How many times have you chosen not to do something that you knew was right to do? You knew what God had called you to do and refused to engage in it. Or maybe, you just didn’t make a decision at all when one needed to be made, choosing passivity. Today, I want to make it clear that when we’re passive about something, in that moment we are actively making a decision. When we’re being passive about one thing we are simultaneously being active about something else.
Before we go further into this idea, we need a healthy concept of what passivity is. Some of the definitions that I found say that passivity is:
- Used to describe someone who allows things to happen or who accepts what other people do or decide without trying to change anything.
- Lacking in energy or will; tending to not take an active or dominant part.
We get a clear image of this idea of passivity when we look at Pontius Pilate in Matthew 27:11-26. To set up the scene, Jesus had just been betrayed by Judas Iscariot and arrested. He’s now standing before Pontius Pilate, the religious leaders, and the crowds of people wanting to see Jesus the Messiah, crucified. Picture them in a courtroom: Jesus is the defendant and Pilate is the Judge. In the background the crowds of people and religious leaders are screaming and demanding that Jesus the Messiah be crucified.
At the Passover festival that was taking place at that time, it was custom for the Governor (Pilate) to release a prisoner that the crowd wanted to be set free. Some of us might be familiar with who this other prisoner was: Jesus Barabbas, a murderer. So after Pilate asked the crowd who they wanted to be set free, they shouted, ‘Barabbas!’ In verse 19, Pilate receives a message from his wife that said, “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.”
After hearing that, he asked the crowd again which of the two do they want him to release and got the same response. Then in verse 23 we see, what looks like Pilate defending Jesus when he says, “Why? What crime has he committed?” and the crowd kept shouting and shouting “CRUCIFY HIM, CRUCIFY HIM!!”
In Luke 23 it says that Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, “I find no basis for a charge against this man.”
After Pilot saw that he was getting nowhere with the crowd he physically washed his hands in front of the crowd and said, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. It is your responsibility!” (v. 24) Finally, he released Barabbas to be free and had Jesus the Messiah flogged and handed over to be crucified.
Wait… So how does that make Pilate passive? I mean he made a decision. How was he passive in that?
Well first off, Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent. He examined him and couldn’t find a reason for him to be crucified. Even Pilate’s wife sent him a message saying not to have anything to do with that INNOCENT man. Pilate even tried to defend him by asking the crowd why he deserved to be crucified and they couldn’t give an answer. Pilate finally washed his hands of it after he saw the crowd wasn’t budging and claimed that he was innocent of this man’s blood.
So what do we see here?
- That Pilate knew what was wrong
- He had outside affirmation from his wife that this was wrong
- He talked it up with the crowd trying to defend Jesus
- In the end, he washed his hands of it. He chose not to engage in what he knew was right.
Before I continue I need to clarify a few things. First, Pilate was NOT a Christian. To him he had no moral obligation to Jesus that HE knew of. He just wanted to please the crowd. Second, Jesus Christ had to die on the cross. There was no getting around it. He knew what his role was and he fulfilled it.
So where do we tie into all of this?
Like I just said, Pilate was no Christian and had no obligation to Jesus THAT HE KNEW OF… but we as Christians do. We know what God has called us to do and what God has called us to be. We know what’s right and what’s wrong in God’s eyes and still some of us (Christians) choose to ignore it.
The truth is, we’re a lot more like Pilate than we want to admit. We see what’s right and what’s wrong, some of us even talk about it, but at the end of the day we wash our hands of it and don’t engage. You may argue, “I’m not like Pilate! I would never have stood by and allowed Jesus to be crucified!” But in the same way that Pilate knew what was wrong and chose not to engage or fight for it, we see sin and injustice in our lives on a DAILY basis and still choose not to engage it.
Maybe on a micro level of passivity we see sin in a friend’s life and choose not to call them out. We see sin in our own life and choose to not deal with it; continuing to indulge in our sinful patterns knowing all the while it’s hindering our relationship with God. We choose not to have a conversation about Christ to a friend because we’re afraid. We see the need for a role to be filled as a spiritual leader to a friend or family member and choose to neglect it. It could even be staying comfortable spiritually; knowing that God is asking us to do things that require a greater reliance on Him and ignoring him out of fear of losing that comfort.
On a larger scale it looks like us as followers of Christ not having an urgency about the Gospel being spread to the nations knowing that people are dying DAILY without hearing the name of Jesus, much less the Gospel message. It’s choosing not to engage the culture around us with the message of hope and redemption we have because culture rejects absolutes and tells us we’re bigots for believing.
This passivity we choose isn’t so passive. We’re actively making a choice about these things whenever we remain silent and refuse to love people and step into the roles that God has called to step into. In 1 Corinthians 9:19 Paul said, “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible.” That’s rejecting passivity. That’s what God calls us to do.To be whatever we need to be to whoever we encounter. The good news is that in Christ, we have the power to do these things. To be what God wants us to be. Jesus wasn’t passive about the cross. He knew his role and stepped into it. Christians, we know our role. Let’s step into it.
In Christ,
Matt Herrington
