.
I have another primer/opener for you here. This one is a Harvey story. I don’t think that this one has shown up at Alpha yet but consider this a plug for Alpha: come and hear Harvey’s stories like the following:
I have another primer/opener for you here. This one is a Harvey story. I don’t think that this one has shown up at Alpha yet but consider this a plug for Alpha: come and hear Harvey’s stories like the following:
There is this boy. He starts out writing a letter to Santa but then realises that he will get better results if he writes directly to the Lord. So he writes: ‘Dear Santa (crossed out). ‘Dear Jesus, I have been good for six months; please give me what I want for Christmas.’ He thinks a minute. Crosses it out and writes, ‘Dear Jesus, I have been good for one month; please give me what I want for Christmas.’ He thinks a minute. Crosses it out and writes, ‘Dear Jesus, I have been good for a week; please give me what I want for Christmas.’ He thinks a minute. Crosses it out and writes, ‘Dear Jesus, I have been good for a whole day; please give me what I want for Christmas.’ He thinks a minute and as he is thinking, he spies a nativity scene. He walks over to it. He picks up the statue of Mary and he walks back over to his desk. He places her in front of him; he picks up his pen again and he writes, ‘Dear Jesus… if you ever want to see your mother again…give me what I want for Christmas’
Today’s pericope (John 18:28-19:16) is about an awkward situation not entirely dissimilated to these two. It is certainly no less violent. Here we have the Jewish leaders bringing Jesus before Governor Pontius Pilate to receive his death sentence. We remember the historical setting and the political situation at this time of Palestine. The Romans are the superpower of the day and the Romans are militarily occupying Judea. They conquered Israel by force and their forces are stationed all over the country. Just like in the nations that the US occupies today, some people are fine with it, conspiring with the occupiers to achieve and maintain position and privilege and some people are not: they are looking for an opportunity to revolt. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Priests and officers conspire with the Romans and they receive the power to exercise their authority by submitting to Rome. Others however do not. The Sicarii, the Zealots, they are like today’s suicide bombers. They are terrorists. They walk through the crowded marketplaces looking for Romans to stab with their short concealed Sicarii knives. When our story today is taking place, there are a lot of crowds for people to walk through. It is Passover in Jerusalem and hundreds of thousands or even by some accounts millions of visitors are pouring into Jerusalem.
Governor Pontius Pilate, who is the leader of the Roman forces in Judea, does not normally reside in the city of Jerusalem where he is today. He is usually posted in Caesarea Maritima but it is the Passover so – like in our times when millions of Hindus come to bathe in the Ganges River or when many Moslems from all over the world descend upon Mecca for Ramadan - many Jews are descending on Jerusalem for the Passover.
It would be like when the Olympics came to Vancouver. The city was seemingly completely full. In preparation for the event, they even flew people with criminal warrants back to the cities from which they came and the city needed to import police officers from all over the country to help with policing all of the visitors. Now imagine that the next Olympics are to be held in Kabul, Afghanistan; Baghdad, Iraq or some other US occupied country. Think of all the extra security forces that would be needed. This is the situation in Jerusalem of our text today. Governor Pontius Pilate who usually resides in a fortress in a different city comes to Jerusalem to oversee the crowd control. He and Rome are afraid of the potential for a Jewish revolt as all these people are converging on their ancient capital city for a religious festival.[2]
It is this situation that the Jewish leaders who conspire with the Romans (even if they do not like them that much), the chief priests and officers, decide to capitalize on (cf. John 11:45-57). They want Jesus dead. Jesus has been making problems for them. Jesus has been attracting massive crowds. Jesus apparently challenges them publicly at every possible opportunity. In the book of John here it is no secret that Jesus is the Messiah. The Messiah is the one to deliver his people. He is to deliver the people from their occupiers. The religious leaders are afraid that Jesus will start a rebellion that will not only cost them their privileges under the Romans but will also cost many innocent people their lives (cf. John 11:49-52). Jesus, in their eyes, is their adversary and this is the opportunity to get rid of him for good. They decide to bring Jesus to Governor Pontius Pilate, accuse him of treason and have the Romans kill him.
Now this is interesting. We know from the scriptures that there are times when mobs of Judeans had picked up stones to stone Jesus (John 8:32, 10:59) and we know that one such lynch mob would later kill Stephen (Acts 7:54–60), the first Christian martyr; so, why did the Jewish leaders need the Romans to kill Jesus for them? We know this was needed to fulfill prophecy (Deuteronomy 21:23; John 3:14, 8:28, 12:32–33) but there were other reasons that would have been running through the minds of the chief priests and officers. One is that the Jewish leaders were afraid of the people. It says this more than once in the Scriptures. They were afraid of what would happen if they seized Jesus and executed him publicly so instead they grabbed him at night in the garden, held their trials for him and then first thing in the morning, as soon as the governor began work – which was probably before six o’clock in the morning by the way - still under the cover of darkness, they bring Jesus and their mob to the Romans.[3] This way if the Romans kill Jesus, the Jewish leaders can easily say to the people that it wasn’t them. And we must remember also that because Judea is an occupied territory, the Jewish authorities don’t really have the authority to execute anyone anyway (cf. Josephus, War 1, 97f.; Antiquities XIII, 380-383).[4] Sometimes the Romans would turn a blind eye to their unauthorized executions in order to maintain order. But during the Passover, with so many forces stationed in Jerusalem, it probably wouldn’t be worth the risk and – like we said – with the Jewish leaders bringing Jesus to Pilate to be condemned, this way the Romans could take the blame for killing this popular leader so they can be both rid of Jesus and off the hook for his murder. This is the scene in the pericope before us today.
Now Verses 28-38, which we read earlier show some very interesting parts of Pilate’s interview of Jesus and his relationship with the Jews. At first in this section it reads as if Pontius Pilate is annoyed by the Jews. Here they are arriving at his doorstep, at the beginning of his workday at 6am, at Passover season, which is the busiest time of the year for him. He interviews Jesus but doesn’t seem to have any patience with the Jews at all. After the interview, Verses 38-40: “…With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’? They shouted back, ‘No, not him! Give us Barabbas!’ Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.”
Here is an interesting tangent. Does anybody know any Aramaic? Do you know what the murderous revolutionary’s name Barabbas means? Break it into the two parts: part 2 is ‘Abba’; what does ‘Abba’ mean? ‘Abba’ means father. ‘Bar’ means ‘Son of’. Therefore Barabbas means ‘son of the father’. So ironically, Jesus who is ‘the Son of the Father’ dies in place of Barabbas whose name means ‘son of the father’. But that is a side note; let us return to our story.
Pilate and the Jewish leaders are having a bit of a standoff in our text today. The Jews here want Rome to execute Jesus and the leader of the Roman forces in Jerusalem is not really interested in this for two or three reasons. We know from Matthew’s Biblical account that Pilate’s wife has had a vision that would make him not want to kill Jesus (Matthew 27:19) and we also know from non-Biblical historical documents that Pilate didn’t really like the Jews and he ruled with an iron fist (Josephus, War II, 169-177 and Antiquities XVIII 55-62, 89-92; Philo, Legatio ad Gaium, 38; Tactius Annuals, 15, 44).[5] Pilate, I think, knows what the Jewish leaders are up to; he doesn’t like them and he doesn’t want to be dictated to by a conquered and an occupied people. He is Roman. Rome is the Superpower of the first Century. They are the Americans of their day. They are not going to be dictated to by a subjugated people.
Chapter 19 begins with Pilate possibly thinking that he can just brush this whole thing aside still; he has just tried to release a convicted revolutionary in place of an accused revolutionary but to no avail. Now he resorts to having Jesus beaten. This beating can take place for one of two reasons in this context. One, they did often beat people before crucifixion; or two, they would also beat people in place of crucifixion as a form of brutal humiliation. Given that Pilate ordered this beating and then humiliated him by having Jesus dressed in a robe with a crown of thorns and then further appealed to the Jewish leaders to see if this would satisfy them, this whole exercise was probably another attempt to avoid signing Jesus’ death warrant and to get rid of these pesky Jewish leaders before they cause some real problems for Pilate.[6]
Now in the lines that follow, John 19:12ff., Pontius Pilate is still apparently trying to decide what to do and Jesus isn’t really helping him any by refusing to answer certain questions. The Jewish leaders and their mob are now getting anxious and no doubt inpatient as time goes on. They need this done quickly before anyone might form another mob and come to Jesus’ aid. They then go on to push Pilate’s buttons. They know how to get to the governor and they do. They say to Governor Pilate, Verse 12, “... If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.” The implication here is not subtle; it is that if he does not order Jesus’ execution they will write to his boss, the Emperor in Rome, saying that Pilate let a revolutionary live who was trying to lead a revolt against Rome and as the Roman Emperor at this time seemed somewhat paranoid in general and was not afraid to act militarily at the first perceived threat, Verse 13, “When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha).”
This next part is the part that I want to focus on. It is where we can ask ourselves what is the author of John telling us in the text here and what is God doing here in this story?
We know that the Romans promoted, among other things, an Emperor cult.[7] The Emperor was worshiped as a god. These Jews have just let Pilate know that if he does not kill Jesus, they will report him as supporting a rebellion against his own god-king. Pilate’s response is as masterful as it is vengeful, as it is tragic for the Jews. Verses 14-18:
It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon. “Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews.
But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”
“Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked.
“We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered. Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.
“Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked. “We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered. Do you know what Pilate has just done here to the Jewish leaders before he would give them what they want? Do you know what the religious leaders have just done? They have just denied their God. In effect the Jewish leaders said to Pilate that if you do not give the orders crucify Jesus we will tell your god-king Caesar that you are disloyal to him; so Pilate responds by saying to these Jews that if you want me to crucify Jesus, you must deny your God-King. When Governor Pilate got the Jewish religious leaders to confess that “We have no king but Caesar”, that is exactly what they were doing – denying YHWH, the LORD, God.
This is Passover. Every Passover the Jewish people concluded the great Hallel (Psalms. 113–118) with this prayer: ‘From everlasting to everlasting thou art God; beside thee we have no king, redeemer, or saviour; no liberator, deliverer, provider; none who takes pity in every time of distress or trouble. We have no king but thee.’[8] The Jewish leaders here are not only indirectly disowning God by rejecting Jesus in this way but they are also opennly, actively rejecting God in their action of disowning Jesus (cf. John 1:11).
The Jewish Chief Priests and Officers want this big problem of Jesus removed from their lives so much that they are willing to disavow God in order to do it. They are like Calvin in our openning comic strip. So much does he want to hit Susie with the snowball that he sacrifices his soul to the devil. This is what the Jewish leaders have done. What profits a man to inherit the whole world and yet forfeit his soul (Matthew 16:26; Mark 8:36)? This is a tragedy of this story. He came to his own but they did not accept him (John 1:11). The Jewish leaders rejected God and we know that for many this rejection continued even to the point of setting up the modern religion of Judaism ca. 70 CE where they formalize both their rejection of the ancient Israelite traditions and their rejection of the perfection of those traditions in Christ. God came to them in their time of need but they thought that they could deliver themselves from their suffering; so, rather than rely on God, they rejected him and suffered without him as even their beloved Temple was destroyed in 70 CE. God left them? No, they - the Jewish Chief Priests, Officers, and their followers - left God and so they do not have Him.
The question for us today then is this: When life starts to get out of hand, when –like the Jewish leaders - there is nothing that we can humanly do; when tragedy strikes our life as I know it has lately for many of us here, do we turn to God and live or do we turn on God and die. Do we turn to God and live or do we turn on God - indulging in our own anger, vengeance, self-pity and arrogance - and suffer the consequences.
Now we are short on time but I want to bring one more thing to our attention here. Immediately preceding the Jewish leaders’ denial of Christ in our story is Peter’s three-fold denial of Jesus (John 18). We are all familiar with that. As surely as the Jewish authorities here openly and publicly disavow God’s lordship, Peter, just prior to this episode denies Christ for a third time (John 18:27) – but Peter, after the resurrection, in a couple of chapters will be reinstated and Peter will not deny Christ again, he will follow him even unto death (John 21:9-19). Peter will confess his sin and his self-focus in his time of trouble and Peter will be saved.
Today we have the same choices before us. We are all holding Calvin’s snowball. As our life comes crashing down around us, as trials and tribulations mount, as enemies and adversaries seem to be raised up from every corner of our world, as our life becomes overwhelming, it is like we are in the courtyard with Jesus in our story today and we can either turn on him by indulging in and holding onto our anger, our rage, our righteous indignation, and our own self-pity or we can turn to him and live. So today when life is difficult, let us take courage and let us turn to him who is able, more than able to accomplish what concerns us today. Let us turn to him who is able, more than able to handle anything that comes our way. When life is difficult, let us turn to him who is able, more than able to do much more than we could ever dream. Let us turn to him who is able, more than able to make us what He wants us to be. He is able. Amen.
Let us pray this song together.
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[1]http://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/search.php?phrase=snowman
[2] Kruse, Colin G.: John: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2003 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 4), S. 351
[3] cf. William Hendricksen, John, New Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids, Mi: Baker Academic, 2007), 400
[4] Gail R. O’Day, The Gospel of John, The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 9, ed Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995),820.
[5] Gerard Sloyan, John, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, ed. James L. Mays, et. al. (Atlanta, Georgia: John Knox Press, 1988), 204, Gail R. O’Day, The Gospel of John, The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 9, ed Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), 815
[6] Colin G. Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2003 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 4), S. 355
[7]Cf. N.T. Wright, 'Paul and Caesar: A New Reading of Romans', originally published in A Royal Priesthood: The Use of the Bible Ethically and Politically, ed. C. Bartholemew, 2002, Carlisle: Paternoster, 173–193. Reproduced by permission of the author. Available on-line at http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Paul_Caesar_Romans.htm
[8] Gail R. O’Day, The Gospel of John, The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 9, ed Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), 823; Colin G. Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2003 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 4), S. 359, red 422.
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