Jesus' Shocking Response to a Mass Killing

The fruit of outrage culture is often marked by a rotting sense of personal conviction. The best place, the most economical place, to stop evil is to root it out of our own hearts. Jesus' shocking response to a heinous mass murder in the first century challenges us to reconsider the selective way we respond to such happenings today.

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Jesus is uncomfortably radical for all, but perhaps especially for activists who like to co-opt His agenda. I doubt there’s any political constituency that he couldn’t anger or offend if he spoke the same way today that he spoke in the first century.

Perhaps nowhere is this truer than Jesus’ response to a violent, politically motivated attack in the first century. Luke records a heinous massacre of Jewish worshippers who were offering sacrifices (Luke 13:1-3). In an evil irony, Pilate mixed their blood with the blood of the animals. His soldiers wiped them out for worshipping. They were not protesting or rioting. They were worshipping, right where they were supposed to. And Pilate ordered his minions to massacre them. This would be like a government official ordering soldiers or police officers to shoot up a prayer meeting at a Baptist church today.

What had happened was unfair. It was scandalous. It was an outrage. And it happened near or at the Jews’ most sacred place. Since there was no question that it was an unprovoked and bloodthirsty act, those reporting the news to Jesus were no doubt expecting a “strongly worded letter” that they could take from Jesus to Pilate, the circulation of a petition, or at least Jesus putting a sign of protest on His Instagram account.