NOTES for Mar 15:1-15
In the situation that led to Jesus' crucifixion, what is perhaps most frightening for us is precisely that it happened in a rather ordinary way. Ordinary in the sense that Christ was not crucified by some terrible villains or servants of the devil for some mysterious goals known only to them, but by very ordinary people moved by very ordinary human motives and interests. If everything had been otherwise, we could feel uninvolved in the Savior's death; but it turns out that in principle any one of us could have become involved in it if we made the wrong choice in one or another very concrete life situation. What moved those who wanted to get rid of Jesus? For some, as for example for a certain part of the Pharisaic brotherhood, He was a destroyer of religious foundations and traditions and for that reason alone deserved death. For others, for the Temple elite, for example, He was a threat to national peace and well-being; and if so, let Him die for the good and peace of the people (John 11:50). And for Pontius Pilate He was merely a threat to his personal well-being and career: what sense was there in "quarreling with the people" if it was simpler to do what the shouting crowd demanded and thereby calm that crowd (vv. 5-15)? And the Temple representatives are here too; the matter may reach Rome, and then perhaps it will not be so easy to wash oneself clean of accusations (John 19:12)... All these motives and considerations have moved people in every age; there is nothing new here. But in a situation where one must choose between Christ and something that obscures Him, these human motives and considerations become a real instrument of the devil, and this instrument works all the more effectively the less noticeable it is. It becomes especially dangerous when the issue is not simple human egoism, but such lofty, though somewhat abstract, concepts as "the good of the people" or "religious tradition." Of course, neither concern for the good of the people nor the preservation of religious tradition is bad in itself. Trouble comes when they move into first place and become ends in themselves. One only has to put the good of the people ahead of God and Christ, and both are lost (the fate of Judea and Jerusalem in A.D. 70 is a vivid witness to this). And religiosity cannot be preserved by making it the sole goal; it will spiritually degenerate and die. But the most terrible thing turns out to be not even the death of religion or social catastrophe. The most terrible thing is what precedes it: the rejection of God and of Christ. That very rejection which condemns the Savior to the cross.