When I was in high school, my parents encouraged me to get involved in various activities at school, in the church, in the community in order to discover my interests and perhaps a life direction. Thus, one day I tried out for a high school play and, without any previous experience, I landed the lead role. That was the first of many productions I got involved in, and in college, I consequently became a drama major.
People have debated for centuries what is most important in a play. Is it plot or character? For my money, I would bet on the characters being the most important element in a play. After all, it is the characters and their motivations that drive the plot.
Thus, I would suggest to you that the power of the play is in the characters, and as we come to our text in the Gospel of John today, we approach what William Barclay has called “the most dramatic account of the trial of Jesus in the New Testament”.
You may wonder why we are looking at this text today that focuses on the events of the last week of Jesus’ life. Isn’t that more appropriate for Holy Week? Well, this is the Gospel text assigned in the lectionary to this Sunday, the last Sunday of the Church Year, which we call “Christ the King” Sunday.
So, listen for God’s word to you from John 18:33-37, paying special attention to the cast of characters represented here, and to what we might learn about Jesus’ kingship…
Then Pilate entered the headquarters[a] again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” 35 Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” 37 Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
The first character in our cast is really a group. John refers to them as: “the Jews”.
Critics have often claimed that John’s Gospel is anti-Semitic; they claim that John places the blame for the death of Jesus on the Jews and the Jews alone. However, such is not the case. Obviously, Jesus himself was a Jew and all of his first followers were Jews. John is not speaking against all Jews.
There is a subtle interplay between all the characters in this real-life drama, including the Romans like Pontius Pilate and the Jews. This interplay is what leads to the death of Christ. Furthermore, it is important to note that when John refers to “the Jews” a few verses earlier than our text for today, he is talking about the Jewish leaders. John leaves out the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin, but it is these Jewish leaders, from the Sanhedrin, or Jewish Supreme Court, who lead Jesus to Pilate for trial.
What is it that motivated these Jewish leaders to want Jesus executed? I think we find at least a partial answer back in John 12. There we read that:
Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him.
Then, in response to the crowds flocking to Jesus on Palm Sunday, the Pharisees say: “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!”
I think part of what motivated the Jewish leaders to desire Jesus’ execution was pure jealousy. They saw more people following Jesus than were following them, and they could not stand for that. Therefore, the Jewish leaders sought Jesus’ death.
Whenever we see jealousy at work in our own lives, we see the same evil that put Jesus on the cross. I have certainly seen this evil at work in the lives of ministers, as strange as that may seem to you. I have seen it at work in my own life.
It is so easy for ministers to be jealous of other ministers who appear to be more successful than they are. I remember feeling that way some time ago about a pastor I knew since childhood who was about my same age. He was serving a large church out west and I thought, “Why is that not me, Lord?” Shortly thereafter, I heard, tragically, that this pastor, whom I knew many years ago, had committed suicide.
Most of the time, we simply do not know the burdens that other people are bearing. If we did know their burdens, then we would not be jealous of them.
I believe jealousy reveals a lack of gratitude and contentment with the persons that God has created us to be. As Dag Hammarskjold once said, “To be humble is not to make comparisons.” If I am comparing myself to someone else, either someone I think better or worse than I am, then I am no longer humble; I am no longer content with the unique person God has created me to be.
These words from Brother Geoffrey Tristram of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist speak powerfully to me…
God does not make mistakes! He does not create you and say, ‘I want you to be like him or her.’ God calls you to be more the ‘you’ that God had in mind when he created you. My vocation is not to become like someone else, perhaps the image of a saint who I think I should be like, but to become more ‘me’.
When we truly realize the truth of that statement and focus on becoming the persons God created us and redeemed us to be, then it knocks out jealousy.
The second major character we see in this real-life drama is Pilate.
What motivated Pilate to give in to the demands of the Jewish leaders and give the order to have Jesus executed? In order to understand the answer to that question, we must first understand something about Pilate himself.
As governor of Judea, Pilate was, obviously, a faithful servant of the Emperor who had appointed him to his position in A. D. 26. William Barclay tells the story of Pilate’s first visit to Jerusalem that reveals something of the man’s character….
When he came to Jerusalem, he always came with a detachment of soldiers. The soldiers had their standards, and on the top of the standard there was a little bust in metal of the reigning Emperor. The Emperor was regarded as a god, and to the Jew that little bust on the standards was a graven image.
All previous Roman governors, in deference to the religious scruples of the Jews, had removed that image before they entered the city. Pilate refused to do so. The Jews besought him to do so. Pilate was adamant; he would not pander to the superstitions of the Jews. He went back to Caesarea. The Jews followed him. They dogged his footsteps for five days. They were humble, but determined in their requests. Finally he told them to meet him in the amphitheatre. He surrounded them with armed soldiers, and informed them that if they did not stop their requests they would be killed there and then. The Jews bared their necks and bade the soldiers strike. Not even Pilate could massacre defenceless men like that. He was beaten and compelled to agree that the images should thereafter be removed from the standards. That was how Pilate began and it was a bad beginning.
There were a number of other incidents like this during Pilate’s term as governor of Judea. On more than one occasion, Pilate did follow through and massacre his opponents. So how was it that the Jews bested him on this occasion when they wanted Jesus executed and Pilate did not want to do it because he knew Jesus was innocent? The Jewish leaders blackmailed Pilate, the faithful servant of the Emperor, by saying, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar.” Pilate did not want to look like he was being unfaithful to the Emperor. Moreover, he did not want to lose his job if the Jewish leaders reported him to the Emperor for letting Jesus, “a dangerous revolutionary”, go. Therefore, Pilate acted out of self-interest and gave the order for Jesus’ crucifixion.
I wonder: are we ever like Pilate? Pilate asked, “What is truth?” but did not wait for Jesus to answer. Do we ever sacrifice truth in order to protect our own self-interest?
Soren Kierkegaard once said,
Christian truth itself has eyes to see with. In fact it is all eye. That’s very disquieting. Think of looking at a painting and discovering that the painting was looking at you. Precisely such is the case with Christian truth. It is looking back at me to see whether I do what it says I should do.[1]
Pilate did not like truth looking back at him, so he walked away and did what was in his own self-interest, not what was right. If we are honest, we must admit that sometimes we do the same.
We have talked about some of the main characters in this greatest drama of all time: the Jewish leaders and Pilate. However, now we must examine the character at the center of it all: Jesus.
We should note several things about Jesus, as we examine the culmination of the drama of his life. First, we see here his sheer majesty. One does not get the sense reading this account that Jesus was on trial. One gets the sense that everyone else in the story is on trial, especially Pilate and the Jewish leaders. That should remind us that when we face Jesus, weare the ones on trial, not him. Pilate asked Jesus, “Don’t you realize I have power to release you or crucify you?” Yet, Jesus responded, “You would have no power unless it were given to you from above.” That response reveals Jesus’ true majesty.
Secondly, Jesus speaks here in a straightforward manner about his kingdom. His kingdom is not of this world. Yet, Pilate and the Jewish leaders sense almost intuitively that if Jesus is allowed to reign, then all other kingdoms must go by the wayside, and they cannot allow that to happen. This poses the question for us: who is on the throne of our lives?
Thirdly, Jesus tells us why he came into the world: to witness to the truth. He tells us the truth about God, about ourselves, and about life. In fact, as Jesus has already told his disciples: he is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through him. His claim is absolute. We must either accept or reject him.
Fourth, we see the physical courage of Jesus. Pilate had him scourged. That means Jesus was tied to a whipping post and his back was completely exposed to the lashes of a leather whip embedded with led and sharpened pieces of bone. That would have torn Jesus’ back to shreds. Some people did not survive scourging, but Jesus did.
Fifth, we see the silence of Jesus. There was a moment when Pilate was scared. He was just superstitious enough to think that Jesus might be some sort of god. Therefore, he asked him: “Where do you come from?” However, Jesus would not answer. Jesus would not rise to his own defense, not before Pilate or anyone else. He chose to go to the cross, and he did it for you and me.
We must also talk briefly about a fourth group of characters who are part of the larger story of which our reading today plays a small part. I am thinking of the soldiers who crucified Jesus.
What these Roman soldiers did to Jesus was indeed terrible. They mocked him. They plaited a crown of thorns upon his head. They beat Jesus to within an inch of his life. In one sense, these Roman soldiers were just doing their job. In another sense, they were common bullies. However, we must remember one thing. There is a sense in which these soldiers did not know what they were doing. They probably had no idea who Jesus was. They were different from the Jewish leaders and even from Pilate in this sense.
Were Jesus’ words from the cross, addressed to these soldiers? “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Yes, these words Jesus spoke for the soldiers and for each one of us, because often the greatest evil wecommit is the evil we do not even realize we are doing.
Finally, I would like to say something about the character of Barabbas. He was not mentioned in the text we read earlier, but he is part of the larger story in the Gospel of John. Barabbas’ name, as it stands in Scripture, means “son of the father”. It is interesting to note that the one and only Son of God, our heavenly father, took the place of this son of an earthly father on the cross. In fact, the son of our heavenly Father took the place of every child of an earthly father.
Barabbas’ name may also have been a compound of the words “Bar Rabban” meaning “son of the Rabbi”. Barabbas may well have been the son of a Rabbi, the son of some noble family, who in fact became a revolutionary fighting for the overthrow of Rome. Barabbas was not content to let God deal with Rome; he must do it himself.
A third thing to note about Barabbas’ name: it was his second name, like our family names today. Peter was Simon bar-Jonah, or Simon son of Jonah. Therefore, we must ask: what was Barabbas’ first name? Some ancient manuscripts suggest his first name was actually Jesus. Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua, a name that was given to many a Jewish boy in those days. Thus, when the crowd made their choice as to who they wanted crucified, they might possibly have been choosing between two Jesuses: Jesus bar-Joseph or Jesus bar-Abbas.
We also must make that choice every day: either for the Jesus of force and bloodshed, Barabbas, or for the Jesus of gentleness, love and forgiveness. We must decide whether we are going to try to take control of life ourselves, or let God be in control. It is a tragic fact of history that many people have chosen the way of Barabbas and rejected the way of Jesus.
I wonder: what is your choice this day? What is mine? We too are characters in the greatest play of all time; we too have an important part to play. How well we play our part has everything to do with which Jesus we choose to follow.
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