Christ as Riven

Good Friday 2025

Pontius Pilate, a Roman governor and political figure, was no doubt acquainted with palace intrigues, court machinations, and the striving ache that suffuses all of it. It is therefore not that surprising that he could look at the chief priests who were railroading Jesus, and he could clearly see what they were doing and why.

He saw the characteristic hallmarks of that gnawing sensation in the gut—the desire to scratch at an adversary, to excel him, to surpass the rival, destroying Him, and yet also becoming like Him. These enemies of Christ wanted to be like Him. They wanted what He had. They wanted to be able to draw crowds, or to do miracles, or to teach with authority instead of the way they did teach, which was as scribes and scribblers. And they wanted to have the admiration of the throng . . . instead of fear and contempt. What they didn’t want was the submission to God’s authority that Christ embodied in everything He did. They wanted the fruit, in other words, but they hated the tree.

It is also striking that the gospel writer doesn’t just tell us that the chief priests were envious of Jesus. He also tells us that Pilate himself knew that they were. He saw clean through them. Now it is possible that the Spirit revealed this to the gospel writers (Mark 15:10; Matt. 27:18), but I think it more likely that Pilate was vocal about it to others, and the word spread.

The glory of this is that in His death on the cross, the Lord Jesus completely overthrew the power of this insidious sin. Malice and envy are the basic fuel that the world runs on, and in His death on the cross, Christ conquered the ways of this world.

This is the way of the world. It is either malice and envy, open, seething, and undisguised, or it is malice and envy, covered over with good manners and other lies.

We see it in the malevolent subtlety of the serpent in the Garden. We see it in the envy of Joseph’s brothers when they sold him into slavery, and we also know that Joseph was a type of Christ.

Envy is malicious, but it is also self-righteous. It wants to hate, but it also wants that hatred to be right, to be somehow justified. The devil himself is self-righteous. He is, Scripture says, the accuser. The devil does not believe himself to be the devil, in other words. He has been grievously misunderstood, outrageously wronged, and unrighteously deposed.

Even the name Satan means adversary or accuser, and accusations are frequently born of envy. The sinful heart of man resents the grace that would place anyone at all in a place with more blessings.

But what does the crucifixion of Jesus have to do with all of this? The sin that placed Jesus on the cross is also the sin that Jesus conquered on the cross.

The children of Israel in the wilderness were in an area where they were being afflicted by venomous snakes. Following instructions given him by God, Moses made a bronze serpent, and lifted it up on a pole. Any man who was bitten could be healed if he simply looked on that image. And Jesus said that He was going to be lifted up in just that same way.

Anyone bitten by the serpent, which would be all of us, only needs to look at the serpent on the pole. Look to Christ crucified. Look at Him, and see there the twisted body of the defeated foe. The envy writhes, but then it stops . . . and is dead.

So what is the venom? The venom is that rancid canker that eats away at everything wholesome—envy, malice, self-righteousness, pride, censoriousness. But notice. Jesus is telling Nicodemus that He is identifying Himself with that serpent.

Christ was driven to the cross because of envy. While on the cross, He who knew no envy was made envy on our behalf, and the serpent was impaled in the sight of all Israel. The one command, the one summons, is to look at it.

But unless the Spirit of God grants us repentance, we would rather look anywhere else. In particular, we want to continue looking at those with greater blessings than we have been given, and in doing this we are only souring the blessings that we do have. But it need not be this way.

Here is the word of the gospel—listen and be glad. When you hear of a promotion that has come to your brother, and you find your throat constricting . . . look at twisted serpent on the cross. When someone else comes in first, and you had worked really hard for that prize, look to Christ crucified. When others seem to you to be “winning at life,” and you just feel stuck . . . look away from yourself and your accomplishments, or lack of them, and see Christ bloodied, nailed, and pierced.

In just a few days we will hail Christ as risen, but it is necessary now, in this moment, to see Him as riven.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.