“Christ and Pilate: Clean Hands, Dirty Heart”
Matthew 27:1-2, 11-26
March 16, 2008

An elderly man lay dying in his bed. In death’s agony, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookies wafting up the stairs. He gathered his remaining strength and lifted himself from the bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and with even greater effort forced himself down the stairs, gripping the railing with both hands.

With labored breath, he leaned against the door frame, gazing into the kitchen. Were it not for death’s agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven: there, spread out upon newspapers on the kitchen table were literally hundreds of his favorite chocolate chip cookies. Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of heroic love from his devoted wife, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?

Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself toward the table, landing on his knees in a rumpled posture. His parched lips parted; the wondrous taste of the cookie was already in his mouth, seemingly bringing him back to life. The aged and withered hand shakingly made its way to a cookie at the edge of the table, when it was suddenly smacked with a spatula by his wife.

“{Stay out of those,” she said, “they’re for the funeral.”

Pilate should have had his hands slapped. Instead, he tried desperately to wash them clean.

Jesus, however, would have dived right into those cookies, getting chocolate everywhere.

I’m ready for Easter! Resurrection! New life! Flowers popping out of the ground and all over the church! It would be wonderful to see little girls running around in brand new dresses with lots of fru-fru and pretty things in their hair, and little boys looking very handsome in their new clothes, with chocolate bunnies smeared all over their faces. Men and women aglow with the knowledge that whatever they gave up for Lent they can now pig out on! We’ll have extra special music, new folks in the sanctuary, and it will be a glorious time.

We have been reminded of our brokenness, our sin, our separation from God. We are reminded that Jesus’ death on the cross was one of terrible agony, that his friends’ betrayal broke his heart.

But I’m getting ready for some of those cream-filled chocolate Easter eggs, aren’t you? I’m ready for spring. We’ve got brave little green things bursting through the ground. I’m ready for some flowers. You know why? Because Easter really happened 2,000 years ago! Jesus really popped up out of the ground with a chocolate-smeared grin and said, “Surprise! I’m more alive than ever! And because I love you and you love me, you also are more alive than ever! So get on with the celebration!”

But some people just don’t get it. They would rather play dead, stick their head back into the ground, wash their hands. Like Pilate, for example.

Now here is a real winner. This fellow, Pontius Pilate, was the fifth Roman governor of the province of Judea (A.D. 26-36). Nobody liked him, not even his fellow Romans. And, of course, all faithful Jews hated him because (1) he was part of the Roman government which had conquered Judea, and (2) he was totally insensitive to Jewish religious scruples, too ready to use brutal force to repress any dissent. He was charged with incompetence and venality. “He found pleasure in trampling underfoot the Jew’s most sacred religious beliefs.” He plundered the Temple treasury to get money for a Roman building project. Under Pilate, the country “seethed with unrest. ...Galilee was a hotbed of rebellion; Jerusalem, especially at festival times, was a cauldron of boiling emotions. Pontius Pilate had only one answer; excite the people to fever pitch, then slaughter them.”

Pilate was not the good guy implied by some of the gospel stories. The early Christian writers were concerned about Rome persecuting them, and so in writing about Jesus’ death they tried to go easy on Rome and make their fellow Jews, the non-Christian Jews look bad. But Rome and Pilate killed Jesus, just as Rome and Pilate had executed thousands of Jewish leaders and rebels. The only leaders of Israel who survived Roman occupation were those who submitted to Roman rule, who sold out. Those few religious leaders may have helped Rome do away with the threat of Jesus, but Rome killed him.

Pilate was no saint. All he cared about was keeping his hands clean. “It’s not my job! I didn’t have anything to do with it. I can’t help it. No, I don’t want to have any responsibility. I just want to keep clean.” You’re familiar with the phrase: “Cold hands, warm heart.” Well, in Pilate’s case it’s “clean hands, dirty heart.”

Aaron Feuerstein may be a saint. In a culture where work environments breed insecurity and layoffs are routine, Aaron Feuerstein ranks as a hero in the cold-hearted world of work.
Decades ago when all the other textile mills left town to settle in sunnier locations, Feuerstein kept his Malden Mills factory in blue collar Lawrence, Massachusetts. The industry scoffed.
When the mill burned down just a few weeks before Christmas, Feuerstein—who is the chairman, president, and CEO of this company that manufactures Polar Fleece—announced almost immediately that his workers would continue to be paid. They would also receive health care benefits during the reconstruction of the factory. The business world reeled.

Even when a handful of workers sued him—in spite of his extraordinary generosity to them—he empathized with their plight. “They are poor people,” Feuerstein explained, and with unscrupulous lawyers throwing astronomical settlement figures their way, they could not resist. He forgave them even for their own lack of loyalty.

Susan Stamberg interviewed Aaron Feuerstein for a special radio series on NPR’s Morning Edition show in which he interpreted his actions as good citizenship rather than heroism. “It was the right thing to do,” Feuerstein explained about his decision to keep his workers on the payroll after the fire. His actions reflected one way “to save” his community and his people. They needed him and he did not forsake them. Without his grace their futures would have crashed. Without his determination to do the right thing, their personal downturns would have been terminal.

I didn’t hear anyone at Enron doing that. Their company motto must have been the same as Pilate’s: “I wash my hands. I am innocent of this man’s blood.” Even Star Wars hero Luke Skywalker tried to keep his hands clean at first: “I just can’t get involved right now. I hate the evil empire, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Near the city of Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil, is a remarkable facility. Twenty years ago the Brazilian government washed its hands of a prison, which it turned over to two Christians. The institution was renamed Humaita, and the plan was to run it on Christian principles. With the exception of two full-time staff, all the work is done by inmates. Families outside the prison adopt an inmate to work with during and after his term. Chuck Colson visited the prison and made this report:

”When I visited Humaita I found the inmates smiling - particularly the murderer who held the keys, opened the gates and let me in. Wherever I walked I saw men at peace. I saw clean living areas, people working industriously. The walls were decorated with biblical sayings from Psalms and Proverbs .... My guide escorted me to the notorious prison cell once used for torture. Today, he told me, that block houses only a single inmate. As we reached the end of a long concrete corridor and he put the key in the lock, he paused and asked, ‘Are you sure you want to go in?’

“Of course,’ I replied impatiently, ‘I’ve been in isolation cells all over the world.’ Slowly he swung open the massive door, and I saw the prisoner in that punishment cell: a crucifix, beautifully carved by the Humaita inmates - the prisoner Jesus, hanging on a cross.

”’He’s doing time for the rest of us,’ my guide said softly.” -Max Lucado, In the Grip of Grace (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1996), 113.

Jesus didn’t worry about keeping his hands clean. He and his disciples were even accused of being pagan slobs because they didn’t wash their hands before eating in the properly ritual way. Jesus was always getting his hands dirty—touching sick people, playing with children, hugging women lost in prostitution, eating with tax collectors. Wherever there was a dirty job to be done helping others, or a party to attend, Jesus was there, ready to get his hands dirty, ready to bite into that chocolate bunny and get it smeared all over his face.

I’ll bet ol’ Pilate wouldn’t even want to eat chocolate bunnies because he might get his hands dirty! “No, I don’t want to have any fun. No. I don’t want to take any risks. I don’t want to help anyone. I just want to keep my hands clean.” 

A story from Yugoslavia tells of four angels who witnessed creation. The first angel, a scientist, observed God’s handiwork in awe and said, “O, your majesty, your creation is beautiful! How did you do it?”

The second angel, a philosopher, observed in awe and said, “O, your majesty, your creation is beautiful! Why did you do it?”

The third angel, a materialist, observed in awe and said, “O, your majesty, your creation is beautiful! Can I have it?”

The fourth angel observed in awe and said, “O, your majesty, your creation is beautiful! Can I help?”

That’s the attitude of God’s faithful, an angel who wants to get his hands dirty.

Are you ready to play, to jump in the mud puddles, to dive into the chocolate chip cookies, to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty helping others? Do you believe in Easter?

Amen.