You never know when something embarrassing will happen
to you. We are constantly on guard, for we do not like to be
humiliated. Mrs. Howard Field was walking to a near by
funeral home for the funeral of an old acquaintance when
she saw an Easter bonnet that caught her eye. She went in
and purchased it. She felt it was improper to carry it into
the chapel, so she asked an usher to take care of it for her.
You can imagine her dismay when she saw it being placed
on the coffin with the flowers. At the grave site she hoped to
recover it, but she was too embarrassed to do anything, and
so she watched her new Spring hat lowered into the ground.
She hardly knew the woman being buried, but she was
weeping as sincerely as the immediate family.
Her embarrassment was real but hidden. In other
situations we cannot hide, and we are embarrassed by what
is beyond our control. The poet gives an example-
I sat next to the Bishop at tea;
It was just as I feared it would be.
His rumblings abdominal
Were simply phenomenal,
And everyone thought it was me.
Then there are the deliberate efforts to get a laugh at the
expense of others. It can be funny to embarrass others. This
is the motive behind roasts and many other types of humor.
We do this frequently as men. It is part of our sense of
humor. Sometimes it borders on the cruel, however. For
example, Bernard Shaw was browsing in a secondhand book
shop when he found a copy of one of his own books peeping
out at him from a dusty shelf. He looked at the inside cover
and found it was an autographed copy he had given to a
friend. He bought his own book just so he could return it to
the friend with these words on the flyleaf- "With renewed
compliments of Bernard Shaw." You can imagine the
embarrassment of the friend.
The desire to humble another can be just good fun, and
when people are friends it can be good for a laugh, even for
the one embarrassed. But there is also sadistic side of this
that we see dominating the whole scene of the trial of Jesus.
John chapter 19 is just one embarrassing scene after another
as the church and state try to manipulate each other by
means of humiliation. Pilate represents the state. He is the
power of Rome, the secular Gentile state. In the other
corner of the ring are the chief priests and officials of Israel.
They are the church, or the religious establishment in the
legal conflict over the issue if Jesus is worthy of being
sentenced to death.
It is one of the greatest paradoxes of history that the state
tried hard to release Jesus, but the religious leaders would
not let the state do what was just, but used the power of
humiliation to compel Pilate to send Jesus to the cross. Let
me share with you the clear facts of this great paradox of
that pagan secular state trying to do the right thing, but the
clever religious people thwarted justice, and manipulated the
state to join them in the evil plot to officially murder the only
perfectly innocent man who ever lived.
Pilate was a pagan, but he knew when a man was
innocent, and he knew Jesus was just such a man. In fact,
the Gospels tell us Pilate acknowledged seven times that
Jesus was innocent. We see three of them in our text. In
verse 4 Pilate said to the Jews, "Look, I am bringing Him
out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge
against Him." In verse 6 he says it again, "As for me, I find
no basis for a charge against Him." In verse 12 we read,
"Pilate tried to set Jesus free." The Gospels confirm that
Pilate found no fault in Jesus, and that he did seek to release
Him. Even his own wife had a dream about Jesus and
warned Pilate not to sentence Him. He tried every trick in
the book to set Jesus free. He even gave the people a choice
to let Barabbas or Jesus go free. He thought for sure they
would choose Jesus rather than a known violent killer, but
they did not.
The record is clear, Jesus was killed by religious people
and not secular people. The religious leaders forced Pilate to
give the order to Crucify Jesus. They embarrassed him into
it. Here were the people who had the promise of God to
have a Messiah sent to them, and they demanded that the
state put this Messiah to death. There is no guarantee that
in a conflict between the religious and secular that the
religious will always be right and the secular wrong. Pilate
was a pagan but he was right. Jesus was innocent of any
crime. So why did he give in and sentence Jesus to death?
It was because of the clever minds of the Jewish leaders.
They knew that Pilate dreaded the thought of being
embarrassed before the Emperor Tiberius Caesar. It would
be humiliating to have Caesar get a report that he had let a
rival king live when the Jews were clamoring for His death
in order to be loyal to Caesar. Caesar was touchy about
rivals as most tyrants are, and Pilate would feel more
comfortable standing before him naked than with the charge
against Him that He was a traitor in supporting a rival ruler.
The Jews knew this and they shout in verse 12, "If you let
this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims
to be a king opposes Caesar.
These hypocrites hated Caesar and would gladly see an
opponent take his throne, but they knew this threat would
be more than Pilate could defy. They were right, and Pilate
was humiliated into handing Jesus over to be crucified. He
played by their dirty rules to the end, however. Even
knowing Jesus was innocent, he had Him flogged and
mocked, and presented to the Jews as a pathetic king. He
hoped to embarrass them by mocking their fear of Jesus.
In verse 5 Pilate brings Jesus out to the Jews looking so
pathetic with His crown of thorns and purple robe, and he
says, "Here is the man!" He was saying that here is the man
you so fear. He is really dangerous looking isn't He? No
wonder you want Him dead so bad. He is so fierce and
threatening. But his plan did not work. They were too cold
hearted to slink away in embarrassment. Pilate could not
embarrass them to back off their plot. They were
harder-hearted than himself, and he gave in instead. But he
got in the last punch in this battle to embarrass. Verse 19
says Pilate had a notice fastened to the cross that read,
"Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." The Jewish
leaders protested, but Pilate would not give in on this, and
he said, "What I have written I have written." They were
embarrassed by the message that they were killing their own
king, but they went ahead in spite of it.
Here is another paradox. The Jews were as determined
to get Jesus to the cross as He was determined to get there.
Jesus had set His face steadfastly to get to the cross, and not
all the power of Satan and evil men combined could make
Him swerve from this path. But those who despised and
rejected Him had the same goal, and they were equally
determined. They would not let their law or Roman law
stand in their way. Compassion and justice meant nothing
to them. They were hard as steel, and nothing could stop
them from getting Jesus to the cross.
The paradox is, you have the forces of evil and the forces
of good aiming for the same goal, which was the cross. Can
evil and good have the same goal? Of course they can. We
see it all the time. In every election we see good people and
evil people fighting for the same candidate. Even the Mafia
wants a certain candidate to win, for they feel he is more
likely to benefit them. The drug dealers and pimps vote for
someone too, for they feel that someone will be to their
advantage. Good and godly people can want the same
candidate to win also, but for very different reasons, but
both have the same goal and can be out supporting the same
man. The fight for freedom can mean freedom of religion,
freedom of the press, but also freedom to use drugs, or
practice anti-social behavior, and so forces for freedom to do
good or evil have the same goal.
So we see Jesus and His opponents aiming for the same
target-the cross. Their motives are radically different, of
course. Jesus is going to the cross because that is the only
way He can atone for man's sin and reconcile man to God.
The Jews want Jesus on the cross to get Him out of their hair
so they can go on with their legalistic religion that enables
them to manipulate people. A goal is not a bad one to aim
for just because evil men aim for it as well. The motive is
what matters. Jesus did not reason that these wicked leaders
want me crucified, and so if that is the goal of evil men I
must resist it and find another way. On the contrary, Jesus
sided with the evil Jews and did not give Pilate the support
he needed to stand against them.
Pilate is desperately searching for some way to get Jesus
released. He even violated Roman law in his efforts. He had
Jesus flogged and mocked as a an innocent man in hope of
placating the Jews, but it didn't work. Then he took Jesus
back inside to talk privately, and Jesus refused to answer
him. Jesus was uncooperative with Pilate, not because He
had anything against a man doing his best to be just and
fair, but because He did not want Pilate to succeed in
helping Him escape the hands of these wicked leaders.
Jesus is our advocate, which means He is our lawyer
before the court of God, and He pleads our case and seeks
acquittal for us as guilty sinners. But here He is being
condemned as an innocent man, and He does not speak in
His own defense. Poor Pilate, his perfect prisoner is siding
with his perverted prosecutors
to assure His condemnation. Pilate did not have a chance.
He was embarrassing alone, for he was the only man who
cared that Jesus was innocent. All His disciples had
forsaken Him, and there was not a single witness in His
defense. Jesus would not even defend Himself, and so Pilate
gives in to what seems inevitable and condemns an innocent
man to the cross.
Jesus embarrassed Pilate too by His refusal to cooperate,
but Jesus also comforted Pilate and let him know that He
understood his dilemma. Jesus knew Pilate had no real
choice, for Jesus would not let him save Him from the very
goal He was determined to reach. Even if Pilate could
change the minds of the Jews he could never change the
mind of Jesus. He was going to the cross one way or
another. But notice the comfort Jesus gives him in verse 11.
Here is another paradox, for we see the prisoner comforting
the judge who is about to sentence Him to death. Don't fee
ltoo bad judge, its and awful thing you are forced to do, but
the one who handed Me over to you is guilty of the greater
sin. The choice you are making to condemn Me is wrong, but
the real crime is in the hearts of those who are forcing you to
do it.
Jesus is saying that not all are equally guilty in this
wicked plot. Some are victims like Pilate. Others are the
master minds, and they will be held accountable for the
greater evil. By so saying, Jesus is in essence telling Pilate I
know you are the only good guy in this whole legal maze.
You can count on it, I will not hold it against you. The
prisoner is letting the judge off the hook. Pilate knew this
and fought like crazy to get Jesus released, but he could not
do it. The best he could do was to embarrass the wicked
schemers who forced him to be a partner in their evil plot.
The New Testament makes it clear, the primary guilt for
sending Jesus to the cross falls on the Jewish leaders. The
evidence is overwhelming. Yet the tragedy of this truth is
that Christians have used it to promote anti-Semitism. Jews
have been called Christ-killers, and have suffered repeatedly
at the hands of bigoted Christians who have the reasoning
power of a cutting board. To hate all Jews because of what
the Jews did to Jesus is as foolish as holding all white men
responsible for killing the Indians buffalo. Crimes of folly
and prejudice of the past are not pasted on through the
genes making future generations guilty of those crimes.
Besides this, Jesus forgave from the cross even that
generation who were fully guilty. Anyone who holds any
Jew responsible for the death of Jesus today is as blind as
those Jews who really were guilty of history's greatest legal
injustice.
Some of history's greatest Christians were filled with
prejudice against the Jews because they refused to let the
spirit of Christ be their guide. Luther, for example, was
terribly anti-Semitic. It is easy to find plenty of New
Testament evidence to support being anti-Semitic toward
that generation of Jews who crucified Jesus. But to carry
that attitude beyond that generation should embarrass the
Christian. If is does not, that Christian is exhibiting the very
blindness that made the Jews who crucified Jesus so
despicable.
What we need to see is that this hatred of Jesus by the
Jewish leaders was His final hurdle to overcome to get to the
cross. This is where other men would fail. I don't know
about you, but I would have a hard time choosing to suffer
one minute from a paper cut on the finger, let alone
crucifixion, for people who so despised me. This was the
final test of the love of Christ. Could He go through with the
plan to die for men when they could be so cruel? He could,
and He did. Here is the proof that love is the strongest
power in the universe. Hate met love in a head on collision,
and love just kept on going pushing hate off the road. They
could not stop Jesus from loving them. They were as cruel,
brutal, and hard-hearted as man is capable of being, yet
Jesus did not call ten thousand angels to wipe them from the
face of the earth. He said, "Father forgive them for they
know not what they do." Then He died for them that they
might be forgiven and restored to fellowship with God.
Their hate was as black as coal, but His love made them
able to be made as white as snow. Nothing, absolutely
nothing, could stop Jesus from loving even the most
unlovable of men. We do not even know what love is until
we study the love of Jesus and see the love of God reflected
in His face. In the Old Testament the highest source of glory
was the awesomeness of God's glory in creation. "The
heavens declare the glory of God...." But now in Jesus we
have a far greater glory. The sun, moon, and stars are still
wonders to behold, but the cannot give us the light we can
get from the face of Jesus. Paul says it in II Cor. 4:6, "For
God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, made His light
shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Christ."
If you want to know how to think and act in any
situation, look to the face of Jesus, and ask, what would
Jesus do? This is not always easy, but there is no better way
for guidance for in the face of Jesus is all the light we need.
It will lead us to choices and attitudes where love will
conquer all the evil and prejudice we struggle with. The face
of Jesus was marred by unbelievable cruelty. Verse 3 tells us
the mocking soldiers used His face as a punching bag. He
was bruised and blackened, and the crown of thorns would
send blood running down His forehead. Jesus knows what
it is to be an abused person, and to be violently hurt by
brute force for no good reason. Yet we do not see His face
bitter with resentment. He was surrounded by faces of
horrible hatred who with sadistic determination would not
be satisfied until Jesus was crucified. Yet the face of Jesus
was calm with a love even more determined than their
hatred.
Fritzgerald asked Tennyson, as they looked at the marble
busts of two famous men, "What is there in the face of Dante
which is absent from the face of Goethe." The poet
responded, "The Divine." The presence of God makes all
the difference in the world, and that was what we see in the
face of Jesus.
God of sun and stars and space,
We can your glory trace.
But your best we can embrace
In your Son's loving face.
Jesus met every hate filled face with a look of determined
grace. If you want to know how to face life with all of its
burdens and problems, turn your eyes upon Jesus and look
into His face and you will receive the light you need to go the
way that pleases God. The face of Jesus becomes the sun of
our spiritual solar system. On the Mt. of Transfiguration
the face that Jesus had for all eternity past, and which He
will have for all eternity future, broke through His limited
earthly face, and we read this in Matt. 17:2, "His face shown
like the sun." Jesus had to endure every indignity men could devise to
embarrass Him and humiliate Him, and create on Him a
face of bitterness. They did make His face ugly and
repulsive, but they could not, by their vile and violent
behavior, wipe the light of love from His face. Christina
Rossetti, the great poetess, wrote,
Is this the face that thrills with awe
Seraphs who veil their face above?
Is this the face without a flaw,
The face that is the face of love?
Yes, this defaced, lifeless clod
Hath all creation's love sufficed,
Hath satisfied the love of God,
This face the face of Jesus Christ.
There is an old legend that when Adam was driven from
the Garden of Eden he asked the angel who stood guard
with flaming sword, what shall I bring back to God when I
return? The angel replied, "Bring him back the face in gave
you in the garden, and I will let you in." Sin had changed
the face of man. The inner corruption distorted his external
features. We see it full blown in the trial of Jesus. The ugly
hatred of man is seen at its worse. In their rebellion against
God they marred the face of His Son. But Jesus refused to
let the externals change His inner face. He remained calm,
loving, and endured it all that He might have a face worthy
of entrance again for man into the paradise of God. Do you
realize that the vision of the face of Jesus is one of
the key blessings of heaven? In John 17:24 Jesus prayed,
"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me
where I am, and to see My glory...." The ultimate answer to
this prayer is revealed in
Rev. 22:3-4, "No longer will there be any curse. The throne
of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His servants
will serve Him. They will see His face, and His name will be
on their foreheads."
The most beautiful face in the universe forever will be the
face of Jesus, for this is the face that made it possible for
man to return to paradise and to fellowship with God. Man
did his very worst to embarrass and shame the face of Jesus,
but He came through with a face aglow with love. Jesus
passed the final test and refused to forsake the goal of the
cross because of shame and embarrassment. May our Lord's
example motivate us to set goals in our service for God, and
then pursue them like our Savior did with His steadfast face.
