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"The Passion in John:
The Sentence" Text Comment v.28 As you know, this verse has long presented a problem for the Gospel chronology of the Passion week. It sounds as though the Passover meal was still to be eaten, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke, clearly teach that Jesus had eaten the Passover meal with his disciples the night before in the Upper Room. A number of possible solutions have been proposed through the years, but the simplest and, in my judgment, the most likely is this. The term "passover" can be used either of the passover meal itself or of the week-long feast that was begun with the passover meal, the feast also known as "The Feast of Unleavened Bread." You have the two terms as synonyms, for example, in Luke 22:1. There was even a particular feast offering on the first full day of the feast of unleavened bread, which would have been this Friday John is here describing. They would not have been able to partake in that offering if they were ritually contaminated by having entered the dwelling of a Gentile. v.30 Apparently something of the case had been communicated to Pilate and the Jews had expected that he would simply confirm their judgment and order Jesus' execution. But he orders instead a fresh hearing of the charges in his presence. This explains the irritation, almost insolence, in their reply to Pilate. v.31 This may be Pilate's tit for tat. They had spoken disrespectfully to him, and now he humiliates them in return by forcing them to say publicly that they were unable to enforce the sentence they wanted. The Pilate known to history was exactly the sort of man who would have craved the satisfaction gained by forcing others to recognize his authority. v.33 Pilate's question is reported in all four Gospels indicating that this must have been the way in which the charge that the Jews brought against Jesus was formed. They naturally wanted a charge that Pilate would take seriously and that would lead to execution. Nothing was better calculated to produce that effect in Pilate than the charge that Jesus had political ambitions. v.35 Pilate knew that the Jews weren't concerned about the interests of the Roman government, but, obviously, Jesus wasn't a simple criminal either or the Jews would have accused him of murder or theft. In Mark 15:9 we read that Pilate understood very well that the Jewish leadership was motivated by their envy of Jesus. v.36 That is, Jesus poses no threat to the Roman political order as Pilate is concerned for it. v.37 The Lord builds his kingdom by revealing the truth and by that truth making subjects of men. v.38 A cynical turning away, proving that he is no subject of this king. v.39 He is still humiliating the Jews. v.1 Actually a fresh strategy to set Jesus free (vv. 4-6). v.5 "Here is the man you think so dangerous." There he stands, beaten, pathetic... The words drip with sarcasm. But Pilate is unaware that with his sarcastic remark "Behold the Man" he has hit on the true identity of his prisoner, "The proper man whom God has bidden" as Luther has it. v.7 A reference perhaps to Lev. 24:16: "anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord must be put to death." These people were no Arians or Jehovah's Witnesses, they understand precisely that Jesus was claiming for himself the rights, prerogatives, and authority of God. v.8 Pilate's reticence to condemn Jesus is perhaps more and more a matter of superstition. Matthew tells us of Pilate's wife having a dream about Jesus' innocence and warning her husband not to have anything to do with "that innocent man." v.11 Probably a reference to Caiaphas not Judas, as Judas did not hand Jesus over to Pilate. v.12 Tiberius Caesar was quick to suspect his subordinates of disloyalty, so this was no mere idle threat. v.14 Again, best taken as a reference to the Friday of the Passover week (that was the day of preparation usually, the day, that is, before the Sabbath, the day of preparation for the Sabbath). It will explain what comes later, viz. why Jesus had to be taken down so promptly from the cross, because the Sabbath was upon them. "Here is your King." Pilate doesn't believe he can escape the trap the Jews have set for him, but he hates them all the more for putting him in it. Calvin begins his immortal Institutes of the Christian Religion with the sentence: "Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves." It is the latter knowledge we seek this morning, the knowledge of ourselves. Hard to come by, for most people, in the way that matters most, are strangers to themselves. The problem for you and me, and, indeed, for all men, in the face of this history -- and that is what it is, history, the relation of what actually happened -- is that we do not have anything like a proper grasp of our personal interest in what transpired on that long ago day. Unbelievers have no understanding at all, but even Christians far too much of the time and to far too great an extent have only a theoretical grasp, and not a deep, accurate, and heart-felt understanding. I tell you, if you knew the true facts of the case, if you knew the truth about your own life, if you knew -- knew so as to feel the terror in your heart -- your own personal interest in this history, you could not read these verses off the page of your Bible because you could not see the words through the blinding tears, and you could not think about anything else for the fear and the heartbreak and then for the joy and the love that would overwhelm you. But if you will stop and consider this history, you may recognize that truth about yourself, even if you don't yet feel it as you should. What do you see here? I will tell you. You see a group of upstanding, moral, socially acceptable, normal human beings torturing and executing not only an innocent man, but the only perfectly good man who has ever lived in this world. And in doing what they did they thought themselves right. In other words, you see yourself. The Jewish religious leadership, it is perfectly obvious to us who read this history, were motivated by jealously and by a determined blindness to the truth that Jesus had come to reveal. They had hated him ever since he began to displace them in the hearts of the people and they had been eaten up with envy of him as he became more and more popular and did more and more amazing things to the astonishment and delight of the people. Just like those two high-school seniors, that young couple, who murdered her romantic rival before going off to the Air Force Academy for him and the Naval Academy for her. Well-liked, popular kids, good students, who snuffed out the life of a fellow student. These Jews were religious folk, pious, morally conservative. But they trumped up charges against an innocent man, so sure were they of being right, and screamed for his death until they got it. As Pascal wrote, "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious convictions." And John is certainly determined that we see that here. Here are the Jewish leaders determined to avoid ceremonial defilement so that they can continue their participation in the feast of Passover while they conspire to murder an innocent man. The breathtaking hypocrisy of it all! And, then, we have Pilate. A Roman judge doing what Roman judges did in those days. He was acting as Caesar would have expected him to act, as Roman citizens would have considered entirely normal. If he had faults and sins, why they were the faults of his time and place and culture. But what did he do? He took a man he knew to be innocent, a man he had on several occasions publicly declared to be innocent, and handed him over to the cruelest death imaginable, in the final analysis, to protect himself from the mere possibility of any reproach from his superiors and to mollify the population he was responsible to keep in order. Jesus had assured him, as we read in 18:36 that the political establishment had nothing to fear from his followers and Pilate knew that himself already. No, at the last, Pilate killed Jesus of Nazareth because it was the most convenient thing to do. Even though it produced, from his side, this gigantic hypocrisy: executing a man who posed no threat to the Roman order and releasing a man who had, in fact, been convicted of precisely such an insurrection as Pilate was responsible to prevent! See Pilate's great dignity as he sits in his judge's seat to pronounce judgment -- the pomp, the ceremony -- as he condemns to a cruel death a man he knows to be innocent. And, as the chorus in this tragedy, we have the crowds who add their voices to those of their leadership. John does not specifically mention them but the other Gospels teach us to include them in the shouting whenever we read "the Jews" in John's narrative. They hated Jesus for disappointing their expectations, for failing to become the Messiah they wanted, and so willingly they joined in calling for his execution. Perfectly ordinary people, all of them, doing a terrible evil. You may have seen in the newspaper a few days ago or saw on the television news the interview with the father of one of the boys who murdered the four students and one teacher in Jonesboro, Arkansas last week. Scott Johnson, the father of one of the boys, told the news organizations, "My son is not a monster. I don't have an explanation for any of this. Nobody does." "My son is not a monster." No, that is right. He's a boy. But it wasn't a twister or a lightning bolt that killed those students, it was two human beings, who looked down the sights of their rifles, took aim, and shot another human being dead, and then, did the same thing four more times. And every day, day after day, human beings spew out evil in one form or another. They also spew out excuses and explanations and mitigations. But the problem is too universal, too defiant of all such explanations: the evil is done by rich and poor, religious and irreligious, male and female, young and old. And it has been the bare fact of human history from the beginning and is no less so today after these thousands of years of reflection on the problem of human evil. Here we have perhaps the purest illustration of this universal phenomenon in all of recorded history -- perfectly ordinary people murdering the Savior of the world! This is why, my friends, God gave us the Bible, so that we might learn the truth, and whether or not we believe that truth is the issue on which hangs our own salvation. Can you find yourself in this picture of the Jewish leadership and the crowds that followed them and in Pilate himself? Do you see yourself in those people? You certainly should be able to see yourself there. I can certainly see myself there. We all, by a virtually invincible instinct of self-preservation and self-defense, believe that we would never have done what they did, we would have never been blind to hypocrisies as brutal and as obvious as theirs were, we would never have been so cruel to another human being simply for envy's sake, as these people were. But, in that, my friend, you are mistaken! History has proved a million times over and your own life and experience in the world has proved to the satisfaction of any honest analyst that men will do all manner of evil, that you will do all manner of evil, if only the circumstances are right. David, the man after God's own heart, when the circumstances were right, had within him to steal another man's wife and murder the man. Luther in his famous Christmas sermon, after describing how Mary had to give birth in a stable because there was no room in the inn, turned to his congregation and said -- you think to yourselves, "I wouldn't have turned the couple away; I would have given them my own place." To which Luther replied, "No, you wouldn't. If you would have been so generous, so sacrificial, why are you not now? You meet Christ in your neighbor every day and you are not generous, sacrificial to him now." We could apply the same principle here. You think -- I would not have called for Jesus' death. I am not so unkind -- well, how kind are you now to those who disappoint you? I am not so envious, so proud -- then why do you live your life each day thinking about everyone and everything in terms of yourself? These folk were by their fallen natures rebels against God. But that rebellion was hidden from view -- at least hidden from their view and the view of most others who were rebels as they were -- until God came into their midst. And then it all came out into the open and they gnashed their teeth against God and sought to kill him. All the while they told themselves they were serving God, but seen from this vantage point it is just plain old envy and spite and self-love and foolishness and pride. An old writer was just speaking the truth when he wrote, "There exists not on this earth a thing more offensive to God, or destructive to himself, than the honest, genuine belief of the natural heart of man." And it is no accident that Jesus would have been arrested, tried, condemned, and killed by such a group of ordinary human beings, who lived ordinary human lives, who loved their children and their pets, who had friends and family who liked them, who earned a living and contributed to the life of their community, church, school, and country. Perfectly ordinary people, that is, who were so much hypocrites, so selfish, so proud, so envious, and so cruel that, if the circumstances were right, they could with a ready will participate in the murder of the Son of God. That is the kind of person the Bible says you are. The Bible says it a thousand different ways that you are just that kind of person by nature. That you are, in just these ways and many others, a sinner to the bone. The fact that polite society largely ignores this fundamental fact of human existence says a great deal more about polite society than it says about you! You may seek some protection for yourself in the thought that there are others more sinful than you. That may be so, though the fact that you are thinking it may mean it is less so than you imagine. But even if it were true, so what? Even the last devil but one in hell can say that he is not so evil as that other one. We hold up a forty watt bulb next to a sixty watt bulb and notice the difference in brightness. But hold them together up against the sun and the utterly inconsequential difference between them is annihilated in the difference between them and the sun's brilliance. No, the material and important fact is not whether you are slightly more or less sinful than another, it is the enormity of your sinfulness before a holy God. And make no mistake. This fact is the beginning and foundation of the gospel and of Christianity. If you deny this, you deny all. If you fail to grasp this for yourself, all the rest withers away to nothing of consequence. I should say, by the way, -- and this is an aside -- that there is a powerful argument for Christianity in this fact of universal human sinfulness and in the fact that it so often breaks out into terrible public evil -- and not just in such a thing as happened in Jerusalem that day or last week in Arkansas, but in the thousand and one outbreaks of public evil in everyday life -- child abuse, wife-battering, all manners of violence, a marriage corrupted by harshness and cruelty, shop-lifting and theft of all kinds, cheating in school, addictions of various kinds, racial animosity, and the list goes on. Here is Alvin Plantinga, the evangelical philosopher, now at Notre Dame and one of the most important and influential philosophers working and writing today.
C.S. Lewis brings the same argument home to us all.
Most will not doubt that there is real evil in the world. We have condemned it many times in our hearts and with our words. But we are not so ready to admit that we are participants in that evil. It is always someone else. But John's narrative of the Lord's trial demonstrates, in the most powerful way, that the great evil that lurks in the world of mankind lurks first in every ordinary human heart. And if you care to prove that to yourself you have to do but one thing. Try very hard to be good. To be completely honest, to be genuinely humble before others, to be loving and self-giving in all your ways, to be pure in your thoughts and attitudes, to treat others as you would want to be treated yourself, to help yourself to the standard you set for others, to be devout and reverent before God, to live the life of prayer and the Word of God, to love God from your heart and to thank him for all that he has given you and done for you. I say, try to be good, really good. And if you are at all honest with yourself you will see how much resistance to all that is good and pure and true there is in your heart and you will soon believe that you could find yourself among the Jews and Pilate, among those other upright, moral, outstanding citizens who crucified the Lord of Glory! But, then, when finally you face that truth about yourself -- the reality of the evil within, there comes the hope and the love and the joy. It comes here in two verses: first 18:32 where we read that all of this happened as it did to fulfill the purpose for which Jesus came into the world -- that he was all along to die and to die on a cross; and, then, second, 19:11 where Jesus says that it wasn't Pilate in the final analysis, nor the Jews, who were putting him on a cross. However evil they might be, however cruel, however wrong all that they did, they were only accomplishing the very purpose of God -- to sacrifice his Son for the sins of the world. It wasn't finally the Jews or Pilate who killed Jesus Christ, who sentenced him to die on that Roman cross. It was I and it was you. It was for your sins and your salvation that he went to his death, that he suffered the ignominy of that disgrace of a trial, that he was beaten and bloodied by those cowardly cretins who thought themselves soldiers. It was for the very sins I find in myself that are so terribly revealed in this history -- the hypocrisy, the irreverence, the cruelty, the selfishness, the envy, the pride of those ordinary folk -- those very sins I find always in myself. It was for some of the very sinners who clamored for his death, I'm sure. Because we read in Acts that thousands came to believe in Christ after his resurrection and following the descent of the Holy Spirit, and surely among those thousands there must have been some who were shouting outside Pilate's palace that Friday. You see some of you, most of you are Christians here this morning, some of you probably are not. The great difference between Christians and non-Christians is not that Christians are good and non-Christians are evil -- though often non-Christians think that is what Christians believe--. No, nothing like that. The difference is this. Christians know they are evil, really profoundly, comprehensively evil, and that their evil is an offense to holy God and it was their evil that brought Jesus into the world. Non-Christians really do not know their evil. That is the whole difference. As Pascal put it, "There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who believe themselves sinners; and the rest, sinners who believe themselves righteous." If you see yourself, really see yourself in the Jews and Pilate that long-ago day, I have hopes that you are or are near to being a Christian. If it offends you that I say that you are like them in their hypocrisy and their self-centeredness and their envy and their pride and their irreverence, then you are not yet a Christian -- and, hear me, you are not yet facing the truth about yourself -- not just the truth that God knows, but even that truth that your friends could tell you if they would. It is a very hard thing to face and a very hard thing to live with. Ask any serious Christian. It is why most folk do not become Christians: facing this darkness about themselves. But, it is the only way through to the light. No one who refuses to admit his sins will ever know the delicious joy of the forgiveness of his sins and a sense in one's heart of the mercy, the compassion, and the love of Almighty God. Here is the secret of the universe: Jesus Christ died for sinners. You must decide whether you are such a sinner and so whether he died for you. May God show us all ourselves so that we can see the Lord Jesus our Savior!
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