Christus Rex

Pilate asked Jesus “What have you done?”

It’s a good question to have a play with because it applies directly to us in all sorts of ways. Notice please that in the scripture the question isn’t answered.

Let’s start with what Pilate is not asking.

Pilate is not asking Jesus for his CV.

He was not asking for a comprehensive list of all Jesus miracles, wine making, storm stilling and teaching.

Pilate is not asking if Jesus  matched up to the KPI’s and job description of a Rabbi / Messiah / all time good guy / faith healer / teacher.

We are not looking in on a job interview here.

In fact I actually don’t think Pilate is really looking for an answer at all.

I do think Pilate is really asking himself…

Yikes! What are my options here?

I think Pilate is searching for a way forward. Looking for an escape hatch.

I think Pilate is asking

Do you understand the mess that you have got yourself in, and me as well. I am constrained by pressure from above, my boss Herod, and from pressure below the baying crowds. What have you done… to… me?

I wonder how Pilate spoke  the question.

When I read the text I imagine Pilate asking the question in a hushed sense of disbelief. For me at least it’s almost as if he can’t believe that Jesus would be so crazy as to place himself under the possibility of crucifixion. Do you understand that the consequences of your actions could leave you as a mangled corpse on a cross?

So when I read Pilate’s question it’s like… Do you understand the enormity of your actions and what must certainly happen now?

It's a rhetorical question. I don’t think Pilate really wanted an answer; it was a cry of exasperation. This  recalcitrant Jew was just one more complexity that Pilate didn’t need on his desk. The chief priests and Jews have handed Jesus over and Pilate doesn’t know why. He has no understanding of the Jewish theological nitty gritty.

To dig a little deeper it might help if we have a look at the previous sentence.

“Pilate says ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me”.

Your own people have handed you over Jesus. How is it that your own people can hand you over knowing what the likely outcome would be? How could they turn against one of their own?

What would inspire people who hate Roman rule to bring one of their own with demands for Roman judgement and death? You must have done something pretty jolly spectacular to make them so grumpy.

But dig a little deeper again. Jesus did not arrive out of the blue because the Jewish authorities got up one day, had a shower, brushed their hair, and decided that they had nothing else written in their diary. The question ‘What have you done?’ had been brewing for several years now. Both from the Pilate / Roman timeline and from Jesus’ own timeline. This encounter between Jesus and Pilate is where the two inevitabilities finally crash into each other.

But the question also applies to us and I leave you with some confronting stuff and some gooey stuff to finish with.

The confronting stuff.

“What have you done?”

I’m sure there are times in our life that we have asked this question of someone else.  And it is highly likely that we have had no understanding of the person, no understanding of  what has led them to this place, this time, this predicament, this future. Nothing happens in a vacuum. We ought to be very careful before we ask this question.

The gooey stuff which someone else wrote for me.

And Pilate’s question: “What have you done?” How is it to be answered in a few words? It is the story of Jesus from the moment of the Annunciation, through Bethlehem and Nazareth, to the public life of preaching and teaching, healing and liberating and finally suffering, dying and rising – out of love. Instead of answering, Jesus speaks of the nature of his kingship.

And us…

Your story, your life, what you have done cannot be answered in a few words. It is the story of you. Your own unique and fantastic story. From your parents, to your public life to your private life with all it’s triumphs and disasters. With all its tedium and dreariness, colour and sparkle. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. We can never have a complete perspective to understand what it is that we have truly done in a holistic and multidimensional way.

When you reflect on your life, what you have done, you will probably realise that it is far more boggling than you ever believed possible.

And when God eventually reflects on your life with you, then you will discover it is far more richer, far more complex and even far more lovelier than you could ever have imagined.