I Don't Volunteer As Tribute: Crucify Him!

That title is a reference to Katniss Everdeen who sacrificially volunteers as tribute in the Hunger Games so that her younger sister does not have to participate in the televised murder-fest.

With the cross, God volunteers as tribute, for us; knowing we'd reject him in the process. The crowds before Pilate, not only chose Barabbas to be freed they also chanted for Jesus to be crucified.

The crowds welcomed Jesus like a king, days before and now this crowd was quickly separating themselves. Pilate wanted to let Jesus go, even satiating the crowds by having Jesus flogged. But they, along with the spurring religious leaders, didn't just want Jesus to suffer, they wanted his humiliating and shameful death.

“At an individual level, people who were within the bounds can be surprised to find themselves “tormented by the slights and persecutions of daily obloquy.” Once this occurs, he wrote, “your fellow-creatures will shun you like an impure being, and those who are most persuaded of your innocence will abandon you too, lest they should be shunned in their turn.” - Norman Doidge, Needle Points

The pressure mounted for Pilate and instead of continuing to push back, he relented. It's better to tear others down than risk being torn down. Speaking the truth when the mobs want the lie is a tragic dynamic.

God's Love For Us

Jesus willingly walks into this situation, trusting God throughout all of it. His heart was for the redemption of these people chanting for his suffering and death.

“The death of Christ was not the death of a martyr, it was God manifesting Himself in the heart of the human race when the human race was saying, “Crucify Him.”’ - Oswald Chambers, Biblical Ethics

What amazing love God has for us. He came down to save us and they yelled crucify him. We'd yell the same if we were there.

And yet, God still forgives us and invites us into the fold under the cloak of his goodness. 

Choosing to Crucify God

Before these crowds, God is vulnerable before those chanting for his death. But he is not who they want. And there's something about Jesus that excises the dark parts of us when confronted. 

“If a man who professes himself a Christian is asked why he believes Jesus to be the Christ, his position is much more difficult…

He fulfills none of my dreams, because He is in every respect the opposite of what He would be if I could have made Him in my own image.”

Thus, if a Christian is asked: “Why Jesus and not Socrates or Buddha or Confucious or Mahomet?” perhaps all he can say is: “None of the others arouse all sides of my being to cry ‘Crucify Him’.” - The Chimera in the summer of 1943, W.H. Auden

When we get to the heart of the matter, when we see Jesus for who he is, in light of our brokenness and sin, we can't help but want to chant the same as this crowd.

Crucify him! Crucify Him!

But perhaps crucifixion is too far removed from our lived experience. We’re more civilized, or so we think.

But, there is a related parallel for us to consider when it comes to our anger against God; lawsuits against God.

Betty Penrose, Ernie Chambers are two of many people who have filed a lawsuit against God. Betty wanted God to pay up, for the lighting damage done to her home. Chambers wanted God to answer for his harmful activities.

On a normal basis where we are not suing God, we may be angry at God for the suffering and death he allowed for those we love, especially when we prayed diligently for healing and survival.  God abandoned me when he let _______ happen.

There's even a connection culturally to this moment of Jesus' passion, where people use the phrase "I hope they crucify him". Unless we’ve specifically participated in a cancel culture event, it may be hard to relate or even see ourselves yelling “crucify him” about an innocent man. 

Let's explore the reality of possibility. 

First, I think of our kids are angry and yelling they hate us for telling them no or disciplining them. We don’t give them what they want, so they escalate things and make horrible statements. 

Second, imagine being so angry at God for what I think he did or allowed (or didn't allow) in my life. Imagine being that angry and now having the opportunity for revenge. Unchecked and unforgiven, the worst this life has to offer is something we’d want to confront God about. I certainly would.

And for him to remain silent might simply incite our anger to kill him. I could imagine stating the following.

"If this person in front of me is truly God, I want my vengeance on him for what he did or what He allowed to happen to me."

Third, how have I made myself God, judge, and ruler? Is Jesus threatening my power? If he is, then I’ve got to strike back or I'll lose what I have. If he’s God, surely he’ll defend himself (perhaps this is what Judas thought) and make himself known.

Fourth, it’s either him or me. If I’m Barabbas, and someone else can take my place, I’m going with that choice. I either crucify myself, my flesh, and my desires or I crucify Jesus instead. Sorry, Jesus, I ain't opting for the self-sacrifice here. I don't volunteer as a tribute.

Fifth. if I make Jesus into my image of who I think he should be, his failure to conform will upset me (see Herod's response to Jesus' silence as an example). His presence, his being, will push back on us.

Since I cannot conform Jesus to my image of him, since I can’t control him, and if I’m not willing to submit, then I must crucify him. 

Jesus would not conform to the religious leaders, Pilate, and Herod. They wanted him to conform to them, and doing so may very well have prevented his crucifixion.

Yet, he didn't. 

The King of Kings Must Be Sacrificed

Jesus' glory demands he be Lord. He is worthy. If we don’t submit to his lordship we submit to the lordship of something else. We’d like that to be ourselves but in reality, that’s ultimately submission to sin, death, and evil powers. And since there can be only one lord the other must be destroyed.

If that means Jesus must die, he must. As Christians, some parts of us cry out to crucify him, while other parts weep when he is crucified. 

To atone for our sins, we humans make sacrifices to the gods. According to Jesus, none of our sacrifices are enough to pay the debt. This culminates in the penultimate sacrifice, where humans serve Jesus to God. We (unknowingly) serve God himself to satisfy the debt we could not pay up in any other way. (Paul says they would not have crucified him had they known who he was).

And like Isaac did with Abraham, Jesus willingly allowed himself to be sacrificed for the greater goal of redeeming humanity through that sacrifice.

A perfect sacrifice was required. We could not create one, so it was contingent on God providing a perfect sacrifice, which he did so willingly because he loved us.

More than Sacrifice

“Adam was created to be indwelt by Holy Spirit, and God intended him to transform his innocence into holiness by a series of moral choices. But Adam refused to do this; instead, he started up a wrong relationship with the devil, and thereby became the introducer of the heredity of sin into the human race (Romans v. 12). The entering in of sin meant the departing of the Holy Spirit from the home of man’s body, not the departing from him of the Spirit of God as Creator.” — The Psychology of Redemption by Oswald Chambers 

God became the villain so he could take responsibility for the villainy in ourselves and of others.

We either crucify our sin on the cross or we crucify God.

For anyone (Judas, Pilate, religious leaders, etc) to have stopped Christ’s crucifixion would have been to acknowledge and give up their sin.

Since they were not (and could not) they killed him instead.

But a sacrifice itself is not enough. Why was Able's sacrifice accepted and Cain's was not? Why would the people who crucified Jesus not automatically receive redemption and eternal life? 

There is more to it than simply the sacrifice. We must accept that gift.

Voluntarily Facing Death So We Can Live

No one wants to face their death (symbolically or literally). The purpose is not to die but to live. As Christians, we are in training to not fear death or suffering. We are in training to be ready to pay the price. We are training for peace in uncertainty. Hope in tragedy. This freedom lets us live lovingly and powerfully.

Failure is inevitable. With or without God, death is happening. So do we go with or without him?

This passage from JK Rowling about her Harry Potter series relates to the pride that holds us back.

"The irredeemably evil character in  Potter has dehumanized himself. Voldemort has consciously and deliberately made himself less than human. And we see the natural conclusion of what he's done to himself through very powerful magic. What he's left with is something less than human. And he's done that deliberately. He sees humane behavior as weakness. He has reduced himself to something that cannot feel the full range of human emotion." - JK Rowling, The Witch Trials, Episode 2

There is a stark contrast between the goodness of God and the evil that corrupts us humans. 

Pilate and the mob all played their parts.

Jesus was the one to pay the price.

“The mob wanted blood, though, and the “soldiers, too, had to have their bit of sport,” Shaw grumbles. Pilate, a spineless chief, gratified them…

To cast the dispute before him as a matter of “the truth” deserves nothing but “noble scorn.

Pilate’s irony dissolves the historic reality before him into a show. While everyone else in the drama is committed to the outcome, Pilate stands apart, a disinterested observer, an anti-dogmatist wary of truth-seekers and religious types.” - NIETZSCHE’S PILATE by Mark Bauerlein