Given at Christ Church, Worton
Reading—John 19. 4-16
Nikolai Ge, What is Truth? (1890). Hangs in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Do they ever get under your skin, the men and women who hold power in our world? Those who casually snigger and sneer and tell obvious lies as they make decisions that will condemn many thousands to their deaths, or devastate the livelihoods of many millions.
Such powers in the land have always existed, although we didn’t always see their faces and hear their voices every day.
Pontius Pilate was such a power in the land. As Roman governor of Judaea, he only had to click his fingers and some of the finest troops the world had ever seen would be sent into action to do his bidding. Over non-citizens, such as Jesus and the apostles, he had the power of life and death. He wasn’t powerful because of any notable personal qualities of his, not as far as we can tell, but because of the Empire he represented.
You didn’t set yourself against the Romans lightly. They were extremely competent and effective, but also ruthless and unafraid of brutality. Their power rested on a reputation that left no doubt they would inflict terror on their enemies, and inflict it capably. That’s why the Jewish leaders started plotting against Jesus in the first place – they were worried that such a charismatic preacher and teacher would attract the wrong sort of attention from the Romans and provoke a bloody reprisal, especially a figure who was developing a name for acts of mysterious power.
Yet Jesus had no ambition for power, rejected violence, and committed no crime. That clearly unsettles Pilate. Clearly he isn’t afraid of a bit of brutality, but such manifest injustice seems a bit much for him. Still, a man of the world has to do what he has to do.
Perhaps the sheer composure of Jesus is also unsettling Pilate. Something indicates that this is no run-of-the-mill country preacher, no yokel out of his depth in the capital to be casually dispensed with. He is bound, condemned, about to be handed over to His death – and yet He is the one calmly pronouncing judgement over the governor. Far from pleading in terror for His life, or shouting angrily at His condemnator, Christ is calm enough even to minimise Pilate’s own responsibility for the situation.
Pilate thinks he is exercising the right the Roman Empire gave him to impose death or grant life. Jesus is telling him, calmly, that this is on loan from a much higher power. One day, Pilate too will be judged.
All human authority, including the authority of the Church, the state, the powerful, is held in trust from above and will be judged accordingly. We only remember Pilate because of his encounter with what seemed to be a pitiful wretch, dispensed unjustly to His death in the course of a spring morning. Otherwise, Pilate would be forgotten by the world.
Forgotten by the world, just as the Trumps and Putins and Xis will all be forgotten someday – of about as much importance to people as Tamburlaine or Attila the Hun are to us.
But not by God, who remembers all. The powerful men of this world will face judgement. Be in no doubt.
You too hold power: not over the affairs of state, but certainly over the people nearest to you. You too can use it to lift people up or to crush them. You too will be judged for your use of it; but your judge will be Jesus Christ, who understood even the actions of Pilate. He will judge you with mercy if you trust in His mercy and share it with others. Cling to His capacity to forgive in the moments when you can’t forgive yourself.
Amen.
