My Fault

I’d like you to read Matthew 27:25…okay fine, don’t get up from your seat and get your Bible.  If you did – gold star, if not here is the verse for you “Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.”  I read that verse, and I have to be honest with you, the first thing I thought was – Oh man, whoever “us” is in that verse, they better look out.  They just put the Savior, the Creator God, the Cornerstone, The Rock of All Ages, The Messiah….TO HIS DEATH.  Oh no they didn’t.  Did they realize what they just did?  What were they thinking?  I then thought to myself something that I am ashamed to admit…I’m glad I wasn’t the one that did that.

Then, like lightning on a Lee Trevino golf course, electricity was sent straight through my body.  Every nerve from my head to my toes was affected by something small in verbage, but large in action.  I felt guilt.  Guilt went into my heart and was pumped to every living vessel in my structure.  How could I be so hypocritical?  How could I think about these people in this way?  It was I that sent my Savior, my Rock, my Messiah to his death sentence.  It might as well been my lips that screamed “Crucify Him”.  It might as well been my hands that gripped the hammer that sent those nails through the feet of my Lord.  For it was my sin that sent Jesus to the cross.  That blood, described in Matthew 27:25, is on ME!

One more thought before I let you go update your myspace, or go on to more important tasks.  This weekend, I did something that should both surprise you and make you wonder if I’m telling the truth.  I read a book…in one weekend!  It was “Walking God’s Trail” by Steve & Jinny Saint.  Steve Saint was the son of one of the missionaries that was killed in Ecuador, which included Jim Elliot.  Later, in this miraculous story of forgiveness, Steve was able to not only meet the murderer of his father…he was able to forgive him and become his friend.  You see, and many of you know this story, but after the death of their husbands, several of these missionaries’ wives went back to that same tribe to bring them the gospel.  One of the cruelest, most vile group of humans on God’s planet came to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.  Another story, which my pastor told me today, was the story of Corrie Ten Boom.  Author of the Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom was a Jew under the persecution  of the Germans.  Much of her family was killed in concentration camps at the hands of Nazi soldiers.  Later in life, she was asked to speak at a German church.  There, she saw a German officer that had a hand in killing her parents.  Following the service, this officer came up to her and asked for forgiveness.  She forgave him.

These are amazing stories of forgiveness.  These are stories that give a glimpse of what our Heavenly Father did for us.  Don’t you see it?  See we are the reason God’s Son was placed on that cross.    We are the murderers in the gospel story.  Jesus did no wrong, but we, because of our sin, nailed him to the cross and put Him to death.  But God, in His infinite mercy, chose to not only forgive us, but to call us His children, clean us up, run into his everlasting arms, and live in His eternal home.

So read Matthew 27:25 again.  Don’t you dare look down on those people.  You think about whose fault it really was that Jesus was sent to that cross……It was my fault.