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Sunday, 16 March 2008 - John's Gospel, chapter 19.

A little bit of a problem this morning. As we’ve just remembered - today’s the celebration of Palm Sunday. But the passage of Scripture I’ve been asked to speak about is John ch.19 which is a fast forward in real time of five days. It misses out not just Jesus’ final few days of teaching - but also the last supper - His prayers in the garden - His betrayal by Judas and denial by Peter - His arrangements before the High Priest and the Sanhedrin - His initial interrogation before Pilate (some of this covered by Phil last week) - and His trip to Harold’s palace and back. So - as we think ourselves into John ch.19 - you need to remember a lot of water’s passed under the bridge since Jesus rode into Jerusalem surrounded by the gleeful shouts of that excited pilgrim crowd.

If you’ve now found John ch.19, you’ve realise that it’s a very long chapter - but I’m going to read it all. I’m going to try to read it at meditative speed. So - if instead of following me in your Bible you want to close your eyes and imagine yourself being there around AD30 - you can use your imagination to be a fly on the wall to these events - sensing them - being involved them - taking in their reality. And as we read it, realise that I will take about 7 or 8 minutes to read this chapter - but in real time it covers seven or eight hours.

For instance - the first verse of chapter 19 is a single sentence of eight words - but I can’t get out of my mind the horror behind what it meant as depicted in the film The Passion of the Christ. Incidentally - there were three possible levels of Roman flogging Jesus could have received under Pilate’s orders. Here - it might have been the lightest. But after being consigned to be executed he would have received the heaviest - which means that Jesus might have in fact been flogged twice. And also remember as we go through this chapter - what we’re reading here are eye witness accounts - John’s own - plus those of people he talked to later.

Read John 19.

I guess people have preached on this passage from every conceivable angle over the centuries. I’m therefore not going to have anything new to say about it am I?! What I don’t want to do is just retell the story again. So - I thought we’d take a closer look at a few of the people involved with Jesus in this chapter. And we’ll start with Pontius Pilate.

Evidence that Pilate was the Roman governor in Judea at this time was discovered in 1961 by two Italian archaeologists working at Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast. Pilate was based there, with only his occasional office in Jerusalem. Some other evidence from outside the Bible for detail in this passage comes in a short note by a man called Tacitus - who wrote – “the execution of ‘Christus’ was by Pilate in the reign of Tiberius”.

So what sort of man was this governor of the province of Judea between AD26 and AD36? Some people read a character for him from the Bible as that of a man trying sincerely to save Jesus - to such an extent that the Ethiopian church has him listed as a saint! But a contemporary of his - Philo of Alexandria - put it on record in the AD40s that “he was a man of inflexible, stubborn and cruel disposition”. The Jewish historian Josephus talked similarly about him in the AD70s - although some say he was bias.

Pilate was certainly insensitive. Insensitive anyway to the feelings of the Jews. Roman Emperors at the time were generally politically astute and aware of Jewish abhorrence of any image or idol used for worship - so they bent over backwards to accommodate this and didn’t try to push the cult of Emperor worship in their faces. Not so Pilate! On at least three recorded occasions he went head to head with the Jews on this issue. And on at least two of them - the Jews won! And once at least, they went over Pilate’s head to the emperor - who angrily told Pilate ‘back off’. Now with that ‘back story’ in mind - re-read John 19:12. Because while we don’t know when these incidences occurred in relation to the events of John chapter 19 - we can surmise Pilate knew well enough that the Jewish authorities in front of him could get reports through to the Emperor that would do him no good at all. We also know that at sometime he’d angered the Jewish authorities by grabbing Temple funds to build an aqueduct in Jerusalem. So any way they could get one over on him - they would. You see - this account isn’t a story set in a vacuum. It’s facts set in a history.

But what about Pilate’s interaction with Jesus?

One thing’s for sure - Pilate knew that, for whatever reason, Jesus had being set-up by the Jewish authorities. But here’s an interesting thing - particularly if you’re into conspiracy theories. While the other gospel writers tell us the arresting party in the garden included temple guards - John specifically say in 18:3 that it also included a detachment of soldiers. I’ve read that the Greek used points to then being Roman auxiliaries - those that would have come with Pilate from Caesarea, or maybe from the garrison in Jerusalem. So why then did Pilate play so ‘hard to get’ with the Jewish leaders, knowing already that Jesus was to be arrested? His troops had been involved in the arresting process! I’ll leave you to ponder that one!

Just to say that with the antipathy between Pilate and the Jews - it’s probable he was making them jump though hoops to get what they wanted.

But then he starts to question Jesus - and perhaps realises that the varsity of Roman justice was being put at risk by him just rubber stamping their demand. Certainly the texts show he had no stomach for this farce. But in the end - he’s driven into a corner he couldn’t wriggle out of. Because what on paper had appeared as a straight-forward case of law, became a power struggle between himself and Caiaphas - and Caiaphas won. And injustices the world over still happen today, in the same way. Although we also need to remember a verse from Isaiah written over 600 years before that puts allthis into context. Isaiah 53:10 says, “Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, He will see his offspring and prolong His days”. God the Father wasn’t sitting in heaven wringing his hands in horror. This was - in His foreknowing - (and don’t ask me to explain it) - all going to plan.

But as far as Pilate was concerned - there was one last chance to change the outcome. Verses 7 to 9 again...’the Jews insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.” When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, and he went back inside the palace. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus.’

Pilate’s fear - as a Roman - was probably based on nothing more than superstition. But he had forced the Jews to now declare the real reason why they wanted Jesus dead. Jesus claimed to be God. Some people assert Jesus never claimed to be God. But things He did and said that did just that. And His Jewish contemporaries understood the claim well enough. And you can tell that to the next JW you meet.

Pilate might have wanted to let Jesus go - but in the end it was Pilate and not Jesus who was most important to Pilate. And when he finds he’s not going to win - he goes for damage limitation. But he does get in one last swipe at the Jewish leadership - the ‘charge placard’ Jesus would have had to carry and which was fixed over His head on the cross. Pilate could have written it this way with intent to offend - but in fact - he spoke the truth.

You ever wondered what became of Pilate? Well we know he was involved in a massacre of Samaritans in AD36. But Tiberius Caesar wasn’t at all happy about this and recalled Pilate to Rome to face trial. But the emperor died while he was still in transit - and that’s the last we hear of Pilate. Except for an uncorroborated story that said he committed suicide two years later. So much for this man who’s so much a part of our Easter story.

So - you are standing looking at three men dying an excruciatingly painful death under an unusually dark sky. How do you respond? Do you play dice with indifference because it’s all in a days work. Or do you shake hands with the Chief Priests and congratulate them on their success - over Jesus and Pilate - a double whammy. Or do you join in with the miscellaneous spectators stopping to jeer as they go by. Or do you just cry. Jeremiah wrote a line which said “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?” He was talking about a different situation of course. But the question’s valid.

It was a question that drew a costly answer from two men who were there. I want to briefly look at their answer - not in what they said - but what they did. I can’t say too much - because there’s not much we know about either of them! They’re Joseph of Arimathea - and Nicodemus. We know a bit more about Nicodemus than the other guy - so I’m going to start with him.

If you’ve ever tried committing Bible verses to memory - I’d be surprised if one of the first you learnt wasn’t John 3:16. Anyone going to venture to tell me what it says? That verse comes in the context of the first of three occasions we come across Nicodemus. He’s turned up for an evening’s debating with an itinerant Rabbi from Nazareth - and gets told he - a “teacher of Israel” - must be ‘born again’. Start over afresh. We see he’s quite miffed by this encounter with Jesus by the way his participation in the discussion just fades away. But it must have made him think.

Those of us who’ve been in a relationship with Jesus for a few years will - I’m sure - have had conversations about Jesus with friends, or family, that appear to have gone nowhere. They walk away and appear to reject everything that you’ve said. Of course that might be the case. But they - like Nicodemus - might just be on a extended journey discovery.

A little while ago we had a guy here from SASRA speaking to the Tuesday Focus. He’d had a knowledge of Jesus from his childhood on the Isle of Lewis - but when he joined the army he turned his back on all that. But after he left the army - he started a search for God - and for five years he tried to live both seeking God, and at the same time living in the world without trusting God. Nicodemus would have recognised his journey. Their lives were vastly different in detail - but they were both trying to have a foot in both camps. And both were on the same journey towards God.

The next time we come across Nicodemus is in John ch.7. He’s part of a discussion the Pharisees and chief priests were having about Jesus - and the rest of them are condemning Jesus out of hand. Nicodemus suggests that Jesus should get a fair hearing - which goes down like lead balloon. He get’s rounded on - told he doesn’t know his Bible (well, Old Testament) and asked if he’s a Galilean - a big racial put-down. But there wassomething he’d learnt that had made him stand up for Jesus. You begin to get the impression that Nicodemus (along with Joseph of Arimathea) were among the ‘secret believers’ mentioned in John ch.12 - those who didn’t confess their faith for fear of being put out of the synagogue. John 12:43 says that, at this stage in their journey, “they loved praise from men rather than praise from God”.

I do hope you pray for Christians in countries where Jesus is not allowed to be openly worshipped this morning. For them - this scenario isn’t ancient history! It’s their current experience. But then - isn’t it the same, in perhaps a less aggressive way, for every Christian - in say college or workplace - who speaks up to say ‘Jesus is Lord’ in a culture travelling the other way?

We come across Nicodemus for a third, and final, time right at the end of the drama of Jesus’ crucifixion. The Romans usually just left the dead bodies of the executed on their crosses to be eaten by vultures. The Jewish authorities didn’t go along with that - so it’s suggested the Sanhedrin allocated funds to pay for them being taken down and put into a common pit

However, all four gospels identify the man we know as Joseph of Arimathea getting Pilate to hand over Jesus’ body to him so that he could perform the proper Jewish funeral rites. Luke identifies Joseph as “a member of the Council (or Sanhedrin) and an upright man”. Mark goes further, and says he was a “prominent member of the council”, and Matthew says he was a rich man who had become a disciple of Jesus. And that’s about all we know about him that isn’t speculation - except - we also know that he was a man who made preparations - because he’d had a new rock-hewn tomb cut for his own eventual death in a garden near to Jerusalem’s wall. Oh yes - and he also knew Nicodemus - not surprising as both were on the council.

And at that this crucial point in history - both men stand up to be counted for Jesus in a practical and costly way. Costly in the immediate sense because - for Joseph - it was the loss of an asset (permanent or temporary) the use of his own tomb. For Nicodemus - providing 75 lbs (34 kilograms) of spices would have made a serious dent in his finances. Just maybe these were the spices he’d had put away for his own and his family’s funerals. One commentator said that this quantity of spices were in the order of that used for a royal burial. What they did was a gesture of spontaneous generosity. Well - they hadn’t had too long to think about it had they? But both men obviously recognised in Jesus a person who they were willing to now be committed to - even in his death - when it all seemed to be over.

But this would also be a costly long-term decision. The earlier fear of being put out of the synagogue for openly declaring themselves followers of Jesus won’t have gone away with his death. None of their contemporaries in the Sanhedrin who’d just been gloating over Jesus execution would be applauding them for these actions - the contrary in fact. In their choice between truth and traditions - between reverencing Jesus or going along with many of their fellow Jews - they’d bought into (literally and figuratively) what being a disciple meant. But then - Jesus never said following Him was going to be easy. Just best. And although I’m not sure how much they understood about it at this sad and traumatic moment - they’d also made a decision for eternity between life and death.

But what about you and me? This Easter - how are we going to respond to a crucified Jesus - crucified to make personal and complete the punishment for the sin of each one of us – each one of us who accepts His death as having being our substitution? And afterwards? How then do we live?

I think it was a Christian writer call Tony Campalo who wrote a book with the title, “It’s Friday - but Sunday’s coming”. Today - and in this coming week - we’re remembering the suffering and death of the Jesus the Christ. But this is not the end of the story. This is the Good Friday part of it - but Easter Sunday’s coming! Christians do not worship a dead leader - we worship a living king and saviour the Lord Jesus Christ. Well I do. Do you?

Granville Richards