Jesus Knows Irrationality

Text: Luke 23:13-25

Sometimes there is just no explanation. Logic is inactive or ineffective in all too many cases of human decision, particularly when mob psychology is in play. Sin is of that sort. In the final analysis, it can't really be explained because it is irrational, and therefor not subject to analysis via the laws of logic. Blaise Pascal said as much more than 300 years ago.

Yes, Pilate was a weak if beleaguered leader. But how different he was from the majority of the human race is much more open to question. A recent recounting of 1960's television game show experiments showed that contestants would administer serious electric jolts to a victim when urged on by an excitable audience (all staged, but not known to the trigger man). What people will do when a crowd is not only watching, but demanding a certain course of action will appall them at any other point. So, I suspect with Pilate.

It was not only the governor who acted against better judgment. The crowd itself was manipulated into shouting things that flew in the face of their own opinions just days earlier. What did they think about when they went home to sleep over the next couple of days? What do college kids or sports fans recall regarding incited behavior from a major loss or victory (it doesn't seem to matter which way the game is actually decided) coupled with a supply of alcohol? We get caught up in the prevailing mood so easily, only to ask later, "What was I thinking?"

The sentencing of our Lord took place in such an atmosphere. Perhaps it is fitting, maybe even inevitable, that sin be dealt with in such fashion--that irrational rebellion against God in which we have all participated coming to a head with a mob of "normal" people whipped into a frenzy and demanding the irrational response from one who knew it to be so, and acquiesced anyway, against his own reason.

Oh God! Have mercy.