{"id":3390,"date":"2015-03-12T21:51:35","date_gmt":"2015-03-12T21:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/?p=3390"},"modified":"2015-03-12T21:51:35","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T21:51:35","slug":"the-peril-of-holy-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/the-peril-of-holy-week\/","title":{"rendered":"The Peril of Holy Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"Jesus<\/a><\/p>\n

In this most holy week of the liturgical year, our readings are filled with the glory of Christ\u2019s sacrifice and resurrection. But there is also danger in the texts we proclaim. A na\u00efve reading of the accounts of Jesus\u2019 passion can lead to the conclusion that the Jewish people were responsible for Jesus\u2019 death.<\/p>\n

The passion of John which we read on Good Friday (18:1\u201419:42) is a good example of this potential misunderstanding. In several passages, it is said that those who approach Pilate and call for Jesus\u2019 death were \u201cthe Jews.\u201d A moment\u2019s reflection would prompt us to ask, \u201cWhich Jews?\u201d Jesus was Jewish. So were all his disciples. The only way we can read the text sensibly is to conclude that when the gospel refers to \u201cthe Jews,\u201d it has a subset of Jews in mind. When we explore who this subset might be, the passage offers a likely solution. Pilate\u2019s audience is alternately described as \u201cthe Jews\u201d and \u201cthe chief priests.\u201d This implies that the subset of Jews who cooperated in Jesus\u2019 death were the temple authorities.<\/p>\n

This conclusion squares with history. Jesus died by crucifixion which was a Roman form of execution. There can be no doubt that Jesus was sentenced to death under Roman authority. We also know that historically Pilate forced the Jewish leadership to cooperate with his agenda to keep the Roman peace. This makes it likely that when John\u2019s passion account speaks of \u201cthe Jews,\u201d it is referring to the chief priests.<\/p>\n

Without this historical background, listeners of the passion may falsely conclude that \u201cthe Jews\u201d as a people crucified Jesus. This misunderstanding has fueled a Christian teaching of contempt for Jews over the centuries. In its fullest distortion it led to the claim that the Jews had \u201ckilled God.\u201d It was one of the great achievements of the Second Vatican Council to declare that Catholics may not read the passion accounts in such a way as to conclude that all Jews were responsible for Jesus\u2019 execution (Nostra Aetate, #4<\/i>).<\/p>\n

As we open our hearts this week to the love of God which is clearly shown in Christ\u2019s passion, we must allow that love to influence our perception. Our scriptures do not charge the Jewish people with Jesus\u2019 death. To ignore the danger of misunderstanding this historical fact is irresponsible. We must not allow our Easter message to become a source of injustice and pain to others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If we listen to the accounts of Jesus’ passion without reflection, we can draw the false conclusion that the Jewish people are responsible for the crucifixion of Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5879,"featured_media":3392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/files\/2015\/03\/Jesus-head2.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3390"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5879"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}