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John 18:28-40 · Jesus Before Pilate
Who Is The Prisoner? Who Is The Judge?
John 18:33-37
Sermon
by Frank Ramirez
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The Elder John Kline (1797-1864) was a doctor, a carpenter, a preacher, and an elder among the Dunkers, one of the Plain People. Kline’s home was near Linville Creek, Virginia. He, like all the Dunkers, lived peaceably with his neighbors, which is not surprising since the Dunkers believed in non-resistance to violence.

For the most part his people stayed out of politics, but from their arrival in America in 1729, the group had taken an unmitigated stance against slavery. Needless to say this made them very unpopular in the Old Dominion.

After the Civil War broke out Kline refused to recognize the Mason-Dixon Line. Over his lifetime he traveled more than 100,000 miles on horseback visiting fellow Dunkers in the north as well as the south.

Earlier in the war Kline and some Dunkers and Mennonites were arrested and jailed in the local courthouse. In his diary Kline wrote:

Sunday, April 6 (1862). Rain and snow all last night, and continues on so all day. Have preaching in our captive hall. My subject is “Righteousness, Temperance, and a Judgment to Come.” I aimed at comforting my brother captives and myself with the recollection that Paul was once a captive like ourselves, and that in this state of imprisonment he preached upon the text which I have selected for this day. I said:

Brethren, if any have cause to tremble, we have none. Those should tremble who seek to lay obstacles in the way of others who aim to do good and no evil. As a rule, prisoners are nervous and sometimes tremble when taken into court: but judges are proverbially calm and self-composed. Hence the old adage: “As sober as a judge.” But this order is entirely reversed in the case of Paul before Felix. Here we see that Paul is calm, collected and self-possessed, and that Felix is first nervous, and soon trembles all over. In this trial it appears the judge is convicted of guilt by the prisoner himself, and the prisoner shows himself clear. But this is not the only case in which an innocent criminal has stood before a guilty judge. (The Life of John Kline, 448-449)

Was this the only case in which an innocent criminal standing before a guilty judge? No indeed. This short passage from John, in which Jesus was on trial for his life before Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea, also allows us to ask once again: Who is the prisoner? Who is actually free?

Jesus and Pilate verbally sparred with each other, but this was not the high school debating team. Jesus was about to die horribly. Even so, Jesus did not seem to be the prisoner. He was the king. Pilate, the representative of the emperor, who was acclaimed the son of a god and the savior of the world, seemed to be the one on trial — by religious authorities, political schemers, and even Jesus himself.

John’s gospel often presents a very different picture from the other three evangelists, but all four gospels have Pilate asking the crucial question — “Are you the king of the Jews?”

Consider Pilate’s confusion — he seemed to be out of his depth. He already had Barabbas in custody, a wild revolutionary, a guerrilla who sought to supplant the almighty emperor in Rome with a Messiah king.  Jesus stood before him, accused by the religious authorities of seeking to making himself king, a charge of sedition which meant Pilate must try him. But is it true? Pilate needed to know if he really must upset the Passover Pilgrim crowds with an execution of someone who may be their hero, or who may just be another no one?

In the Greek language in this account the word “you” is not necessary. It is part of verb form of “to be.” By using “you” John may have been making Pilate ask, almost in disbelief, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

“Are you someone I have to deal with?” Pilate was asking.

As often happens in the gospel of John, Jesus responded to a question with a question of his own. It is almost as if Jesus was questioning Pilate’s authority. Jesus turned the tables on the governor, reversing their roles. Are you asking me this, he seemed to say, or are you someone else’s pawn? Who put you up to this? Pilate revealed his contempt for the people he governed with his answer: “I’m not a Jew,” Pilate answered, and he insisted that the accusation comes from the others and that was why it had come to him.

Part of the problem was that Pilate did not seem to understand the people he had been sent to govern. Earlier in his reign, according to the Jewish historian Josephua, Pilate ignored the Roman rule which forbade the display of the Emperor’s face in public because in Judea it was against the commandment forbidding graven images. Pilate figured what was good enough for the rest of the empire was good enough here. But people responded by protesting, placing swords against their throats and threatening to commit a mass suicide if he did not relent.

Pilate had to relent.

Compare that to the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his slave. The local Jewish authorities spoke on the centurion’s behalf, pointing out that on his own, and not because he had to, he had helped build a local synagogue in the village.

Perhaps Pilate, who may have made no effort to work with the local population nor seemed to understand their religion, may have felt he had no friends in this fight. He had to figure his way through this alone.

At the very least, one thing should have been clear to the governor — the people did not rise up in arms to protect him or to free Jesus. Other than Peter’s act of cutting off the ear of a slave, one that Jesus immediately repudiated, the message should have been obvious — Jesus posed no threat to the Emperor. No political threat, anyway.

The trouble was,  Jesus didn’t deny his kingship — not exactly — not fully. He had just said that his kingdom was not of this world, because if that were so his followers would be fighting — the word is agonizomai, an athletic term that might have  meant fighting but really meant contending, as an athlete would compete.

In the end, Pilate was left with a question, for which he was not equipped to receive the answer: What is truth? Perhaps he thought to himself, Okay, now we’re talking philosophy. That’s above my pay grade. But had Pilate taken the time to know more about Jesus, he might have heard that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” To follow Jesus is to accept that he is the truth, and if we wish to follow the truth, we need to keep our eyes on Jesus.

According to Raymond Brown, who wrote a long commentary on the gospel of John, we Christians may say that Jesus is Lord, or that Jesus is King, but we don’t make the claim that Jesus is the King of the Jews. Yet that’s why he was crucified. That’s what it said on the placard above his head, on the upright of the cross. It was written in three languages, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” Whatever other accusations were made, this is the one thing that Jesus was executed for. This is the only reason Pilate really cared about.

So what does it mean to be king of the Jews? And what does it mean for us?

One of the plainest images used in the scriptures when it comes to kingship is the image of the shepherd. King David, remembered as perhaps the greatest king in the history of God’s people, and certainly as the one who unified north and south into one kingdom, was a shepherd as a boy. He was considered the author of Psalm 23, a song that celebrates God’s lordship through the image of the shepherd king.

The shepherd, according to the psalm, though he may be in charge of the flock, is also concerned for their welfare. He takes care of their basic needs, sees to it that they have green grass to eat and clear water to drink. Stretching the images beyond sheep into the realm of the human flock cared for by the king, we learn the ruler leads them through paths of righteousness, protects against deadly danger, prepares a mighty feast despite the presence of enemies, and creates a healthy, secure situation.

Prophets used the image of the king as shepherd, even going so far as, with Isaiah at one point says, to call the Gentile ruler Cyrus, “my shepherd,” because he was sending the people back to Jerusalem from exile to rebuild the temple (Isaiah 44:28).

Jesus referred to himself on more than one occasion as the good shepherd, and at one point  the gospel of John states, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd (John 10:16).” The sheep will recognize his voice, Jesus said, because he was willing to lay down his life for him. That too is part of being the shepherd king.

The implication at least in part is that these other sheep may be part of the nations, but Pilate is evidently not part of the flock. He asked, “What is truth?” not recognizing that the Living Truth was standing before him. He did not recognize his master’s voice.

When Jesus told Pilate “My kingdom is not from this world… (18:36).” He was not speaking of geographical boundaries. A kingdom’s nature in both the Hebrew and Greek is very like the first definition, now listed as obsolete, in the Oxford English Dictionary: Kingly function, authority or power; sovereignty, supreme rule, the position or rank of a king, kingdom.” (Oxford English Dictionary volume V, p 706.) The definition of kingdom is not about the boundaries — it’s about the authority vested in the person, recognized by those who accept their rule.

Perhaps we can learn something of what it meant to be a shepherd leader in the early Christian church, after the example of Jesus. Domitian was emperor from 81 to 94 AD. He instituted a brutal persecution of Christians. At one point two of Jesus’ grandnephews, the grandsons of his brother Jude, were brought before the Emperor Domitian. The church historian Eusebius recorded that Domitian feared the descendants of King David, because they were to be the source of the Messiah. Jude’s grandchildren, when asked if they were descendants of King David, answered yes. He asked them their net worth. They replied they were worth around nine thousand denarii. A denarius was the daily wage of a day’s  labor. All that money was tied up in the 39 acres they owned, which they farmed themselves to raise crops for their livelihood and to pay their taxes. Eusebius says,

Then they showed their hands, exhibiting the hardness of their bodies and the callousness produced upon their hands by continuous toil as evidence of their own labor.”

Domitian asked them, like Pilate, about Jesus and his kingdom, and they answered,

…it was not a temporal nor an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly and angelic one, which would appear at the end of the world, when he should come in glory to judge the quick and the dead…

According to Eusebius, however, despite their relative poverty and lack of what some would recognize as a physical kingdom, the leadership and authority of these two was recognized throughout the kingdom of God.

So what about today? Is it possible to act like Jesus in a situation where your life is on the line? Is it possible that a righteous person can switch the roles of prisoner and judge? Moreover, can a person act like Jesus, turning the other cheek, loving one’s enemies, doing good for those who hate you?

Probably yes.

Consider the case of Nelson Mandela (1918-2013). He was born in South Africa into the brutally unjust system of apartheid, in which people of different races were segregated by law, with blacks occupying the lowest rung in their society. He was imprisoned for 27 years, eighteen of those years in the infamous prison on Robben Island off Cape Town.

Think for a moment of all the births in your family for the past 27 years: your children, your grandchildren, or your great-grandchildren. Think of the deaths, how important each one was, and what it meant to be one family gathered together in sorrow, but also in healing and hope.

Think of the trips you took. Think of the hunts and the trophies. Think of the picnics, the family gatherings, the holidays, and the holy days. Think of the discovery of a new restaurant or the renewal of an old custom.

Can you even imagine how many phone calls you have made and received, how many letters you wrote and you got, or how many emails, texts, and tweets you have had?

Just think of ten, maybe only five, of the really high points that you wouldn’t have missed for the world.

All because you are free and equal with everyone else, you can dream and make your dreams come true.

Now imagine that for the last  27 years you were in prison, much of the time in a cell eight-feet by seven-feet. Imagine that you were allowed to write only one letter a year and to receive one letter a year.

Imagine that you missed every high moment, every birth, every death, every family gathering, everything that’s happened to you the last 27 years — all because you wanted to be free and equal with everyone else.

What would you feel like? What would you do when you got out? What form would your revenge take? Who would you get even with? Who would pay for all your suffering?

When Mandela got out of prison he became president, from 1994-1999. He did not take revenge on his enemies, like you and I might have. He did not call for a bloodbath and begin a reign of terror to get even with the white minority government that imprisoned him under apartheid.

He set up a commission where those who told the truth about what they’d done could receive amnesty. He worked for forgiveness and reconciliation. He met with his enemies and insisted that there had to be a way to break the cycle of violence.

That’s what he practiced after 27 years of imprisonment. He practiced forgiveness.

Now some of you have really suffered. Some of you have survived truly terrible things. I’m not talking to you. Whatever journey you are walking with God through whatever pain you have endured, you have my admiration and respect.

So here’s my question to the rest of us. What grudges are we holding that are so important that we cannot forgive or seek to be forgiven?

What kind of grudge are we clinging to that matches what Mandela went through? What grudge is so much greater than what this man endured, that we don’t dare to forgive and seek reconciliation?

I’m always hearing people say, “I can’t forgive this” or “I can never forgive that.” Almost always it’s for something that is really not that big of a deal.

At the beginning of this message I mentioned the Dunker elder John Kline. He stood foursquare against slavery and made no secret of it despite the fact he lived in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. He served everyone, at one point setting the broken leg of a Confederate soldier who was trying to escape to the north.

He respected God, but not the Mason- Dixon Line. Eventually he was murdered just a few miles from his home as he returned from the north, ambushed by Confederate guerrillas, whose identity was known to everyone in the area, and whose descendants still live near his homestead, which is now a museum to peace. In the same sermon quoted from earlier, Kline recognized that the badge of martyrdom is celebrated in eternity, when he said:

In the Revelation we read of a great multitude which no man could number, as standing before the throne. What a high standing they have! But by way of preparation for that honor they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (The Life of John Kline, 452)

Jesus is the Lamb of God who came to save us from the sin of the world. Jesus, despite the marks of scourging, the crown of thorns, and the brutality of his guards, is not the prisoner. Jesus is the king. If you acknowledge him as king, what sort of follower are you?

Are you willing to follow in his footsteps? Will you still praise him and lift his name on high when the going gets tough? Think about it. Really think about it.

What if you were on trial before Pilate? Would he recognize that you are a follower of one whose kingdom is not of this world, but whose disciples live the laws of the kingdom when they conflict with the laws of their nation? Are you willing, no matter what the cost, to stand for the kingdom of God and answer the question, “What is truth?” by pointing to the living truth named Jesus?

Amen.

CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Mark His word: sermons on the Gospel lessons for Proper 16-29, Cycle B, by Frank Ramirez