Revelation 1:4b-8 and John 18:33-40

“Are you the King of the Jews?”

It’s early morning, John tells us. We can imagine (as someone else wrote) that “the air in the room is laced with lamp oil and irony” (Christian Century, 11/17/09, p. 20).

Pontius Pilate, after asking that question, breathes in the stale air and runs his hand over his thinning scalp. His head is in a fog. He hates this time of year – dreads it, really: Everyone in town for Passover. Wine flowing in the taverns. People spilling into the streets, making a ruckus at all hours of the night. Never enough beds for the hicks and hacks who show up from all parts of the country, no shekels in their pockets, no sense in their heads.

No sleep for him, either. Pilate oversees a legal docket that runs from sunrise till midnight or later, day after day. It’s an endless procession of petty crooks and pathetic drunks; pickpockets and runaways, along with the occasional bandit or rebel dragged into his court spewing curses because he’s Roman … and they aren’t.

He wishes they’d have their fun and go home. A religious festival is one thing, a political coup, something else. He wonders why they don’t appreciate what Caesar does for them – good roads, walls around their towns (not that there’s anything in them worth taking) … commerce and culture … along with the government he provides. It’s not like Rome needs this backwater nation and its problems. They’d never make it alone.

Yet they pour contempt on him and everything Roman. Pilate meets their anger with boredom and harsh sentences. Jail time for some. The cross for others. “That’ll teach ’em,” he sneers.

Gulping bitter coffee, he thinks about last night: A detachment of soldiers sent to an olive grove east of the temple to pick up a suspect from Nazareth – or was it Galilee? (Eh, what’s the difference?) Another detachment forced to bring in a radical who kept shouting “Death to Caesar and his minions!” 

He couldn’t deal with both men in one night. The one called Barabbas arrived first, ranting loudly and rattling his chains till Pilate ordered him back to his cell. A few years ago, that guy would have scared him, would have caused him to lose sleep. Now he doesn’t care.

He lights a cigarette and muses cynically to himself, “If the guys I see in night court don’t kill me, these early mornings probably will.”

The prisoner now before him remains silent. So Pilate asks the question again in a bored tone, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

His reasons for asking are 99% pragmatic. Anyone who pretends to be king is a problem. The last thing Pilate needs is a letter going to Caesar saying there’s competition for the top job. 

Lifting his gaze for the first time from his ash tray, he wonders why this man is here. He doesn’t look like a king. He doesn’t fit the profile of the troublemakers they’ve learned to watch for. The clothing isn’t royal. It’s tattered and stained. His sandaled feet need a pedicure. His hands show calluses from hard manual labor, not nights under linen bed sheets. This Jesus fellow doesn’t command much of an army either, like other kings do. First sign of trouble, his followers fled.

Pilate wonders what to think of him … wonders if he’ll ever uncover the truth about him. But, hey, “What is truth?”

One moment, Pilate decides, “So you are a king!” Next moment he’s telling the crowd, “I find no case against him,” like he’s innocent. Harmless. “Should I release him?”

He mumbles to himself, “This isn’t like me. I can usually make up my mind.”

Honestly? We’re in the same boat, aren’t we, wondering what to think of the man standing before Pontius Pilate? All our lives we’ve been told that he is the Messiah. The most trusted book in the world calls him Savior, King of Creation, Lord of lords, Son of God.

We listen to them talking back and forth, waiting for an answer.

If Pilate can’t decide, the crowd will. To relieve his boredom, he turns to them.

“Do you want me to release this man to you?”

He never realizes it (maybe we didn’t either till now), but in that moment when the crowd speaks, a verdict is rendered that goes far beyond one man’s trial.

By calling for the release of Barabbas instead of Jesus, the world chooses how it wants to be ruled. It chooses what kind of king it is after.

Violence, represented by the bandit Barabbas, is favored over the nonviolence Jesus offered as the way to turn back Rome’s injustice and oppression.

Jesus tells Pilate, “My kingdom is not from this world. If it were, my followers would fight … But my kingdom isn’t from this world … so they won’t.” Mine is the way of nonviolence, and peace. Jesus rejects the usual way of being king and governing the world.

But oddly enough, the crowd once smitten with Jesus no longer wants to join him. They’ll take the company of Barabbas instead. They side with violence as a way to solve their problems.

In choosing Barabbas over Jesus, they choose the way that has been practiced since the beginning of time in all corners of the globe. It goes as far back as Cain and Abel, and as far forward as modern jetliners crashing into buildings and the response that that provoked.

The crowd that favors Barabbas is a mirror, even, of our handgun-loving culture.

A recent book by Randolf Roth, titled American Homicide, spells out our love of violence. We have an obsession with crime-fighting TV shows, where body counts run high. And apart from that fantasy world, we also live in the most homicidal country in the Western world – a distinction we’ve held for more than a hundred years. As Roth writes, “two-thirds of the world’s people live in nations that are less homicidal than the United States … [N]early 1 of every 200 children born [in the U.S.] today will be murdered” (Newsweek, November 16, 2009. p. 24).

It shocks us to see the crowd in Jerusalem pick Barabbas over Jesus, but we too are Barabbas-favoring people, not-Christ people, when it comes to deciding how our lives will be governed. When push comes to shove, we’re just like them.

The crowd wants someone who can brandish a sword and give military orders.

As for the man they send to the cross? The only military order he ever gave is the order he gave the night before in the garden, when he told Peter, “Put your sword back into your sheath” (John 18:11).

No wonder Pilate had trouble figuring out if Jesus is a king. We have trouble too. We expect one kind of Messiah, one sent from heaven to root out evil and restore justice by any means possible. But Jesus doesn’t fit that mold.

He isn’t what we expect. Which isn’t to say we should unseat him from his throne and pick another who is more to our liking, such as David or Caesar. Or Barabbas.

Christ’s reign has not yet whipped the world into shape. But maybe that’s because his suffering love doesn't rely on a whip; and drawing all the world to himself is slow, painstaking work.

Our task as the church isn’t to find someone (anyone!) to get the business done at all costs, hoping the ends justify the means. Rather, our task – moving into Advent and Christmas (and for however long it takes after that) – is to be sure we worship the right King, bowing at his manger and laying all our crowns before him.

The Book of Revelation overwhelms us with apocalyptic visions of horses, thrones and swords. It seems to describe a ruler more like Barabbas than Jesus – one who will overthrow the present order, not a patient and forgiving lover.

No wonder we Presbyterians secretly wish there were 65 books in the Bible, instead of 66! We’d just as soon lop off Revelation.

But today’s reading from the first chapter of that book, introduces a Christ who wins not by power and might, but by other characteristics.

·         Instead of a dread warrior, Revelation calls him, “the faithful witness.”

·         Instead of causing death, it names him “the firstborn from the dead.”

·         Instead of following the example of other kings, he sets the pattern for them, thus becoming the “ruler of the kings of the earth.”

·         He loves us, it says.

·         He has freed us, it adds.

·         He has made us to be [with him] a kingdom of priests serving his God.

·         Glory and dominion (without domination) belong to him forever and ever.

And, “every eye will see him.”

(How much of that could be said about Barabbas?)

Pilate, of course, never quite saw it, never quite figured out who was standing before him. He never decided if Jesus is king, or what truth is … for himself, or for the world.

But Revelation tells us the answer is right there to be seen. If only we will look up.

The day is approaching when “every eye will see.”