It runs down the face of Jesus. It is humiliating. It is contemptible. It is rude. It is disrespectful. It is provocative. It was completely unnecessary. They spit on my Lord!
The Biblical history of spitting in someone's face is interesting. Remember when Miriam, Moses' sister who protected him from the Nile crocks when he was a baby, took part in a rebellion against her little brother in the wilderness? God's wrath against her gave her leprosy. Aaron pleaded for her healing. But God said a strange thing. "Had her father spit in her face she might have been sparred." (Numbers 12) It is strange because it is likely their father was dead at this time. And, it is strange because why would him spitting in his daughter's face have prevented her getting leprosy? I think what God is saying is that spit in the face is more humiliating that leprosy that causes one to be removed from the community. There is shame in the spit. The second Old Testament reference is in Deut.25:9 has to do with a man who will not marry his dead brother's wife to raise up children to his brother. The woman is to take his sandal off, hand it to him, and spit in his face as a sign of contempt. The third reference is to Job. He describes himself as a byword, one on whom men spit. Whether they literally spat on him is not the point. Job was looked on with contempt because everyone assumed he must have sinned. (Job 17:6) By spitting in Jesus' face the Jews were indicating that Jesus had sinned and was worthy of not just contempt of court, but of death. Jesus predicted this would happen (Mk.10:34; Lk.18:32).
So here Jesus stands with the spit of a temple guard running down his face. This burly soldier with less than stellar hygiene daring to spit in the face of the Christ, the Son of God! It was meant to insult and belittle. It was meant to reduce Jesus to a nobody, unworthy of even the least respect. But, how could Jesus resist retaliating? Now let's get real here. Someone comes up to you, starts mocking you, perhaps cursing you out, and then as a sign of utter disrespect spits in your face, what would you do? I know what my gut reaction would be. Such an insult would merit return fire.
Today we see the equivalent to this in politics. Someone is attacked. What do they do? Hit back harder. We see it in the world of law enforcement, on both sides of the equation. Whether it is an officer or a civilian, when one shows signs of disrespect to the other, it often evokes a reaction. Even if the spit is not literal, it still is symbolic spit. Our nature is to spit back. Then, the spitting contest begins to see who can spit the most, the farthest, and the longest. How do we end up? Everyone is covered in spit. The whole world seems to be covered with spit. We are slipping down in spit. We are wading through spit. We can't seem to wipe it off fast enough before we are hit with more spit. We are drowning in spit. I know that is gross. It is gross. It is true though.
Perhaps God may be the last to spit. Revelation 3:16 says that our lukewarmness makes God sick enough to spit us out of his mouth. So perhaps we should swallow our spit. Or better still do what Jesus did when he spat on the ground, made some mud, put it on the blind man's eyes, told him to go and wash, and made him see. (John 9) We can turn a symbol of humiliation into a symbol of healing.
