Text: Mark 14:53-72
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
In 2 Peter 3:5, St. Peter uses an expression that is sometimes translated “willingly ignorant” concerning people who deny Biblical truth. Such people are different than those who either have never heard of the Scriptures, or honestly just don’t believe them. To be “willingly ignorant” is a deliberate deception, a lie that one tells to oneself. And it is disordered and diabolical.
We see “willing ignorance” on display during our Lord’s trial.
Certainly, Jesus was, and is, controversial. There are many who do not believe that He is God in the flesh, nor the Savior of the world, holding this view honestly, because they have been taught a different narrative. Muslims see Jesus as a prophet. Jews see Jesus as either a misguided rabbi or a madman. Some Hindus believe Him to be an incarnation of one of their gods. Some Buddhists consider Him to be an enlightened soul. Modern secularists like to create Jesus in their own image: whether as a Socialist intellectual, a black militant, a politically correct hipster free spirit, a guru who is “spiritual, not religious,” or just as some dead guy who said some boring stuff a long time ago that makes no difference today.
But we see something different at our Lord’s trials. First of all, the “high priest” and the “chief priests and the elders and the scribes” engaged in an active, deliberate, and deceptive conspiracy as they “came together” to suborn “false testimony” against Jesus. And “their testimony did not agree.” Moreover, this was not a legal trial. It was a lynch mob unlawfully convened at night with selective members of the Council called to render judgment. Such shenanigans do not happen where the prosecution knows that it has a good case. This is a classic case of “willful ignorance” in claiming not to know that Jesus is the Christ. Otherwise, they would have conducted an honest inquiry.
St. Peter – who gave us the term “willful ignorance” – knows what he is talking about. He claimed to be ignorant of who Jesus is, but his “ignorance” was an act of the will. He deliberately lied about Jesus to preserve his own life – contrary to his earlier vow: “Even if they all fall away, I will not” (Mark 14:29).
We will see all the players in this conspiracy to put Jesus on the cross displaying “willful ignorance.” They know exactly who He is and why He has come. But they refuse to submit to His authority. Everyone has something to gain by participating in this sacrifice of innocent blood. Pontius Pilate will go so far as to pronounce our Lord’s verdict of innocence, just before turning Him over to the mob for execution. When has this ever been done in the history of jurisprudence?
Let us be neither ignorant, nor willfully deceptive, dear friends, when we are called upon to confess Christ, “the Son of the blessed.” For indeed, He is as He says and as His words and deeds profess. He is the great “I am” and we “will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” Let us confess with St. Peter when he earlier, without any willful ignorance, testified: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” For we too have something to gain by participating in this sacrifice of innocent blood: “forgiveness, life, and salvation.”
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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