Commission in the Omission

When I was six or seven years old, I was the shyest creature alive. The world outside the four walls of my house was big and scary, and there was a certain trauma involved in the fact that I had to go to school and interact with twenty-five classmates on a near-daily basis. My personality that many of you have come to know was present, but I hid it behind a thick blanket of bashfulness. Mostly, my school days consisted to trying to be as invisible as possible.

One day, the teacher handed out worksheets to each of us to complete, and as I stared at the top of the paper where it said: Name: ________, an overwhelming and mischievous urge rose up inside me, and in the blank, I wrote: Nobody. 

The logical order of events followed, but not immediately. The teacher collected the papers, and we went on with our agenda. It wasn't until the next day that the teacher gathered us around her and held up a familiar-looking piece of paper. At the top, I could see the neat letters I'd written into the blank. "I want to know," the teacher said, her expression serious, "who wrote the word 'Nobody' in the name blank." 

Her eyes glanced over each of us, and I felt like a fly under an advancing swatter. Even though she could have worked out the guilty student by process of elimination, she likely hadn't yet, because she didn't center in on me. She held up the paper, and the silence stretched. My classmates glanced at each other. Everyone wondered who had done this serious thing, made so much more serious by the teacher's quiet reproof in her voice.

I was about to cry. Or dive under my desk. Or run out of the classroom and never look back. If only I had thought of the consequences of my actions, I'd never have done it, but when one dares to write Nobody in a name blank, one does not stop to consider such paltry details. I wished I could disappear, and I hoped if I held very still and didn't make eye contact, my teacher would somehow forget about the paper she held. 

The teacher repeated herself, and still, nobody (heh) raised their hand. Finally, she laid the paper down and we moved on. With the logic of a six-year-old, I put it behind me with a twinge of guilt. But I had stood strong to the end; I had omitted the truth.

Later that day, the teacher called me over to her desk during SRA time (anyone else remember the Silent Reading Activity?). Her ledger was open in front of her, and she'd placed a checkmark beside every name... but mine. Next to the ledger was the Nobody paper. "Did you do this?" she asked. This time, her voice was less terrifying. This time, if I could have seen past the sinking, draining feeling in the pit of my stomach, she looked like she was about to laugh.

There was a long pause. I finally nodded. The teacher didn't actually smile, but the incredulity was there. "Why?" she asked. 

I shrugged. I still don't know why; how does one explain the impulse of a moment? She shook her head, and now she did allow herself to smile. "Of all my students, I never would have expected you to do this." And she let me go with a simple: "Don't do it again."

John 19:1-16 begins with Pilate in his continuing interaction with Jesus and the shouting, screaming Jews. He's offered Barabbas, insurrectionist and murderer, up for capital punishment, since the crowd really seems to want blood, but the Jews want a specific person's blood, and since Barabbas' name isn't Jesus, he doesn't fit the bill. 

A lightbulb goes off in Pilate's head. Maybe, if he has Jesus flogged, it'll appease the crowd, and he won't have to go through the headache of explaining to his superiors why he executed an innocent man. It doesn't seem to bother anyone that 39 lashes with a cat-o'-nine-tails is at times a death penalty in itself. And 39 is a conservative number. My footnotes say that when the Jews gave lashes, they kept it to 40, because going over was too often fatal, and most of the time, they subtracted one lash in case of a miscount. The Romans, however, had no such cap on their floggings, so we don't actually know how many lashes Jesus received, only that he was severely scourged. If anyone has seen the movie The Passion of the Christ... while it's heart-breaking to watch, it gives an excellent and vivid portrayal of the reality of Jesus' suffering.

So Jesus is flogged. Then "the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' And they struck Him in the face."

Pilate's ostensible reason for ordering this is appeasement of the crowd; you can almost see him planting his hands on his hips and telling Jesus: I'm doing this for your own good, you know. And yet... there seems to be a cruel delight in taking Jesus' divine kingship... and parodying it with a thorny crown, a purple robe, and a mocking title, none of which are necessary to convince the angry Jews that Jesus has already been punished (his back would be stripped open, given the bits of rock and lead embedded into the ends of the leather straps that make up the whip). 

After the flogging, Pilate presents Jesus to the crowd, still in his "kingly" outfit, complete with purple robe and crown of thorns. "Here is the Man!" Pilate shouts, but the parody of kingship stirs the fury of the crowd even further, and they shout all the louder: "Crucify Him!"

Pilate is losing his patience. He's been roused from his bed around six o'clock that morning to deal with the imagined crimes of an innocent man, and the crowd is not letting it go. "You take Him and crucify Him," he says, a bit petulantly, since the crowd has no authority to crucify anyone without Pilate's say-so. "As for me, I find no basis for a charge against Him." This is the third time he's said this. He's already washed his hands of the guilt of convicting an innocent man, but he seems to realize that the water and the show did absolutely nothing to absolve him of blame.

He takes Jesus back inside the palace. "Where do you come from?" he demands. His memory is short; they've just had this conversation at the end of Chapter 18, where Jesus says, "My kingdom is not of this world... it is from another place." 

Jesus gives no answer. Isaiah 53:7 prophesies: "He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth." Perhaps, if Jesus had responded, Pilate might have found an excuse to release Him (hint: Pilate already has an excuse to release Him, namely: 'I find no basis for a charge against Him.'). But Jesus is silent.

Pilate snaps, "Do you refuse to speak to me? Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?" By his own admission, Pilate claims authority. He can either commit the sin of sentencing the Son of God to die. Or He can omit the responsibility and allow the crowd to have its way. In either scenario, Pilate. is. guilty of sin. The judge becomes the perpetrator. 

Jesus finally speaks, but not of His innocence. He says: "You would have no authority over Me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore, the one who handed Me over to you is guilty of a greater sin" (referring likely to Caiaphas, who has just done exactly this. Judas Iscariot was a means, rather than an instigator).

In light of the "greater sin," there is a "lesser sin," and Pilate is guilty of it. He is disclaiming responsibility, refusing to own his part in this whole drama, but he is just as guilty as if he had instigated the entire thing. Why? Because Jesus is crucified as a result of Pilate's inaction, his decisive omission of what he knows he should do.

Why does Pilate allow the omission? In yesterday's blog post, I talked about the political knife's edge Pilate finds himself on because of Insurrection #1 that has occurred in his city. Caesar will be breathing down Pilate's neck about this. All the political power of an empire rests on the control of its subordinates, and an insurrection would be a four-letter word in this instance. Caesar will not want to see it, and Pilate knows his life and certainly his position hangs in the balance.

So Pilate's conscience wars with his physical circumstances. To condemn Jesus or not to condemn Jesus? That is the question. He goes out once more to the crowd and makes a last ditch plea. The Jews drive the nail into Pilate's political coffin: "If you let this Man go, you are no friend of Caesar! Anyone who claims to be a King opposes Caesar!"

Pilate walks out onto a place known as the Stone Pavement and sits down on the judge's seat there. He motions to Jesus. "Here is your King!" he tells the Jews. They shout: "Take Him away! Crucify Him!"

Pilate responds: "Shall I crucify your King?" Ah, that little pronoun: I. 

Omission becomes Commission. He takes responsibility.

"We have no king but Caesar!" And ah, the irony. The chief priests who have claimed God as their sovereign King, the Ruler of Israel, the Giver of the Law to which they cling so closely... deny Him and claim Caesar as their own. 

Caesar, who was known as "son of the gods." They deny the true Son of God and embrace the son of the gods. Indeed, they are guilty of the greater sin.

"Finally, Pilate handed [Jesus] over to them to be crucified."

This is such a long drawn-out back-and-forth account with not much of a glimpse of the One around Whom the entire drama revolves. Jesus is mentioned, but only in reference to Pilate's struggle. Pilate wrestles with his moral dilemma through the entire thing. He's been warned away from this Man by his wife (and woe betide a man who does not listen to his wife). He obviously knows the thing he's supposed to do ("I find no basis for a charge against him," thrice repeated). In the end, despite the washing of his hands, despite backing away from the situation...

He commits the sin anyway. Omission becomes Commission, and no matter how much he tries to justify his actions, when it comes down to it, he is guilty as sin.

Here's the beautiful irony: Jesus dies to redeem the very sinner that places Him on the cross. He dies for Pilate, too. Whether Pilate accepts this is known only to God, but Jesus takes the commission of the sin and turns it on its head. He takes what has been intended as evil, and makes it good. He walks through the blackest depths of sin and turns it into perfection.

Satan reaches out to strike Jesus' heel. Jesus turns around and crushes Satan's head (Genesis 3:15).

Obviously my example with the name I'd written on the paper is far less severe, but hopefully it serves to illustrate the point. When I stared at that paper and refused to take responsibility for what I'd done, I hoped the whole situation would just... disappear. I didn't want to have to admit to the part I'd played. But the evidence of my choice didn't magically poof into non-existence, no matter how much I wanted it to. My teacher still sought the truth; she still required the confession. 

Even though I'd omitted the truth, I'd committed the act. And while the truth was still hidden, I was just as guilty as I was when the truth came out later. There was no hiding it. There was no covering it up.

I had to confess, and my teacher, bless her, absolved me of blame with a simple: "Don't do it again." Go and sin no more. Pilate... well, in the physical, chronological sense, Pilate doesn't get a redo for his actions. But because of his actions, because of Jesus' death, he now has the chance for absolution, for forgiveness.

And so do we. Sin is sin, no matter if it's a sin of omission or a sin of commission. There is forgiveness for either, because of what Jesus did. I've prayed: "Thank you for dying on the cross" often enough that the words can feel... cliché. But the meaning never gets stale. 

Thank you, Jesus, for dying on the cross. Thank you!