Palm Sunday Matins

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Thus, Jesus speaks today, saying:

“So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.’”

This is the Church in exile: when the people are silent, the very stones cry out, as they do for Jesus during His Palm Sunday procession. Does this mean you are expendable? Far from it. Rather it means you are indispensable, because I, and I’m sure God, would rather hear the hymns of man than the hymns of rocks.

But what of these rocks beneath Jesus, this Palm Sunday? They are being trampled. They are being stepped upon just as the good soil in our Lord’s parable, which was broken and plowed in order that it be productive. So who wants to be the Lord’s rock? Who wants to be the one to tear up and break these living stones to pieces? Who wants to be tilled and furrowed?

Pontius Pilate, the man from our creeds, does not wish to have his life broken and torn up by this Jewish man from Nazareth, Who has been brought before him. It is immediately apparent to Pilate that he is gaining nothing, as Scripture says. Literally, he says that he is losing the advantage. He is losing his advantage as a Roman over the Jews.

In a similar way, the Jews plot to arrest Jesus in secret, in order to have the advantage, and Judas seeks the advantage of having 30 pieces of silver instead of his Rabbi. The consequences of Pilate’s loss of advantage begin to take the form of a riot, a hubbub, or a confused noise of war (Jer 49:2). The riot itself is confused, because it cannot tell if it is doing the work of God or of the devil.

The Jews emphasize this point in 26:5, when they say they wish to prevent this very thing from happening, which would happen were they to arrest Jesus publicly. Yet they are the ones who then begin this riot that Pilate tries to prevent. Which makes you wonder who is doing the Lord’s will.

So Pilate stands in front of the crowd, he stands in opposition to them, and does a very relevant thing: he washes his hands. Then, after singing “Happy Birthday” twice, he quotes the Jews from 27:4 saying, “See to it yourselves”. Exactly what the Jews said to Judas. These three players form the perfect, confused scene for our Lord’s coronation on His cross. 

Indeed, Daniel prophesys this very scene saying, “God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; your kingdom is divided” (5:26-28). Not even the Apostles wanted in on this scene of betrayal, lies, and murder.

How well does the washing of hands work for Judas? He realizes his sin, but fails to comprehend his salvation much less believe it. In throwing the silver pieces at the priests, he attempts to clean his name, but instead, in deep despair, cleanses a field with his blood and death.

How well does washing work for the Jews? The evil they don’t want to do, they end up doing in false accusations against one of their own, stirring up a mob, and calling down the blood of God to cover them and their children. 

How well does the washing of hands work for Pilate? It may have worked in a legal and metaphorical sense, but he is forever enshrined in the creeds as the man who declared himself righteous, in direct opposition to the Man Who actually could have made him righteous.

“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” [Jesus] answered them (Matt. 15:2-6), “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have [as an advantage] from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God”.

No where in Scripture is the Word that says, “God can not be a man”. But the tradition of the elders is that no man can be the Christ, the son of the living God, as they admit in Matthew 26:63, 65. For the sake of this tradition, they make void the Word of God that says, “I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you” (Ps. 82:6) which Jesus quotes in John 10:34.

What is it that the law does say? “You shall not murder” (Ex. 20:13) and “Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood” (Deut. 27:25) or for one’s own advantage! These laws, sin and the devil throw away, all in order to be able to wash one’s hands of God’s works, because they are too marvelous, too impossible, and too deadly.

Repent. Jesus uses His very life to demonstrate just how deadly the works of God are. If you come in the Name of God, doing the works of the Father, and proclaiming the forgiveness of sins you face death. This is what Judas, the Jews, Pilate, and Lady Macbeth are all trying to wash off their hands: death. What is the scare of our current epidemic?

Wash, wash, wash as we may, we will never remove death’s mark from our bodies. St. Peter inadvertently clues us in on this when he begs Jesus to wash, not just his feet, but his head and his hands! (Jn. 13:9) Jesus’ response to the Jews disdain over eating with unwashed hands is that it is not the virus that goes into a man that makes him unclean, but the vitriol that comes out of him.

It is not clean hands that Jesus has. From touching lepers, to touching the dead, to touching Roman occupied buildings (Jn. 18:28), Jesus was unclean. Everything He touched became clean, yet everything He touched infected Him to the core. Washing hands? In order for Jesus to become clean again, He will have to traverse the crucible of the Father’s smelting house.

Death is the only cure, just as death is the only cure for all of our ailments as well. But God’s Name is at stake. He did not create death, therefore He will not let death have the advantage, much less will He let death have any glory.

So the Father sends His Rock of Salvation, His Stone of the Corner, His Rejected Rock, His Living Stone (1 Pet. 2:4). This Stone is ploughed over, as Psalm 129:3 says “The plowers plowed upon my back; they made long their furrows”. This Stone is trampled, scourged, and hanged on a cross. This stone cries out when every single one of His creation is silent and does not seek His own glory, nor does He seek revenge, but says things like “Father forgive them!”

Jesus does not wash Himself, but is washed and washes in return. Jesus does not build Himself up, but builds upon Himself. He builds a clean and washed people, not with soap, not with Happy Birthdays, but with Blood. The Blood of the God-man that never washed His hands covers you completely. So completely, that you are cleansed by it and washed with a washing that will never get dirtied.

There is no righteousness in man that would allow the Jews, Judas, or Pilate to wash hands and end up clean. Pilate can not simply declare his innocence apart from the Righteous, Innocent Blood of Christ. Washing will not make sin, death, and the devil go away. Baptism will. 

Therefore, Almighty, All-knowing God has not given us holy ventilators, or holy vaccines, or holy soap. In His foreknowledge of every plague, He has given us Baptism: a washing of rebirth and regeneration that cleanses the blackest of the black and even drives away death.

A washing and a covering that places upon us the mark of eternity and fastens us to the Rock. Now, come what may, endure what we may, Christ has claimed us, so that even if we die, we live in Him. In this belief, we have confidence to stand in front of any trial with hope. Hope, that no matter what the loss, we will gain 100 times over in heaven. Hope, that no matter what the sickness, what the disease, that we are clean. And if the Son makes us clean, we shall be clean indeed.