April 6, 2025

On the Road to Calvary: Jesus Before Pilate

We are journeying with Jesus in this Lenten season to his cross on the hill. Today we consider his appearance before Pontius Pilate, the Roman Procurator, or governor of Judea, who tried Jesus and sentenced him to death on a cross. Pontius is simply a family name that goes all the way back to the ancient Samnites, tribes that lived in south-central Italy and eventually became the Romans. So Pilate is a Roman down to his ancestral toes. It was Pilate who held the power to release Jesus or to punish him as he saw fit. And, although he was pushed by leaders of the Sanhedrin, it was his decision, acting on behalf of the Roman Empire, to send him to the cross. Crucifixion was a Roman form of execution, and it was Roman soldiers who beat him and nailed him up. Isn’t it odd that, even though it was the Romans who were responsible for the final act, no one derides Italians or residents of the Holy See as “Christ killers” like so many fundamentalists call the Jews?

In truth, the Roman authorities as well as the chief priests and scribes of the Sanhedrin, were simply an embodiment in that place and time of a universal and perpetual presence called “the powers.” The powers are always with us. They are the ones who collect might and dominance like children collect sea shells. They rely on armies, gas chambers, death squads and balance sheets to get want they want. They’ve spoken Chinese, Latin, German, and English. They’ve sat in council chambers, on thrones, in mansions, and in board rooms and corner offices. Over the millennia, they have won a lot of battles, but the message of the gospels is: they will never win the war. They can put a man to death, but they can’t kill the truth.

At any rate, the focus of our inquiry this morning is an intriguing, disjointed dialogue that transpired in the praetorium, which is the provincial governor’s official residence. Jesus stands before Pilate apparently accused of the treasonous act of calling himself a king. The conversation is difficult to follow because Jesus rarely answers Pilate’s questions directly. He suggests; he evades; he becomes cryptic; and in perhaps the most remarkable moment of this remarkable exchange he fails to answer at all. Jesus has just replied that he has come “to testify to the truth,” and implied that whatever kingship he holds is over a kingdom of truth. He says, “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate then asks the question that has intrigued people for centuries: “What is truth?” And to this profound question Jesus offers a profound silence. That silence, to this day, disturbs us, disrupts us, and rattles the doorknocker of every placid heart.

Frederick Buechner writes, “The silence that has always most haunted me is the silence of Jesus before Pilate. Pilate asks his famous question, ‘What is truth?’ (John 18:38), and Jesus answers him with a silence that is overwhelming in its eloquence. . . .

“It is a truth that can never be put into words,” Buechner says, “because no words can contain it. It is a truth that can never be caught in any doctrine or creed including our own because it will never stay still long enough, but is always moving and shifting like air. It is a truth that is always beckoning us in different ways and coming at us from different directions.”1

Buechner has put his finger on a profound reality. Pilate is a man whose feet are on solid ground. The praetorium is Herod’s grand palace, and Pilate stands on the marble floors of tradition and power. When he asks for the meaning of truth, he wants a clear answer – a forty word essay, double spaced, and neatly typed. He has no equipment for reflecting on an amorphous truth that touches one’s heart in ways that cannot be easily delineated. It is a truth that Jesus tried to speak around the edges of when he told stories – parables – to illustrate an equally amorphous thing he called the kingdom of God. But those stories at least tell us something – around the edges – about that silent truth of Jesus. They say that greed, retribution, judgment, and the flaunting of temporal power are false paths that lead only to heartache and destruction. They tell us that whatever truth is to be found will be down the road of humility, justice, peace, and compassion.

That word compassion jumps out at me when I consider those who, over the years, have wanted to cut programs like Meals on Wheels and Head Start saying that the real compassionate thing to do is to not ask people for their hard earned money to support such programs. That is, I believe, a definition of compassion that was once put forward by a man named Ebenezer Scrooge.

That is, I’m convinced, something of what Jesus was communicating with his silence. The question was coming from a man who had no clue. Pilate was clearly not concerned with a trivial issue like “right and wrong”; he was focused on what would get him in the least or the most trouble and with whom. Jesus’s silence spoke volumes. It said that no response could be given to a man who wouldn’t know the truth if it stood in front of him in chains. In response to the question, “What is truth?”, Jesus’s silence said: You know it if you see it. Or, conversely (in relation to “compassion”): You know what it isn’t if you don’t hear it.

But it’s a simple matter for us to sit quietly in the court room gallery, shaking our heads in condescension at the man Pilate who is brought before us for judgment. We find ourselves smirking at his wishy-washy complacency and incomprehensible motives. We might be shocked when the bailiff comes to our seat, grabs us by the arm and leads us to the stand. “Where were you when this crime was committed?”, comes the question. “I . . .I wasn’t even there,” we reply. “I had nothing to do with it. I was home watching TV. I was at the hockey game. I had a meeting.” But you and I know the truth, don’t we? Because that rarely indicted co-conspirator is us.

Pilate did not act alone. Christ is condemned to die over again every time a desperate and hopeful glance meets an indifferent eye. Christ is led away to Calvary yet again when good people retreat to their living rooms rather than stand up and be counted for at least the bits around the edge of that which we regard as truth. Christ is nailed to the tree each time a person is looked upon with suspicion or contempt because of the color of his skin, the accent in her voice, or the gender of his partner. Christ is crucified once more when those with the power to do good, to help heal the environment, or to share with the needy choose instead to line their own pockets or try to secure their positions of power by appealing to people’s fear. The message of Pilate’s awkward interrogation strikes us when his questions sound alarmingly familiar; the tendency to do violence to the truth is pervasive.

As Pilate tried to wash his hands of the whole affair, we find ourselves so frequently trying to place the blame outside of ourselves, beyond our culpability. The sin of evil externalized is the loss of accountability. Once the enemy has been identified elsewhere, anything goes to defeat it. We recognize evil in bloody extremists like ISIS, but even there our righteous rage must be tempered with a little history. Christianity has been used over and over as an excuse for some of the ugliest racial and religious violence the world has known. Our law-abiding, Muslim brothers and sisters have every reason to be afraid in our current climate. And the histories of our religion as well as our nation tell them their fears are not groundless. It is our responsibility to reach out to them and make sure they know we stand with them as children of the Most High. It is our responsibility to speak up in a culture of growing fear and hostility and acknowledge our own culpability and call others to account, to declare without equivocation that this is one world, and we are one people. It is our responsibility to defy those who speak hate and cry for retribution. These things we must do, for those who will not will find themselves trying to wash the blood from their hands and once again picking up the hammer to nail him to the tree.

The story of Pilate is our story: yours, mine, our nation’s, our world’s. In this season of reflection and self-examination, let us all place our feet on the marble floor of that praetorium and stand face to face with the one accused. And as we do so, may we recognize the truth that stands before us.