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Threat Assessment
A sermon by Dr. Jim Somerville, Pastor
Richmond’s First Baptist Church
Richmond, Virginia
November 22, 2009
John 18:33-37
Pontius Pilate never slept
well during Passover.
There were all those
people, hundreds of thousands of them, crowding into the city of Jerusalem and
camping in the surrounding countryside. As he understood it this was one of
three annual festivals that every Jewish male was supposed to attend, but
usually they skipped the other ones in favor of this one: Passover. It was the
big one, the one when they remembered how they had been delivered from their
captivity in Egypt—kind of an Independence Day celebration. They would spend a
whole day slaughtering lambs, smearing their blood on the doorposts and lintels
of their homes, and then have a big feast that night and tell the story of how
the angel of death came through Egypt but “passed over” every home that was
covered by the blood of the lamb. That was the night that every firstborn child
in Egypt had died and the next morning, over the sounds of a whole nation
weeping, Pharaoh begged them to leave. And that’s just what they did: they left
behind their slavery in Egypt and started their long journey to freedom.
Every year since then they
had celebrated Passover as if it were the first one, as if they were just
leaving Egypt on their way to the Promised Land. Emotions ran high. Patriotic
fervor was at a fever pitch. And these days there was always talk of
revolution, of running the Romans out of the country and reclaiming Israel’s
independence. It made Pilate a little nervous, but mostly it was just an
annoyance. The people jammed the streets during the day and stayed up most of
the night laughing and shouting and making noise, and Pilate—because he was the
governor—was supposed to help keep the peace. Every year he came up to
Jerusalem from his comfortable home in Caesarea down on the Mediterranean coast
and spent a week on a lumpy mattress in the Governor’s quarters right there next
to the Temple courts, probably the noisiest place in the city. He had only
just dropped off to sleep when he heard a knock at the door.
“What is it?!” he asked.
“Sir, beg your pardon sir,
but we have a situation.”
He got up and fumbled for
his robe. It was barely daylight! What could possibly be so important?
“What is it?” he asked,
yanking the door open.
“Sir, it’s the high
priest. He says they’ve arrested someone who claims to be the King of the
Jews.”
“King of the Jews!” Pilate
muttered. What was that? Something like King of the Passover Festival? Did he
get to sit on a throne, wear a crown, hold a scepter in his hand while the
people carried him through the city streets? Honestly, these Jews and their odd
little customs! Still, there were so many of them. If they got it in their
heads that they had a new king, someone other than Caesar, things could get out
of hand. He’d better find out what they wanted.
“All right,” he said,
rubbing his eyes. “I’ll meet him in the briefing room.”
“Um, sir? That’s a
problem. The high priest says he can’t come into your headquarters because
you’re a Gentile. It would make him ritually unclean. He wouldn’t be able to
eat the Passover meal.”
“What?!”
“That’s what he said,
sir. ‘Ritually unclean.’ He’s waiting just outside in the courtyard with all
the others.”
Pilate groaned. “Give me
ten minutes,” he said, and closed the door.
When he stepped into the
courtyard he found the whole Jewish council out there: the seventy elders who
made up the Sanhedrin. This must be important. But the prisoner had already
been turned over to the guards. Pilate had sneaked a peek at him before coming
outside. He didn’t look like much of a threat.
“What accusation do you
bring against this man?” Pilate asked.
“He’s telling everybody
he’s the Messiah!” they said.
“The ‘Messiah’?”
Pilate asked. “What’s that?”
“The King of the Jews,”
they said, and then one of them stepped forward to explain.
“We’ve been waiting for
the Messiah for years,” he said. “We’ve been promised that one of these days a
king will arise in Israel, a descendant of David, the greatest king who ever
lived, and this new king—“the Anointed one,” the Messiah—will be like
him. He will fight the battles of Israel. He will drive out our enemies. He
will restore our independence. He will extend our borders. He will bring us
into a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity.”
“And this man is your
Messiah?” Pilate asked, picturing the man he had just seen, the quiet stranger
standing in the custody of the guards with his head bowed, his hands tied behind
his back.
“No, of course not,” they
said. “But he claims to be the Messiah. He’s getting people all stirred
up. If you’re not careful you’ll have a revolution on your hands.”
“This sounds like a
religious matter to me,” Pilate said. “Why don’t you take him yourselves and
deal with him.”
“With all due respect,”
they said, “this man is calling himself a king. That’s a political
matter. If he’s the king of the Jews then Caesar is not, and that’s
insurrection, isn’t it?”
Insurrection. Hmmm. Now
that was serious. Insurrection was punishable by death. The Roman
Empire could only have one emperor.
“All right,” Pilate said
with a sigh. “I’ll talk to him.”
Pilate took his
time. He decided that if he was going to be up anyway he might as well bathe
and dress and have some breakfast. When they brought Jesus to him he was just
finishing up, still wiping the bacon grease from his fingers. He looked the
prisoner up and down. There didn’t seem to be anything remarkable about
him—just another peasant from Galilee—except for the way this man met his gaze
without blinking, as if the two of them were equals.
“So,” Pilate said, “is it
true? Are you the Messiah, the ‘King of the Jews’?”
“Do you ask this on your
own, or did others tell you about me?”
“Why would I ask you about
the Messiah,” Pilate snorted. “I’m not a Jew, am I? Your own people
have handed you over to me, the chief priest himself! What have you done?”
“Nothing that concerns
you,” Jesus said. “This is not a political matter. I’m not trying to take over
the Roman Empire. If I were my followers would be fighting for me even now, but
I’m not. My kingship is not of this world.”
“Ah, so you are a king!”
Pilate exclaimed.
“So you say,” Jesus
shrugged, “but let me tell you who I really am, and why I’m really here. I came
to testify to the Truth, and everyone who belongs to the Truth hears my voice.”
Pilate snorted again.
“What is truth?” he asked.
Pilate didn’t realize it,
but the Truth was standing right there in front of him. His job was to
determine whether or not Jesus was a threat to the Roman Empire but what he
didn’t realize was that he was a much bigger threat than that. When Jesus said
his kingship was not of this world he meant it. He wasn’t king of some earthly
kingdom with political borders and a sitting parliament; he was king of every
person who would step down off the throne of his own life and let Jesus sit
there instead. And if you don’t think that’s a threat then maybe you’d better
think again.
Here we are at the end of
the Christian year. Beginning at this time last year we waited and prepared for
the coming of Christ in Advent, we celebrated his birth at Christmas and began
to see him for who he really was at Epiphany when the wise men came from the
East and bowed down before the newborn king of the Jews. We were there for his
baptism when God said, “This is my beloved son.” We went with him into the
wilderness where he was tempted by the Devil. We heard him preach and teach in
Galilee; watched him work miracles and heal the sick. We were with him up there
on the mountain of Transfiguration, when we saw him revealed in all his glory.
But then, during Lent, we began to walk with him on the slow, sad journey to the
cross. We shouted “Hosanna!” on Palm Sunday, we sat at the table on Maundy
Thursday, and yes, on Good Friday, we were there when they crucified our Lord.
But we were also there on
Easter Sunday, when the women came running in, out of breath, to tell us that
the tomb was empty and Christ had risen. We were in that upper room when he
showed us his hands and side. We were with him when he told us to wait for the
power from on high, and then ascended into heaven. And we were there when the
power came: with tongues of fire and the rush of a mighty wind. We were among
those disciples who poured out into the street proclaiming the mighty works of
God and we’ve been doing it ever since. In these Sundays following Pentecost
you have sat in this “briefing room” and heard about the things Jesus said and
did: the people he healed, the miracles he performed. You have had every
opportunity to consider who he is and if you have come to the conclusion that
Jesus of Nazareth really is the king of kings and lord of lords then you may
have a choice to make.
Maybe you made it a long
time ago. Maybe when you were just a boy, just a girl, you decided that Jesus
was everything he claimed to be. Maybe you got down off the throne of your life
in order to let Jesus sit there instead. Since then you have tried, with more
or less success, to let him be king. If the truth be told there have been times
when you dragged him down off the throne so that you could sit there again, even
if it was only for a little while. And if the truth be known there were other
times when you got down off that throne weeping tears of repentance, begging
Jesus to take his rightful place again. It’s not easy to let him be king. It
threatens everything we’ve ever learned about living our own lives and doing our
own thing. But Jesus said he came to bear witness to the Truth and this is the
truth: he is the King.
Believe it or not.
Pilate thought it best to
make an example of this man, just to quell any ideas of insurrection. He had
him flogged, and his soldiers dressed him in purple and put a crown of thorns on
his head. They kept coming up to him and saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and
striking him on the face. Pilate brought Jesus out and told the crowds that he
found no case against the man. He asked them if they really wanted him to
crucify their king. But eventually he yielded to their demands and handed Jesus
over to his soldiers who took him out to the Place of the Skull and nailed him
to a cross. Over his head they hung the inscription Pilate had ordered: “Jesus
of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” The chief priests came to him wringing
their hands. “Don’t hang that over his head,” they said. “Don’t say that he’s
the king of the Jews. Everybody will see that. They’ll think it’s true!
Instead write, ‘This man said, “I am the King of the Jews.”’” But Pilate
wouldn’t change the inscription, and who knows why? Maybe it was because his
conscience was still bothering him. Maybe it was because he could still see
Jesus looking into his eyes without blinking. Maybe it was because he had been
in the presence of the King…and he knew it.
“Change it!” the chief
priests begged. “Change the sign!”
But Pilate shook his head
and said,
“What I have written, I
have written.”
—Jim Somerville © 2009
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