“Jesus Condemned" John 19: 1-16

 I remember the first time I saw the Passion of the Christ. I was in high school. A group of us went to DuBois to see it with our youth leader. When we came back to her house to debrief, we could just all sit in silence. Stunned. It seemed so brutal. So cruel. 

Yet, that is what took place when Jesus was condemned. Last week we talked about Pilate and the role that he played in this situation. That he was not an innocent bystander, nor a good person just caught in a bad situation, but how he let his power and the people go to his heart and head. 

Pilate tries to play both sides. He tries to protect Jesus, because he knows that he is innocent of whatever the religious leaders are trying to pin on him. But he also knows that he is here at this special time for the Jews, and he fears that if he doesn’t appease the crowd there will be an uprising. 

So he settles on a compromise. A brutal compromise. 

He has Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip. In other words Jesus was beat with a whip with pieces of lead embedded in it. Hit on his bare back. All as a sign of corporal punishment. Then the emotional beating started - as the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and pushed it onto Jesus head until it pierced his scalp. Putting a piece or purple cloth on him as they hit him whole crying “Hail! King of the Jews.”

By this point Pilate has already lost control. He did not tell the soldiers to do that. They just started on their own. And Pilate just went along to get along. Or maybe he saw this as yet another thing he could capitalize on in order to try to regain control. Because he led Jesus back out before the crowd, wearing that crown of thorns, purple clock and bleeding all while saying, “sure you can see him. Look at what I’ve done to him. But enough is enough because I don’t think he’s guilty.”

But Pilate lost even more control. Because it wasn’t enough for the crowd. What was more than enough for Pilate was only the beginning for the religious leaders and templed guards as they started to shout “Crucify him! Crucify him!” And the crowd was swept in. 

There was no more playing the middle ground. But Pilate desperately tries again. The religious leaders press in, arguing that by their religious law that Jesus had to die. To which, Pilate stands baffled. He isn’t Jewish. He isn’t the person who oversees the Jewish law. And he was so afraid. 

Standing on this side of history we could ask what he was afraid of. He had all the power in this situation. But he could feel all of that slipping away. He could have a mutuany. They could murder him. They could try to take control of the city. How was he going to answer for any of that with those in higher authority in the government than him? 

To which Jesus does not help when he simply tells him that all of his authority wasn’t earned. Or bestowed by the higher ups. It came only from above. So he really has no power over Jesus at all. 

So Pilate hands him back over to the crowds - who directed him - the one in charge, at least by the world’s standards, the one with the power - to crucify him. 

In normal order, this scripture passage is read on Good Friday. Sometimes as part of an evening service. Some times as part of a larger mid-day service where all of the crucifixion passages from the Gospels are proclaimed. But not this year. This year, we are being asked to sit with all of it - its harshness, its chaos - here in the fifth Sunday of Lent. 

We cannot hide from it by simply not attending Good Friday services. We cannot jump from the excitement of Palm Sunday to the joy of Easter. No, we need to sit in all of the grief and fear, here today. 

One of the reasons I preach from Lectionaries - or cycles of texts that extend over three or four years - is because I can’t escape from passages like this. And also because they are planned years ahead of time, yet seem to intersect right with the moment that we find ourselves in today. 

We are living in a time where the powers of the world are trying to figure out how to address the power of a nation that is trying to gain control of what is not theirs. We are trying to figure out how you reign it all in when power becomes abused. We are living in a time when we see the underside and ugliness of worldly power.

To which Jesus says, that is on you Pilate. Because that isn’t my power. That isn’t how I assert myself. 

While we are nearing the end of the season of Lent, this passage takes me right back to John 10 that we heard on Ash Wednesday. That Jesus is the Good Shepherd. That he lays down his life for his sheep. And that he is not like the hired hands - who do not actually care about the people and will scatter when times get hard. 

Pilate thought that he had the power and authority that day. And he tried to use it to play the safety of the middle ground and it did not work. But than again - Pilate didn’t really have the power. 

Pilate paraded a bleeding Jesus out in front of the crowd in hopes that they would think that he looked to pathetic to deal with any further - and they disagreed. All of a sudden it looks like the crowd had all of the power. Or at least the religious leader thought they had it. They stirred up the crowd. They had tricked Pilate into bending to their will. But the crowd misplaced  their authority. And misunderstood Jesus’s authority. 

But then again - when have we been there? When have we been a place where we have abused our authority? Or thought we had more sway and control than we actually did? Or have used what little power we have not for good?

We add our voice into that of the mob - finding safety in the thought that we are just joining in. That we didn’t start it. That there is safety in saying awful things as long as its anymous. 

Friends, Pilate may have thought that he had power that day - but there is a chasm between human and divine power. And Pilate was not in control. 

And the crowds thought they had the power - that they wanted to find a scape goat and they got one. But they didn’t understand that Jesus was laying down his life not as the scape goat but as the Lamb - the Great I Am.

I was asked this week about what word of hope I had to offer in the midst of all that is going on in our world. I said that I did not know what word to offer to our broken human hearts other than this - the world may be fighting for authority and control, but it is not there to have. Its proper place is with our Lord and Savior. And maybe today is the day to remember that. Not just in the face of sin that we see unfolding before us, but in the face of our own sinful hearts that grasp for power as well. Let us put power in its proper place - not in the hands of the world - but in the hands of the one who has come to set us free. Amen.