Pastor Neil from The Revolution began his Palm Sunday sermon with a friendly, but wordless stare. It may have only been thirty seconds. It felt like several minutes.
"Silence is uncomfortable, isn't it?" he asked us.
Neil pointed out that, in silence, we are often confronted with the truth. We think about how much our back hurts. A loved one we have lost. The sin in our lives we can't shake.
PILATE AND THE SILENCE OF JESUS
The accounts of Jesus standing before Pilate in Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23 and John 18 provide an image of Pontius Pilate as a man who had little interest in the truth. He was Prefect of Judea, the Roman official responsible for keeping the peace with the Jews of the province.
And he was most likely, as Neil put it, bored with his job. Boredom is perhaps the best way to characterize his response to the Jewish leaders bringing Jesus to him.
Here was an insignificant leader of a sect that was evidently offensive to the leaders of an insignificant religion in Pilate's eyes. Luke tells us his first reaction was to send him to Herod for judgment so he wouldn't have to deal with him (23:7). Herod mocked Jesus and sent him back, and evidently Pilate was amused; he and Herod became friends that day (23:12).
John describes an exchange with Jesus at this point that seemed to annoy and bore Pilate even more. The chief priests were accusing Jesus of calling himself a king, which defied their religion (which he didn't care about) and Caesar's authority (which he did care about, to an extent). All he wanted was for Jesus to confess so he had a reason to charge him and appease the Jewish leaders.
"Are you king of the Jews?" he asked Jesus, but instead of the simple answer Pilate wanted, Jesus offered the truth. He explained his kingdom is not of this world.
“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” (John 18:37)
Pilate asked, "What is truth?" (verse 38)
To this, Jesus responded only with silence.
Here was an opportunity for Pilate, to allow himself to be confronted by the truth. To become aware that he was a bored official whose life had likely not gone according to his plan. Whose wife was suffering because she had seen Jesus in a dream (Matthew 27:19). Who knew perfectly well that the right thing to do was to spare the life of men he knew to be innocent, not give them over to the mob.
Here was an opportunity to be still and, perhaps for a moment, know who God is (Psalm 46:10).
But Pilate cared little for the truth. He immediately turned to the crowd and offered to release Jesus, as it was the custom to release one prisoner at Passover. When the people chose the murderer Barabbas instead, Pilate wanted nothing more than to be done with the whole affair. Then, he literally washed his hands of any further responsibility (Matthew 27:24).
PILATE'S ACTIONS MADE PERFECT SENSE
The way of the world is Pilate's way. This is how it works.
We seek to advance ourselves as high as possible. We limit our personal responsibility as much as we can to make our lives as easy as possible. This may leave us feeling unfulfilled, but at least we can say we have this much power. At least we're doing better than lesser people.
This is the system we live in. The philosophy of those in power - which they teach to all those who have less - is often that this is as good as it gets. Let's do all we can to maintain what we have. Those around us may suffer, but we can wash our hands of them. Not our problem.
"Any time you challenge the system, people in that system will try to get rid of you," Neil said.
That's exactly what Jesus was doing. He was exposing long-held beliefs as lies. Challenging the Jewish idea that their leaders were infallible representatives of God and the Roman idea that Caesar was the highest authority that mattered was just a start.
JESUS'S ACTIONS ONLY MADE SENSE IN LIGHT OF THE TRUTH
Jesus was also about to expose the finality of death itself as a lie. That meant life as it is can't be as good as it gets. It meant that doing what is right doesn't cost us as much as we thought it did. It also meant the rewards are far greater, for us and everyone whose lives we touch, than we ever dreamed.
Those in power who don't believe this will work to preserve that power. They will lie to themselves and teach us to do the same.
But truth is truth. Lies obscure it, but it's still there. The truth about ourselves is that we are helpless on our own. We are often bored, selfish, depressed, hateful, jealous, bitter, sick, frustrated and everything else we wish we weren't.
With Jesus, that's okay! He died and rose again so we could finally tell the truth about ourselves without fear. We can say things like:
"I am too cowardly to stand up for innocent people who are being oppressed."
"I often don't want to fight my addiction, because I love what I'm addicted to."
"I don't want this neighborhood to improve. I take comfort in looking down on others."
Without Jesus, admitting these thoughts means living in shame. We are afraid these words make us "horrible people." Irredeemable. Worthy of nothing but death. Lucky to have what little we do. Afraid to challenge a system we feel we have no right to criticize.
That makes us far more comfortable with lies.
But Jesus tells us we are already redeemed! He has forgiven everything, healed everything, transformed everyone - we only have to accept him to experience it. He tells us we are loved, and we are good because he is the good within us, and that because he is our friend we have nothing and no one to fear.
THE TRUTH HAS SET US FREE
"This is why Jesus went to the cross - to set us free from being liars," Neil said.
In Jesus, we are free to tell the truth about our shortcomings, about the ways the systems of the world oppress us and others, and about the hope we have in eternal life.
What Pilate didn't understand was that truth is the freedom to challenge anything and expect to gain everything. That is our Good News!