6 April 2012

6 April 2012

"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 said to him, "What is truth?""

Jesus comes to bear witness to the truth and yet he keeps silent before Pilate. How can he witness to the truth without words? It must be that his very life is a witness. Pilate asks Jesus if he is a king. It isn't as though Jesus is there insisting on it. There is nothing regal about him to suggest it at the moment.

"[T]here was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him,
nor appearance that would attract us to him."

It is true that Pilate had heard that he was a king. But seeing him before him as he is why does he even pursue the question?

"Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,
our sufferings that he endured,
while we thought of him as stricken,
as one smitten by God and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our offenses,
crushed for our sins;
upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole,
by his stripes we were healed."

It must be because of the authenticity of Jesus. Pilate is only too aware of his own failings. He knows he falls short of even the standards he sets for himself. And yet in Jesus he sees no such compromise. He sees "one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin." But his curiosity is not enough to save him from one more compromise.

"In your hands is my destiny; rescue me
from the clutches of my enemies and my persecutors."

Make no mistake. This is hard to believe when you're being beaten and scourged. Jesus can bear witness to the truth in such circumstances only because he does believe it with all his being.

"If he gives his life as an offering for sin,
he shall see his descendants in a long life,
and the will of the LORD shall be accomplished through him."

Jesus does not need to do this. It is only because his love for us is so tremendous. It encompasses us all, whatever the degree of our betrayal. Whether Pilate, the guards, the Pharisees, Peter or even Judas, Jesus acts out of love for each individually. When he tells the guards who he is it isn't to impress them. He genuinely wants them to know. He genuinely wants them to understand and be changed Even the kiss from Judas he receives wishing it were sincere.

Let us recognize in our hearts the voice that cries out: "Crucify him!". Let us bring ourselves before the very cross we call for to be healed and made whole. As he says that it is finished let us hear ourselves and all things made new.