MATTHEW 27:23b-31 A DEADLY DIAGNOSIS

Written by , Rector of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia
 

^26b [Pilate] had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
²⁷ Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. ²⁸ They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, ²⁹ and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. ³⁰ They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.
³¹ After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

It would be easy to dismiss the soldiers’ abuse of Jesus as a matter of the expression of their pent up frustration at having to be in Palestine and dealing with the Jews. After all, in our present day wars we have seen prisoner abuse all too often. But in this case, the prisoner was not an enemy combatant or even a popular resistance figure. He was at worst a misguided religious figure who had run afoul of his own people. Even the Romans could not have seen him as more than a mentally imbalanced man with delusions of grandeur. And, furthermore, this mocking was done after he had already been beaten within an inch of his life.

The Light shines into the darkness and reveals the truth – about the evil that lurks with us. Mercy and justice are the will of God (Micah 6:8). Pitiless and inequitable are the ways of men. Fallen man will lord his power over another at the first chance he gets. It is an evil paradox that the more power we have the more abusive we become. We try to render our victim less than human through stereotyping, labeling or vilifying and so we can feel justified in our cruelty.

However, Truth has a dignity of its own that surpasses the present circumstances. Jesus, mutilated and mocked did not descend to the level of his tormentors. Instead, he remained confident in his essence as the King of all creation. In contrast, the soldiers in whose custody he was held became subhuman animals as they circled their prey lusting for the kill. Like an x-ray that discloses the fatal tumor deep within the body of an otherwise healthy looking patient, the light of Truth reveals the cancer of sin that resides within us. But as the diagnostic x-ray sends us to the oncologist for healing, the light of Truth should send us to the cross for forgiveness.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving-kindness; in your great compassion blot out my offenses. Wash me through and through from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sin. Restore your image in me that I might love my neighbor – even those whom I cannot now love. Amen.

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