Blame Game

As they led Jesus away, a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene, happened to be coming in from the countryside. The soldiers seized him and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. A large crowd trailed behind, including many grief-stricken women. But Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are coming when they will say, ‘Fortunate indeed are the women who are childless, the wombs that have not borne a child and the breasts that have never nursed.’ People will beg the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and plead with the hills, ‘Bury us.’ For if these things are done when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

Two others, both criminals, were led out to be executed with him. When they came to a place called The Skull, they nailed him to the cross. And the criminals were also crucified—one on his right and one on his left.

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice.

The crowd watched and the leaders scoffed. “He saved others,” they said, “let him save himself if he is really God’s Messiah, the Chosen One. (Luke 23:26–35)

As he was led to the place of crucifixion, Jesus turned to the women who were mourning and warned them about Jerusalem’s future. Jesus’ metaphor, “if these things are done when the tree is green,” pointed out that if the Romans were willing to execute an innocent man, then a guilty Jerusalem’s fate when Rome crushed its rebellion would be horrific indeed. His warning resembled those that he had already given his disciples on the same topic. The phrase about calling upon “the mountains to fall” is a quotation of Hosea 10:8, describing the Assyrian destruction of Israel.

Jesus had told his disciples to love their enemies and to pray for those who persecuted them (Matthew 5:44). Therefore, that is precisely what Jesus himself did on the cross: he prayed for his executioners and asked his Father to forgive them. Any discussion about who was to blame, or who bears the guilt for Jesus crucifixion is misplaced, since Jesus and his Father forgave them. After all, the purpose of Jesus’ death was to bring forgiveness to everyone. Jesus crucifixion makes no one guilty. Quite the contrary: his sacrifice on the cross makes possible our forgiveness and opened the way for all of us to enter the Kingdom of God.

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