March 21, 2012 Two Romans
John 18:28-29 Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”
Matthew 27:54 When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”
In 1054 the church split partly over the adding of a simple phrase in the Nicene Creed. It used to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and the West decided to add the phrase AND THE SON. It’s true and biblical, but the West added it without consulting with the East, and so the East became angry. With that and several other items of contention, the East and West ultimately broke off from each other in what was known as the Great Schism. This sounds incredulous to most today, because people just don’t get that worked up over doctrine any more. It has gotten to the point where people say, “Christian, Muslim, Jewish, they all go back to Abraham – so what’s the big difference?”
I would rather have people passionately disagree rather than to not care at all. Sometimes I will go through a Bible Information Class and the person will ask no questions; show no emotion; just let me do all the talking. That makes me nervous. It makes me wonder if they even care. I think that either I’m not teaching very well or they’re just not getting it, because the Word of God was never meant to be treated in such a manner. Either get on your knees and call Him Lord or shake your fist at Him and spit at Him; but don’t just sit there indifferently and act like this is a Math class. The book of Revelation quotes Jesus as saying, I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (3:15-16)
Today we are looking at two different responses to who Jesus is by the Romans, one being the Governor Pontius Pilate and the other being the Centurion at the foot of the cross. Neither are indifferent by any means. They are not yawns.
Look at Two Responses of the Romans to the Jesus Question
I. The Roman Governor’s Response
Pilate wanted to ignore Jesus. He told the Jews, “Judge him yourself according to your law.” Usually they would, but the sentence they were seeking wasn’t within their jurisdiction. There were other times in Jesus’ ministry where they didn’t seem to be shy about throwing him off of a cliff or trying to stone Him to death, but the Pharisees and Sadducees wanted to do more than that. They wanted to publicly humiliate Him. They wanted everyone to see Him be crucified as a criminal. This kind of death penalty was beyond their power; they needed permission and help. It had to be carried out by the Romans who had specially developed it as a message of shame and intimidation to anyone who wanted to mess with them. So they forced Pilate to look at Jesus.
God allowed this, for this was always meant to be a public trial. Let’s spell it out. Jesus’ death wasn’t ever meant to be just the death of Jesus at the hands of the Jews; as a personal family squabble between the Jews and their King. Neither was it just a battle between the church and her God. It was also meant to be a battle between the government and its true King. Jesus doesn’t just stand on trial before the church or before His family; He also was meant to stand before the government and be its enemy as well. This was meant to be a global death. God wanted everyone to see it and remember it. Think of the videos we’ve seen of 9-11 and the burning of the David Koresh compound. Those were bad and memorable deaths that still bring about anger. But this was meant to be worse; meant to be seared into human consciousness for all times and in all places.
Pilate wanted to ignore Jesus and not make any judgment on Him, but Jesus was too big for that. His death was always meant to be confrontationally seen. Even today, crosses are regularly found all over the world. Like it or not, people see it. When Mel Gibson made the “Passion” a few years back people were confronted with the violence of the cross. Many objected, supposedly because they said it would make people violent toward the Jews. They didn’t understand the Passion. Mel Gibson purposely put his hand on the nail which went into Jesus’ hand. The Greeks were there too. It was meant to confront all of us with the fact that we were all involved in Jesus’ death. Even if we’re not Jews, and even if we’re not involved in the government, we are all a part of the family of humanity. God wants us all to see Him and make a judgment on Him.
The Scriptures take us much deeper than the physical death of Christ. They take us to the spirituality of the cross and the substitution of the cross. All of the death of animals in the Old Testament pointed to God’s anger over sin and His need for a greater sacrifice. Isaiah explains that Jesus would be put under the realm of God’s wrath on behalf of the sin’s world. I don’t know how so many of the Jews of today can’t see it as they recite their Old Testament and read it. The Scriptures constantly shove our faces in the cross and say, “Take a good look at Him. Don’t ignore it.”
Pilate had to look at Him. He had to judge Jesus. That was Pilate’s job. This is what God wants all of us to do; to take a good look at Him and make a judgment. This is what He hangs on the cross for; to gain our attention and almost force a judgment. Who do you say He is? Is He God or not? Is He Messiah or not?
So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?” He didn’t even call Jesus by name. He was trying to start from neutral, as he should have. At first the Jews didn’t want to give an accusation. They just wanted Pilate to trust them and their sentence. He knew better than that. Even with his indifference in the matter they still had to have a reason. Luke 23:2 says they began to accuse him, saying, “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king.” The first accusation was a lie and it wasn’t even addressed. So it all comes down to this, Jesus identified Himself as the Christ; the King.
He took Jesus aside and asked Him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Is that your own idea, or did others talk to you about me?” This is an interesting question. Did Jesus ask it in humility? Was He asking the question in a factual type of way, or was He goading Pilate?
Either way, the question comes down to the truth that the question must be personal. It isn’t enough to be doctrinally correct in your answer. You need to personally investigate Christ for your self and find the answers in a personal way for yourself. When you find the Christ and define the Christ you are not just performing an act of trivia; you are looking for and finding your Savior, your God, and your King.
It is not enough to identify Jesus as your friend. King denotes more than leadership; it also denotes power and authority. Jesus didn’t come here just to hang with us and be our bud. He came to establish Himself and prove Himself to be our King.
Jesus answered Pilate’s question by saying, “I am a king. I am the king of truth.” The way that Jesus established His rule was by being true. Jesus came to tell the truth about who we are and who God is. He came to show the truth of God’s wrath and love by going to the cross. Everything He said and everything He did was true. He truly is the King.
Pilate didn’t care about the truth. He treated it as a joke, for in his eyes it didn’t matter what was true. It only mattered who had the power. Power established the truth; for only power could enforce what it wanted to be true. Truth was RELATIVE to Pilate. So in Pilate’s own version of truth, He declared Jesus to be innocent, which was true; but then as the reward for being innocent he had Jesus beaten and whipped in order to hopefully invoke some sympathy from His judges. His own actions proved that his own truth was inconsequential, because he didn’t really have the power. Whatever Jesus did to make them angry, Pilate thought that would suffice. But in their blind darkness it didn’t suffice for them, and it didn’t suffice for God either. That is the Truth. So the Roman Governor Pilate judged Jesus to be innocent and then condemned Him as guilty. That is the Truth. What is so different when thousands of people today yet claim Jesus to be a good man to follow and a spiritual man and yet want to whip and beat and crucify Him if He’s a King?
II. The Roman Centurion’s Response
The second Roman that we look at was a centurion. A centurion was a soldier of rank; a man with power. In his own self-described way the centurion of Capernaum said, “I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” Centurions were used to dealing with the mass of people; they were the seasoned police officers of their day. They were the ones who would be talked with and gave the orders to the soldiers on the scene. It was a centurion who stood by at the near whipping of Paul in Acts 22. Paul talked to the centurion at hand and told him he was a Roman citizen.
The point I’m trying to make is that these guys were tried veterans of the squad. They saw and dealt with a lot. When you deal with people on a daily basis, it is easy to become hardened to almost anything. The more death I saw while volunteering for the Police Department the more accustomed I came to it. It didn’t shock me as much. The better I became at reacting in a calm manner as well. The same would ring true with the centurions. They would have become accustomed to seeing almost anything. It would take a LOT to shock them.
This particular centurion had probably witnessed plenty of death. He was used to hearing criminals curse and scream and threaten while they were being spread out and nailed to the tree. They were probably used to people carrying on and crying underneath the cross. If the criminal had stolen or killed, the victims and family of victims probably would have shown up as well. So the text says that the centurion was posted there to “guard” Jesus at the cross. I’m not sure from what – from someone trying to take him down or perhaps trying to make his life even more miserable. In all accounts their version of “guarding” didn’t do much good whatsoever.
The soldiers were used to seeing death, but this crucifixion was different. There were religious leaders at this crucifixion. Even the Pharisees and the Sadducees were taunting this one Man in the middle. Jesus was getting a lot more attention and hatred than usual; even from the religious class.
What else was different? The Man on the cross was different. He wasn’t cursing out the centurion or the soldiers. He wasn’t asking God to rescue Him from the cross. He wasn’t cursing God either. He was praying FOR the people that were crucifying. He was showing love and concern for His mother. He was even promising the man next to Him that he would be in Paradise.
It was not natural for the sky to turn dark for three hours as it did on this afternoon. It was not natural for the earth to shake when the criminals died. Nothing like this had ever happened before. From the crowd to the criminal to the clouds; everything looked different and everything was different.
The centurion had never seen anything or anyone like this before. He had come to do his job of crucifying a criminal; no more and no less. He was not hired or paid to care about the criminal from a personal point of view. He was paid to make sure that everything was done in an orderly manner. That was his job. But this Man’s behavior and words and everything about him and the way he even died effected the centurion. The man and his men who would have been unflappable became unflapped. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!” This was indeed – SURELY – the Son of God! He was divinity, and THEY had just put the Son of God to death. God had made it clear to them. Whereas Pilate the Roman testified to what Jesus was NOT saying that there was NOTHING guilty in Jesus, this Roman testified to what Jesus was; the Son of God!
God has never wanted to be only defined in terms of what lacks. Darkness is a lack of light. But light is a substance and a thing in itself. Jesus was more than someone who LACKED guilt. He was someone who also was FULL OF DIVINITY; He is divinity. He is God. He is Christ. He is the Savior. It is not enough to simply say “Jesus wasn’t too bad of a guy.” What God also wants is a profession of who Jesus is. He is the Christ, the Son of God, and the Savior. He is also my Christ and my Savior. This is not something you can understand by any other means than by hearing of His death and resurrection for the sins of the world. This is the testimony that God wants. It is not enough NOT to join in the sins of others, God wants you also to pro-actively profess WHO Christ is and WHAT He has done.
Think also of how you look at the cross. It is easy to become hardened to sin and death. It doesn’t take long. You can see it on the TV so much that nothing shocks you anymore. You look at it as a cow looks at a gate; shrug your shoulders and move on with life. God has never wanted this type of a response. He wants you to be shocked. He wants you to look for answers. The death of Christ was too shocking to be ignored; even by the centurion. The Holy Spirit never wants you to get used to this scene; often as you hear it. There’s a saying people say of 9-11 – “Never forget.” He too wants you to cry out to God over this vision of the cross and tell the world who He is; so you never forget and they never forget; this is the Christ; the Son of God. Never regard this death as routine, no matter how many times you see it and hear it. God is dying on the cross for the sins of the world here. There is nothing like it and there never will be.
One final note. It is interesting that in the end of both Romans seeing Christ they both had a common reaction. Both were not easy to scare, but nonetheless they both ended up afraid. Even though they had the power and neither of them were facing death, they ended up fearing the One that was under trial and even the One that had died; because they realized there was something more to this Man they were condemning and dying. As much as they were blind to it before hand, when they witnessed what they did they had no choice but to make the judgment that this Man was the Son of God; and even they were filled with fear. Even if it never led to faith, that is a truly amazing thing. It enlightens us to how divine Jesus really is.
Jesus primary directive on the night of His death was not to scare these two Romans with His divinity. Yet even in dying His divinity made them scared to death of Him. There was no choice in the matter, it is what divinity does even to powerful Romans.
There is said to be two kinds of fear; the fear of punishment and terror that comes when a tornado comes by, and the type of fear that respects the authority and position of someone who is placed over you. Many people today shy away from speaking of the former fear when it comes to God, that we should fear His wrath. They say we should fear God in the sense of respect, but not in the sense of terror. Saying such things ignores the fact that whether we are Roman or Jewish, powerful or weak, we are all sinful humans. As long as we have sin we must fear. Yet the Holy Spirit beckons to us through the trial and death to see a tender God, a gentle God, a dying God, and a loving God; paying for our sins; so that we not only fear Him but also love and trust in Him as not only our powerful God but also as our merciful Savior; so that you give a stronger testimony than the Romans and say “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God; my Savior and my God.” Amen.
