December 22nd

The Scourging at the Pillar

If the Agony in the Garden is Jesus' model of how we are to accept God's Will for our lives, then Pontius Pilate and Barabbas must be the enactment of the clash between the world's values, the world's needs, and the call of the spirit.

These days, after Peaceful Protest and Mahatma Gandhi, we wouldn't want a revolutionary murderer over a messiah who preached to turn the other cheek - or we'd like to think we wouldn't. I think that's one way to see Jesus' influence on our world, generally not just specific to His followers, but the decision made by the people of Jerusalem and the preference of both the Chief Priest and Pilate and his wife show a focus on the world.

Pilate, a Roman official, would certainly have preferred a religious fanatic with a message of peace to a political insurgent with blood on his hands. Likewise, the Chief Priest would prefer a revolutionary who, whatever his methods, sought to regain sovereignty for the people of Israel without actually disrupting the Church hierarchy.

Perhaps more importantly, in Matthew 27 you get the stark contrast between the spiritual warning given to Pilate's wife in a dream and the bravery with which she went to her husband to warn him - a budding visionary receiving a message about the foreign religion which had surrounded her for years and immediately having the strength to share it with her political husband - and, in contrast, the political maneuvering of the church officials to seed the crowd with discontent and rage at Jesus - the man they only recently welcomed to Jerusalem with rejoicing.

Pilate was caught between these two tactics - the spiritual warning for his soul and the political reality thrust upon him. His solution to "wash his hands" of Jesus' guilt has fooled no one two thousand years down the line. The story differs about when Pilate decided to order Jesus whipping - whether it was his initial sentence for Jesus which failed to disperse the angry mob demanding blood or if it was tacked on before he handed Jesus over to be crucified. Pilate didn't have the strength to trust in the spiritual - his wife's dream and his own judgment of Jesus - in the face of worldly pressure. And really, how many of us do?

Spiritual warnings and truths feel silly when you say them out loud. It sounds "fruity" or ridiculous to put your trust in - especially with hardnosed business or political sense coming out against a course of action that refuses to make worldly sense. Because Jesus' Kingdom is not of this world, or His followers would be fighting for His release.

Jesus' Way and the vocation and lifestyle He asks of His followers do not make worldly sense and those who will always approach situations from that perspective will find themselves totally at a loss - as Pilate was - to fathom a man life Jesus - or how to get him out of trouble.

My prayer for myself is that, even if I do not believe that I will prevent the eventual death of Jesus, even if I believe the crowd's rage will take my prisoner's life no matter what I do, I pray I have the strength to never think of harming another human being to make a worldly situation more tenable. I pray that I never have to make such a choice, but that if I do, I have the wisdom to approach the problem from the spiritual view. That I have the strength to believe in the warnings of dreams and the judgment of my own heart and soul. That I have the strength to approach all of my dilemmas from the perspective of a servant of God rather than a citizen of the world.

And I pray that, when I find myself inexplicable to those in a worldly position of authority dealing with worldly problems, I have the fortitude to never let go of my spiritual perspective and to take the same kind of dignified pride in my part in God's Plan as Jesus did in front of Pilate. Because what God asks of us makes no sense to someone like Pilate. I pray I have the strength to let that be true, no matter what the consequences, rather than turn away from spiritual truth. However floofy it might sound when I try to explain it with words.