Finding No "Fault" In Christ

originally written for Pure Life Revolution (www.pureliferevolution.net)

“And Pilate said unto the chief priests and the multitudes, ‘I find no fault in this man.’” Luke 23:4

Through the four gospel accounts we discover two principle societal groups responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus: the pharisaical religious and the culture. Rome, as a culture, dominated the known world at the time of Christ. The Romans controlled all aspects of art, culture, commerce, interstate and philosophy. They fashioned their governmental and cultural systems around the structures of their secular predecessors, the Greeks, going to great lengths to reestablish and rebirth this great secular empire of the past. In their cultural and military quest, they had assimilated all other cultures and people groups under their control and subjugated manipulation. Sounds strikingly familiar to our secularized society today, does it not? It was Rome, or the secular culture, that ordered Jesus final execution.

But it was the desire of the Pharisees to see Jesus silenced. The religious leaders didn’t appreciate Jesus meddling in their affairs of legalism, elitist behavior, and unquestioned control over their congregations and so they took action using the limited power of their own hands. They brought Jesus up on trumped-up charges that would lead to His execution. And here we have the tragic disconnect: though the culture carried out the execution, it was the verbal actions and assertions of the Pharisees interpretation of Jesus that caused the order for his termination. Jesus, the Son of God – pure unadulterated love – stood before the culture and Pilate’s declared: “I see no fault in this man.” “The man that is visibly evident to me in this moment in all his humility, bridled power, and unabashed conviction, this man is blameless,” Pilate stated, “But, if He is the way you Pharisees make him out to be, then that man we will put to death.” It wasn’t Jesus that Pilate, or the dominative and all-encompassing culture, wanted to eradicate. It was the interpretation of Jesus the Pharisees presented.

As we stood for our second day on Church Street we saw the evidence of this pharistical vs. True Jesus dichotomy time and time again. People would come up to us, ready and expecting a hypocritical fight and immediate condemnation, and instead could barely fathom our honest smiles and claims we weren’t there to denounce and demean them, but publicly condemn ourselves for our own lack of purity, and cry out on behalf of the lack of purity in the church. Our repentance was aimed at our own failure in living up to the standard and potential the God we serve and name-bear set for us. And they couldn’t believe it. It was as if they were expecting the Pharisee’s version of Jesus they had seen time and time again, and instead saw the True Jesus, a Jesus they had never observed. They left changed, challenged and even disillusioned. Here was something they had always said was just a charade, an utter impossibility. And now there was a group of “Christ-ians” that, at least based on their actions, seemed to prove them wrong.

“Lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and return and I should heal them.” Matthew 13:15b

There is no more powerful a testimony of this then one of the PLR leaders interaction with a female worker at Hustler Hollywood today. Driving into work, spotting all these crazy supposed “protesters” standing in front of her place of business, she was more than perturbed. Calling over one of our leaders that was not wearing a blindfold she hollered out her window; “what the *&^$ are you doing here, do you ^#@%$#’s think you’re gonna stop me from coming into work.” The PLR leader leaned over her car, stating, “that’s not what we’re doing. That’s not what we’re about.” “Well what &@* are you about then?” she retorted back. Instead of responding in kind, the leader handed her a PLR flyer and stated, “If I give this to you will you read it?” “Yeah I’ll read it!” the woman said furiously as she drove by the line of silent prayer warriors and into the parking lot.

The next hour and half or so was silent from inside, until this PLR leader, now standing near the front door, felt a tap on the shoulder. As he turned around, in front of him stood the same girl, who, just 90 minutes earlier, was ready to verbally tear his head off. “I’m sorry,” she said calmly and resolutely, “I have only known Christians to be full of hate, I have never seen anyone like you all.” Her words stung worse than any profane heckling we’d endured by angry and uninformed passersby that day. She had never known a Christian like the one that stood before Pilate, the one the culture could find no fault in. And this is Nashville. The “Buckle of the Bible Belt.” With a church on every corner. But she stood in front of us stating, ‘I’ve never seen anyone’ that looked like the real Jesus. Never had anyone bearing the name of Christ treat her with love and respect and not prejudice and sanctimonious bias. But she saw it today. And we’re on her street corner, in a visible demonstration that pornography is destroying the lives of men, women and children; and we as the church must turn away and remain undefiled. We are taking a stand, and showing love and not hate; grace and not judgement; and again people time and time again today said “we’ve never seen this before.”

Have our actions, not just our message, become that tarnished? Are we, just like the pharisitical religious Jesus had to contend with and be ultimately slaughtered by, presenting an image of Christ that culture wants nothing to do with? Jesus was immovable in his morality, he was the apex of righteousness and purity. And still the culture said, “I find no fault in that type of man.” We have not only abounded in faults, we’ve had the nerve to suppress our shortcomings only to point out the faults in others first. Standing in front of Hustler Hollywood, one can only think about the statistics that in-room hotel Porn rentals reach their yearly crescendo during Pastor’s conferences. And still her statement rings: ‘I’ve never seen anyone like you all.’

As the PLR leader stood and talked with this HH worker for well over a quarter of an hour, (hopefully) stereotype after stereotype was chiseled down and broken off. Much as Jesus did with the woman at the well, or Mary Magdallene at his feet. Pray for this woman. We, as the church, have caused much damage to her perception of those bearing Christ’s name, and therefore Christ himself.

Before we attempt to become self-righteous in our PLR stand, any one of us that stood on that wall may have at sometime in the past been one of those that had look down on this woman at some point in the last few years. Just because we are calling out for purity and open humility, doesn’t mean we haven’t had our own faults. Much of our pharistical disdain may have arisen from our lack of our own purity. We are just a dirty as the world, only we are supposed to know better – better yet, we were supposed to become better. Remember what Jesus said; “He who is without sin cast the first stone.” It’s time to drop our stones, fall on our knees and repent of our own pharistical behaviorism and impurity. Jesus that extended the hand to adulterous woman and said, “Go and sin no more, I do not condemn you;” He didn’t echo the same words to the Pharisees.

As we end our second day of this 21 day stand I am coming face to face with the pain, anguish and distrust we have left on the culture with our pharistical version of Jesus. And I am also feeling his pain and anguish in our doing so. My resolute prayer and belief is that as we “get real, get pure and get life,” the culture we see a group of people so socially winsome, culturally insightful and personally servant-oriented that they, like Pilate, declare ‘I find no fault in these Christ-ians.” We truly have the “Good News” capable of transforming the culture and the world; we just haven’t been decent enough ambassadors to carry the message yet. And God isn’t going to give us the whole message until we seek purity with all our hearts.

“For the heart of this people has become dull, and with their ears they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes.” Matthew 13:15a