Hey everybody.
Thanks for joining us.
As we close out the week here in the Gospel of John.
Find ourselves at the very end here of the 18th
chapter.
It's an odd division.
We're in the 18th.
No. I'm sorry.
What are we here?
38th verse.
Kind of, Pilate has just asked what is truth?
And then we jump in right after that.
So 38 verse
about not quite a third of the way through the verse.
After he had said this, Pilate,
he went out to the Jews again and told them, I find no case against him.
But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover.
Do you want me to release for you
the King of the Jews?
They shouted in reply, not this man, but Barabbas.
Now Barabbas was a bandit.
Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged,
and the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head.
And they dressed him in a purple robe.
They kept coming up to him,
saying, hail, King of the Jews, and striking him on the face.
Pilate went out again and said to them, look, I'm
bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.
So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.
Pilate said to them, here is the man.
When the chief priests
and the police saw him, they shouted, crucify him, crucify him!
Pilate said to them, take him yourself and crucify him.
I find no case against him.
The Jews answered, we have a law.
According to that law he ought to die because he is claimed
to be the Son of God. So
as we move here into the
passion stories and the crucifixion story,
interesting.
In the significant
parts of the gospel account,
Pilate senses there's something going on here.
Pilate doesn't find in Jesus
a man worthy of being killed.
And again, we talked about that a little bit on our last
session, that in a way, that's John.
Maybe the other gospel writers as well, their attempt
to lay the blame at the feet of the Jewish religious leaders.
But the gospels kind of agree that Pilate interviews Jesus, talks with him.
He may think he's crazy. He may think he is misguided.
He may think he's foolish.
But what he doesn't think is that he is worthy of crucifixion. And,
that I don't know what we make of that, Michael,
other than the stories, all sort of agree that
Pilate
doesn't think Jesus needs to be put to death.
And here we get almost tacked on this idea of Barabbas
that gets flesh set out in other gospels far more than it does here.
But Pilate tries to arrange an alternative, and he can't,
and it sets up this interesting moment where the fate of Jesus is kind of being,
fought over between the Roman government
and the Jewish religious structure. And,
it's pretty, pretty consistent that it is told that way in all the gospels.
And it's a little bit of a new wrinkle in terms of, of Rome being involved.
You're exactly right.
And that's exactly where I was going to go, actually, is I think that John,
though it tells the same story as the other gospels, maybe tells it
in its own particular way in a very challenging context,
because of all of the book of John that came before it.
Let me explain what I mean by that.
That probably sounds pretty cryptic here.
You have very, very clearly that Pilate goes out
to in the end of 38, hear the Jews again.
Right?
And then verse 39, do you want me to release for you
the King of the Jews were getting really specific.
And this matters in this book, because so much of Jesus's conflict
has been with the Jews and and the crowds,
which are the Jews and the Jewish religious leadership.
There's this long and it's really been intense for pretty much most of the book.
And so now we we come to this rising, climactic kind of moment.
And once again, the, the irony
that the historic surprise,
the way that John tells the story is the, the man with the power
doesn't seem to feel an inclination to be threatened by Jesus.
And it's the crowd of gathered Jews and that specific language
which is actually had, I think, significant historical impact.
There has been generations of Christians who have read the book of John,
very, very literally and taken
these sort of classifications of, hey, look, it wasn't Pilate.
You want Jesus that it was the Jews.
And the Jews are the bad guys now and forever.
I don't think that's a fair reading of this whole book,
and I think we've pointed out nuances to that as we've gone along.
But certainly to your point, Clint,
there is a way in which right now, the man who should be most threatened
by Jesus because of Jesus's spiritual power sees
no threat, because Jesus's power isn't for the kingdom of this world.
It's actually the people
whose ears should be attuned to the coming of the Son of God,
the people who have been waiting for the Messiah.
They are the ones who are now in this moment, prepared
not just for Jesus to die, but to in his place
take what John calls are our translators call a bandit.
I think that's the fascinating thing, is that the the Jews,
as they're called here in John, want to swap the Messiah for a criminal.
And that is the amazing twist of character that we see of those people.
The people of faith are not people of faith.
They're people of destruction.
They're not people who see what God is doing.
In fact, there are people
that demand and want and wish the bandit to be given to them instead.
It's an amazing kind of turn, and it's a dark, characterized ation
of this force that set itself against Jesus this entire time.
Yeah.
The way John has told the story, we've mentioned it a hundred times.
Jesus always knows he's headed here. And so,
John, it seems to me,
kind of minimizes this idea that Jesus might get out of this
because that's not a way in which John thinks of the story.
Jesus is going to the cross.
Jesus decided that chapters ago.
That's never been in question.
And so it's it's interesting here that he mentions Pilate and Barabbas,
though really just in passing in a way that gets
more attention in the other Gospels.
Then as we entered chapter 19, kind of a difficult part of the story.
And in John,
sort of, without flinching,
asks us to look at things that are very hard to look at.
And so here, as Jesus is handed over,
he's flogged, beaten with whips,
and then there is this crown of thorns sort of playing with this whole idea
of King Jesus is given a thorny crown,
a purple robe, and the soldiers mock him.
Hail the King of the Jews while they strike him on the face.
And this is, again, I think, John's way of reminding us
that this experience that Jesus takes upon himself
is not simply the cross, it's everything that goes with it.
And it's horrific, the things that people are capable of doing
to one another,
the humiliation and the suffering that Jesus undergoes.
John, I think he doesn't dwell there.
This is not overdone, but certainly he doesn't shy away
from letting us know that Jesus here is suffering.
Jesus is being abused.
Jesus is being beaten.
And I you know, these are this is Good Friday kind of stuff.
This is tough material.
Yeah.
And it's not just the story telling us in, hey, here's what happened
is unbelievably meaningful in the way that it's revealing theological meaning.
I think that moves forward here.
If you go into the story because Pilate, when he brings Jesus out
after these symbols,
by the way, purple, the color of the king, the crown of thorns.
Right.
All of this mocking king of the Jews, Pilate brings them out.
Verse four.
Look, I'm bringing out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.
And it's fascinating.
Move forward. Verse five.
Here is the man when Jesus is presented, and I can't help but here in that
Jesus has been saying over and over again, I am, I am this, I am this
pilot is so close to
to understand that here's the man that is just there are so many layers
of ironic revelation here that that being mocked for being the King,
he is the king being mocked with a crown and the purple
Jesus already embodies that, that that here is the man.
He needs no introduction.
He's been doing that the entire book.
And it's fascinating how John portrays in this story,
this incredible turn that what appeared
in that moment to be nothing but humiliation and pain and suffering,
which I think you're right to point out, Clint, John doesn't shy away from,
yet at the same time, I think embedded in these words
is a deeper revelation that underneath the humiliation,
underneath the suffering and the pain is not a man who is powerless inside
that the irony is it's the soldiers and Pilate and the Jews
who are powerless to see Jesus for who he actually is.
They think that they're the ones at this point still in control.
And when the story continues on as we go through it,
I think there's even more evidences how unnerving
Jesus is in his composure in the midst of this.
It's not because
Jesus is just, you know, strong and because he's a powerful person.
It's because of who Jesus, the Son of God, is submitting
to this kind of treatment and this kind of worldly power.
And they don't quite understand.
No, David, not quite. They do not understand
the depth of the one in whom they are committing these acts.
You know, it's an interesting place to break the reading.
But when we stop here at verse seven,
the people, the priests of the old crucify him, crucify him.
Pilate said, look, I don't find him.
He's not he's not done anything to deserve death.
He's not guilty of capital crimes.
And the Jews answered, we have a law.
And according to that law he ought to be put to death,
because he's claimed to be the Son of God.
And I think,
you know, the question that John gives us an opportunity to pause and consider is,
what if he is right?
You have this these angry people calling for Jesus death
because they believe his claim to be a thing.
And the ultimate irony of John is that we already know that claim is true.
And so
Jesus stands innocent,
being beaten, being mocked, being ridiculed,
being forced to wear a crown of thorns, being humiliated.
And yet
the very thing that he's accused of saying dishonestly,
we know to be the truth and,
I think you have to bear that perspective in mind
as we go through these passion narratives, these crucifixion narratives,
because we are familiar with the story, we know where it's going.
So sometimes we can easily
look past the elephant in the room because we know it's there.
But I do believe it helps to back up and and see these parts of the story
with fresh eyes, as the innocent one is taking upon himself
the scorn, humiliation, ridicule,
and suffering for those, even those who might be doing it to him.
And Clinton. You know this
how many
generations of Christians scholars look at texts like this?
And, you know, there have been many generations of ways of approaching
who Jesus was and and what he believed his mission was.
And there were movements over time to say, you know, Jesus,
he really was a great teacher.
And he kind of got, fluffed up a little bit, you know,
they looked back on Jesus and they wanted to make him a religious savior
instead of, the kind of, son of God that he claimed to be.
And I think that coming here in verse seven is a powerful verse
that stands in opposition to that, because the Jews, the very voice
of the enemies or the opponents in this text,
he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.
And and this gospel within the first generation of the church
already made abundantly clear
that that was the stance of who Jesus was and the reason
that Jesus was a threat, that this is the reason Jesus should die.
He claimed to be the Son of God.
Now, a reasonable, rational person can have a conversation
about whether Jesus was right about that claim
or whether that's a helpful frame to live our lives.
But make no mistake about it, Jesus claimed us he claimed
to be the Son of God, and he claimed it in such a public and and in this case,
disreputable, disreputable way.
I'm looking for the word there.
That's not the right one, but in such a threatening way
that it was cause for him to to be killed.
He was committing heresy.
And I think what John is revealing to us, what appeared to some to be heresy,
may have been, in fact, the truth.
And that the truth is that Jesus Christ was exactly who he claimed to be.
And if so, then all of the powers of the world stand turned upside down.
That that's the fundamental throughline of this book.
And even there, John wants us to know and will walk us the rest of the way
to deliver the message to us that Jesus is not victim here.
It is not misunderstanding.
It is not it.
Jesus is exactly where Jesus wants to be.
And the question we have is, why would the innocent one be crucified?
In other words, as Pilate asked, what if you're a king, why are you here?
What's happening?
And John is walking us toward that answer. And,
I think doing so in a way that gives us lots of chances
to pause and reflect upon what we learn in that part of the journey.
Look, as Pilate
has become Pilate because he's got some things that he's
done right and some things that have gone well for him.
And ultimately,
a person who's reached that place of power could never possibly understand that.
I don't think any of us could.
How this man, who's now subject to the powers,
could actually be the one who holds all of the power.
That's a kind of reversal that that is just unseeable from his position.
Yeah.
The only thing I the only thing I'd add to that, Michael, is that in John,
we, I do think we have to remember that Jesus has subjected himself.
Right. Absolutely.
It's not been done to him.
Yet, which is exactly the opposite of what pilot would be think.
Absolutely.
The story and the Pharisees or the religious leaders as well.
Yeah, they think they're doing something to Jesus.
John knows Jesus is doing something in spite of them.
It's amazing how different the story is depending on upon from where you look.
Yeah, thanks for being with us.
I glad to study this book with you.
There's a lot to come heavy, but also deep,
and certainly hope you'll join us for the journey.
Subscribe like we will see you next week! Monday.
Have a. Good weekend.