Just two quick words of orientation to our passage today. One is the reminder that here at Roland Park Presbyterian Church, we follow a set of prescribed readings called the Narrative Lectionary, which helps explain why we’re reading about the crucifixion even though we are still in Lent—and Palm Sunday is next Sunday, right? Yes, Palm Sunday is next Sunday. But John’s Gospel is a little bit different than the others.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke dedicate a few chapters to the last week of Jesus’ life and its events. But the entire second half of John’s Gospel is just the last week of Jesus’ life. And so it creates this interesting pace, because the first eleven chapters cover a span of two-plus years, and then the last ten-plus chapters—just one week. And so John really slows down the pace of the narrative here. And as a result, we are slowing down the pace of the narrative and drawing out the story in such a way that we’re telling it over the course of all of Lent, rather than just Holy Week.

The other thing is—and I know this is repetitive for some of you, but it’s so important—John’s Gospel is the source of so much antisemitism. And there’s truth: there’s animosity in John’s Gospel between the burgeoning Christian community and the Jewish community. But that’s not prescriptive for all times and places. That is that particular time and place, as a new community was forming and coming out of another and separating—much like a teenager does from a parent—and there is sometimes animosity that grows in that relationship. But it is still a relationship of love and of closer ties and connections than being apart.

And so I take great care in reading the Gospel because John uses this term very loosely—“the Jews.” And most of the time he refers to the religious authorities, but sometimes he’s just referring to the crowds. But because that can be problematic, I will retranslate that for us when it’s appropriate.

John 19: 1-16a

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and striking him on the face. Pilate went out again and said to them, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.” So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!” When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.” The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.” 

Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever. He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you and power to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” From then on Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against Caesar.”

When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge’s bench at a place called The Stone Pavement, or in Hebrew Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover, and it was about noon. He said to the Jews, “Here is your King!” They cried out, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate asked them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

I wouldn’t blame you if you felt like we’ve been spinning our wheels here for the last few weeks.

John really does draw out this trial scene, and we’ve taken his cue and slowed down so that we can pay attention. But it almost feels like we’re not getting much of anywhere. At the beginning of last week’s passage, the religious authorities bring Jesus before Pilate. And at the beginning of this morning’s lesson, the religious authorities again bring Jesus before Pilate. This game of back and forth between religious and civil authorities is like a ping-pong match…except the religious and civil authorities are trying to play on the same team.

They just can’t decide who should swing the paddle.

I actually used to be a pretty good ping-pong player. Not great, just good. But as we were preparing for a match, I would tell my opponent that I was the state champion in high school. I wasn’t. I don’t even think there was such a thing. It was a complete lie, and soon the truth would become very evident. And we’d laugh, and it was just a silly little joke I used to do all the time. But every once in a while I noticed that my opponent—ever so slightly—maybe their eyes would widen when I would say it. They would be just a little bit intimidated.

It would only last a few minutes.

Now Pilate is me in this weird ping-pong Holy Week analogy that’s getting away from me. Pilate’s the one who’s faking bravado here. Although, unlike me, he’s doing it to intimidate, not as just a silly prank. Because Pilate is the one who sits on the judgment seat, right? That’s why the religious authorities are going to him.

They’ve become equal parts afraid and annoyed with Jesus and his shenanigans, but they do not have the will or political clout—or both—to do what they think needs doing. So the religious authorities bring Jesus to Pilate and tell him he’s claiming to be king of the Jews, which is interesting because that title doesn’t exist. There is no such thing.

And anyway, when Pilate questions him, Jesus responds that his kingdom is not from here. Remember from last week, he told Pilate, “If my kingdom were from here, my followers would be fighting back but they are not.” And so that’s really all Pilate needs to hear. He’s not a threat.

So Pilate tells the crowds, “Look, I find no fault in Jesus,” and he tries to release him. But the crowds refuse and ask for him to release Barabbas instead. That’s the ending of last week’s passage, right?

So beginning in our reading today, Jesus is back in front of Pilate, and Pilate seems to have no clue what to do with him.

So, you know…might as well flog him, I guess. That’s what empires do, right?

But let’s pause here for a second and ask ourselves: who truly holds the cards? Because John is doing something really subtle and very clever here that we might miss.

But we’ve been in John long enough now to know that he likes reversals, especially when it comes to power dynamics.

Remember just a few weeks ago, we read about Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, and Peter protested: “No! You are the teacher, you are the rabbi, you are the one in the position of authority. We should be washing your feet, not you washing ours.” But Jesus says no.

Well, John’s up to his old tricks again.

Because Pilate is supposed to be the one in charge here, right? But everybody is telling him what to do and he’s doing it. He wants to release Jesus; the crowds won’t let him. He tells them he finds no fault in Jesus; they tell him to look again, harder this time.

But it’s not just the crowds, too. Look at Jesus. He’s the one on trial. His life is on the line. Is he cowering at Pilate’s feet? Is he begging for his life?

He is cool as a cucumber…acting as if he’s completely in control of the outcome, and not Pilate.

Finally, the crowd wears Pilate down, and he agrees to charge and crucify Jesus. But he only does it under threat. The line that finally gets him: “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar.” It’s kind of the ancient version of, “Can I speak to your manager?”

But then John does something else.

And it’s very subtle, and we don’t get it in our translation because they make the choice for us. But he says that he sat on the judgment seat, which is presumably some sort of fancy chair that symbolizes Pilate’s power and authority given to him by Rome.

But the catch is that the language that John uses here is intentionally ambiguous. He could have made it very clear that Pilate is sitting on the throne—or on the seat—and indeed that is what our translation presents to us. But if we go back to the Greek, we see that it is actually ambiguous.

It could mean Pilate. It could also mean Jesus.

Why would John do that?

Because he wants us to ask the question: who is really sitting on the judgment seat here? Pilate? Or Jesus?

John wants us to be confronted with that question in this narrative.

Another way to put it is to notice that there are two very different types of power on display in this passage: power over and power with.

Pilate and Rome know only dominant power. Might makes right. If you can take it, it’s yours. The one who dies with the most toys wins.

This kind of power relies on fear and violence, punishment and retribution to get its way. It divides people into winners and losers, insiders and outsiders, us and them.

But this is not the only kind of power that’s on display here. Jesus is exercising power too. By refusing to dominate people, Jesus lifts up service to others. By refusing to fight and be pulled into violence, Jesus lifts up nonviolence as a way of life. By refusing to give in to vengeance, Jesus lifts up forgiveness.

And John wants to put us at that crossroads. John wants us to choose.

And he points out the danger of religion mixing with dominant power.

The religious authorities and crowds make their choice. They’re seduced by the power of the empire. They exploit Pilate and get him to bring the full force of Rome down on Jesus.

But what happens to them in the process?

They give up the farm. They sell out all their values and principles that drew them to faith in the first place. And by the end, they proudly proclaim the empire’s motto: “We have no king but Caesar.”

Lest we think this is something that just happened 2,000 years ago, last Sunday, self-proclaimed Christian Nationalist William Wolf told his congregation, “We should not blink. We should not hesitate to tell people, this is how we should order our lives together.” Wolf said, “And frankly, yes, we are going to impose it upon you. If you don’t like it, I’m sorry, but this is good and right,” he said, “and I’m going to enforce my morality on you in so much as my morality is God’s morality.”

My goodness, how can he tell the difference?

The temptation of dominant power is great. It can seem like a great way to get things done. Anything else can seem naïve in comparison.

We think to ourselves, sometimes we say it out loud, “Look,” we say, “I’m a good person, and the things I want are good. So what if I take some shortcuts to get there?”

The problem is dominant power does not bow to our good intentions. It corrupts them, pushing the line of what is acceptable further and further out. And suddenly we find ourselves pledging allegiance to Caesar and not God.

By the way, John does something else that’s very clever and worth noting here.

I mentioned a few weeks ago how we like to play the blame game. And again, it’s important to know that this passage is a source of much antisemitism, because it seems like it is the Jewish authorities and the Jewish crowds who are calling for Jesus to be crucified—but that misses the point completely.

John makes it very clear when he says, “the one who hands me over has a greater sin.”

Yes. Who hands him over?

Well, in the immediate context, we would say it’s the religious authorities and the crowds. They were persistent in their efforts, in fact. But how did they get a hold of him? One of his own disciples, Judas, had to first hand him over, right?

But that’s not it.

Then notice what John says when Pilate finally makes his decision: “Then he handed him over to be crucified.”

There is no “they” who handed Jesus over to die. It wasn’t just Judas, or the religious authorities, or the riled-up crowd, or the empire.

It was all of them together.

It was us.

When we choose dominant power over service and nonviolence.

Now if that were all that John gave us, this would be a tragic passage…the type of which we see every day on the news.

But John suddenly asks this question: who is really sitting on the judgment seat?

And even by asking the question, John is suggesting the kind of power Jesus shows us is a viable option for us to adopt—maybe even the right and faithful one.

But that can be hard for us to see, because from all the outward signs, Jesus looks weak and defeated. There he stands on his own. His own friends have abandoned him. His life is on the line.

What a loser.

But does he flinch? Does he waver from his belief in nonviolence and the worth of everyone as an image-bearer of God? Does he stop believing in the power of serving others and empowering others?

He does not—even when it leads to his death.

And in the end, God vindicates his death and this “power with” when Jesus is raised from the dead. Death does not have the final word.

The power of dominance might win in the short term. It often does. But ultimately love, justice, and power that is shared are the ultimate winners.

Look, friends, it’s hard to keep believing in the power of love in a world where bombs are being dropped and missiles are flying daily. And when our leaders call their opponents schoolyard names and bully people who look different or vote different or think different.

Our politics is dominant power on steroids.

And in this kind of environment, kindness and respect and decency… well, they just seem weak and naïve.

But the gospel invites us to believe that they are not.

Indeed, the gospel invites us to believe that they are what true, God-like power looks like.

We have to realize that the real standoff is not between religious and secular, not between Republicans and Democrats, not between any “us” and “them.”

It is between “power over” and “power with.”

And instead of imposing our faith or morality on others through force, it is better in the end, as Madeleine L’Engle writes, “that we draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their heart to know the source of it.”

Friends, at the end of our passage, the crowd of faithful people are so turned around, they say, “We have no king but Caesar.”

They betray their faith for a chance at dominant power.

Many Christians today are being seduced in exactly the same way.

And the truth of the matter is that it is not enough for us to be against them and that kind of power.

We have to be for something.

We have to find our own lovely light that God has put in each one of us—a light that shines when we claim we have no king, no king but Jesus.

Amen.

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