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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
In light of the coronavirus, songwriter and singer Neil Diamond earlier this week released a re‑written and re‑recorded version of his well‑known song “Sweet Caroline”. For example, lyrics that used to say “Hands, touching hands, reaching out, touching me, touching you” were changed to “Hands, washing hands, reaching out. Don’t touch me. I won’t touch you.” (The Hill) In tonight’s continued Reading of St. Matthew’s Divinely-inspired account of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, we heard of a washing of hands for a completely different reason. In the fourth of St. Matthew’s seven unique contributions to the whole narrative of our Lord’s Passion for us that we are considering in our special Midweek Lenten Vespers Sermon Series, “Pilate washes his hands of Jesus’s blood, and the people take it on themselves”.
As we heard, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate had seen that he was gaining nothing but rather that a riot was beginning. The Jewish leaders had not wanted their arrest of Jesus to cause a riot (Matthew 26:5), but they themselves then caused a riot by insisting that Pilate crucify Jesus, a righteous man (Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 27:24, p.1519; ad loc Matthew 27:24-26, p.1531 n.72). So, Pilate took water and washed his hands before the crowd, claiming to be innocent of Jesus’s blood, either telling them to see to it themselves, similar to what we last week heard the priests say to Judas (Matthew 27:4; confer, for example, Lenski, ad loc Matthew 27:24, p.1096), or telling them that the crowd would see that Pilate was innocent (the latter so Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 27:24, p.1519). And, in what is said to be “the dramatic high point” of the passage (Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 27:25, p.591), all the people answered that His blood was to be on them and on their children. Bible commentators debate both the Old Testament precedents for Pilate’s action and the people’s response (Deuteronomy 21:6-9; Psalm 26:6; 73:13; 2 Samuel 3:28-29; Joshua 2:19; Jeremiah 26:15; compare Lenski, ad loc Matthew 27:24, p.1095; Brown, A Crucified Christ, 41; and Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 27:24-26, p.1531 n.73), and they debate what, if anything, Pilate’s and the people’s respective statements actually did.
Pilate may have tried both to escape responsibility for the judgment he nevertheless made on Jesus and to pronounce judgment on himself, and the people may have tried to make themselves and their children solely or uniquely responsible for Jesus’s death. But, neither statement really was true or effected anything. Along with his wife’s dream that St. Matthew uniquely reports (Matthew 27:19), Pilate’s statement arguably intensified his guilt (Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 27:24, p.590 n.48), and the people’s statement, no doubt unintentionally, affirmed what Jesus earlier had said about their generation’s looming judgment and their generation’s being evil, adulterous, and faithless for rejecting Christ (Matthew 23:33‑35; Brown, A Crucified Christ, 42; Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 27:24‑26, p.1533 with n.88). Pilate’s washing of his hands no more took away his guilt for Jesus’s death than the people’s taking Jesus’s blood onto themselves and their children relieved of their responsibility for Jesus’s death any others who either were not present or were not descended from those were present. That is to say, insofar as we understand Jesus to have died for all people, then all people are in some sense to blame for Jesus’s death. Your sins and my sins put Jesus on the cross. As we will sing to Jesus in tonight’s Closing Hymn (Lutheran Service Book 439:3):
It is my sins for which Thou, Lord must languish;
Yea, all the wrath, the woe, Thou dost inherit, / This I do merit.
But, Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Man, came to give His life as a ransom for many (that is, “all” [Matthew 20:28]). Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the whole world, including your sins and my sins. Each person deserves to die for his or her own sin (2 Kings 14:6; 2 Chronicles 25:4). Yet, Jesus died in our place, the death that we deserved. Out of His great love for us, God worked through both Pilate’s unjust judgment and the Jewish leaders’ mob-action in order to bring about His plan of salvation for us. As we heard last week, Judas confessed that he had betrayed Jesus’s innocent blood (Matthew 27:4; confer Brown, A Crucified Christ, 42), but Judas did not combine his sorrow over his sin with faith that trusted that God would forgive him for Jesus’s sake. When, moved by God, we in sorrow confess our sin and trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, then God does just that: He forgives our sin, all our sin, whatever our sin might be. God hears what we called in the Opening Hymn our “penitential cry” (LSB 419) and so forgives our sin. God forgives our sin through His Word in all of its forms.
As we previously heard in an earlier portion of St. Matthew’s account of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus gave His disciples—and gives us—His blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many (that is, “all”) for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:28; confer Brown, A Crucified Christ, 42). As we essentially heard tonight, Pilate wanted nothing to do with Jesus’s blood, and, though the crowd of people said that they wanted His blood on them and on their children, they did not want His blood on them in a way that would have benefitted them. Elsewhere in Holy Scripture, to be covered with, sprinkled with, or washed in things like water and blood—and especially to drink Jesus’s blood—is to receive God’s salvation. In his sermon on the Day of Pentecost, Peter told the crowd of those people who had been cut to the heart to repent and be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, assuring them that the promise was for them and for their children, for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself (Acts 2:38-39; confer Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 27:24-26, p.1535 n.95).
Since the day that the crowd of people spoke their response to Pilate, much evil has been done wrongly based on their statement. For example, the passage is not a legitimate basis for racial hostility against the Jews. Later New Testament speakers and writers say both that the Jewish leaders acted in ignorance (Acts 3:17) and that God’s calling and gifts are irrevocable (Romans 11:29). Even St. Matthew’s account itself provides examples of unfaithful Jews (such as the Jewish leaders and the crowd of people) and faithful Jews (such as the pious women from Galilee [Matthew 27:55]), as well as examples of unfaithful Gentiles (such as Pilate) and faithful Gentiles (such as the centurion [Matthew 27:54]). One’s race or ethnicity does not matter, but what matters is one’s unfaithfulness or faithfulness. (Confer Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 27:24-26, p.1535, who cites Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 27:27-31, pp.605-606.)
Because the God-man Jesus Christ died for all people and both sets aside the water of Holy Baptism to work the forgiveness of sins and consecrates the wine of Holy Communion to be His blood shed for the forgiveness of our sins and so also to give life and salvation, in those ways we receive the benefits of His death for us. Not the water Pilate used or the blood the people claimed but such water and blood, received with repentance and faith, take away our guilt and work our forgiveness. No coronavirus‑inspired remix by best‑selling musician Neil Diamond but a swim‑meet‑and‑theological‑volume‑inspired original hymn by Lutheran pastor Steven Starke was tonight’s Office Hymn, and the words of its final stanza summarize the Holy Spirit’s work through baptismal water and the Supper’s blood (Forss, LSB:CttH #597, pp.679-681). We close with those words now (LSB 597:5):
Spirit, water, blood entreating, / Working faith and its completing
In the One Whose death-defeating Life has come, with life for all.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +