Mark 15:1-15
Jesus Before Pilate
Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.
“Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate. “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied.
The chief priests accused him of many things. So again Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.” But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.
Isaiah 53:4-7
Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
I don't know if you already know the story of Maximilian Kolbe. It was in the summer of 1941, amid the horrors of the Auschwitz concentration camp, that Polish Franciscan priest Maximilian Kolbe witnessed Nazi commandant Karl Fritsch select ten men for starvation in a dark, airless underground bunker as reprisal for a fellow inmate's escape. Among the condemned was Francis Gajovnicek, a sergeant who broke down in tears lamenting his wife and children who would be left without him. And without hesitation, the 47-year-old Kolbe stepped forward, volunteering to take Gajovnicek's place, declaring ‘I am a Catholic priest I wish to die for that man’.
Astonished, the commandant permitted the substitution and Kolbe joined the nine others stripped naked and locked in the concrete cell where they were denied food, water, light and sanitation for two gruelling weeks. And far from descending into despair or savagery, as the Nazis expected, Kolbe led prayers, hymns and acts of spiritual comfort, sustaining his companions with words of faith and sacrifice, until on August the 14th he became the last survivor. And a guard then administered a lethal injection of carbolic acid into his arm.
But Gajovnicek survived the war and lived to 95, and said of Kolbe's act that he saved not only my life, but my soul. In this act of self-sacrifice, Kolbe was exemplifying in the most vivid way possible what it means to die in someone else's place. And this is the central and most important element of the Christian faith.
Looking forward in time and speaking of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah said in our first reading, He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. Isaiah went on to say, he was oppressed and afflicted, but he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, he did not open his mouth. And that prophecy was fulfilled in our gospel reading.
When Pilate asked Jesus, ‘aren't you going to answer; see how many things they're accusing you of’.. But Jesus made no reply and Pilate was amazed. And shortly after this, Barabbas, the murderous insurrector, was released and Jesus condemned.
So let's think about these things, and of course, the setting, the background.
The most important thing to consider as we begin is that the Bible tells us that every human being is guilty before God of having rebelled, of having been involved in an insurrection against him, and for having denied God the glory due to him, lavishing it instead on themselves. Nietzsche called this the death of God. We have killed him, you and I, he said, and this most grievous possible crime therefore deserves the most grievous sentence. And the beauty of Christianity is that, as Isaiah prophesied, rather than letting us suffer this sentence, God served it himself by substituting his own son in our place.
Now I don't expect you've spent an awfully large amount of time thinking about the character of Barabbas, he plays a bit part in the Gospels. And I remember, when I was a child, in my little picture Gospels, he was always this big, ugly, hairy man, you know, not a very nice looking guy. But fascinatingly, his name means son of the father. It's as if Barabbas is representing all the human sons and daughters of God, deserving justice as he was, but allowed to go free as Jesus was condemned in his place.
Each one of us is Barabbas, guilty of insurrection, but given freedom and life in exchange for the life of Jesus. Now some have got a little bit squeamish about the idea that God punished his own son in our place. Some have even called it cosmic child abuse, and that's what it would be if God were punishing an innocent third party instead of punishing us.
While I was on holiday last week, I had a chat with a Jehovah's Witness handing out leaflets as they do next to their little stand in a shopping street. And I was trying to explain to the very polite chap that, because they say Jesus is not God, the JWs envisage just such a God as commits cosmic child abuse. One who punishes the innocent creature, Jesus, instead of us.
I was trying to encourage that dear man to think about that. Because it would be like Maximilian Kolber stepping forward in Auschwitz and saying, I'm a Catholic priest. I wish that innocent guy over there to die for Sergeant Gajovnicek.
Somebody who sacrifices an innocent third party is not worthy of love or honor or remembrance, so thank heavens this is not the case because the glory of true Christianity is that god didn't shove somebody else in the way of sin but he gave himself in exchange for us. Now let's think about why it was that Jesus said nothing when Pilate accused him. As Jesus stood there before the judgment seat of the Roman procurator, he was symbolising our own standing before the judgment seat of God. And so as he stood in our place, it was essential that he be our representative and substitute as perfectly as possible, and that means he could not have uttered any plea in his defense because sinful humanity has no such defensive plea.
So Jesus had to represent us perfectly by not arguing back to Pilot, just as we cannot argue back to God. But think how amazing it is: if anyone had a right to protest their innocence it was Jesus. If anybody could justify justifiably stand up for their rights, it was Jesus. And yet he was perfectly silent, allowing himself to be slandered and to suffer the worst injustice the world has ever seen.
As the book of Hebrews tells us, it was for the joy that was set before him that Jesus endured the cross, scorning its shame. For Jesus knew that on the other side of terrible suffering there would be unspeakable joy. And that joy is the joy of being a Maximilian Kolbe for the whole world, in order that we might say, Jesus saved not only my life, but my soul.
And so as we think about what it means for us to be like Jesus in this regard, let's consider his situation. He was completely innocent, and yet when he suffered that terrible injustice, he remained silent.
And I'm reminded of the words of St. Paul to the church in Corinth. It's a scandal, he said, that you keep taking each other to court. And then he says this wonderful line, ‘why not rather be wronged?’ I love it because that's Christian morality summed up in one rhetorical question. Why not rather be wronged? What do you lose eternally for just letting the other person win? And what do you want to be remembered for? As someone who always stood up for their own rights, unwilling to budge an inch?
It reminds me of when I was a primary school teacher, you'd have the parents, ‘Oh I told him I went in there’ and, ‘I told him I wasn't having any of it’, this kind of thing, ‘putting my foot down’, all this kind of stuff. Do you want to be remembered as that kind of person? Or as someone who, like Jesus, was happy to be unjustly wronged?
Somebody like Kolbe who was happy to say, ‘I’m not going to complain, as I am unjustly punished.’ And that doesn't mean that we're spineless and we just say, ‘yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir’. But rather it means the next time someone shortchanges us, or the next time someone doesn't recognise our contribution, or the next time someone talks over us in a discussion or tells us we're wrong, we hold our tongue and think to ourselves, why not rather be wronged? What do I lose eternally by just letting this other person win?
For like Jesus, we have eternal joy set before us. The joy of resurrection and an eternal life in heaven with Jesus forever. One little slight in this earth is not going to mean very much in heaven. And so let's pray that God would give us his spirit, not only to rejoice in that the Lamb of God died in our place, but also that we, like him, would stand silent before our accusers.