Passion Week XXVII

But they kept on insisting, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching all over Judea, starting from Galilee even as far as this place.”  When Pilate heard it, he asked whether the man was a Galilean.  And when he learned that He belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent Him to Herod, who himself also was in Jerusalem at that time. (Luke 23:5-7 NASB)

Pilate is still caught between the people he doesn’t want to help, and the silent guy in front of him he wants to help.  In the end, he’s really just a person in a country of people.  It’s just that, for Pilate, this Person really does seem different.  Of all the characters involved, only Jesus is at peace.  That’s very backward from the usual drama of Jerusalem.

But among the virulent accusations flying from the gaping gnashing holes of lies before him, Pilate hears, “…from Galilee” to describe Jesus.  This is what Pilate’s been looking for, a back door off this stage, and out of this tragic comedy.  So, he sends Jesus to the “Herod” who had already killed John the Baptist out of embarrassment.  Easy-peasy, Jesus is as good as dead already.

Conveniently, Herod is actually in Jerusalem for the feast (so we think).  It doesn’t say why Herod is in Jerusalem, only that he is.  The Passover is going on, so perhaps that’s why.  In the case of Herod, it could only be a political or social excuse.  He’s the “Chief of a Fourth” so anything to get the other three-fourths is worth the effort.  And it’s unlikely this king will be a part of a traditional Passover meal.  He’s even less Jewish than his father, and never tried as hard to be accepted by the people he governed.

That being said, Pilate has found “Door Number 3”, and he’s taking it.  We already know it won’t work, but let’s stop and look at ourselves in light of Pilate’s approach to Jesus.  Pilate isn’t Jewish.  He hasn’t been steeped in their traditions and teachings.  He’s not even close to being a “believer”.  He has centurions under him who are God-fearing gentiles, respectful of the Jewish people, and many of them well-liked.  He is nothing like that.  So his approach to Jesus is as a “political animal” rather than a “believing Gentile”.

If you’re reading this, presumably you already believe, at least to a degree, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and Savior of the World.  From the outset, our approaches to Jesus differ from Pilate’s in this passage.  While that initially gives us a great advantage, the similarities in our decisions about what to do with Jesus should be extremely telling.  Think about a time, especially as a believer, you let Jesus be somebody else’s problem; you passed on the opportunity to stand for Him, you sought any other option than to endanger your position or comfort to stand for Him.

Now, that shame your feeling, (because who hasn’t done this) hold that emotion in your left hand (work with me here).  Now, think back to Jesus in the upper room with His disciples. He’s just said they will eventually sit on thrones judging the tribes of Israel.  And then He leans over and says to Peter, “Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith will be strengthened.”  Do you remember that?  Do you also remember that Jesus, immediately after, predicts Peter’s denial of Him?  Take that shame in your left hand and hold it up to Jesus.  It’s not like He didn’t know it was coming on you.  But also hear from Him His prayer for your faith, because it’s at times like this that we need to return and strengthen others.

The thing about Pilate is that he does what Peter does, in a sense.  And in that same sense, hasn’t surprised Jesus.  So, Pilate has the same option to “return”, but in a different sense.  To our shock, so do the religious leaders.  Even Judas had the option.  It’s not about the failure, it is, once again, about the response to the failure.  Our relationship with Jesus is different than Pilate’s.  And we have the chance, the calling, to return to that relationship rather than live in the shame of the failure.

So, yes, we’ve pulled a “Pilate”, and sought convenient options other than declaring Jesus as our King.  But we also have the calling of our King to return to Him.  Think that through.  He knows we’re going to deny Him, but He calls us back anyway.  We’re stuck in mediocrity between what we know and what we do.  No shock to our Master.  We’re not what we imagine we should have been by now.  Didn’t surprise Jesus.  We missed the bar we set for ourselves among our peers.  Jesus, leaning on the fallen bar, holds out His hand to pull us to our feet.  Is it possible that we’ve been looking at this relationship all wrong?  Perhaps we should take that hand, be pulled to our feet, and listen to His explanation.  There’s something we’re missing we desperately need to know.

What do you see through your knothole this morning?

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Passion Week XXVI

Then the whole body of them got up and brought Him before Pilate.  And they began to accuse Him, saying, “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King.”  So Pilate asked Him, saying, “Are You the King of the Jews?” And He answered him and said, “It is as you say.”  Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no guilt in this man.” (Luke 23:1-4 NASB)

Having concluded that Jesus claims to be God, and therefore, deity, the religious leaders take Him to Pilate for execution.  The problem is that claiming to be a foreign god isn’t a “hanging offense” under Roman law.  But rebels are punished pretty quickly, so they accuse Jesus of sedition (just to be able to use that word in a sentence).

Their initial accusations refer back to some of their confrontations during the week, like paying taxes.  But others refer to Jesus as claiming to be a king, and that He claims to be an “anointed one”.  Being anointed does have meaning in Roman and Greek culture, just not exactly the same meaning.  Anointing for Greeks and Romans is what you did with medicine on a wounded person.  But the Romans were very aware of the political ramifications of anointing to the Jews.  So when the Jewish leaders say, “king”, Pilate begins his interrogation.

The Problem for Pilate is that when asked, Jesus doesn’t go frothing-at-the-mouth crazy.  That would have made the job easier, and it’s what others did.  But instead, Jesus is calmly saying yes in an oblique manner.  So, Pilate returns and says he finds no guilt in Jesus.

In other Gospels, more detail is supplied about Pilate’s predicament.  His wife warns him to stay out of it.  Jesus has no problem with Pilate’s authority, and claims His kingdom is from another realm (does Pilate think He’s nuts?).  Regardless which Gospel you read, Pilate does not have a rebel before Him, only rabid religious leaders.  The ones frothing-at-the-mouth crazy, inciting a riot among the people, are the ones seeking to have Jesus crucified.  It’s a tragic irony.  And at some point, it really comes down to keeping the peace during the festival.

Still, Pilate will be trying other means to apply a modicum of justice to the event.  Of course, it won’t work.  Unbeknownst to everyone but Jesus, He has an appointment with a cross, at a particular hour on that that specific day.  It’s an appointment set when the universe was created, to be heralded by signs in the sun and moon.  How could Pilate know?  How could the religious leaders have known?  Jesus knew.  Jesus sees this act unfold exactly as written by the Playwright of Heaven.  But Jesus also knows this isn’t His final act.

When confronted with social and cultural pressure to disavow Jesus, what do we do?  Far too often, we do the expedient thing.  In order to not be offensive, we decide to prevent a riot, to keep the peace.  Too many things go wrong with that behavior.  The “reasonable” believers are stuck in the middle between rabid-frothing-at-the-mouth religious nuts wanting to kill everyone disagreeing with them, and the comfortable religious sanguine group who sell out the practice of their faith in Jesus to a bowl of mixed nuts.  Many in the middle are caught between the desire to simply minister to the hurts of humanity, and the clamor for lies in the society at large.

Jesus neither held a sign saying “God hates everybody”, nor did He simply “go along to get along” with the religious leaders.  He wandered the region healing, preaching the truth, raising the dead, and casting out demons.  Jesus set a course, and everyone else could either get on board or watch from the dock as He left them behind.  He invited some, some of those accepted His invitation, and others didn’t.  But He didn’t deviate from His goal, His appointment with a cross.

I suspect our problem is more about not having that sense of divine goal or purpose.  We don’t seek the definitions of our lives which only our Master provides.  When we do, we don’t like the answers we get.  The purpose is behind us, but we won’t turn around.  The goal lies in a direction we’ve already rejected, so we don’t see it.  We look without turning the head or lifting the clutter of our lives.  What we want is for our Master to confirm our goals and purposes.  What He wants is for us to follow Jesus to a cross.  So, we check our calendars for the first opening we can find.  But, finding no convenient time to be tortured to death, we ask for another goal or purpose.  In a sense, we, once again, choose from the tree providing us the right and power to choose good and evil for ourselves.

Life lies at the end of a path through a method of humiliating death.  Death is found on every other path. Discipleship, repentance, and faith are the ingredients resulting in love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, and self-control.  We want those things, but balk at the price God charges.  Will we be crucified with Christ, and no longer live?  Will we live this life in the body by faith in the Son of God who has loved us and gave Himself for us?  We can’t have one with out the other.  That’s just how this play was written.  We can try to write another, but the warning from Scripture is that such a play is always a tragedy.

What’s your view through your knothole this morning?