Lent - Palm Sunday - Irony

When Pilate saw that he was not succeeding at all, 

but that a riot was breaking out instead, 

he took water and washed his hands in the sight of the crowd,

saying,

"I am innocent of this man's blood.

Look to it yourselves."

And the whole people said in reply, 

"His blood be upon us and upon our children."

There was a lot of innocence being proclaimed here.  Both of the parties doing the proclaiming were far from being innocent.  Pilate, what a wimp he was. Earlier, he had found Jesus innocent.  Pilate at that moment should have simply ordered Jesus to be freed and he should have given a hard glaring look at the crowd and with all of the dignity of a Roman Procurator he simply should have walked away.  Instead, he reopens the case.  The Temple gang keeps insisting that Jesus is a criminal and deserves to die.  Pilate keeps trying to release him, especially once his wife sends word that she had a dream about Jesus and advised Pilate not to have anything to do with Jesus as he was an innocent man.  Eventually, Pilate is backed into a corner and he, the Roman Procurator, employs a Greek procedure and while washing his hands proclaims that he is innocent of shedding this man's innocent blood.  The rabble from the temple yells back that his blood is on them and their children.  This was simply saying that they felt no guilt about condemning this man because they knew he was guilty.

I say that this last saying, about the blood being on them and upon their children, is just what Jesus had in mind for the events of this day.  In history, these words said by the Jews on this fateful Friday were used to begin persecutions of the Jews by making it seem that they, and they alone, were responsible for putting Jesus on the cross. Nothing could be further from the truth.  Jesus came into the world to die on that cross, for our sins, and so that we might live forever in heaven.  The blood of Jesus flowed that day on every man, woman, and child that was there. His blood flows down to every generation, cleaning them and making them fit for heaven. To God, there is no Jew or Gentile any longer.  We all are washed by the blood of the lamb.  

We like to think of ourselves as being different from the delegation from the temple there in Pilates courtyard that day.  We like to think that we would have yelled for Jesus to be freed.  Is that really an honest assessment?  The truth is that most likely we would not have known what was going on and would not have been there at all.  If in fact, we were with the crowd, which side would we have been on?  

I propose that what the Jews said that day turned into a prophecy that came true.  The blood of Jesus was poured on them and it has flowed to each generation since that first one. That was what the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ was all about.