Matthew 27:11-66
A friend of mine who is a retired Lutheran pastor once told a story about a conversation he had many years ago with his college roommate, who was not a Christian. In casual conversation, the roommate said, “I’ll be damned.” And my friend then said, “Yes, you probably will be.”
The roommate got a little defensive and asked what he meant by this. My friend then told him that since he rejected the gospel and refused to believe in Jesus, he will probably spend eternity in hell. The roommate took offense at this, but my friend pointed out that he was simply agreeing with what he had said about himself.
This does illustrate that in our profane culture, people do often break the Second Commandment, and take the name of the Lord in vain, by calling down divine curses upon themselves, or upon others, without seriously thinking about what they are really saying.
In their impetuousness, people also often express an ill-considered wish for something to happen, that they would not wish for, if they had thought this wish through more carefully.
When Jesus was on trial before Pontius Pilate, and the crowds were calling for his death, at a certain point they also called down a curse upon themselves – and upon their children. But they didn’t realize the true significance of what they were saying. St. Matthew tells us:
“When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, ‘I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it.’ And all the people answered and said, ‘His blood be on us and on our children.’”
The people in this mob were so sure that Jesus was deserving of death, that they were willing to be accountable before God’s tribunal on judgment day for having called for his death. Jesus’ “crime” was that he has declared himself to be the Son of God. To them, that was blasphemy.
The Roman governor Pontius Pilate was not shocked by this claim. As a polytheistic pagan, he might have thought that Jesus was being a little presumptuous in identifying himself as a divine Son.
But individuals like Hercules – Zeus’s purported son, by means of a human mother – were a part of the old Greco-Roman mythology with which Pilate was familiar. So it certainly wouldn’t have been any kind of horrible blasphemy in his ears, to hear Jesus claim to be the Son of God.
It did bother the Jews of Jerusalem, however – or at least it bothered the ones in the crowd that day who had been stoked up against Jesus by the Jewish leaders. They wanted to kill Jesus for making such a claim. And finally, Pilate let them have what they were asking for.
When the angry masses invoked a potential curse upon themselves, by saying, “His blood be on us and on our children,” what they meant was that if Jesus did turn out, by some remote chance, to be innocent of the sin of blasphemy, they would be willing to undergo punishment from God for having instigated his execution. And they would even place their children and descendants under the same divine justice.
They didn’t fully grasp what they were saying, in calling down such a curse. Jesus actually was the Son of God. Consequently, in view of the fact that they were complicit in the shedding of his innocent blood, they did deserve to be punished for this crime.
However, what they had thoughtlessly spoken in the form of a curse upon themselves, turned out for them to be just the opposite of a curse. The blood of Jesus was indeed going to be upon them and their children. But this would be the greatest of blessings from God and not a curse from God.
And that’s because Jesus, in his great love for his people, brought about a profound reversal in the meaning and application of these words. He was dying for them on the cross. He was atoning for their sins – including the sin of advocating for his death in spite of his personal innocence.
His blood would be upon them, therefore, not in judgment, but in forgiveness – just as the blood of the Temple sacrifice was sprinkled on people on the Day of Atonement, according to the Mosaic Law.
And as far as the children and descendants of these people are concerned – upon whom the curse of Jesus’ blood was also invoked – Jesus was going to send his apostles and other missionaries to them, over the centuries and even to the present day, to bring them a message of salvation such as is found in the First Epistle of St. John:
“If we say that we have fellowship with [God], and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
So, Jesus’ blood will be upon them, too – the blood of the sacrifice that had been offered for them, to satisfy God’s wrath against their sins. And this blood of atonement will cleanse their hearts, when they repent of their sins, and believe the gospel of Christ crucified for sinners.
The intended meaning of the curse that the people of Jerusalem called down upon themselves, was that they would be willing to suffer God’s punishment on account of the death of Jesus.
But what these words really meant, from God’s perspective, was that they and their children will now have access to the gift of eternal life – which has been made possible for the Jewish people and for all nations – on account of the punishment that Jesus suffered in his crucifixion and death.
And you have access to this gift, too, even if you are not a child of Israel. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and not only the sin of his own nation.
His blood is upon you, not to condemn you for your many sins – including your sins against the Second Commandment – but to cleanse you of all sin. The “curse” is not really a curse after all. It is a blessing. St. Paul writes to the Gentile Christians in Ephesus:
“Remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh, …were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
In reference to the ritual of the Old Testament Day of Atonement, and also in reference to the perfect and complete salvation that Christ now brings, today’s reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews assures us that
“if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.”
In spite of their sin, the people of Jerusalem, 2,000 years ago, were called to salvation by their Savior-King. They were invited by God to receive the forgiveness that Jesus won for them on the cross, by the shedding of his blood.
Their children were and are likewise called to this salvation. The children of all nations are called to this salvation. And so, joyfully and thankfully, according to God’s meaning of these words, we all say, “His blood be on us and on our children!”
St. Matthew also reports that when Jesus was hanging on the cross,
“the chief priests…, mocking, with the scribes and elders, said, ‘He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, “I am the Son of God.”’”
They did not know what they were asking for. In a certain sense, the men who spoke these cruel words were intending to express a desire – insincere though it may have been – for something seemingly good to happen. They said, “let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him.”
But what they in their ignorance and arrogance were taunting Jesus to do, would not have been the basis for a true faith, if he had in fact come down from the cross. If they had gotten their ill-considered wish, they would not have been saved through believing in Jesus.
They would have been damned forever. All the people of Israel would have been damned. Everyone who had ever lived in the entire world would have perished in an eternal separation from a holy and righteous God.
If Jesus had come down from the cross before the sacrifice for the world’s sins had been paid in full, God’s wrath would abide on fallen humanity. Forgiveness would be impossible.
There would be no blood of Atonement to be sprinkled on you and me for our peace and reconciliation with God. We would all be lost.
The Jewish leaders declared, “Let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” Jesus said he was the Son of God because he actually was the Son of God.
But his suffering and death on the cross were not taking place in spite of this fact. It was taking place precisely because of who he was.
In the Book of Acts, we are told that God purchased the church with “his own blood.” And we read in Second Corinthians that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.”
God is holy and righteous. He cannot tolerate sin and corruption. But in the person of His Son, he reveals to us that he is not a vengeful and vindictive God.
He loves us, and seeks us out, in order to save us. But he does this in a way that does not violate his holiness and righteousness. And so, the sacrifice for human sin that God in his holiness demands, God in his love provides.
In Jesus – the Second Person of the Holy Trinity in human flesh – God gives himself into death for our sins. He takes upon himself the judgment of his own law against humanity, by taking humanity’s place on the cross.
The devil would probably cry “Foul!” It’s not fair, he would say, that God himself pays the price of humanity’s redemption.
It would be like a judge in a court of law assessing an exorbitantly high fine to a guilty defendant, according to the dictates of the civil law, and then coming down from the bench and paying the fine himself.
But you know what? God is God. He writes the rules of this game, not Satan. And he as God can change the rules even after the game has started, and give Adam and all his descendants a second chance.
God can do whatever he wants to do: to be as gracious to us as is possible; to give us everything that he demands of us; and to give us blessings for the sake of Christ that we do not, in our own persons, deserve.
And so, it is precisely because Jesus really was the Son of God, that he did not come down from the cross. It is precisely because he really is the Son of God that he offers to you the salvation that he won for you on the cross.
Because he stayed on the cross, contrary to the wishes of the Jewish leaders, there is a gospel for us to preach and believe. Because he stayed on the cross, all the way to the bitter end, there is also a sacrament for us to receive in faith, as we hear our Savior say to us:
“This is my body, which is given for you.” “This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins.”
We do not have the gospel and the sacrament, and the blessings of eternal life that are bestowed upon us through these gifts, because we called these heavenly blessings down upon ourselves.
We have these blessings because God, in his infinite mercy for lost sinners, resolved in Christ to give us what we do not deserve, and to make available to us what we – in the blindness of our sin – had not asked for. And even if we in our foolishness had previously called down curses upon ourselves, God, in Christ, gives us blessings instead.
We do not have the forgiveness of sins, and the hope of heaven, because we in our fallen condition had wished for these things. We have these things because God wished for us to have them – a wish that he fulfilled by sending his Son to the cross in sacred history, and by sending his Son to us in the means of grace.
Indeed, in his gospel and sacrament, God is still fulfilling his wish, through the faith-creating power of his Word. And he graciously does this for us, even if we in our blindness had previously wished for wicked and harmful things.
And so, with penitent and hopeful hearts, we sing, today and always, “Hosanna!”
Blessed is he whose blood is upon us, for our forgiveness. Blessed is he who remained on the cross, until the price of our redemption was paid.
Blessed is he who comes – to us – in the name of the Lord. “Hosanna in the highest!” Amen.