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The crucifixion. Who was on trial?. Scapegoating. “Herod and his soldiers made fun of Jesus and treated him with contempt; then they put a fine robe on him and sent him back to Pilate. On that very day Herod and Pilate became friends; before this they had been enemies.” (Luke 23:11-12).
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The crucifixion Who was on trial?
Scapegoating “Herod and his soldiers made fun of Jesus and treated him with contempt; then they put a fine robe on him and sent him back to Pilate. On that very day Herod and Pilate became friends; before this they had been enemies.” (Luke 23:11-12)
Kingdoms of the world on trial “An argument broke out among the disciples as to which one of them should be thought of as the greatest. Jesus said to them, ‘The kings of the pagans have power over their people, and the rulers claim the title 'Friends of the People.' But this is not the way it is with you; rather, the greatest one among you must be like the youngest, and the leader must be like the servant. Who is greater, the one who sits down to eat or the one who serves? The one who sits down, of course. But I am among you as one who serves.” (Luke 22:24-27)
Pilate went back into the palace and called Jesus. "Are you the king of the Jews?" he asked him. Jesus answered, "Does this question come from you or have others told you about me?" Pilate replied, "Do you think I am a Jew? It was your own people and the chief priests who handed you over to me. What have you done?" Jesus said, "My kingdom does not belong to this world; if my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish authorities. No, my kingdom does not belong here!" So Pilate asked him, "Are you a king, then?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. I was born and came into the world for this one purpose, to speak about the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth listens to me." "And what is truth?" Pilate asked. Then Pilate went back outside to the people and said to them, "I cannot find any reason to condemn him." (John 18:33-38)
He went back into the palace and asked Jesus, "Where do you come from?" But Jesus did not answer. Pilate said to him, "You will not speak to me? Remember, I have the authority to set you free and also to have you crucified." Jesus answered, "You have authority over me only because it was given to you by God. So the man who handed me over to you is guilty of a worse sin." When Pilate heard this, he tried to find a way to set Jesus free. But the crowd shouted back, "If you set him free, that means that you are not the Emperor's friend! Anyone who claims to be a king is a rebel against the Emperor!" When Pilate heard these words, he took Jesus outside and sat down on the judge's seat in the place called "The Stone Pavement." (In Hebrew the name is "Gabbatha.") It was then almost noon of the day before the Passover. Pilate said to the people, "Here is your king!" (John 19:9-14)
Jesus’ indictment of politics • Pilot’s “truth” (way of running the world): - power, coercion, force and violence - “Look around you, Jesus!” • Jesus’ truth: - love, forgiveness, non-violence
The Kingdom not of this world When the disciples who were with Jesus saw what was going to happen, they asked, "Shall we use our swords, Lord?" And one of them struck the High Priest's slave and cut off his right ear. But Jesus said, "Enough of this!" He touched the man's ear and healed him. (Luke 22:49-51)
Jesus’ indictment of religion • Religion that is based on a top-down power structure. (a religious version of the kingdom of the world) • Caiaphas needs a scapegoat to unite the Jews and the Romans
So the Pharisees and the chief priests met with the Council and said, "What shall we do? Look at all the miracles this man is performing! If we let him go on in this way, everyone will believe in him, and the Roman authorities will take action and destroy our Temple and our nation!" One of them, named Caiaphas, who was High Priest that year, said, "What fools you are! Don't you realize that it is better for you to have one man die for the people, instead of having the whole nation destroyed?“… From that day on the Jewish authorities made plans to kill Jesus. (John 11:47-53)
Pilate asked them, “Do you want me to crucify your king?” The chief priests answered, “The only king we have is the Emperor!” (John 19:15)
Jesus’ indictment of violence and scapegoating “Do you want me to set free for you the king of the Jews?’ They answered him with a shout, ‘No, not him! We want Barabbas!’ (Barabbas was a bandit)” “Here is your king!” They shouted back, ‘Kill him! Kill him! Crucify him!”
“A crowd under the influence of an angry, vengeful spirit is the most dangerous thing in the world. It is closely associated with the essence of what is satanic… the inclination to blame, accuse, and recriminate. (The words satan and devil both mean to accuse and blame.) When the satanic spirit of angry blame and accusation infects a crowd, a perilous phenomenon is born. The crowd abandons truth as it searches for a target upon which it can express the pent-up rage it feels… The groupthink phenomenon of mob mentality quickly overtakes rational thought and individual responsibility… The mob becomes capable of evil that would be unthinkable for most people as an individual.”
The scapegoat is usually a marginalized person or a minority group that is easy to victimize. But the crowd does not admit that it has selected a weak victim as a scapegoat. The crowd must continue to practice the self-deception that the scapegoat is a real threat to “freedom” or “righteousness” or whatever the crowd is using to justify its fear-based insecurity and anger…
“Sacrificing a scapegoat is highly effective in producing a sense of well-being and belonging within the crowd… It’s the blood-drenched altar of civilization. It’s the Cain model for preserving the polis. It’s collective murder as the alchemy for peace and unity. The crowd vents its violence and vengeance upon a scapegoat to protect itself from itself. If you follow an angry crowd—even if it calls itself Christian—you are likely to be wrong… Massacres, slaughters, crusades, pogroms, genocides, and the Holocaust are what can happen when people follow an angry crowd in search of a scapegoat.” – Brian Zahnd, “A Farewell to Mars”
New scapegoats “Christian antipathy against the Jews had been unrelenting across the centuries. Martin Luther did not sow the seed of anti-Semitism, but watered it to a devastating effect, hoping, in his own words, to furnish the Christian ‘with enough material not only to defend himself against the blind, venomous Jews, but also to become the foe of the Jews’ malice, lying, and cursing, and to understand not only that their belief is false but that they are surely possessed by all devils.’” – Sigve Tonstad The Lost Meaning of the Seventh Day
God’s Wrath “My anger will flame up like fire and burn everything on earth. It will reach to the world below and consume the roots of the mountains. I will bring on them endless disasters and use all my arrows against them.” (Deuteronomy 32:22,23) “They fail to see why they were defeated; they cannot understand what happened. Why were a thousand defeated by one, and ten thousand by only two? The Lord, their God, had abandoned them; their mighty God had given them up” (Deuteronomy 32:29,30)
“They will abandon me and worship the pagan gods of the land they are about to enter. When that happens, I will become angry with them; I will abandon them, and they will be destroyed. Many terrible disasters will come upon them, and then they will realize that these things are happening to them because I, their God, am no longer with them.’” (Deuteronomy 31:16-17)
“The real test is this. Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper (about your enemy). Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils.”
You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally, we shall insist on seeing everything – God and our friends and ourselves included – as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed forever in a universe of pure hatred.” – C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity, pg. 106
Be wary of religious gathering that spend much time on the heresy of others
Jesus’ indictment of legalism as a means to God Law keepers Bible readers Church attendance Tithing Mission and outreach Eagerly awaiting the 1st coming “Then the Jews, since it was the day of Sabbath preparation, and so the bodies wouldn't stay on the crosses over the Sabbath (it was a high holy day that year), petitioned Pilate that their legs be broken to speed death, and the bodies taken down.” (John 19:31 MSG)
In the face of power-over political and religious kingdoms… • In the face of violence… • In the face of mob mentality scapegoating…
How do we “run the world”? • Force • Nationalism and influence of political powers • Coercion • Blame and scapegoating
Until 313 AD – “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church” - Tertullian • 312 AD, Constantine legalized Christianity: “By this sign you shall conquer” • The first time anyone ever associated the Christian faith with violence • 380 AD the official religion of the Roman empire – a crime not to be a Christian.
The militant church • “If there is anyone of the Saxon people lurking among them unbaptized, and if he scorns to come to baptism…and stay a pagan, let him die.” – Charlemagne (742-814 AD) • Inflicting temporal pain to help someone avoid eternal pain is justified.
“…I happened to visit a July Fourth worship service at a certain megachurch. At center stage in this auditorium stood a large cross next to an equally large American flag. The congregation sang some praise choruses mixed with such patriotic hymns as “God Bless America.” The climax of the service centered on a video of a well-known Christian military general giving a patriotic speech about how God had blessed America and blessed its military troops…
“Triumphant military music played in the background as he spoke. The video closed with a scene of a silhouette of three crosses on a hill with an American flag waving in the background. Majestic, patriotic music now thundered. Suddenly, four fighter jets appeared on the horizon, flew over the crosses, and then split apart. As they roared over the camera, the words, “God Bless America” appeared on the screen in front of the crosses. The congregation responded with roaring applause, catcalls, and
a standing ovation. I saw several people wiping tears from their eyes. Indeed, as I remained frozen in my seat, I grew teary-eyed as well – but for entirely different reasons. I was struck with horrified grief. Thoughts raced through my mind: How could the cross and the sword have been so thoroughly fused without anyone seeming to notice? How could Calvary be associated with bombs and missiles...How could the kingdom of God be reduced to this sort of violent, nationalistic tribalism? Has the church progressed at all since the Crusades?” – The Myth of a Christian Nation, Greg Boyd
The crucifixion: who is on trial? “Now is the critical moment of this world, now the ruler of this world will be exposed (12:31).Brant, John, 194 “And on that cross Christ freed himself from the power of the spiritual rulers and authorities; he made a public spectacle of them by leading them as captives in his victory procession.” (Colossians 2:15)
Do we want to rule the world or change the world? “The army officer saw what had happened, and he praised God, saying, ‘Certainly he was a good man!’ (“This man was really the Son of God!”) When the people who had gathered there to watch the spectacle saw what happened, they all went back home, beating their breasts in sorrow.” (Luke 23:47-48) “But some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said…” (Acts 15:5)
Christ revealed that his kingdom is based on forgiveness and love – not scapegoating • Jesus reveals the depravity of humanity: we blame and kill • Jesus reveals a new way: forgive, love, sacrifice
