I’m “going there” today, friends.

And some of you are not gonna like what follows very much.

But it’s time to talk about Gov. Abbott’s new executive order, and it’s connection to Jesus’ crucifixion story.

It’s Lent for us Christians. We’re rapidly approaching Holy Week. We re-read, and re-tell, this sacred story every year. But far too often, we fail to connect it to current events.

My preaching mentor, Dr. Zan Holmes, taught me to preach with “the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other.” (He borrowed that, btw…)

So, I’m going there.

If you want to defend the Governor, if what follows offends you, I’m “sorry, not sorry.”

Because in truth, you folks who get offended by what follows are the target audience. Especially if you’re a Christian who is offended, I invite you to pray deeply about WHY.

First, a few theological reminders…

Jesus was crucified. That’s a STATE SPONSORED form of execution.

I don’t mean to shout, I just don’t want you to miss it.

Jesus was not killed by the Jews, and his death was not their “fault.” Jesus was executed in the manner of political criminals of the time; those guilty of crimes against the state.

He didn’t HAVE to die. It wasn’t “cosmically necessary.” God could have “saved the world” in some other way.

That is made clear by the famous passage from John 3: 16: “For God so loved the world that God GAVE God’s only son…”

Not, “GAVE TO BE CRUCIFIED…” Just “gave.” (Again, not shouting, just don’t miss it…)

God’s plan for was Jesus to save the world by proclaiming and instituting a new realm of love, compassion, and justice. Humanity said “no” to that and crucified Jesus.

Jesus’ resurrection is “God’s rejection of our rejection of God.”

I need to be clear about this theology, so as to de-couple it from too lofty and heavenly “atonement theologies,” which suggest that Jesus’ crucifixion was cosmically necessary or required by God in some way. The true POWER of the story — but only one we could understand after the fact — was how Jesus went through the depths of human suffering and pain.

No, God is/was *not* homicidal or suicidal. (Depending upon your understanding of the Trinity…)

The death is on the hands of HUMANITY.

God weeps at humanity’s foolishness.

AND! This final point….if there IS a meaning of Jesus’ death as an “atonement,” then surely the only meaning that makes sense is that Jesus was raised in order to put an END to atonement theologies. God’s resurrection of Jesus — God’s aforementioned “rejection of our rejection of God” — was INTENDED to END the cult of sacrifice. It was meant to, again, show that death was NOT the plan.

Life was.

This is the point that deeply confounds me about those who claim to believe in a substitutionary atonement theology. My question is always for them is: “So….did it WORK? Did Jesus dying for the sins of the world work? Because, if so, then our calling should be to REJECT further “binge/purge” atonement theologies.”

As my friend Sarah Wilke — a Methodist who wears a crucifix around her neck — says: “I wear this to remind me that Jesus already died on the cross so I don’t have to.”

But it doesn’t feel like folks really believe that, do they?

Instead, we continue to treat each other with indifference and hate. We re-live and re-play these dramas of atonement and “necessary death.”

Our Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, for example, drew this line clearly months ago, when he asked old people to take one for the team. “Sacrifice yourself for the economy,” he said…inviting us to play out this tragic atonement drama once again.

To bring it to the current day, God didn’t INTEND for 500,000 Americans to die. But they have. And that *does* make their deaths (many, not all…) EXACTLY LIKE Jesus’….unnecessary to the plan, and just as deeply horrific and tragic.

Far too many deaths from Coronavirus are ALSO on the hands of humanity. Sure, the virus would have assuredly killed many in a horrific way that nobody could have stopped. But it is factually true that we human beings could have, and should have, prevented potentially hundreds of thousands of those deaths from ever happening.

There was no magic required. Only following the science, which we did not do.

So, tomorrow, the present-day Governor’s new order takes effect. Greg Abbott and Pontius Pilate were both “Governors” in their respective systems.

The comparisons don’t end there. They are rich and clear, especially in the story from the Gospel of Matthew, verse 24:

“But Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere and that a riot was starting. So he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I’m innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It’s your problem.””

(CEB version)

That will be the exact effect of Gov Abbott’s new mandate that goes into tomorrow morning.

Gov. Abbott is “washing his hands” of the science.

He’s abdicating his role to keep Texans safe in these last weeks of the pandemic.

He’s guaranteeing MORE unnecessary death in Texas.

He’s giving-in to the anti-maskers, by ignoring his own science advisors.

The effect, of course, will be to place life and death decisions squarely on the backs of small business owners, and everyone else.

Some corporations will still require masks. Some local officials are posting pictures of themselves wearing masks.

But already we in Texas are hearing anti-maskers rant and rave about how masks limit their “freedom.”

This is, as the Book of Judges says, “everyone doing what is right in their own eyes.”

Abbott is literally saying, as Pilate does: “It’s your problem…you figure it out…”

The anti-maskers, and government officials who go along with the Governor without comment, play the role of Pilate’s soldiers. As it says in verses 27–31:

“The governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the governor’s house, and they gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a red military coat on him. They twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They put a stick in his right hand. Then they bowed down in front of him and mocked him, saying, “Hey! King of the Jews!” After they spit on him, they took the stick and struck his head again and again. When they finished mocking him, they stripped him of the military coat and put his own clothes back on him. They led him away to crucify him.”

(CEB version)

Just as Pilate’s soldiers staged an elaborate “royal coronation” designed to mock Jesus, so too the anti-maskers are holding “mask burnings,” and mocking the wearing of masks. The cynicism, bitterness, anger, and vitriol are shockingly similar to Jesus’ crucifixion story.

I want to add an important caveat here. SOME anti-mask folks will likely just quietly go about their business.

But it’s quite clear that others are taking action.

They’re making lists of businesses to ignore.

They’re literally going online and leaving “one star reviews” at restaurants with mask requirements.

Friends, they’re literally burning masks, just as anti-intellectuals in previous generations burned books.

There are documented cases of anti-maskers threatening to call Border Patrol on the staff of Mexican restaurants…employees that are, of course, in almost all cases, US Citizens.

An anti-masker threw a glass a waiter in a North Texas restaurant, cutting his forehead.

Friends, this is dangerous stuff.

So if you, like me, are “girding your loins” for what happens in our state after tomorrow — for INCREASING stories of this kind of anger, vitriol and hate — I simply remind you:

Jesus understands.

Jesus also endured those who mocked him, who parodied him. Who angrily crucified him for no good reason, whatsoever. Just like so many of the COVID deaths this year, Jesus’ death was not “cosmically necessary.” In fact, quite the opposite. It was a tragic and horrific death, at odds with God’s hope for humanity.

Like no other year in our modern history, we are face-to-face with the horror of “unnecessary death” in this year of 2021. Too many folks now gone, who died for now good reason.

Nothing can take away that grief. But Jesus’ crucifixion story mirrors it for us in a way that CAN, if we choose, provide comfort in the midst of our overwhelming sense of grief and loss.

— — — — — — — —

Finally, Jesus promised his disciples that even if he was crucified, he would rise again.

God would have the last word.

In so many words, Jesus tells his disciples:

“It’s gonna get worse, before it gets better…but it’s gonna get better.”

He turned out to be right.

And God — working through both the science of vaccines and the mask-wearing compassion of many of you — will lead us to a world of new hope and openness too.

“God so loved the world” that God sent Jesus to save the world.

And God loves the world, still.

Jesus’ incarnational appearance in our world make the world MORE important, not less.

God is STILL saving the world…through all those who selflessly love their neighbor as themselves, and those who seek to “do no harm.”

So, despite how bad it is probably gonna get out there for these next few weeks here in our state…

Wear your mask.

Get the vaccine.

Believe that God’s saving work moves through these things just as assuredly as it does through holy scripture.

And keep the faith.

During Lent, here in Texas, we can say with Jesus:

“It’s gonna get worse, before it gets better…but it’s gonna get better.”