[Editor's note: This is the second of a series of three reflections by Dr. Seitz.]
John 18:28-19:16
"Pilate said to him, 'What is truth?'"
With what deep irony does John report the transfer of Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate. The Jews do not enter the Roman governmental headquarters for fear of defilement-in accordance with the law-and so do not hear the words they need to hear, and never will hear. Unless, like us, at a later day through this account from John.
And the true Passover lamb is Jesus himself. They will not partake of him as they attend to the Passover requirements he is himself, in himself, fulfilling. At noon on the day of Preparation, the slaughtering of Passover lambs begins, and leaven is removed from their houses and burned. It will be at that hour that Jesus is sentenced, having been scourged and flogged within an inch of his life, the true lamb led to slaughter. Yes, for John, this too, maybe even essentially this, is what he means when he says, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." As the church fathers knew, this is what it meant for Jesus to be the servant of Isaiah: he bore our infirmities and carried our sicknesses: even the sicknesses we ourselves devised in the cruel cabinets of our imaginations. Justice meant to terrify and warn. Dispensed in ruthless fashion here.
The heart of our second reading is the back and forth between Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect for Judea, and the Jews, as he goes in and out of his chamber. Inside is Jesus. Pilate is remembered as a strong and decisive man, though all such appointments came at the pleasure of Tiberius Caesar, a suspicious and tyrannical ruler. 'Friend of Caesar' meant not just a front row seat at the theatre or a special horse from the roman stable. It meant loyal and dutiful and above reproach. Even powerful men, like Pilate, are not without fear when certain names are named.
But when the action begins Pilate is the man in power, energized by his annoyance at the Jews who have brought him Jesus. Roman officials began their work in the morning, and the Jews have brought Jesus early because they are facing the Passover deadline and need to get this man dealt with before the festival. Clearly there had been some prior discussion and the Jews assumed that their request would be rubber-stamped. Instead, Pilate begins his own trial and before it is over ends up in a nasty trial of his own. There is no encounter with Jesus Christ, none, no matter how high and mighty, that will leave one unchanged or unshaken.
This is why Jesus responds to Pilate as he does. He is seeking to get inside Pilate's own soul. He asks Pilate if he is merely repeating a charge-are you a king?-or if he really wants to know himself. Pilate's irritation is like that of Annas: Jesus is not responding in a way he should. He is not cowering but probing, even at the hour of his impending death. Jesus has brought a kingdom that will penetrate into ever pore of this world, but it comes from a source outside this world. This, Jesus says, is what truth is: God in active and searching personal form. "The one with whom we have to do." "I am who I am and will be." Pilate is not offering philosophy when he says 'what is truth?' but rather indicating that this is a frame of reference he just does not acknowledge. An ape before a book.
But then he makes a mistake, and it indicates that he is feeling out of his depth. He could have dismissed the charges, but instead offers the Jews a choice that would get him off the hook and save them face. The bin Laden of his day, a Jewish terrorist: surely they will choose Jesus over Barabbas and let this disturbing king go? But it goes all wrong. They cry for Barabbas.
Now Pilate must find another way forward. The scourging here indicated is the worst of three kinds possible from the Romans, often administered with lashes spiked with bone and metal. This is not necessary, and it either indicates cruelty or exasperation. Usually this punishment is a prelude to crucifixion because it weakens the victim to the point of death. But Pilate is hoping the spectacle will bring things to a halt.
It is hard to know what to make of an account like this. Clearly Jesus is beaten and tortured in ways that, while familiar in the annals of horror, are nonetheless shocking and very hard to hear. How can this man be so treated? Our hymns strain to capture how sorrowful and sickening it all is, how pointless, how wrong. The holocaust has reminded us of the worst in human atrocity, but associating that with Jesus our Lord can still take our breath away. Jesus, this Jesus, has gone straight into realms of horror and placed his crown there. The Word become flesh.
Pilate hopes the reduction of this king to such a pitiful state will bring everyone to their senses. He marches Jesus out in the robes and crown of thorns. "Behold the man." But again it goes wrong. And with this Pilate, man of absolute power and authority, is more afraid than ever. And now he must ask questions he had not intended to ask. For can it indeed be the case that the mystery of God in flesh is precisely the man he sees before him? Undaunted. Drawing on a strength one cannot identify except it come from the heavens. What is this display of power in the face of the greatest military force ever assembled, steady and focused in spite of the scourging?
Jesus gives no answer to the first question, not out of exhaustion but because no answer is itself a boundary Pilate does not know how to cross, because it takes him into a place he has never gone and will not go. But when he tries again with talk of power, Jesus' answer is more unnerving than we may realize. This entire state of affairs, Jesus says, with you at the center of things, has been planned from eternity. Even your power is only a part of a Kingdom God is bringing on his own terms. In your big part, you are still a part, nothing more.
And the truth of this is revealed in the very next scene when the Jews turn the tables and terrify the Judean Prefect by reminding him he has a Power to fear himself, inside his own frame of reference. Are you a friend of Caesar or not? The only place Pilate can now retaliate is in insisting Jesus is a king, is their king. The daily prayers of the observant Jew-the 18 benedictions-include the confession that God alone is King. "We have no king but Caesar" is in defiance of that of course. But here is just one more indication that if one does not see Jesus as the King of all time and place, one will not be free: one will simply identify another King and pay him homage. One can deny this, but one day the truth will come out all the same. That is true for Pilate, for the Jews, and for each one of us. All that happens on Good Friday is that the inescapable fact of this is shown for what it is.
For Jesus is King because there is no realm in life-including the thresholds of death, of brutality, of throne rooms or dark hellish places-where the sign ever moves from over his head. "I am not alone for the Father is with me." It is that relationship-implacable, permanent, enduring through all trials and tests, including death on a cross-that makes this Jesus King of Kings. Especially today, when we stand still and see God at work in him. And now we come to the moment he had said would come, as Passover begins. "I, when I am lifted up, will draw all men to myself."
"Then Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified."
Continue to part 3 of these reflections.....
John 18:28-19:16
"Pilate said to him, 'What is truth?'"
With what deep irony does John report the transfer of Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate. The Jews do not enter the Roman governmental headquarters for fear of defilement-in accordance with the law-and so do not hear the words they need to hear, and never will hear. Unless, like us, at a later day through this account from John.
And the true Passover lamb is Jesus himself. They will not partake of him as they attend to the Passover requirements he is himself, in himself, fulfilling. At noon on the day of Preparation, the slaughtering of Passover lambs begins, and leaven is removed from their houses and burned. It will be at that hour that Jesus is sentenced, having been scourged and flogged within an inch of his life, the true lamb led to slaughter. Yes, for John, this too, maybe even essentially this, is what he means when he says, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." As the church fathers knew, this is what it meant for Jesus to be the servant of Isaiah: he bore our infirmities and carried our sicknesses: even the sicknesses we ourselves devised in the cruel cabinets of our imaginations. Justice meant to terrify and warn. Dispensed in ruthless fashion here.
The heart of our second reading is the back and forth between Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect for Judea, and the Jews, as he goes in and out of his chamber. Inside is Jesus. Pilate is remembered as a strong and decisive man, though all such appointments came at the pleasure of Tiberius Caesar, a suspicious and tyrannical ruler. 'Friend of Caesar' meant not just a front row seat at the theatre or a special horse from the roman stable. It meant loyal and dutiful and above reproach. Even powerful men, like Pilate, are not without fear when certain names are named.
But when the action begins Pilate is the man in power, energized by his annoyance at the Jews who have brought him Jesus. Roman officials began their work in the morning, and the Jews have brought Jesus early because they are facing the Passover deadline and need to get this man dealt with before the festival. Clearly there had been some prior discussion and the Jews assumed that their request would be rubber-stamped. Instead, Pilate begins his own trial and before it is over ends up in a nasty trial of his own. There is no encounter with Jesus Christ, none, no matter how high and mighty, that will leave one unchanged or unshaken.
This is why Jesus responds to Pilate as he does. He is seeking to get inside Pilate's own soul. He asks Pilate if he is merely repeating a charge-are you a king?-or if he really wants to know himself. Pilate's irritation is like that of Annas: Jesus is not responding in a way he should. He is not cowering but probing, even at the hour of his impending death. Jesus has brought a kingdom that will penetrate into ever pore of this world, but it comes from a source outside this world. This, Jesus says, is what truth is: God in active and searching personal form. "The one with whom we have to do." "I am who I am and will be." Pilate is not offering philosophy when he says 'what is truth?' but rather indicating that this is a frame of reference he just does not acknowledge. An ape before a book.
But then he makes a mistake, and it indicates that he is feeling out of his depth. He could have dismissed the charges, but instead offers the Jews a choice that would get him off the hook and save them face. The bin Laden of his day, a Jewish terrorist: surely they will choose Jesus over Barabbas and let this disturbing king go? But it goes all wrong. They cry for Barabbas.
Now Pilate must find another way forward. The scourging here indicated is the worst of three kinds possible from the Romans, often administered with lashes spiked with bone and metal. This is not necessary, and it either indicates cruelty or exasperation. Usually this punishment is a prelude to crucifixion because it weakens the victim to the point of death. But Pilate is hoping the spectacle will bring things to a halt.
It is hard to know what to make of an account like this. Clearly Jesus is beaten and tortured in ways that, while familiar in the annals of horror, are nonetheless shocking and very hard to hear. How can this man be so treated? Our hymns strain to capture how sorrowful and sickening it all is, how pointless, how wrong. The holocaust has reminded us of the worst in human atrocity, but associating that with Jesus our Lord can still take our breath away. Jesus, this Jesus, has gone straight into realms of horror and placed his crown there. The Word become flesh.
Pilate hopes the reduction of this king to such a pitiful state will bring everyone to their senses. He marches Jesus out in the robes and crown of thorns. "Behold the man." But again it goes wrong. And with this Pilate, man of absolute power and authority, is more afraid than ever. And now he must ask questions he had not intended to ask. For can it indeed be the case that the mystery of God in flesh is precisely the man he sees before him? Undaunted. Drawing on a strength one cannot identify except it come from the heavens. What is this display of power in the face of the greatest military force ever assembled, steady and focused in spite of the scourging?
Jesus gives no answer to the first question, not out of exhaustion but because no answer is itself a boundary Pilate does not know how to cross, because it takes him into a place he has never gone and will not go. But when he tries again with talk of power, Jesus' answer is more unnerving than we may realize. This entire state of affairs, Jesus says, with you at the center of things, has been planned from eternity. Even your power is only a part of a Kingdom God is bringing on his own terms. In your big part, you are still a part, nothing more.
And the truth of this is revealed in the very next scene when the Jews turn the tables and terrify the Judean Prefect by reminding him he has a Power to fear himself, inside his own frame of reference. Are you a friend of Caesar or not? The only place Pilate can now retaliate is in insisting Jesus is a king, is their king. The daily prayers of the observant Jew-the 18 benedictions-include the confession that God alone is King. "We have no king but Caesar" is in defiance of that of course. But here is just one more indication that if one does not see Jesus as the King of all time and place, one will not be free: one will simply identify another King and pay him homage. One can deny this, but one day the truth will come out all the same. That is true for Pilate, for the Jews, and for each one of us. All that happens on Good Friday is that the inescapable fact of this is shown for what it is.
For Jesus is King because there is no realm in life-including the thresholds of death, of brutality, of throne rooms or dark hellish places-where the sign ever moves from over his head. "I am not alone for the Father is with me." It is that relationship-implacable, permanent, enduring through all trials and tests, including death on a cross-that makes this Jesus King of Kings. Especially today, when we stand still and see God at work in him. And now we come to the moment he had said would come, as Passover begins. "I, when I am lifted up, will draw all men to myself."
"Then Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified."
Continue to part 3 of these reflections.....
