Kids ask their priests a lot of “why” questions that I can’t answer. “Why aren’t we made of glitter?” Or, scarier: “Why did Jesus have to die?” Or they give unsolicited answers I’m not prepared for: Once, a child came up after the Stations of the Cross with a drawing of a crucifix, saying it was about “Good Friday, when God died for God.” The Passion gospel story brings out our deepest “why” questions, questions that resist trite answers and demand to be taken seriously.
Matthew mostly sidesteps the “why” questions in his account of the Passion, focusing less on the mechanics of atonement and more on the people who had to witness Jesus’ death, who probably had to explain the scene to their inquisitive children afterward. Jesus himself remains silent in the face of questions. We hear others’ actions interpreted; for Jesus, we don’t even see his reactions. We only see his pain and hear his silence. Matthew just makes us, like Mary, watch.
First, Matthew shows us a silent Jesus with a conflicted Pilate. As Pilate interrogates Jesus, Jesus only gives a nonanswer (“you say so”) or no answer at all. Jesus’ emotions remain unknown, but Matthew tells us that Pilate “was greatly amazed,” thrown off-kilter by Jesus’ silence in the face of his own death. We know that Pilate has learned the motive for Jesus’ arrest: “He realized that it was out of jealousy that they had handed him over.” We hear Pilate’s wife’s opinions, even the content of her dreams. And, of course, we find out why Pilate washes his hands of the matter: “Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning.”
