Seeds for 03/05/2024 - Matthew 27:24-26
Scripture: When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”
All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children!”
Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
Observation: Sometimes the scriptures possess a quality called “multivalence,” to use a fancy word for “more than one meaning.” This should not be construed to suggest that scriptures mean one thing to me and another to you in the sense that valid biblical interpretation is a purely subjective enterprise. Yes, scriptures can meet us in particular life circumstances that differ from one another and therefore speak to us in a unique way. But they mean what the Holy Spirit working in and through the human author intended them to mean.
Here we have a good example of legitimate multivalence in a text: “All the people answered, ‘His blood is on us and on our children.’”
The people in the narrative—the Jewish people of the crowd who have been worked up by their religious leaders—respond to Pilate with this assertion. What they mean is that they willingly take the responsibility that Pilate is abdicating for sentencing Jesus to be executed. They acknowledge that His death is coming about due to their initiative.
The contrast between Pilate’s allergy to responsibility and the crowd’s eagerness to claim it is remarkable.
Yet their words ring out in a larger context than merely this singular exchange with the local governor. They reverberate within the great rotunda of scripture, sounding off many small stories within the Great Story. The Exodus story tells about the blood of the lamb marking a doorpost as a household under the saving grace of God. Jesus had just evoked that story in the imagination of His own disciples earlier this evening as a way to point to His own saving love on their behalf.
Paul, too, saw the blood of Jesus as vital to our salvation, reconciling us to God.
The people’s answer alludes to more than they could realize. They meant it as owning His condemnation. What they ought to mean is accepting His grace so they might know what Paul proclaimed in his letter to the Romans that Charles Wesley put into lyrics in his great hymn: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Amen and amen.
Application:
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, may your blood be upon me, that I may know and walk in your saving love. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
If you liked this post from Seeds of Faith, why not share it and/or subscribe?
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™