God Moves to the Cross

The New Revised Standard Version Jesus before Pilate

Jesus before Pilate

(Mt 27:1–2, 11–14; Mk 15:1–5; Jn 18:28–38)

23 Then the assembly rose as a body and brought Jesus before Pilate. 2 They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king.” 3 Then Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He answered, “You say so.” 4 Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no basis for an accusation against this man.” 5 But they were insistent and said, “He stirs up the people by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place.”

Jesus before Herod

6 When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. 7 And when he learned that he was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him off to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time. 8 When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had been wanting to see him for a long time, because he had heard about him and was hoping to see him perform some sign. 9 He questioned him at some length, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10 The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him. 11 Even Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him; then he put an elegant robe on him, and sent him back to Pilate. 12 That same day Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; before this they had been enemies.

Opening

An Unlikely List of Heroes

A Game of Thrones — who is the hero

Pilate?

Herod?

Jesus.

Hero in the wrong kind of way.

Opening

What kind of king will sit upon the throne?

Who is the rightful heir to the legacy of the family?

How will order be restored to the universe?

These questions, among many others, are brimming to the surface in three pop culture events taking place this month.

First, on Friday, we saw the premier of the trailer for the upcoming, final Star Wars movie, the last in the saga of the Skywalker family!

Second, just after Easter, the world premier of Marvel’s The Avengers: Endgame, hopefully answering questions about how all our favorite heroes will best their mightiest foe.

And finally, tonight, the premiere of the first episode of the final season of Game of Thrones!

If you’re as nerdy as I am, this is a trifecta of movie and television awesomeness!

These big movies and shows ask big questions about heroism, family, good and evil, and the balance of power in the universe.

This morning, I want to focus in for a moment on Game of Thrones. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this saga, here’s the quick gist: Medieval kingdoms, vying for the outright control of their continent and their place as rulers over the “Iron Throne”, the seat of power over all of the 7 kingdoms. You have House Lannister, House Stark, House Targaryan, and many others, warring with each other, making alliances, battling, dying, jockying for power, riding dragons, forging swords, etc., etc., etc.

As the show draws to its close, the question of who will rise to sit upon the Iron Throne is on everyone’s minds. Who will be the hero? Will the story end in peace?

There is one character in this story who has a bit of resurrection/Messiah angle to him. Jon Snow. He’s the sort of hero who doesn’t really want to be a hero, but is thrust into it because of his family and his birthright. But he doesn’t accept the pomp, the processionals, the crowns or privilege of a king along his journey. He walks with the people, is one of them and seeks to help them.

Ask me in a few weeks what I think about these stories, how they’ve developed.

Our culture is looking for heroes. Superheroes are everywhere — we want someone fantastic to save the day. Kings and dragons — we believe in the power of a great ruler to care for the land. There is this impulse among us that drives us to seek a hero, to look for the hero in the story. We even talk about personal growth and our road of faith as a journey, like there is a progression toward some heroic goal that we can achieve at the end of it all.

We are not far from the people of first century Palestine, looking for a king, looking for a hero.

Not long ago in the story, before the passage we’ve heard today about Jesus before Herod and Pilate, we hear of Jesus entering triumphantly into Jerusalem, with the people waving palm branches and laying down their coats before him. It is the entrance of a king. The people are swearing their allegiance to this one who they hope will overthrow the power of Rome and the oppressive leadership of the Pharisees. They have spotted their hero in Jesus and for a moment are out in the streets welcoming him in the fullest fashion.

I love that our lectionary text today does not dwell on this processional, but moves to two other supposed heroes to illustrate the kind of servant Jesus truly is. We’ll move to this in a moment, but first, just a quick reminder about how Jesus handles the Palm Sunday procession: He comes in on a donkey, a lowly animal, not a white horse. He bears no sword, but instead, he is greeted with grasses and branches of the garden. He wears no crown and has no trumpeters declaring his entrance. He is flanked by children and women, not armored guards, not military might. Jesus, the King, enters defenseless, unassuming, not claiming his power as a hero.

Over the course of the last few weeks, we’ve seen that the story of the Lenten Journey and the broader story of life in the way of Jesus is peppered with very unheroic, yet faithful and restored people. We have the Prodigal and the Older Son — messy and broken in all their own ways — markers of God’s redemptive love and the power to restore what once was lost. We have Lazarus, Mary and Martha — the ones who had faced death, faced loss, faced being shunned and who had found a place in the family of Jesus as intimate friends. We have the disciple Judas, who is perhaps at once the most hated man in all eternity and yet also has a heroic, vital role to play in aiding Jesus’ journey to the cross which undoes that power of death (good work to be a part of, if you consider its impact on all of humanity and all of creation for all time…)

If we are going to be a people who desire heroes, we might need to change our perspective on what heroes look like.

Are they the Captain Americas or the Luke Skywalkers or the Denarys Targaryans of the world? Are they the Pilates, the Roman oppressors, or the Herods, the Jewish puppets?

Or do we, perhaps, find heroes, in the ones who let go of power, who enter in on donkeys, who stand before the powerful and make no claims of their rightful throne — not because they deny it, but because they know that the powers of the world, the powers of the state, the powers of might and violence — they are smaller and weaker and ultimately fleeting compared to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Let’s turn to Jesus before Pilate and then before Herod.

Jesus stands before Pilate accused as a provocateur, for perverting the nation, subverting the tax system, claiming to be Messiah. And yet, he claims no kingship. He deflects the question from Pilate: “Are you the king of the Jews?”

Jesus’ only words in the passage are his reply: “You say so.”

The heroic answer, from our vantage point, is — “Yes, I am!! I claim my rightful throne, my dominion over all creation. I claim the Jews and the Gentiles, all people, are under my rule. I am the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega, the firstborn of Creation.”

That’s the heroic answer — and, we ultimately know, that’s the answer Jesus gives when all is said and done.

But in this place, in this moment as he moves deeper into his calling, he does not need this power grab. His answer is simple: he returns the claim back into Pilate’s hands. “You say so.”

Why not grab the power? Why not claim it?

Wouldn’t that be easier?

I want to know who sits on the Iron Throne. I want to know how the Marvel Superheroes get out of their bind. I want to know how the Skywalkers defeat the power of the dark side. I want to see a hero rise up right now and take care of the problem.

But, in the moment when Jesus is questioned, in this place along the journey, to grab the power is to give in. To grab the power is to become death, to become the structures of oppression. And so, with open hands, Jesus turns the question back to his oppressor.

Pilate sees what’s going on here: He replies that he has no basis for accusation against Jesus. Pilate sees no hero, no threat. And at least from where he sits, that means he gets to keep his power and control, so he’s fine with that. Pilate aids in Jesus’ dismantling of the power structures.

Because that’s what Jesus is doing here. Defenseless, he rides into the city. Receptively, he is ridiculed and questioned by the Council of Jewish Elders. Openly, he stands before Pilate and does not claim what is rightly his.

And the powers of the world continue to struggle against him.

Next he is taken before Herod, the great worm of Israel, the one who had been pursuing Jesus for so long in order to put his movement down.

Jesus is questioned by the crowd, the chief priests and the scribes, accused and mocked. And here, Jesus deepens claim upon a different kind of heroism. He says nothing. To all of their cries and insults, the lies and abuse, Jesus does not rise up, does not lift a finger, does not argue and claim his lordship. To be a hero, to wave words or a sword around — this is to play the game of the powerful. And Jesus has none of it. He stands before the ones who would provoke him, who would make him angry and chooses a stance of peace.

This is not what a hero does. And it only angers the crowds more. They had expected him to put up a fight.

And so, he is mocked and turned into a spectacle.

The powerful conspire together to tear this peacemaker down.

And in this, he moves to the cross.

In this coming week, we’ll take the Lenten Journey all the way toward the cross.

The hero’s way is not to the cross. The hero’s way is toward mighty overcoming, to fighting the battle, to raising up an army. The cross is a criminal’s death. The site of a discarded life. The lowest place, the great brokenness.

If you’ve been looking for Jesus to be a hero, this journey is going to keep taking you into uncomfortable and unexpected places. He is not going to claim the power like you want him to.

Why do we follow him then?

I want to go back, for a moment, to that impulse that we seem to have as a culture to seek out and praise heroes. Why do we do this? Is it because of their flashy swords, their colorful one-piece spandex outfits, their amazing speeches, their deeds on the battlefield? Is it because they do the remarkable, the impossible?

When the battle is won, when the triumphant ruler sits upon the throne — then what?

Contrast this with a prophet, priest, and king who is slain upon a cross. Broken to the greatest degree. Dead by the weapons of the world.

This is where our story leads us, so why do we follow him?

What if we seek out these heroes because of a deeper understanding of discontent and longing? What if we worship heroes because we hope that somehow they might make things right?

This is a week for us to wrestle with that question. Don’t we want better heroes than that?

Herod, Pilate, the leaders of the synagogue: They wanted a better hero than that. The disciples who run away, the mourners who slowly leave the cross in abandon, they wanted a better hero than that.

Why do we follow this man, the man of sorrows, the man on flogged and nailed to a cross?

What if we follow him because we have an inkling of a deeper way in things? What if the way to life is through the death? What if this man was not some crown prince or mighty general, but God who knew your pain, knew your longings, knew what it meant to be called different or pushed out by the powerful? What if God in Christ took upon himself that pain, that suffering, those longings that are known throughout all humanity? What if, through opening himself up to ridicule, by submitting to the powers of the world and of evil, not resisting, but receiving it, what if he began to unravel their power, their sting, their weight? What if through receiving death, Christ undoes death?

A hero fights the battle to victory, but there is always another enemy to fight.

A servant moves to the cross and undoes the power of the enemy altogether. That’s what’s going on here. The story is being unraveled, rent apart, and rewritten.

Why do we follow Christ to the cross? To witness the sight of all things being made new.