The Serenity of Christ before Pilate
I’m sure many of you here this morning have visited Coventry Cathedral and left with some sort of reaction to that Church, dedicated to the Glory of God in the name of St. Michael and All Angels.
It is the sort of modern Cathedral building you either love or hate.
But if you look hard enough inside that modern building you will find treasures that will open up for you hidden meanings to our faith.
Towards the top of a side aisle near the High Altar is a very fine sculpture of Christ Crucified by Helen Jennings from Oklahoma in USA.
This bust of the Crucified Christ is made and fashioned from the metal of crashed motor cars and serves to remind us of the daily tortures mankind inflicts on each other by careless driving; by senseless war and violence.
All this can only be redeemed by love, the type of love God has for us in that He gave His only Son to die for us, Christ’s redeeming love on the cross.
Beneath that bust of Christ crucified is a plaque which reads:
‘BEHOLD THE MAN’............’BEHOLD YOUR KING’
Statements said by Pilate recorded by John in the King James version of the Bible, ironically other versions seem to water down such a dramatic statements about Christ our Lord.
The more you look at the gospel narrative associated with Christ’s trial and crucifixion the more you realise how detailed the account is.
It draws you in, each statement has a meaning and significance to deepen our realisation of what Christ our Lord went through to win our salvation.
When Pilate said, ‘BEHOLD THE MAN’ ....’BEHOLD YOUR KING’ everyone seems to go mad, a frenzy breaks out and the lynch mob demands Christ’s crucifixion.
The Jewish hierarchy have nothing good to say they only breath words of hate and Pilate realises this quite early on in the trial, ‘Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you, Barabbas or Jesus who is called Christ” for he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered Him up’ (Matt. 27: 17-8)
Envy eats the heart of love and its only fruit is hate!
We then have Pilate who tries to be strong and just but his past soon catches him up and so he bends to the pressure of blackmail.
Pilate became Procurator in AD26 and in the 3-4year period that followed up to Jesus’ trial he had got himself into deep water with the Jews a number of times to the extent that he had even been reported to the Emperor.
So when the Jews shouted, ‘If you release this man you are not Caesar’s friend; everyone who makes himself a king sets himself against Caesar.’
They were effectively blackmailing Pilate, if you release Him we will report you to the Emperor.
Pilate was more interested in keeping his job than maintaining justice, handing Jesus over to the crowd to be crucified was a negligible price to pay.
Pilate says, ’BEHOLD YOUR KING’ yes the Jews go mad but what they say is even more astonishing, ‘we have no king but Caesar’.
When Pilate heard this he must of been astonished, the Jews effectively only had one king and that was God, to accept Caesar as their king was accepting his deity and this was totally alien to the Jew who only had the ONE GOD.
The majority of the problems that Pilate had with the Jews was over this very matter because they were so stubborn and immoveable over their belief in the ONE TRUE GOD.
Now because of their hatred of this man who claimed to be God’s Son they were prepared to reject their ONE TRUE GOD for Caesar.
What an incredible scene!
But in the centre of this terrific storm there is Jesus.
The prophet Isaiah sums up Jesus’ reaction to the storm all around Him, ‘He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth’ (Is 53:7)
Jesus is cool, calm and collective; He only responds when He is directly addressed and when He wants to respond to the extent that Pilate wondered greatly.
It is an amazing scene Jesus shows no resentment at all even though He has received firstly from the Jews and then from Pilate nothing but the most glaring and intolerable injustice.
Both the Jewish and Roman law had been ignored and twisted so as to ensure His guilt, in neither court was there even a pretence of justice.
If it was me or even you we would be very bitter and resent such a miscarrage of justice.
We would have a lot to say to show our resentment in no uncertain terms.
But Jesus says nothing He accepts it all, He is the supreme example of serenity in the face of injustice.
It is one of the most extraordinary features of the trial of Jesus that nowhere in it, does HE seem to be on trial.
At all times He is in control of the situation.
In the whole collection of characters there, Jesus alone is in control of Himself and the situation in which He finds Himself.
The Jews and their leaders are more than half crazed with hate; there is in them that which sets a mob on a lynching expedition.
Their emotions are totally out of control.
Pilate is the very picture of frustration, like an animal caught in a trap, twisting and turning and quite unable to find any way of escape.
Never was any governor less capable of governing, or any ruler more tragically helpless.
Alone amidst all the wild, unbalanced hatred and the helpless frustration, Jesus stands serene and calm and in complete control both of the situation and of Himself.
The last thing that Jesus ever appears to be is on His defence; rather it is He who stands in Judgement.
It is clear that all through the trial Jesus never thought of himself as the victim.
John’s gospel expresses this very thought, ‘I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord’ (John 10: 17)
In this situation Jesus still saw the guiding hand of God, His Father.
When Pilate sought to remind Him that His life was in his hands, Jesus reminded Pilate that he could have possessed no power at all unless it had been given to him from above.
Even amidst that heart breaking injustice, it was still the conviction of Jesus that He was not the victim of men but the chosen instrument and Servant of God.
The happenings of these last days and hours were to Jesus, not fragments in a set of circumstances which were out of control, but events in a drama, whose course and whose culmination were in the hands of God.
In all of this where would we stand?
-- are we with the crowd, like lost sheep following a whim of justice derived by a lynch mob.
-- are we with Pilate looking after our own interest rather that doing that which is lawful and right.
-- are we on the Lord side prepared to suffer for what we believe to be right, just and good?
Where do we stand? ’BEHOLD THE MAN’ ...... ’BEHOLD YOUR KING’
