Two Different Meanings

Matthew 27:25

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This is going to change the lives of you and your children forever. How would you respond if someone said that to you? Personally, I wouldn’t know how to respond. Who’s saying it to me? What is the context? Right? If it’s a doctor standing in my hospital room going over my test results, that sentence might make my heart drop through the floor. It’s not just a normal neutral sentence. It would be more like a death sentence, like a generational curse. But if the person saying that sentence to me is sliding a check to me across the table big enough to wipe out all of my debt and fund my retirement, all of a sudden that sentence isn’t a neutral sentence. It’s actually life giving. It’s a generational blessing. But it’s still the same sentence, but two completely different meanings.

In the Gospel of Matthew we find a sentence just like this, where Jesus, the Son of God, is on trial before Pilate. And Pilate, finding no wrong in him, says, I wash my hands of this man’s blood. But the crowd screams at him.

“Then let his blood be upon us and upon our children!” (Matthew 27:25)

You see, the crowd here is willing to take the guilt of Jesus’ blood upon themselves and upon their children, because so great was their hatred for him. They were willing to take on a generational curse to see him die.

Now we might shake our heads at the crowd, but the reality is, is that your sins and my sins are in that crowd as well, screaming the exact same death sentence. Let his blood be upon us and upon our children, and we know how the rest of the story goes. The crowd actually gets exactly what they want, exactly what they ask for. But ironically, the same sentence that they screamed for let his blood be upon us and upon our children was actually the exact thing that they needed most. The blood of Jesus.

You see the sentence the crowd meant as a death sentence toward Jesus, Jesus means it to you and I in a completely different way. He means that same sentence to give you life, a generational blessing upon you and your children. It’s as though upon the cross he is saying, let my blood be upon you and upon your children, and through faith that blood is indeed poured upon you and upon your children abundantly through Holy Communion. His body and blood is given to you to eat and to drink, and it is the very same body and blood that was given and shed for you upon the cross, for the forgiveness of all of your sins.

So yes, let his blood be upon us and upon our children, but don’t shout it as a death sentence, as a generational curse upon you and your children. But shout this life giving sentence to your Savior, who poured out his blood upon you and your children as a generational blessing. So may the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ be poured out upon you and your children this Lenten season, and always so that we might grow in true faith and obedience to him. Amen.