Who was Really in that Mob?

This is the sermon that I wrote for Good Friday, 2024, that ironically I “forgot” to preach. You see, I’d written it, I printed it out, I took it to church, and…it stayed in my office. I didn’t even realize I’d blown past the part in the bulletin that said “Sermon” until we were into the third station of the cross, and then I realized, ruh roh, this service is going to go way too long already. So, no sermon was delivered. Yes, I’m new at this, LOL.

Good Friday, March 29, 2024 – John 18:1–19:42, Also, Isaiah 52:13–53:12, Hebrews 10:16-25

One of the things that has bothered me for a while about the way that we tell the story of Jesus’ Passion, is that we typically hear about how the throngs of people who were singing Jesus’ praises when he entered Jerusalem viciously turned on him, and by the end of the week were calling for his crucifixion.

Through this presentation, we are asked to recognize our own guilt, our own sinfulness, and our own participation in Jesus’ execution. But the more I think about how the events are given in the gospels, the less I see it in that typical way.

I mentioned last night that in the time of Jesus, the areas of Judea and the Galilean countryside were all under Roman occupation. The area was ruled by Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, who had built the second Temple. This Herod – to ensure his legacy and good favor with the Roman emperor – had begun putting his thumb on the population around the sea of Galilee, by commercializing the fishing industry and heavily taxing the poor fishermen to support his lavish lifestyle. (I learned this in a recent Homebrewed Christianity course with John Dominic Crossan).

In fact, in the time of Jesus, Galilee was known as an area of significant political unrest. It was no “bucolic backwater.”

Throughout Jesus’ ministry in this part of the world, we see him healing the sick, treating people with great respect and love, overturning typical power and economic expectations, and teaching them in ways they’d not heard before. Everywhere Jesus went, the crowds who loved him got larger and larger.

It’s possible that his reputation preceded him in Jerusalem, and maybe the crowds who were gathered there for the Passover festival had heard of his healing work. So, when Jesus entered Jerusalem on that donkey, they cried out “Hosanna!” We have now come to think of that word, “hosanna,” as a cry of praise, but as I mentioned on Sunday, it’s original meaning was “Pray, save us!”

It was a desperate cry for help.

The throngs of people who were living subsistence lives and struggling every day under the weight of illness, heavy taxes, and general poverty, were desperate for someone to help them, to save them, to bring about a change in their daily reality of hardship.

Do we really think those same desperate people suddenly began raising their fists just days later and screaming “crucify him!” with spittle flying from their lips? I’m sorry. I just don’t buy it. I don’t buy it because of the timing we are given of the events that occurred between the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. I think we have to ask ourselves this question:

Who would even have been awake and out on the streets at the time of Jesus’ trial and sentencing by Pilate? Only those with a vested interest in his disposal.

Let me take you through those events.

We begin with Jesus sharing his last meal with the disciples in the evening, after sundown, to celebrate the Passover. (Interestingly, the Gospel of John places Jesus’ last meal not on the first night of Passover, but on the night before, so that Jesus is actually crucified on the Day of Preparation when the lambs were typically sacrificed for the Passover meal.)

After the meal, Jesus goes to the Garden to pray. This would have been at night. Judas then brings the soldiers and police to the Garden. We read that they needed torches and lanterns, so that confirms it was nighttime.

They arrest Jesus in the night and take him to Annas and Caiphas, the priests, where Jesus is taken into the courtyard. The slaves and police make a fire for warmth. We can assume this is in the middle of the night because right after Peter has denied Jesus twice, the cock crows, meaning that it is then only dawn.

Then they take Jesus to Pilate, “early in the morning.” Pilate questions Jesus. And then he asks Jesus’ accusers if he should release Jesus, but they say they want Barabbas. What time would this have been? 7 or 8 am? Who would have been congregating in government buildings at that time? If we assume the regular people in for the Festival would have gone somewhere to spend the night, how would they have even heard about this activity at Pilate’s headquarters?

I want to suggest that the only people who would have been there were those who had been rounded up by the chief priests and the others who wanted Jesus dead because he threatened their gravy train of privilege and power.

After Jesus’ accusers demand Barabbas be released instead of Jesus, Pilate has Jesus flogged, a crown of thorns is put on his head, he’s draped in a purple robe, and then he’s beaten and mocked by men in the court (we can assume these are Pilate’s men).

Jesus is then pushed back outside in this beaten state, and Pilate says “Here is the man!” Then we read, “When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’” It’s the chief priests and temple police who are calling for crucifixion.

So Pilate says they should take him and crucify him, and we’re told that it’s “the Jews” who say Jesus has to die but they can’t kill him. Every time we see the phrase “the Jews” here, I think we have to understand that as Jesus’ accusers, not the throngs of Jewish people who fell in love with Jesus, and certainly not any Jewish people of today. Again, I see no indication here that this is a crowd of regular people. These are the chief priests and the temple police.

Finally, we read that at noon, Pilate says to the accusers – here is your King! “They” cried out to take him away and crucify him. Then Pilate says, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but the emperor.” If that isn’t the smarmiest answer I’ve heard in a long time – they’re even denying their allegiance to Herod to get on the good side of Pilate. They know which side their bread is buttered on. This is corruption at its worst.

Was it the people who turned on Jesus?

I see no evidence of that in the text. I don’t think the regular people knew anything about what was happening until it was too late. Jesus was dragged in front of the Roman government in the middle of the night at a particularly dangerous time of year by a group of powerful and dangerous men with ties to Herod’s court and the power center of the Temple. They were desperate to get rid of him because he threatened their power and wealth.

Jesus was executed by the corrupt power centers of his time. Not by the powerless people who so desperately needed him.

Am I letting us off the hook? In a sense I am because I want us to consider the idea that Jesus wasn’t killed to appease an angry God. I’ll be saying a lot more about that on Sunday. But on the other hand, I’m not letting us off the hook entirely.

Jesus came preaching a revolution of love, not a revolution of violence.

But we don’t often want to hear about love. So there are questions we need to ask ourselves on this Good Friday: Are we willing to see the truth about God’s love? Are we willing to see the lengths Jesus was willing to go to show us how loved we are? Are we willing to see the sacrifice that Jesus made in his refusal to give in to the lies of the system around him (the same system that wants us to believe that violence is the answer to our problems today)? Will we look? Will we really see?

Will we acknowledge the ways in which we prefer power over love?

Because every time we choose power over love we may as well be shouting “Crucify him! Crucify him!”