| March 22, 2009
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Today’s text ought to be familiar to us. It’s about a bunch of people wanting someone to do something he didn’t want to do. And the disappointment that flows when we succumb to the pressure. It happens all the time: in school, at home, in government, and church. The Fourth Gospel makes it clear that Rome played a key role on Good Friday. And every time we recite The Apostle’s Creed, a governmental official is singled out for his equivocation:“Jesus...suffered and died under Pontius Pilate.” You have to be in tall company to get mentioned in the historic creed. Other than God, and Jesus’ Mamma, Pilate is the only person in the passion to merit recognition; guaranteeing his role in the story will be remembered as long as there are churches.
I find it interesting that the Bible gives us more insights about the mind and heart of Pilate than anyone else, outside Jesus’ own circle. In the Gospel of John, Pilate comes off almost as a hero not a villain. He definitely was on Jesus’ side. I don’t get the impression Pilate is against Jesus, he’s just trying to keep up with him! Every interrogation Pilate throws at Jesus gets turned back on himself about kingship, authority, and truth. Yeah that one is still hard to come by in these days of “bonuses for botching up.” More than once he goes out to the crowd and announces he has no case against Jesus. Back and forth it goes. Finally, torn between public sentiment and the verdict of his heart, Pilate relinquishes Jesus to the wishes of a mob. He went down in history because he caved-in to doing what was wrong because he was afraid to do what’s right.
John’s version of the trial of Jesus is quirky, with theological drama, irony and lots of movement and changing scenes. Jesus is on trial, but Pilate paces. Jesus is firm, Pilate squirms. With the Governor in charge, you’d expect him to be calm, maybe even bored; interrogating Jesus between stifled yawns as he sleepwalks through yet another Jewish religious matter. But Pilate is clearly ill-at-ease and anxious. And he’s the one holding the gavel! John underlines this seven times. That’s how orten Pilate changes locations. First, he goes out to the crowd, then back inside the fortress to confront Jesus with their charge. Then back to the shouting mob outside, only to rush back inside to Jesus.
Hearing Jesus was a Galilean, in an effort to evade the issue, he sensed a way out by sending him to Herod, because that was his jurisdiction. But Herod didn’t want anything to do with it either. Again Pilate moves to the courtyard maintaining that neither he nor Herod could find the prisoner guilty. That’s two against them. Add in another when his wife Procula informed him of a nightmare when she warned: “Have nothing to do with that innocent man!” And nobody wanted nothing to do with Jesus more than Pilate.
Searching for a loophole, in his attempt to avoid a sticky situation, Pilate appealed to “the by-laws.” “Ya’ll have a custom that I should release one man at Passover. Would you have me release “the King of the Jews?” Hoping they’d say yes. But they preferred a zealot: “Not this man but Barabbas!” Then Pilate washes his hands in frustration, in a dramatic display of avoiding accountability: “Let his blood be on your hands.” Next the scene changes as Jesus was brought once more inside the fortress, where he was flogged, in hopes of obtaining a confession. That would make Pilate’s decision easier. Jesus was mocked, crowned and robed in purple. Then Pilate again brought Jesus out on display and said: “Behold the man!” This infuriated the mob and they shouted “Crucify him!”
By this time the procurator was desperate. He took Jesus back inside the building for further questioning, where he reminded him that he had the power to release him or execute him. He was even more exacerbated when Jesus remained unperterbed. He finally reached his turning point and yielded to the crowd’s demands: when the Jews accused Pilate of disloyalty to Caesar. That got his attention. He took his seat in the court, relenting to a request to crucify a man he knew to be innocent. “Shall I crucify your king?” They knew they had him when they screamed, “We have no king but Caesar!” In a final act of defiance he posted a sign over the cross that read “King of the Jews.” And after refusing to respond to the Jews’ request to add: “He said he was...King of the Jews,” that was one buck he stopped.
After that fateful day, Pilate remained the Governor for six more years when he was recalled to Rome for mismanaging his assignment. But on the way Tiberias died and the rest of Pilate’s life was obscure. The Seven last words of Pilate. And each one offering glimpses of a skittish politician; seven occasions for Pilate to speak his mind and reveal his soul about the guilt or innocence of Jesus, before he passes on into infamy. John’s account is like a parody. Jesus, the condemned, is calm. But Pilate the judge, is jittery. In public view, Pilate faces the crowd, convinced of Jesus’ innocence but just as fearful of the political fallout. Inside the compound, Pilate is equally confounded by Jesus, who’s a hot-potato. And Pilate’s like a ping-pong ball, slapped back and forth between his public fears and inner sense of justice. He tries everything: he bullies, he begs, he vacillates, washes his hands, finds no fault, and finally he folds: “...handing Jesus over to them to be crucified.” Neutrality eventually finds a way of turning into rejection once the chips are down.
One of the persistent legends of his final years is that Pilate lived on a mountain in Switzerland, overlooking Lake Lucerne. We visited there several years ago, walking across the wooden covered bridge. I raised my eyes to the misty heights of Mt. Pilatus. Legend has it, on moonlit nights, his unquiet spirit hovers over the lake, as he paces back and forth like a caged lion ... forever “washing his hands” but they never come clean.
That’s not the way to get rid of Jesus. Don’t you feel for someone so weak-willed and fearful of his own career advancement that he can’t do what he knew to be right? When people care more about law and order than right and wrong, the picture becomes clear how Jesus, an innocent man, was lawfully put to death so that order could be maintained. Making a hard decision is a lonely responsibility for anybody brave enough to wield it. It takes guts to say it and even more to practice it. You know it means headaches and heartaches, loss of popularity, don’t even think of a promotion. It can mean dismissal and even death.
The Prodigal Son, for all his foibles, at least he was honest. He took responsibility for his mistakes. He didn’t blame his Daddy or his fair-weather buddies. Or even his brother. He just said: “I have sinned.” We admire the courage that took. By contrast, the prodigal makes Pilate look even more villainous. He knew Jesus was innocent, and the charge against him was nonsense, but he was self-absorbed and afraid. Pilate had too much to lose to turn Jesus loose. Somebody wrote a poem about it: I stood alone in the presence of the Christ, in the hush of twilight dim, and faced the question that pierced my heart -- what shall I do with him? Crown him or crucify him, what will it be? No other choice is offered to me.
The irony is overpowering. Jesus is the one on trial but Pilate is adjudicated. Jesus is to be crucified but Pilate is defeated. Somehow he senses the accused is the only one who can help him. Pilate the cagey politician, believes his salvation depends upon bureaucratic finesse. But Pilate the man, stares at Jesus the Christ and instinctively knows Jesus has something he’s never seen before in anyone.
This timely Lenten story comes at a moment when politics is polluting every institution that governs our lives. It turns your stomach to view the political shenanigans taking place today. Politics is more important than policy. Truth-telling is sacrificed on the altar of preserving power and luxury lifestyles. I can sympathize with ol’ Pontius. Put yourself in his shoes. Shoved from all sides but he came down hard on the status staying quo. Caught between the vise of church and state, people die when either don’t get their way. But those in power are impotent when it comes to Jesus. Nothing agitates powerful people more than having powerless power: “See, we can do nothing, the whole world is following him!” So there are trade-offs: he postures, he reasons, and like old Pharaoh and Moses, Pilate becomes God’s instrument to magnify the saving power of God’s new deliverer.
John’s passion narrative proclaims that the world, even when doing it’s best to get rid of God is helpless no matter what is tried: “Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess Jesus Christ as Lord?” Pilate reminds us that history’s judgments differ from God’s. His inscription on the cross “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” turned out to be the only thing true that day. This strange, gentle king, whose life Pilate could’ve saved but did not have the guts to save, turned out to be exactly what the sign stated. Only more so. Pilate would have sunk down history’s fathomless drain, were it not for Jesus, who “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried, descended into hell and on the third day rose again from the dead.” Still under Pontius Pilate. But then, he was no longer under anybody, for God has elevated him to his own right hand and placed all things under his feet.
Pastoral Prayer /3-22-09/
It shakes us when we see good deeds run into hatred and vengeance. We watch innocent people suffer at the hands of individuals concerned with only themselves. We are saddened by all the unfairness and injustice that has warped our world. As the church follows Christ from the sunny skies of Galilee to the storm clouds over Jerusalem, help us to muster the courage to crucify our own vanities, immaturities and conceits that keep us from your will for our lives as individuals and as churches. We confess those times when we too have done our part to make this world a worse place to live. Let us be big enough to acknowledge what our sins have done. Accept our prayers of repentance and resolve to do better.
Good Lord, they crucified you on a cross and somehow you ended up on the right side of it! Your death was more about living than dying. Your wounds have more to do with healing than hurting. Your blood is more about saving than losing. So we can only stand at the foot of the cross in true humility and see afresh the wonder of your compassion and love. And try to go love somebody in return.
In the presence of Jesus' integrity, our own pretenses are exposed. In the presence of his constancy, our cowardice is brought to light. In the presence of his fierce love for God, our own hardness of heart is revealed. He had to be taken out so we can keep holding onto the comfort of our self‑deceptions. Help this church to be a place of genuineness, a beacon of light in this community and help us all to be ministers of healing and support. Strengthen those in need of hope, help us to trust you even when things don’t go our way, so that Christ may live in us and through us, for we pray in his name. Amen.
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