B-log

This is the best reproduction I could find of an image that has had particular significance for me since 1998, when I saw it for the first time.

Today, on “Good Friday,” I go back to it to reflect on the responsibility that I bear for murdering Jesus.

His murder took place approximately 190 centuries before I was born. I’m not Jewish, and I’m not Roman (or even Middle-European).

So why would I identify with this anyone in this picture? Obviously, it was created to convey the message that people today bear responsibility for this act done so long ago.

The Bible says a few things about this. First, it says that everyone in the crowd, when Rome’s occupying governor Pilate “washed his hands” of complicity for murdering the innocent man Jesus, cried out, “Let his blood be on us and our children! (Matthew 27:25)”

It’s not that they were calling down a curse upon themselves, but that they assumed responsibility for the action. They were so certain of the appropriateness of what they were doing that they were willing to assign responsibility to all the generations that followed them.

So what does that have to do with me?

Again, I go to the Bible for understanding.

There, I find:

• that there is no difference between Jew or Gentile (Romans 3:22, 10:10).
• that I offend God and rebel against him (Romans 3:23).
• that I don’t have anything in me on my own that loves God (Romans 7:18).

The logical, rational, human mind reasons that these offenses are still a far cry from picking up a hammer and driving the nails that pierced Jesus to the cross.

However, the Bible again identifies me as condemned:

• If I break one command, I am guilty of breaking the entire law. (James 1:18)
• Because I am guilty, I deserve punishment (Nahum 1:3)

So today is the day that I reflect upon my culpability in the events of Christ’s crucifixion.

I confess that I have rebelled against God. My confession is my statement of agreement with what God says about me and my conduct. That more times than I can count, I have done things, thought things, said things and perceived things against God. And every time I have done that, it is as though I had a hammer in hand and took the initiative to murder God. 

You see, that’s what you have to do in order to be in control of your own life. You have to murder God. And it seems absolutely silly to suggest that such a thing is possible. But if God’s authority is absolute and his sovereignty is complete, anything we do in independence of him or in defiance of him is tantamount to an attempted coup.

Today is an important day. It is the symbolic anniversary of the day that God allowed his creation to murder him. He did this voluntarily (1 John 3:16). I am part of God’s creation. I stand accused in the face of overwhelming evidence that convicts me.

I plead, “I am guilty.”