Covering the Cross with Roses (or Palm Leaves)

Absent from most answers to the question, "Why did Jesus die?" is the simple, historical fact, "We killed him."

Matthew 26:14-27:66

For Palm Sunday, the lectionary appoints Matthew’s long account of Christ’s passion, which includes Christ’s trial before Pontius Pilate.

In John 6, after the feeding of the five thousand, the crowd responds by trying to install Christ as king and Christ responds by running away across the water. In Matthew 27, Jesus can run no longer; in fact, he’s nailed in place, enthroned upon a cross, with the title he’d avoided fixed up his crown of thorns, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews."

Chances are, your Bibles all title this section of the passion, “Christ’s Trial Before Pilate,” but the Gospels all suggest with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer that Pilate is not the judge here and Christ is not the defendant. Notice how, in John’s account of the exchange, Jesus answers the judge’s question, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus replies, “Who’s asking? Is this you talking or did someone else put you up to it?” You don’t need Nancy Grace or Court TV to point out for you that this is not a standard way for the accused to answer a judge’s serious question. It’s insubordinate. It’s out of order. He’s a hostile witness.

Pontius Pilate questions the accused again, “What did you do?” And again the accused calmly evades the question, “My Kingdom is not rooted in this world.” Once again, the judge asks the accused, “So you are a king?” Yet once more the accused does not feel compelled to answer the judge, “You’re saying I am. I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth.” And Jesus’s choice of the word for you, the emphatic you in Greek, is the exact same word Pilate has just pointed at him. In other words, the accused is taking umbrage with the judge and throwing his words right back at him. Christ is not the one under judgment here.

Christians can debate whether the Bible teaches universal salvation.

But what the Gospels give us beyond a shadow of a doubt is universal implication.

Jesus may be the one whose hands are zip-tied together but Pontius Pilate is on trial.

And with him, all of us who are like him.

Pilate asks maybe the most important question, “What is truth?” But, notice, he can’t be bothered even to wait for the Truth’s reply. Before Jesus can even answer his question, he’s gone back outside to keep his status quo. Maybe Pilate’s question is a sincere question. The ancient church fathers thought it was a sincere question. It just goes to show far short sincerity falls from the glory of God. In the end, the answer to his question is less important to him than just getting through his daily To Do list and minimizing the headaches in his life and preserving his place in this kingdom’s pecking order. Matthew informs us that Pilate is married. So maybe Pilate’s got kids at home and he’s only got but so much time to spend on the answer to his question. He’s only got but one hour to spend on God.

Christ is not the one on trial here.

We are.

The passover pilgrims outside the courthouse— they are on trial.

And with them, all of us who are like them.

Many in the crowd, the Gospels make clear, are bitter and exhausted after having suffered generations of oppression and poverty. They’ve not come to the courthouse looking for the execution of justice. The’ve come to the courthouse looking for the execution of a scapegoat— someone who can serve as the golem of their rage and frustration.

Some in the crowd are angry and disillusioned. Jesus had cracked the whip, and thrown a temple tantrum. Jesus had checked every box on the JD for revolutionary leader. It was time to bring low the high and mighty. But then, he stops short of an armed insurrection. He doesn’t take up the sword. He lets himself be handed over.

But most in the crowd are pilgrims from the Jewish diaspora who’ve come to Jerusalem for the Passover. They’re on vacation. They’ve not been privy to Jesus’s ministry. They’ve not read about him on Twitter or heard about him on FoxNews. Therefore, they’re just there for the spectacle. They are there because, no matter what they tell themselves or their friends at church, they enjoy the name-calling and brutality. They relish the endorphin rush that the mockery and the cruelty and the violence give them.

Like Kyle Rittenhouse, they’ve been drawn to the chaos.

And notice what John writes about the crowd in the passion story. For whatever reason they’ve come to the Praetorium, the reason they have remained outside (it’s not because Pilate wouldn’t permit their entrance) is because they do not want to ritually defile themselves for the Passover by entering the Gentile courthouse. The Passover Lamb who takes away the sins of the world is no further away than a flight of stairs, but they remain outside because they prefer to practice their piety before others, to earn their righteousness, to justify themselves.

Christ is not the one on trial here.

It’s all of us.

Look how the soldiers respond when Pilate asks them, “What charge do you bring against this man?” They say, brazenly, “If this man wasn’t guilty, we wouldn’t be handing him over to you.” Their answer implies that anyone they bring to Pilate is guilty by default. Guilty until proven innocent.

If he wasn’t guilty, he wouldn’t have run away.

If he wasn’t guilty, he wouldn’t have resisted.

These arresting officers do not even see the accused as a person. They refer to Jesus as “this one” and “that one.” In fact, they do not so much as give Jesus a personal pronoun— he or him— until they get him to Golgotha.

And notice—

When Pilate suggests to the soldiers that they take Jesus away and judge him according to the Jewish Law, they tell Pilate, “Unfortunately, it’s not legal for us to put anyone to death.”

But here’s the Big Bible Fact for Holy Week:

THAT’S A LIE.