Grappling with anti-Semitism at Easter

Easter meant little to me as a child. It was chocolate eggs, magical rabbits, films about Jesus on television. I had three Jewish grandparents and, though not raised with any particular religious identity, there was a sense of cultural Jewishness in the home. But those Easter movies must have made an impact, because I became a Christian in my mid-twenties and am now an Anglican priest.

I am, however, deeply aware of Christian anti-Semitism – something that is once again becoming grimly fashionable. Anti-Semitism is especially poignant at Easter, the epicentre of the Christian calendar. We remember the great commandment to love one another, and take shelter from an increasingly unforgiving world under the divine promises of Christ personified in the resurrection. Yet it’s also the time when we read of ‘the Jews’ condemning Jesus. The phrase ‘the Jews’ – hoi Ioudaoi in the original Greek – is used more than 60 times in John’s Gospel, and more than two dozen of those references are painfully accusing. It’s difficult to hear of Pontius Pilate saying ‘Here is your king’ to ‘the Jews’, and them replying: ‘Away with him! Crucify him!’

John’s is the most troubling of the four Gospels in this regard but Matthew’s Gospel (considered the most Jewish of the canon) has: ‘When Pilate saw that he was not succeeding at all, but that a riot was breaking out instead, he took water and washed his hands in the sight of the crowd, saying: “I am innocent of this man’s blood. Look to it yourselves.” And the whole people said in reply: “His blood be upon us and upon our children.”’ Misunderstood and exploited, those lines have caused incalculable harm. I cringe when I listen to some of these texts, though they’re usually read by people who would be appalled to think they were perpetuating anything approaching racism.