By Different Rules

By Different Rules--March 14, 2017

"Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, 'Are you the King of the Jews?' Jesus answered, 'Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?' Pilate replied, 'I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?' Jesus answered, 'My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to be keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.' Pilate asked him, 'So you are a king?' Jesus answered, 'You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.' Pilate asked him, 'What is truth?'" [John 18:33-38]

He wasn't cool and composed.  Pilate, that is. 

He wasn't sitting in an armchair in a velvet robe with a pipe pondering the meaning of reality and waxing philosophically when he asked the (in)famous question, "What is truth?"  Pilate is nervous and irritated. He is all bluster and bluffing, and he is secretly petrified that someone will see through all the ranting to see that he is really a very scared puppet, put in place by a distant emperor. 

I say this because I have seen plenty of supposedly Bible-inspired movies and dramatic re-enactments of the Passion of Christ over the years, and it never ceases to amaze me how often actor and directors choose to play Pilate with composure and confidence, almost sympathetically, like he is really is in control of things.  Sometimes you almost get a vibe that the actor thinks Pontius Pilate has suddenly become a serious philosopher, legitimately asking about the essence of truth.  But I believe an honest reading of the text suggests otherwise.  Pilate is neither the cool commander nor the faith-seeking philosopher.  He is a scared little boy pretending that he is in control, and getting more and more unhinged with every moment, only to double down on the bluster when he thinks someone might possible be seeing through to the real Pilate.

Seriously, just read how the whole trial scene between Jesus and Pilate plays out--instead of Jesus, the accused criminal in chains, being the one nervously pacing and pleading for direction, it's Pilate who keeps running in and out and in and out, back to the crowds, back to Jesus, and on and on, trying to find someone to hold his hand and give him some direction.  He's trying to pacify the crowds, and he's trying to please the religious leadership, and he's looking for an excuse either to have Jesus killed or released, but some way that the decision can be taken out of his hands... and all the while, he has to play the Empire's game of looking like he is in control and not sweating.  Pilate is, like so many bullies in history, deep down a coward, and he thinks that his best move is to double down on the threats and intimidation in the hopes he can fool Jesus into believing the façade.  It would be pitiable if Pilate weren't also such a cruel and expedient blowhard.

But in a way, Pilate gives us a clear picture of what the Empire's way, really the world's way, of trying to win looks like.  This scene from Jesus' trial exposes how hollow Pilate's threats and bluster really are, and they reveal how empty Rome's way of trying to achieve victory turn out to be.  All Pilate can think of is armies, empires, and commanders, and so of course he can only make sense of Jesus in those terms. Pilate sees Jesus and wants to know if he is a political or military threat. His question, "Are you the King of the Jews?" is rather like a question asked of someone in a foreign language--something is lost in translation from the reality of who Jesus is and what Pilate sees and thinks. 

So Jesus corrects him, or at least translates who and what he is in ways that will sidestep the confusion about what it means to be the Christ of God.  "For this I was born... to testify to the truth."  Jesus' reason for coming "into the world"--the very same "world," mind you that God loves--is to see and tell us the truth about things, because Jesus is the one who doesn't have anything to hide or anything to fear.  Not from the Empire, not from the crowds, not from the religious so-and-sos, and certainly not from the pitiably petrified Pontius Pilate.  Jesus can tell us the truth because he is not caught up in Rome's game of ruling through fear and fakery. 

Jesus has come to play the game by different rules, and in so doing, to show the world how empty its old rules and game-playing were all along.  Thus he tells Pilate, "If my reign were the kind you were used to, well, yes, then, of course, my followers would be doing what every other would-be-king's armies do: they would be fighting for me.  But I am not playing by your rules.  I reject the world-system's rules, because my way of ruling the universe is to die for it.  And my kind of victory comes in suffering love."  Jesus has come to tell the truth, to embody the truth, and to be the truth.  And honestly, to a guy like Pilate whose whole routine is to throw smokescreens and intimidate others into not looking to hard at the cracks in his armor, Jesus is the most frightening threat there could be. Jesus, the shackled, beaten, homeless, powerless rabbi, is the most frightening threat Pilate could face, because Jesus sees through it all and points to another reality, another kind of victory and kingship.

This is the claim at the heart of the Gospel: that God rules the world in a way the world never saw coming, and still never sees coming.  The God of the universe rules creation through suffering love--through a cross--rather than through armies or threats or bluster or rage and ranting.  At most what Pilate can do is make enough of a commotion to try and distract the watching crowds from seeing him sweating and shaking so they will be intimidated into doing what he and the empire he represents says to do.  But Pilate is never really in charge here. And he was never really after the truth. Pilate just blurts things out and hopes nobody will call him on it.  And up until he met Jesus, no one ever had--they were all either too afraid of the threats or too distracted by the smokescreen. 

Today, you and I are called to witness to the wonderfully strange kind of victory Jesus has won.  We are called, like Jesus, to be utterly unafraid of the truth, even when the truth about ourselves is uncomfortable or embarrassing.  We are called, because we know that Jesus' victory is also his gift to us, to find courage in telling and living the truth, and to find freedom from having to fool anybody else.  We are freed from all of Pilate's pathetic song-and-dance routine.  We are freed from bullying or yelling or bluster.  We are freed simply to be truth-tellers, following the path of Jesus, who rules the world simply by giving himself away for us, without a single boot on the ground.

Pilate isn't composed or at peace in any of this scene... but you and I can be today, no matter what we face.

Lord Jesus, give us the freedom you offer in telling and living the truth like you, and give us your kind of victory in suffering love.