This next chapter and a half or so of Jesus’ interaction with Pilate is worthy of a long study on its own. Perhaps we’ll do that someday.
For now, the gymnastics the religious leaders go through to justify their actions with the law jumps out like a sore thumb. They’ve indicated they want Jesus to die. Let’s just start there. Their desire is for someone, a human being, to die. They believe he should die according to the Law. And yet, they also acknowledge that their Law doesn’t allow for them to kill him.
Read that again.
How often today do the people of God hide behind “the law?”
Stick for a moment with the parallel issue of capital punishment (that one should be killed for their breaking of the law). Today, the vast majority of those who “support” capital punishment would certainly expect someone else to do the deed (pull the switch, trigger, etc.).
Doesn’t that feel icky?
The religious leaders, jaded by their jealousy/fear/concern about Jesus and his growing influence, sneak off to the Roman government to dispatch of him.
In the nation in which I and most of the people reading this live, Christians of all sorts justify strong convictions based upon shades of “the law,” be it American law or even church dogma.
But Jesus is different. It’s not that he doesn’t have boundaries or standards, but that they are not easily applied across all people in all situations. That is what laws try to do: rise above relationships and contexts in the assumption that universal standards can be forced upon all.
But Jesus is different.
John 18:28-38
The Jewish leaders led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Roman governor’s palace. It was early in the morning. So that they could eat the Passover, the Jewish leaders wouldn’t enter the palace; entering the palace would have made them ritually impure.
So Pilate went out to them and asked, “What charge do you bring against this man?”
They answered, “If he had done nothing wrong, we wouldn’t have handed him over to you.”
Pilate responded, “Take him yourselves and judge him according to your Law.”
The Jewish leaders replied, “The Law doesn’t allow us to kill anyone.” (This was so that Jesus’ word might be fulfilled when he indicated how he was going to die.)
Pilate went back into the palace. He summoned Jesus and asked, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
Jesus answered, “Do you say this on your own or have others spoken to you about me?”
Pilate responded, “I’m not a Jew, am I? Your nation and its chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?”
Jesus replied, “My kingdom doesn’t originate from this world. If it did, my guards would fight so that I wouldn’t have been arrested by the Jewish leaders. My kingdom isn’t from here.”
“So you are a king?” Pilate said.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. I was born and came into the world for this reason: to testify to the truth. Whoever accepts the truth listens to my voice.”
“What is truth?” Pilate asked.
After Pilate said this, he returned to the Jewish leaders and said, “I find no grounds for any charge against him.
Prayer
God,
I admit that I like to organize things. There’s nothing wrong with that, right? But the things within institution to which I am drawn tend to be those that I can control and set up in particular processes and flow charts according to what I know is needed.
But I’m continuing to learn, Lord, that when I do this, I am doing so based upon my own understandings, which are limited. I apply my experience toward all people of all experiences. And what I’m hearing from them is that I just don’t get it.
And I don’t. I don’t always get it. I often do not get it.
So help me, God: Give me space and grace and wisdom and patience as I seek to maneuver the institutional power afforded to me.
By your spirit & in Christ,
Amen.