At The Cross: The Spit -- Matthew 27:26-31
It is a violation of General Law, Part IV, Title I,
Chapter 270, section 14 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and carries with
it a fine of up to $20. The state of New
York has multiple laws regulating the action relating to public parks, public
transportation, and public housing, as well as prison life and the food
industry. In Alaska and Colorado, the
practice can lead you to be charged with anything from public indecency to
menacing to attempted murder. What is
it? It is spitting.
A few years ago, we examined the beauty of the
cross—not that the cross or what happened on it is beautiful, in fact too often
our polished golden and wooden crosses cause us to forget the horror of what
Jesus endured for our sake. During that series, we considered just what Jesus
accomplished on the cross, the varies theories of atonement (the way in which
Christ brings us back into a relationship with God), and the beautiful gem they
create when viewed together, rather than held in one-dimensional isolation from
each other.
This year, taking inspiration from Max Lucado’s He Chose The Nails, we are going to go
beyond what happened on the cross, and from today, on Sundays and Wednesdays,
until Easter, we are going to examine various parts of the scene leading to and
upon Golgotha. Some of them are things
we will readily recognize and understand their significance, others we may have
passed over without thinking they really meant anything more than to offer us a
detailed picture. Today, as we begin
this series, we encounter one of those things at the cross we may have just
dismissed.
Remember first what Jesus had already endured. He had been taken out and chained to a post,
his clothes have been removed to the point that his upper body was
exposed. The Roman soldiers then took
turns with whips embedded with metal and bone and struck Jesus’ body, his back
and his chest, possibly as many as 100 times.
Then the soldiers paraded him into the governor’s headquarters. There they finished stripping him. They put a scarlet robe across his
shoulders. They took some thorny vines
and twisted them and pulled them to a circle, forming a crown and placed it on
his, the thorns embedding into his crown and forehead. They took a reed from the riverbank and
placed it in his hand and began mocking him as “King of the Jews.” The took the reed from him and hit him over
the head…and, as if they hadn’t done enough, they began spitting on him.
Have we ever really absorbed that part of what those
soldiers did to Jesus? They have beat
him half to death and will soon, in forced march, take him to his death. They had mocked his title as “King of the
Jews,” embarrassing and ridiculing Him in between. Yet here in the midst of it all, something, if
you are like me, you have never given much thought to, they spat on Him.
The spat on Him, my brothers and sisters, they dug
deep into their throats, bringing up all the phlegm they could, and they spat
on Jesus. Why? It wasn’t part of the flogging…it wasn’t part
of the crucifixion. It was an open defiance
and humiliation. Think of what it takes
and what it means to spit on someone. To
spit on someone is to look on that person as less that a person, it is to
elevate your status and consider them worth nothing more than the dirt under
your feet. That’s how the soldiers
viewed Jesus. That’s how the soldiers
treated Jesus. That’s how we treat
Jesus, we spit on Jesus.
Yes. You heard
right. We spit on Jesus. We look down our noses at Jesus, consider ourselves
better than, smarter than, more important than Jesus. We consider ourselves essential and Jesus
inconsequential. We clear out our throats and, like the soldiers, we spit on
Jesus.
Are you as appalled at that statement as I am? Yet, sadly, it is true.
Think we have never spit on Jesus? Remember these words that Jesus spoke: “Truly
I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these…you did it to me.”[i]
Are we still struggling with this idea, thinking we
have never spit on anyone? The truth of
the matter is we don’t have to use saliva or phlegm to spit on anyone. Anything we do that denigrates another person
is spitting on them. Anytime we
disregard how something we do or want to do might negatively impact another, we
spit on them. Anytime we try to elevate
ourselves by lowering someone else, we spit on them. Anytime we think we are better than someone
else, we spit on them.
Have we ever talked down to someone, as if we are the
highly intelligent ones, and they are the dumb ones? We spit on them.
Have we ever said, or even thought, that someone whose
political ideologies are different from ours are just idiots? We spit on them.
Have we ever talked bad about our waiter or waitress
because they didn’t provide the service we expected? We spit on them.
Have we treated the cashier or salesperson at the
store with contempt because they couldn’t come up with what we wanted, or
simply disregarded them as if they were nothing more than a self-checkout as we
handed them our money? We spit on them.
Have we ever befriended someone, not because we want
their friendship, but because we know that they can do something for us—making
them not a person, but a tool to get what we want? We spit on them.
Have we saluted, ridden the bumper of, or stared down
the person who cut us off in traffic? We spit on them.
Have we looked down on the single mom with four kids
as she pulled out her food stamp card?
We spit on her.
Have we labeled the long-haired, leather wearing,
tattoo and piercing covered guy as a dangerous thug? We spit on him.
Have we ever told or laughed at a racist or ethnic
joke? We just spit on a whole group of
people.
Have we treated those of other faiths with fear,
animosity, or even contempt? We spit on
them.
Have we bought clothing, food, or other goods without
regard of those who might have been enslaved to produce it? We spit on another group of people.
Our mouths ought to be sore from all the spitting we
have been doing…and when we spit on any of the least of these, my brothers and
sisters, we spit on Jesus…just like the soldiers as they prepared to take Jesus
to the cross.
And Jesus takes our spit. He doesn’t wipe it from His face. He bears it.
He wears it. He carries it to
Calvary. And for that spit, along with
the rest of our sin, He dies upon that cross…that our mouths might be wiped
clean (because, the funny thing is, you really can’t spit on someone else,
without some of it ending up on yourself) and that our mouths, not only our
mouths, but our whole selves might be bathed in His righteousness and through
His Spirit might become holy.
Thanks be to God.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
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