Just a Job – John 19: 16b

So the soldiers took charge of Jesus.

At this point in John’s gospel, the story races along. With just a few words, John tells us about the crucifixion. As I ponder this, I have to wonder what John might have been feeling as he wrote his gospel. After all, he was there, watching it all happen.

It may be that John loses track of Jesus for a while. Another possibility is that the memories are too painful to recall in detail. When Pilate is debating Jesus’ fate with the Jewish leaders, Jesus is there in plain sight for all to see. But now, Pilate has washed his hands of the whole situation and allowed the Jews to have their way. He turns Jesus over the soldiers.

The “soldiers” John refers to are not strangers to meting out punishment. This is their job. If I imagine the kind of people they were, it is easy to see the faces of myself and others I know as the faces of these soldiers. They are not scholars or deep thinkers. They are just doing a job. Like any job, a person tries to make the best of it. With them, the crucifixion wouldn’t be personal. It is just another day.

What they see before them when Jesus is handed over is not a man, but a body that doesn’t know it is dead yet. Their job is to inflict pain. Their function in society is to help maintain order. People see what happens to those who break the law. The idea is that the work the soldiers do discourages others from making the same mistake.

These men do not know Jesus is innocent. All they know is that like yesterday and the day before and the week before that the men they are told to crucify get crucified.

Application: Sometimes people who do mean things are just doing their job. The nurse that administers the injection, the dentist that pulls the tooth, the doctor that amputates a limb all do things that hurt us in the short term. In the long term, they are doing their best to help. It is doubtful that any of the soldiers wanted the job that they had. We live in a broken world. In their broken way, they were trying to do what was right. Sometimes our ways of doing things fall into that category, too.

Food for Thought: As our Lord is handed off to the executioners, how do we get our heads around the incredible sacrifice he made to redeem us from sin?

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