It was the
day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon. “Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews. But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”
“Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked.
“We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.
Tonight I watched a video, The Cross and the Star (1997) that reviewed some of the
lethal prejudice that Christians throughout history have had towards the Jews—basically
seeing the Jews as Christ killers. This
perspective of the Jews is entirely foreign to anything I have ever experienced
in my lifetime in the United Methodist Church.
Since my father was a minister in the church and since I occasionally
attended church annual conferences with him and then in later years on my own
(as well as retreats, seminars, and student conferences), it is remarkable in
the light of the history reviewed in the film that I never heard one word of
racial or religious prejudice during my years of association with the church. Of course, I’ve heard and read the above
scripture (John 19:14-15); but I always understood that Jesus and his disciples
were Jews—and, of course, in this sense we worshipped a Jew. Never was the target of criticism the Jews
per se, but the hypocrisy and pride of the “scribes and Pharisees.” And this was never mentioned to denigrate any
religion, but to focus on our own behavior and tendencies towards hypocrisy and
pride. Of course, the unfortunate aspects
of human nature were the subject of countless sermons and were seen as inherent
in everyone. The example and spirit of Christ
was to help us overcome the “natural man” in ourselves, not to look with
prejudice towards others. I can’t fathom
why this point of view so obvious to me was turned into racial prejudice
throughout the centuries. As for me and
the fellow Christians I know, when we look for “Christ killers” we search for the
frailties and foibles within our own nature—we start with ourselves. As I’ve heard throughout my life, “our sins put
Jesus on the cross.”
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