Read Matt 27:11–32
Mat 27:24-29 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.” (25) And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (26) Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. (27) Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. (28) And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, (29) and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”
Jesus indeed was innocent of the false charges of the Jewish leadership. They stirred up the hatred of the Jewish people against Jesus. Yet this was the hand of God as Peter preached, Act 2:23 “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” I think sometimes God chose the Israelites because He knew they were a stiffnecked people who reject Him so that when He appeared in the flesh, they would crucify Him and kill Him as they wanted to do most of their history. The Jewish people call Jesus’ blood to be on them and on their children as a curse yet Jesus means it to be a blessing. For it is only through the blood of Christ Jesus that they, their children and all the people of the world would have their sins atoned for, forgiven, propitiated, wiped out and forgotten by God. In the next forty years thousands upon thousands Jews after Pentecost, would come to faith in Jesus, their messiah and be saved from the coming wrath of God.
The Romans do no better. They represent the rest of the world who rejects God as their king and as the king of the Jews. The Israelites have always rejected God as their King; 1Sa 8:7 “And the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.’” The rest of the world is no better; Psa 2:2-3 “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, (3) ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.’” The Roman soldiers demonstrate this in their mocking Jesus as King of the Jews. Yet Jesus is the King of the Jews. He is the King of Israel from the time he brought them out of Egypt. Jesus is the ruler of nations since he himself is the founder of every nation, people, language and tongue from the foundation of the world.
Yet while the world and the Israelites have rejected him, he becomes one of us, to suffer and endure the penalty of sin, which is death, that he may conquer death and the one who has he power over death, the devil. He becomes one of us so he may shed his blood to redeem for himself a holy people. He desires that you would become one of his people, to trust in his death for the forgiveness of your sins and his resurrection that you may believe you are given the gift of eternal life. The time of ignorance is over. The time of faith has begun.
Lord Jesus Christ, may your blood be upon us that our sins may be forgiven and that we may trust you as the King of the universe and most especially our hearts. Make our hearts a fit place for you to rule and dwell and may we ever hail your rightly as our king. Amen.