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Continuing our analysis of the penultimate chapter of Luke’s Gospel, this week, please read verses 3-12. If possible, use a different translation each day, asking God to open your eyes to fresh revelation from His Word.
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Luke 23:20-21 (The Message)
‘Pilate still wanted to let Jesus go, and so spoke out again. But they kept shouting back, “Crucify! Crucify him!”’
While on holiday recently, I watched a television documentary about Auschwitz. It certainly wasn’t pleasant viewing but it was certainly worth watching for a number of reasons. This is not the place to go into that now, but I want to mention just one aspect of the programme that was particularly hard-hitting.
The story was being told of a deep ditch being dug and the Jews would be stood in a row along the top of this ditch. German SS soldiers would stand close by, aim and then fire at these defenceless people. One of these soldiers was being interviewed and he had been responsible for shooting and killing many, many Jewish men, women and children. The interviewer asked him what he was thinking as he was taking each shot. His reply was both sickening and chilling. His first response was “I was just concentrating on making the shot a good one.” When the interviewer pressed him further by asking what he was feeling, he responded by saying “Nothing. I felt nothing.” With total incredulity, one more question was put to him – “For God’s sake, you were killing innocent people, surely you felt something?” His final answer was “No. I felt nothing. They were Jews and deserved to die.”
This man was seemingly just a normal soldier and wasn’t one of the commanders that were behind the planning of such awful acts. Before the war, he was just like one of us, and afterwards, he went back to a normal way of life. How on earth could someone like this be responsible for such horror? Well, you don’t need to believe in the Devil to appreciate that there is evil in this world. This illustration proves that there is an inherent ‘sickness’ in us all that is both depraved and self-seeking. David the Psalmist says that we were all born in sin and the longer I live, the more convinced I am of this truth.
Our verses today are at least equally upsetting and chilling, if not worse. Roman rule over Israel meant that the ordinary people of towns and cities would experience the most barbaric acts known to men at the time. In Rome, there was a road that was lined with 6000 crosses and I’m sure that in Israel, there were roads that had demonstrations of the rule of Rome as men were crucified and left there for all to see. We’ll talk more about the actual crucifixion later in Luke, but for now, suffice to say that ordinary people would have been aware of exactly how awful the torture and death was by means of crucifixion. It was not a pleasant way to die. And yet, the crowds of people that had gathered to see the trials of Jesus were now baying for blood and persistently shouted to crucify Jesus. I guess that just like the German soldier mentioned earlier, each person in the crowd felt nothing as they encouraged Pilate to inflict the most horrendous of punishment and death on an innocent man.
There is a wonderful verse in the book of Romans that says ‘where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.’ Here, as the clamour of the crowd grew more intense, the wonderful sound of the grace of God was louder than it all. The people deserved condemnation and judgement but Jesus manifested grace and forgiveness. What a wonderful Saviour. The crowd demanded death, but the King of kings brought life. In the midst of such horror, we see the Glory and Majesty of Almighty God. Praise God that we aren’t treated as our sin deserves. Take some time today to thank Him!
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