I enjoy a good
“Whodunnit” where I try to get into the mind of the detective working from
whatever clues are available to see if I can spot the killer before the others
do. Not all cases are closed and that is the challenge. Are we sure, for
instance, that we know who killed Jesus?
Bringing
suspects before the courts hasn’t been fruitful. The common response, even in
the ICAC, is an almost automatic loss of memory with the words tumbling out, “I
cannot recall.” Fortunately, in this case, we have at least four reliable
witnesses, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John who have faithfully recorded
irrefutable evidence that the murder took place.
The soldiers
who hammered those spikes into healing hands claim they were only acting under
the Governor’s orders. This Governor has been exposed in our traditional creeds
when Jesus was described as having “suffered under Pontius Pilate”. Pilate
pleads that the baying crowd would have had him reported to Rome so he acted
“under duress”. The people point their fingers at Caiaphas and the other
religious leaders – “They made us do it.” Caiaphas is on record for excusing
himself with those unforgettable words, “It is expedient that one man should
die for the people”.
Fingers,
disclaiming responsibility, are pointing everywhere. Lawyers thrive today
because taking responsibility for what goes wrong is simply “not done”. Victims
cruelly suffer and suffer even more when no one can be held accountable. Obeyed
most scrupulously is the Eleventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not be found out”.
Likewise, the
killing of Jesus is commemorated as something inexplicable that happened so
long ago but we are rightly disturbed when we sense ourselves more involved
than we intended to be. Somehow, all these people there at the time remind us
too much of what we tend to say and do. Consequences happen and we find that we
“have done those things we ought not to have done and left undone those things
we ought to have done”.
Looking around
at the wrongs that are happening around us and the good that is left undone, we
can only look within to find that we have fallen short in rectifying the
situation. Lent up to Good Friday reminds us only too well that suspicion for
the killing of Jesus does not simply rest on those there at the time, but that
we are implicated as complicit after the event. Human behaviour, then and now,
have continued to contribute to the steps that led Jesus to the loneliest of
hills outside Jerusalem’s wall.
Yes, in this
climactic twist, this “Whodunnit” has nailed the killers – you, me, and the
whole damned world. The one to be killed, Jesus, looks at us all knowingly, and
still goes on his tragic way. His murder becomes his self-sacrifice because he
knows.
Easter occurs
for us so that we have that new opportunity to live as if Jesus has come back
to us again to put behind us that behaviour which craves victims for our ego,
and to live that life, expressed in Jesus, that God wants for his created
world.
