Today's devotion is meant to be read on Ash Wednesday.

Christ’s Trial Before Pilate

Ecce Homo, Mark Wallinger, Sanded, marbleized polyester resin, 1999–2000.

Creed by Rich Mullins from the album Simply Rich Mullins.

Week One: The Passion of Christ

Over the years, representations of the cross have come to symbolize and encapsulate the Christian faith. To some, its ubiquitous presence has made it nothing more than another safe and predictable religious signifier. Yet to those who have learned to love and ponder it, depictions of the cross are a vital reminder of the life-giving nature of Christ’s sacrifice. Some claim that the Christian cross is the most replicated image in Western art history. In the twentieth century, unbelieving artists searching for a universal metaphor to capture the horrors of world war turned to the crucifix as the most potent symbol of suffering they could find. Perhaps these modern masters were more in tune with original associations of the cross than those who in later years romanticized it. Author Fleming Rutledge writes regarding the unmitigated evil of crucifixion, “The cross in reality is the most irreligious, unspiritual object ever to find its way into the heart of faith. This fact is a powerful testimony to the unique significance of the death of Christ.”

To some extent, most of us are aware of the barbaric, sadistic, cruelly inhuman nature of Roman crucifixions. While The Passion of the Christ helped solidify our understanding of the animalistic brutality of this form of execution, there are scholars who insist that moviemaker Mel Gibson’s vision paled in comparison to what actually took place on the cross. Crucifixions were routinely performed along roadsides, in very public places visible to anyone passing by. Victims could potentially survive several days in agonizing, torturous pain as the life slowly drained out of them. Yet beyond the intense physical suffering, Roman officials wanted to make graphic examples of these rotting criminals by guaranteeing they were totally humiliated and shamed. Nothing was more repulsive or stigmatizing in third-century Jewish culture than an outlaw outsider on a cross.

It is our usual custom in the Lent Project to focus on Christ’s passion during Holy Week. This year, we begin our Lenten meditation by immediately entering into the trial, scourging, and crucifixion. For a moment, you might imagine yourself to be among the pressing throng as it slowly makes its way to Mount Calvary to gaze in wonder and grief upon our dying Savior. The gospel accounts of Christ’s final hours on the cross, interestingly, do not dwell on the awful details of His physical suffering. Instead they concentrate on His final sermon—words that hold the keys to abundant living here on earth and the hope of eternal salvation. We look forward to spending the next fifty-three days together with you as we meditate on the layered meanings of these seven last words.

Poetry:

from “Pilate”
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

There is a day of all the year
When life revisits me, nerve and vein.
They all come here and stand before me clear
I try the Christus o'er again.
Sir! Christ! against this multitude I strain. —
Lord, but they cry so loud. And what am I?
And all in one say " Crucify!"

Before that rock, my seat, He stands;
And then — I choke to tell this out —
I give commands for water for my hands;
And some of those who stand about, —
Vespillo my centurion hacks out
Some ice that locks the glacier to the rocks
And in a bason brings the blocks.

I choose one; but when I desire
To wash before the multitude
The vital fire does suddenly retire
From hands now clammy with strange blood.
My frenzied working is not understood.
Now I grow numb. My tongue strikes on the gum
And cleaves, I struggle and am dumb.
I hear the multitude tramp by.
O here is the most piteous part,
For He whom I send forth to crucify,
Whispers " If thou have warmth at heart
Take courage; this shall need no further art."

CHRIST’S TRIAL BEFORE PILATE

One of the earliest Christian statements of faith, thought to have been used during baptisms, is the Apostles Creed. It’s rather stark compared to later creeds but gets right to point in crucial areas of faith. The creed also acknowledges the role that Pontius Pilate played in the execution of Jesus.

Our ancient creed, and Pontius Pilate gets airtime in it.

To his credit, Pilate did not readily accept the religious leaders’ claims against Jesus. He was also resistant to the demand to have Jesus crucified because he couldn’t find where the fault lay with this humble, weak, powerless street preacher who now stood bound before the most powerful man in Israel.

Mark Wallinger’s sculpture, Ecce Homo, portrays Jesus as a man almost completely unshielded by garments, devoid of body hair, his hands tied behind him, a coronet of barbed wire circling his head. He is stripped of the accoutrements of personhood, leaving him bare and vulnerable to the dictates of the powerful.

And the most powerful person in this scene is Pontius Pilate.

It’s appropriate that Pilate appears in some of our creedal statements because he was a real figure in our story of faith. He is juxtaposed to the apparent weakness of Jesus, and that weakness gives Pilate pause. Despite the case laid before him, Pilate can find no fault in Jesus at all.

We’ve rehearsed this story over and over, so we know where it goes. Fault or no fault, Jesus will go to the cross. The religious leaders have attempted to protect themselves from impurity by assenting to the Roman government’s power to wield the bloody hand of death. Pilate has no compunctions about sentencing people to death—he’s had plenty of experience with that—but he does seem to retain some semblance of justice. However, the pressure of the religious elite and their supporters will force his hand.

When Jesus tells Pilate that his kingdom is “not of this world,” he speaks of something very foreign to Pilate’s view of reality. Jesus appears as a powerless king ruling over an invisible kingdom. At least three powers are in motion at this moment: Sin—the conspiracy to destroy Jesus; suffering—pain inflicted upon the powerless by the powerful; and the inevitability of death—the termination of a perceived threat that seeks to upset the dominant order. Soon, after taking all of that unto himself, Jesus will take it to the cross where those powers will have succeeded in their dark mission. But three days later those powers will soon learn that their ultimate power has been broken.

When we find ourselves feeling powerless against injustice, poverty, pain, suffering, and death, we look to Jesus, whose life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension marked an end to the ultimacy of sin, suffering, injustice, and death. In the darkest of times, we remember that we follow Jesus in his apparent weakness only to learn that in his kingdom, God will reconcile all things to himself.

Prayer:

Father,

In my weakness, help me to remember that I have nothing on earth or in heaven but you, and it is you where my desires live. No matter what happens, I am continually with you and you never let go of my hand. My body may fail, my vulnerabilities displayed before the powerful, but you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Amen

––– (adapted from Psalm 73:23-26)

Michael McNichols, D.Min.
Pastor and Author

For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, please visit our website via the link in our bio.