I was reading Matthew’s gospel the other day when I came across the worst word in the world: staurotheto. It rears its hideous head during Jesus’ trial where Matthew 27:22 records this: “Pilate said to them: ‘What, then, shall I do with Jesus, the one called Christ?’ They all answered: staurotheto.” Let him be crucified.

As if crucifixion were not ugly enough–cruel punishment for anyone, to have wrists and ankles hammered through, hung to suffocate in pain until you expire–there are two things that make this word truly awful. First, in Greek it is a command. The crowd demands that Jesus be crucified. They urge it. They are filled with bloodlust. If hatred could be seized from the world of ideas, melted down and poured into the mold of a word, then the angry, blood-hungry eyes of the crowd stare penetratingly out at us through this one: staurotheto.

But the other terror of this word is that it is passive. “Let him be crucified”–let someone else do it. I want him to die, but here, you do it. It is a murder-for-hire verb. As if we could hand off guilt for a crime through grammar. Or as if we could commit a murder but blame it on the glove we wore. I’m not guilty! I wore a glove! Staurotheto.

Every time we pass the buck, we say it. Every time we blame someone else for what we’ve done: staurotheto. Every time we give in to hatred: Let Him be crucified. Every time we think with the mob: staurotheto. It is the worst word in the world because we have all uttered it. By it we are all condemned.