Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Pilate spoke to them again, ‘Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?’ They shouted back, ‘Crucify him!”
NL Daily Devotion for Saturday, March 23, 2024
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
By now, Judas’ disillusionment has spread (see Thursday’s devotion). The crowds who were convinced Jesus would overthrow Rome then and there now saw that he had been arrested like any common criminal, and clearly had failed to carry out a coup. Probably they felt pretty stupid. Certain gospels say that the local Jewish authorities stirred up the crowd to demand Jesus’ execution. I don’t think it would have been hard to turn them—they were probably most of the way there themselves, and just needed someone to throw the first stone to loose their rage at Jesus’ failure to liberate them. If we put ourselves in their shoes it’s not hard to sympathize. I think most people, when confronted with their mistaken judgment, feel pretty stupid and ashamed about it, and a common response to this is to lash out in retaliation.
I know I’ve had moments when something I was so sure of—a choice I’ve made or action I’ve taken—proves to have been a mistake. As a recovering perfectionist, it’s so hard for me to accept the mistake. My first reaction is to feel shame and my second reaction is to try to spin or justify my action to try to prove that it wasn’t actually a mistake. And when said action was something I was so sure God was directing me to do, I feel doubly stupid, and it's tempting to blame God for letting me misread what appeared to be guidance.
It's critical in those moments to pause and process, to have grace and forgiveness for myself, and to ask God to relieve me of the need to blame. It does no one any good for me to turn around and shout “crucify!” just because things don’t look the way I think they should. Because often I discover that in spite of my mistakes, God does actually get me where I’m supposed to be, just as Jesus really was the messiah, even though it didn’t look like it to the people at the time.
When have I been angry at God for my own mistakes?
