Christians Sunday by Sunday announce our collective memory of Pontius Pilate: “Suffered under Pontius Pilate.” By repeating this creed regularly, we agree with church tradition and we don’t wonder further about Pilate. We certainly have no sympathy for him.
Pilate’s Jewish contemporaries had nothing good to say about him. Christians, especially on Good Friday, don’t let anyone forget our opinion of him. However, some early church traditions decided that Pilate was a believer and two churches still, Ethiopic and Coptic, consider him a saint.
On Good Friday we always concentrate upon Jesus. For once, let’s also spend a little time looking at Pilate. Officially in first-century Judea Pilate represents the Roman Empire, which means he stands for the power of the military overlord; because, Rome has occupied Palestine since 63 BC. Only a few Judeans at Jesus’ time consider the Roman presence a benefit. Romans wouldn’t be anywhere unless for their own self-serving reasons, which sometimes take five, ten, or twenty years to manifest themselves. Rome wants what is euphemistically called “taxes,” but which is really tribute from conquered and submissive nations. They lust for the resources of their conquered provinces or at least use the province to buffer the Empire from enemies who might halt tax income. If the Roman Empire has a national anthem, it’s “Keep That Tribute Coming.” If people in Judea and Galilee don’t believe this at Jesus’ time, they’ll find out during the first Jewish revolt 66-70 AD and the second 132-135.
Culturally Pilate is an outsider among these Jews, and he’s far away from the real action of the empire. All the rumors, backroom conspiracies, and deals go on in Rome or in the officers’ groups in Rome’s larger armies. Here’s Pilate, with his career languishing at the far corner of the empire, not a dream assignment and with few chances for advancement because he doesn’t have a benefactor near to push him ahead in the world. And think of his wife. We can picture Pilate when he returned one afternoon to their pleasant Roman villa. He stepped in and announced, “Claudia, I’ve been posted to Judea.” The least she would have said was, “Are you crazy?” — which assumes she even knew where Judea was. She’s now stuck on the eastern fringes of Rome’s sea, a month’s travel away from Rome’s salons, gossip, and malls. How’s she to know the latest fashions, let alone order them made? No wonder she has nightmares.
Spiritually Pilate is the same as other Romans, believing in many gods. Maybe he fears them a little, but he probably doesn’t take them too seriously. Certainly he’s amazed as well as frustrated with his Judean subjects who not only insist upon one God but rule out all others. Betting one’s devotions upon the head of one god can be understood, even admired. But where do these Jews get off claiming there is only one? We could compare Pilate’s faith that allows for many gods with the current, stringent, unofficial, universal belief upon American university campuses. On secular campuses the consistent conviction, held even by atheists, is that all religions are the same.
Having reviewed Pilate’s background, we see the difficulty that awaits him in Jerusalem. He’s come as usual in the early spring for crowd control during the Jewish festival of Unleavened Bread and Passover. Early one Friday morning a delegation of religious leaders disturbs him, maybe they even disrupt his sleep. They bring a troublemaker for Pilate’s judgment. The locals have authority to deal with some offenses, but everyone knows that when they show up at Pilate’s Jerusalem headquarters, the prisoner is charged with a capital crime.
Christians at least once a year recall Pilate’s going outside to deal with the accusers and then back inside to question Jesus — back and forth in a dispute that seems senseless to him. He starts with scorn upon his face and it doesn’t take long to become absolute contempt. His teeth clench more tightly; and, perhaps more than once as he shuttles between these people for whom he cares nothing, he mumbles, “I get so tired of these idiots.”
What’s he have to deal with here… Jesus whose name has been drifting through the ranks, especially noticed by centurions. Pilate isn’t going to waste time with this disagreeable situation. He has taxes to collect. He gets right to it. Let’s deal with this clown and heave him out of here. With ridicule dripping from his voice he asks, “Are you the King of the Jews?”
That should end the whole ugly problem. No one in his right mind would answer “yes,” because that’s a death sentence. But what happens? Jesus responds, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” (v. 8:34). Jesus here matches one modern stereotype of Jews, which I can repeat because I’m part Jewish. A man was in a philosophical argument with a Jewish colleague. He finally said, “Why do you Jews always answer a question with a question?” The Jew answered, “Why not?” Receiving the same kind of answer, Pilate thinks, “Oh, no, a smart aleck holy man. Why can’t this kind stay in the desert looking for burning bushes?”
See what he’s facing: Outside wait these haughty Jewish leaders who, of course, can’t enter a non-Jew’s domicile or they’d become ritually defiled. Inside stands this wacky itinerant preacher who’s now going to banter word games with him. Pilate lets his irritation out, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” 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” (8:35-36). If this interrogation isn’t completely simple, it’s simple enough so that Pilate can end it by returning to where he started. This should clinch it. He asks Jesus, “So you are a king?”
If Pilate can get a clear statement from Jesus that he is a king, the nails are as good as pounded in the Galilean’s arms and legs. Pilate doesn’t need a superior to grant permission to execute a pretender to royalty.
When it comes to Jesus being a king, we Americans are almost clueless about what it means. The whole idea is distant from us. We don’t live in the common first-century culture of the Mediterranean world. We have our three branches of government. A king was all three. Everyone then knew by experience what a king was. In the modern US what king do we deal with? The king of rock and roll? Burger king? We have no firsthand experience of kings — or of lords, for that matter. Think of the drill instructor in boot camp. His every word is a command and the only proper response to him is, “Sir! Yes sir!” That’s only slightly the authority of a king. This shocks lots of American Christians who think of Jesus more as a pal than a commander. Perhaps we need to recalculate our thinking about Jesus. Pilate wants to make sure Jesus isn’t dangerous. Lots of time that’s us too. Our attitude to God is, “Don’t say anything that my pal wouldn’t say to me. My pal wouldn’t confront me or challenge me. Let Jesus stay just my pal.”
Jesus won’t settle for Pilate’s or our definition of a leader. I always like the statement of the British statesman Lord Balfour who remarked in Parliament, “Gentlemen, I do not mind being contradicted, and I am unperturbed when I am attacked, but I confess I have slight misgivings when I hear myself being explained.” Jesus, however strange it seems to Pilate, explains himself, “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” (8:37).
Here Pilate gets thoroughly bogged down. He just shakes his head, sneers and asks, “What is truth?” He’s exasperated as well as convinced that Jesus is innocent. Although this fellow is daft, you don’t need to be executing lunatics. John’s gospel reports of Pilate, “After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, ‘I find no case against him. But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover. Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?’ They shouted in reply, ‘Not this man, but Barabbas!’ Now Barabbas was a bandit” (8:38-40).
Maybe Pilate doesn’t catch it, but notice how Jesus turns the conversation. He goes from talking of kingship to truth: “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” (8:37). This mystifies Pilate. So, Pilate just gives up and allows public opinion to pronounce the verdict against Jesus.
Pilate doesn’t understand what Jesus says about truth, and it’s foreign to our way of thinking also. Jesus and Pilate are speaking Greek, the common international language. Pilate doesn’t have a Berlitz phrase book or Rosetta Stone recordings to polish his Aramaic. He and Jesus use the same Greek words, but whoa! the space between them. Pilate would understand better if he knew some Old Testament background for “truth.” In the Old Testament “truth” meant something dependable, secure, firm, supportive, reliable. So when Jesus talks about those who belong to the truth it means those for whom Jesus is the source of their life and those who grant him their allegiance. Not quite what Pilate concluded.
Yes, Jesus rules people as king, in that his followers will do what he wants. But Jesus speaks of truth for how he influences us. The night before said to his students, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). For Jesus “truth” isn’t some abstract standard. Truth is Jesus himself. Truth is the way Jesus deals with people and the way he takes us to God. Truth is a lived relationship with Jesus. Jesus’ truth, different than a mere true statement, is Jesus’ life: all that he says and does and especially how he treats others. For us to live in Jesus’ truth means to love and serve God and others Jesus’ way. No wonder Pilate can’t grasp the meaning.
Over the centuries the Christian church has often traded mouthing true doctrines for living within Jesus’ truth. We repeat the creed. We line up our correct beliefs in a row and assume we’re in the truth. Today any guy who captures a microphone can, what’s called, “spin” the truth. This person’s group can fall into any manure pile of scandal; yet, give the spokesman a chance and he’ll put a new interpretive frame around an event, rename what happened, and come out smelling like a rose. That’s the spin that changes the truth. It’s different for those who live within Jesus. Jesus’ truth changes us. Jesus’ truth makes us more like him.
Once we admit how hard Jesus’ truth is for us to understand or to do, we become a little more sensitive to Pilate’s dilemma with Jesus. Pilate isn’t just a slum landlord on a national scale. He’s a lot like us. We and Pilate are alike in what we want from a leader. Do we want a leader who’ll die and who tells us we need to die to ourselves? Do we want a leader who’ll command us to love our enemies? This is a real command, and he’s talking about the enemies we hate with a passion. Yes, those enemies! Wouldn’t we rather have a leader who gives us even more than a financial stimulus or better rates to refinance our house? How about a leader who’ll represent our values and defend us from our enemies?
If we’re going to have a king, how about one who’ll put us on the top of the world’s heap?
So much about Jesus is incomprehensible both to Pilate and to us. As opposed to a leader who’ll get us all we want, a good way to think of Jesus is to reflect upon the village of Eyam (pronounced “eem”) in Derbyshire, England. Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks’ novel Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague relates how the village of Eyam in the summer of 1665 was struck with the plague. The village had a population of 350. The village pastor, William Mompesson, convinced the villagers to quarantine themselves to prevent the plague from spreading throughout northern England.
People from nearby villages left food at the perimeter of Eyam. By November of the next year when the plague had ended, 260 of its 350 villagers had died — including the pastor’s wife. Those villagers, knowing the risks, chose to live for others. They followed a leader who lived within the truth of Jesus Christ. It was hard, as was Jesus’ life, but the truth of Jesus not only inspired the villagers, it changed them and strengthened them to live as Jesus did… and to die as Jesus did.
Think about Pilate and Jesus: Pilate serving Rome’s power and a multitude of gods, Jesus serving one God and all people. If we don’t fit in either of those categories, it could be that we just believe in what benefits us and serve ourselves. Pilate finally turns Jesus over to be killed and Jesus accepts it, sacrificing himself for others. When Pilate asks the Jewish leaders, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” we can interpret it as meaning, “Do you want this kind of a king?”
It’s about the most important question God could put to us. Do we want this kind of king? Good Friday insists that we ask this question. To answer honestly we could stop and ask ourselves first if we’d want a pastor who’d convince us to hole up and die for the sake of others we don’t even know.
Now, let’s go back and consider if we really want a leader like Jesus.
Maybe the Ethiopic and Coptic churches think of Pilate as a saint because through him we continue to hear the question, “Do you want this kind of king, one who sacrifices self for God and others and who will lead you to do the same?” From two millennia away who can tell if Pilate was innocent? He said he was. If Pilate is partly responsible for our finally living within the costly but secure and reliable truth of Jesus, he’s not history’s greatest slug after all.