Humanity cursed itself and God | God forgave and blessed humanity

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

HAVING washed his hands of the blood of Jesus, the next thing Pilate hears are the chilling words of an angry mob, some of whom had previously followed Jesus:

And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”

— Matthew 27:25 (ESV)

Don’t miss the important details in this verse, above: all the people… His blood… be on us… AND… on our children. Astounding.

All the people. That’s a representation of many diverse kinds of people, not simply the Pharisees and scribes. Some of the crowd would have been silent or silenced. But the overwhelming voice of the crowd was cursing God to death, and their tenor was a curse to their very selves — much like what occurred at the Fall. All the people! All the people had no idea that Jesus really was who He and so many others claimed Him to be. They had lost their ability to be impartial.

They had forgotten the miraculous works of Jesus. They had failed to understand the true Kingdom relevance of Jesus’ teaching. They had forsaken their Old Testament Jewish writings that testified to Jesus being the Messiah. And they had fiddled with justice! But it was God’s plan from before the beginning to thwart Satan.

His blood. That crowd had no idea (as we, too, would not have) of the power of the statement ‘His blood… be on us… on our children.’ A statement that curses Jesus, blesses the curser with blessing the curser does not deserve.

Such a curse pronounces a blessing, for the sacrifice God has made meshes well the wish that is inherently evil with a love so true it loves those who reject it with the perfection of grace. It is the pronouncement of blessing even upon one’s children.

“Forgive them (us), Father, for they (we)
do not know what they (we) are doing.”

— Luke 23:34

The guilt of the angry mob is no less on us than it is on them. Yet, Jesus forgave, pleading their (and our) case before the Father.

No more than twenty-five verses down Matthew 27 and we read that Jesus breathed His last (v. 50). That curse that was ushered forth during that same day was annulled the moment Jesus died.

The possibility for all humanity to come alive through belief in His name became reality when He died.

Only God could thwart an enemy who would foresee salvation any other way than via God’s own sacrifice.

God foresees rejection and rejects its curse with His blessing. Only love would do that. Only love could do that.