Reflective Bible Study

During the last hours before Jesus’ crucifixion, at the close of His trial, Matthew brings out a fascinating piece of information that is especially interesting for those of us who know how this event ends. At this point in the trial, Pilate has fully realized that the crowd and religious leaders simply brought a Man (Jesus) to him to be put to death. He realized that they really were not looking for a trial; they simply wanted a judgment of guilty.

Pilate kept telling the people that Jesus had nothing that was worthy of death, but that didn’t matter to the crowd. All they pressed for was crucifixion. Perhaps this was to make Jesus’ death as public as possible, or maybe it was simply to cause Him pain and agony, but whatever the reason, they had fixated themselves on this method of death. Nothing that Pilate could say or do to convince them of Jesus’ innocence would satisfy them.

The way Matthew concludes his version of the trial is amazing: “Pilate saw that he wasn’t getting anywhere. Instead, the crowd was starting to get angry. So he took water and washed his hands in front of them. ‘I am not guilty of this man’s death,’ he said. ‘You are accountable for that!’” (v. 24)

Pilate washes his hands publicly to symbolically tell the crowd that he has removed himself from this trial. While he doesn’t free Jesus against the crowd’s wishes, he also knows Jesus doesn’t deserve death.

However, the way the crowd responds to Pilate is incredible. Whether it was several people, or the crowd yelling back in unison, the collectively answered, “Put the blame for his death on us and our children!” (v. 25)

The crowd and religious leaders were willing to take the blame for the death of God’s Son, and they were willing to extend blame onto the next generation. Is this a symbolic statement about the shift of God’s favor away from the Jewish nation? If the crowd represented the Jewish people, would their actions and willingness to take the blame change God’s favor towards them as a nation?

These are questions I don’t know the answer to – but I do know that we should thank this crowd and the religious leaders for their actions.

If it wasn’t for these religious leaders, and also the crowd, pushing for Jesus’ death, then our opportunity for salvation would not have been accomplished. Jesus’ death makes a way for us to become right with God again – not because of anything we did, but because of everything He did.

The crowd represented humanity, and Jesus came, knowing humanity would reject Him, in order to save those who truly wanted a restored relationship with God. We should thank the mob, the religious leaders, and the crowd for pressing for Jesus’ death, because it is only through Jesus’ death that we can have eternal life with God in heaven!

Have you ever doubted the gospels because one gospel tells the story a little differently than the others?

Do the differences in the gospels ever make you wonder if these stories are made up – because there is not consensus between the details?

In this passage, and its parallel passages in Matthew and Luke, we find such a possible discrepancy, however, when looking a little closer, and knowing that Jesus healed many people, we find that there are enough differences to perhaps conclude that these are two different, similar events.

When we look at the broad overview of these passages, Jesus is just outside of Jericho, there is a crowd, He heals blindness, and the formerly blind individual(s) follow Him. It is these similar details that link these events together, and it is possible that they are describing the same event.

If this is the case, then Matthew’s gospel is unique in one key detail when compared with Mark and Luke. In Matthew’s version of this event, there are two blind people not one.

It is differences like these that make some people question whether the gospel stories are accurate. Why would Matthew say two if there was only one, or Mark and Luke say one when there were really two? If we cannot trust the disciples to remember the details of a single healing accurately, doesn’t that cast a shadow on other things they said as well?

It is doubts like these that cause people to discount the gospels as mere stories and to abandon their faith.

But there is another key difference between Matthew’s version and the other two. Matthew opens his passage with “As Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho. . .” (v.29). This is distinctly different because Mark and Luke both give indication to say that Jesus was “coming” to Jericho.

This difference and the difference in the number of healed blind men make me believe that these are two similar events, not two different versions of the same event. Jesus attracted crowds when He traveled; Jesus healed countless people; and many people followed Jesus after being healed. These similarities are similarities with most of Jesus other miracles. It is illogical to think that only one or two people were healed outside of Jericho’s walls.

Here is the big idea: The differences in the gospel accounts are there to help us see how broad Jesus’ ministry was. There was not enough room to fit everything Jesus did onto paper, and each gospel writer pulled events to help his audience fall in love with Jesus. Sometimes multiple gospels share the same story, other times, similar ones. These differences are there to help us see a bigger picture of Jesus – something which is meant to strengthen our faith – not weaken it.

During one of the times Jesus was visiting the temple, the religious leaders challenged Him with the question about where He received His authority. This is an important question for each of us to answer because it is foundational for who Jesus is to be for each of us.

However, it was important for Jesus to not answer this question, because either way He answered, He would negatively impact His ministry. By answering truthfully, Jesus might bring about a premature end to His ministry at the hands of these religious leaders. By lying, Jesus would have sinned and also He would have lost credibility from the crowd who believed Him to be from God.

Jesus responds with an equally unanswerable question: Who gave John the right to baptize? It is in Jesus’ counter-question that we see the exact same two possible answers that Jesus could give in His own response to the leaders’ challenge.

Whether Matthew asked people later, or whether he overheard their discussion, he includes what the leaders discuss. When they pull away to discuss how they should answer, they realize they are in trouble. They concluded that, “We can’t say that God gave John this right. Jesus will ask us why we didn’t believe John. On the other hand, these people think that John was a prophet, and we are afraid of what they might do to us. That’s why we can’t say that it was merely some human who gave John the right to baptize.” (v. 25b-26)

On one hand, the biased belief of the leaders tied their hands from responding that John got his authority from God. If they admit that God gave John the authority, then Jesus would have an opening to challenge them on why they didn’t believe John.

But on the other hand, the popular opinion of the crowd was that John did receive authority to baptize from God, and if they claimed otherwise, they weren’t sure if they would still be alive that evening.

The leaders’ fear of the people and their unbelief in John kept them from responding truthfully to Jesus.

What I find interesting is that fear of what might happen stopped these leaders from responding. A riot over a question Jesus asked would not benefit His ministry. A riot and mass stoning of the leaders in Jesus’ presence would be a very bad sign to the Romans looking at the situation. And the leaders pride and ego stop them from answering to please the people.

Fear holds many people in a similar way today. Many people are trapped by the fear of what might happen. This fear is crippling because it is often over-exaggerated and rarely ever accurate. This fear stopped Jesus from sharing the truth about where He received His authority – which helped Him finish His mission – but it is a fear we must all conquer when wrestling with the question about who Jesus is for us.

On the road to Golgotha, while Jesus was traveling there with His cross, I am amazed by how the different gospel writers describe this scene.

Matthew draws our attention to a bystander turned celebrity by saying, “As the soldiers were going out of the city with Jesus, they forced a man from Cyrene, named Simon, to carry the cross for Jesus.” (Matthew 27:32)

Mark also draws our attention to this bystander by saying, “A man named Simon from Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was coming from the fields to the city. The soldiers forced Simon to carry the cross for Jesus.” (Mark 15:21)

Luke gives a third account of this bystander’s actions by saying, “As they led Jesus away, Simon, a man from Cyrene, was coming in from the fields. They forced him to carry Jesus’ cross and to walk behind him.” (Luke 23:26)

But John says something completely different. In His gospel we read, “Carrying his own cross, Jesus went out to a place called The Place of the Skull, which in the Hebrew language is called Golgotha.” (John 19:17)

John’s unique, and very clear description prompts me to wonder something. Of all the gospel writers, John was there. While Peter followed Jesus to the courtyard of the high priest, only the unnamed disciple who John includes in his gospel was present. Many scholars believe this unnamed disciple to be John himself. Matthew had run away, and Mark and Luke both were dependant on the witness of other people who were present.

Perhaps John followed outside of direct view of Jesus, while Matthew, Mark, and Luke have the more correct record of what happened because they relied on closer eye-witness sources. But maybe John says what he said to draw a point: Jesus carried His own cross.

Maybe Jesus carried the crossbeam while Simon carried the much heavier upright plank, or maybe Simon helped Jesus carry the cross for much of the way forward.

Simon was forced into the unique position to be the one to help Jesus bear His cross. Not only was this a once in a lifetime experience, Simon lived an incredible example of what Jesus did for each of us. While Jesus technically carried His own cross, it was really the cross meant for you and me. Jesus didn’t deserve a cross, but He did choose it for us. Carrying another person’s cross is a powerful metaphor, and what Simon did for Jesus, Jesus does for each one of us who deserve death for our sins.