: 229
CH: 198

"What Wondrous Love Is This"
WORDS: USA folk hymn
MUSIC: USA folk hymn; harm. By Paul J. Christiansen, 1955
Harm. (c) 1955, renewed 1983 Augsburg Publishing House
as found in:

UMH: 292
Hymnal '82: 439
LBOW: 385
TPH: 85
AAHH:
TNNBH:
TNCH: 223
CH: 200

"Ah, Holy Jesus"
WORDS: Johann Heermann, 1630; trans. By Robert S. Bridges, 1899
MUSIC: Johann Cruger, 1640
(c) public domain
as found in:

UMH: 289
Hymnal '82: 158
LBOW: 123
TPH: 93
AAHH:
TNNBH:
TNCH: 218
CH: 210

Songs:

"O How He Loves You and Me"
WORDS & MUSIC: Kurt Kaiser
(c) 1976 Word Music
as found in:

CCB : # 38

"Jesus, Remember Me"
WORDS: based on Luke 23:42
MUSIC: Jacques Berthier and the Taize Community
Music (c) 1981 Les Presses de Taize
as found in:

CCB : # 68

Prayers of Confession/Pardon

Leader: We gather before the cross of Jesus and know that we have participated in the forces of evil that nailed him to the tree. Let us confess our sins.

People: We confess to you, O God, and before our brothers and sisters that we have failed to resist evil and injustice in our homes, our congregations, our communities, and our world. We have watched as people are unfairly judged. We have stood idly by as the gifts of creation have been withheld from our brothers and sisters while we have more than enough. We hear the Good News over and over while others have no opportunity to learn of God's grace.

Forgive us and renew us in your own Spirit. Make us your bold people who love you and have compassion for others.

Leader: God came to reclaim sinners. In the Name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven. Thanks be to God.

People: Thanks be to God. Amen.

General Prayers, litanies, etc.

We praise you, O God, for your greatness. Out of your deep loving-kindness you formed all creation. We are the result of your love being made in human form.

(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)

We confess to you, O God, that we often do not act like we are your love incarnate. We do not treat others according to their place as your children. Renew us in the love of Jesus Christ.

We give you thanks for all your blessings to us and to all your creation. Your hand is always open and generous with your good gifts. Most of all we thank you for sharing your love with us through Jesus of Nazareth.

(Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)

We lift up to your love and care those who suffer because of evil and injustice. We pray for them and for ourselves. Give them courage and hope. Give us courage and daring.

(Other petitions may be offered.)

All these things we ask in the Name of Jesus who taught us to pray always saying, "Our Father...."

Hymnal & Songbook Abbreviations

UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
Hymnal '82: The Hymnal 1982, The Episcopal Church
LBOW: Lutheran Book of Worship
TPH: The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
TNNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
TNCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
PMMCH3: Praise. Maranatha! Music Chorus Book, Expanded 3rd Edition


Children's Sermon
by Wesley T. Runk

Text: Vs. 23 -- But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should be crucified; and their voices prevailed.
Luke 23:13-25

Object -- palms and nails

Good morning, boys and girls. I am little confused today. When I was growing up we called this Sunday before Easter, Palm Sunday. It was a day of great happiness and I was given a palm branch to wave and shout, "Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest." How many of you have ever waved a palm branch and said "Hosanna to the King, Hosanna in the highest"? (let them answer) This was the day Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem and the people thought he was going to be their king. Can you shout with me, "Hosanna, Hosanna to the king!" (have the children shout it with you)

But it was only this way for a little while. It was more like a parade than the making of a king. Jesus rode through the streets and people cheered, but when it was over Jesus left the city and stood on a hill and cried for Jerusalem. The people did not understand that his kingdom was from God. He was not going to live in a palace and have great armies. He was not going to chase the Romans out of Jerusalem. Jesus came to bring God's love to people.

So the parade only lasted for a day. Jesus did not take over the palace of Herod. He did not put on a crown or wear beautiful robes. Jesus did not chase away the priests from the temple or make Governor Pilate take his armies and go back to Rome. Instead Jesus left Jerusalem with his disciples and went back into the hills outside of Jerusalem.

If you had lived in Jerusalem do you think you would have been part of Palm Sunday? (let them answer) Would you have waved your palms and put your coat on the road so that the donkey would not have to walk on the hard stones? (let them answer) Would you have shouted, "Hosanna to the Lord, Hosanna to the King"? (let them answer) Would you have followed Jesus through the streets, past the temple, and to the gate on the other side of the great city? (let them answer)

Just five days from Palm Sunday the people were gathered at the palace of Pilate, the governor of Israel. The same people who were at the parade were still shouting but the words were different. If you could see Jesus, you would have seen a different Jesus. He was not riding a donkey. He looked very different with blood running from his head and over his entire body. He had been beaten and now the crowd was shouting these words, "Crucify him, Crucify him." Do you think you would have been part of that crowd? Would you be asking for Jesus to die? Would you be a part of the ugly people that wanted Jesus to die on a cross?

The Bible tells us that the crowd was made up of the same people who waved palms and wanted him to be the King. In a couple of hours they would be hearing the hammers pound the nails into the body of Jesus. (show them the nails) No Hosannas, no joy, but instead the death of Jesus. "Hosanna to the King" or "Crucify Him, Crucify Him," are the words the people shouted.

It is all part of what happened to Jesus, and it is important that we know how forgiving and loving Jesus was to the people. For even on the cross as he was dying, he forgave the people who crucified him. The same people who sang hosanna and carried the palms also shouted crucify him and watched him nailed to a cross. Amen.



* * * * *
The Immediate Word, April 4, 2004, issue.

Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.

All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503