February 5, 2006 Sermon

Did It Have to Happen?
John 18:33-40

Did it have to happen? Did Jesus have to die on the cross? I believe the answer is yes. I believe Jesus had to die because God the Father made the decision to make it happen. But why did Jesus have to die on the cross? Pontius Pilate gives us part of the answer.

We know surprisingly little about Pilate. He served as Roman governor of Judea from 26-36 AD. He exercised his power insensitively, angering the Jews on at least two occasions, neither of which was the crucifixion of Jesus. He presided over half of the sham trial of Jesus and ordered his execution. That’s all we know about Pontius Pilate.

But legends arose to fill in the gaps in Pilate’s biography. He may have committed suicide. The Romans may have tried to bury him by throwing his body under water, maybe the Tiber River , which flows through Rome ; maybe the Rhone River in southern France ; maybe Lake Lausanne in Switzerland ; maybe an unknown, high mountain lake. Mount Pileatus in Switzerland overlooks many such lakes.

In seminary I read a brilliant sermon that imagined Pontius Pilate as an old man, haunted by the suspicion that Jesus of Nazareth might really have been the Son of God. Destroyed by guilt, Pilate walks endlessly along the shores of a Swiss lake. His decisive conversation with Jesus all those years earlier cycles through his head. I cannot find the name of this sermon’s author, but its power has stayed with me these twenty years. It hammered home a crucial point, one we all must consider. Not only did Jesus have to die on the cross, we made it necessary. Oh, the Jews clamored for it. Pilate ordered it. We were not present. Yet as human beings we have a sinful nature. God chose to have His own Son executed in order to rescue us from the consequences of our sin.

What are the consequences of our sin? Guilt and death. We all walk beside Pontius Pilate on the lakeshore, wallowing in guilt. We all deserve his fate: death without hope. Whether he committed suicide or not, he died. And unless he became a Christian he died in despair. We do not know whether Pilate lived in Switzerland . We do not know how he died. It does not matter. We are all Pontius Pilates. We all share his sinful human nature, the nature that leads a man to condemn an innocent man to die in order to make his own life more secure. Or so he thought.

But our Christian faith tells us we do not have to die in despair. Take a look at the conversation Pilate had with Jesus. Soldiers had arrested Jesus the night before. First they took him to Annas, whose father-in-law, Caiphas, was high priest. As John 18:14 tells us, “Caiphas was the one who had advised the Jews it was best to have one person die for the people.” Caiphas, Annas, and their buddies hated the Romans but lived handsomely under their rule. Jesus threatened to upset their cozy deal. Since the Romans would not tolerate rioting the Jews could get rid of Jesus by accusing him of it. So when the soldiers drag Jesus before him, Annas sends him to the Roman governor with an accusation of rebellion.

That governor was Pilate. He begins his interrogation of Jesus by demanding, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus replies, “Did you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” His fellow Jews have accused Jesus of claiming to be king, an act of rebellion since Herod was the Roman-installed king of the Jews. Had Jesus said yes, I am king of the Jews, Pilate could have executed him with a clear conscience.

When Jesus seems to dodge the king question Pilate snaps, “Your own nation and its chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus has done nothing to deserve execution. He knows it. We know it. Pilate suspects it. But instead of pleading his innocence Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

Aha! Pilate thinks he has him now! “So, you are a king?”

“You say so,” Jesus replies, then adds that his only purpose is to testify to the truth.

“What is truth?” Pilate famously answers. He has worked his way up the corrupt and treacherous ladder of Roman politics. He has no illusions about the Jews. He no longer believes in Truth, or in any virtue. He has seen too much. Yet though his smartest move now would be just to execute this troubling man standing before him and thus end the Jews’ latest uproar something about Jesus has penetrated his cynical hide. He tries to get Jesus off on a technicality. Pilate returns to the Jews outside his palace and says, “I find no case against him. You have a Passover custom that I release one prisoner. Shall I release Jesus?”

They shout for the release of Barabbas. Barabbas had actually led armed insurgencies against Roman soldiers. Pilate knows this, but releases him anyway. Jesus he reserves for flogging and death on the cross. Pontius Pilate, in other words, tortures and executes a man he knows to be innocent. He condemns the sinless man and releases the sinner. It’s ironic. It’s tragic. It’s going to haunt Pilate all the days of his life. And it’s still difficult for us to understand just exactly what God the Father was thinking when He set this course of events in motion.

Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? Pilate’s story gives us insight into the question. But it does not fully explain it. To get more of the truth we turn to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the great children’s book (and now movie) by C. S. Lewis. (An aside: if you have not already seen this movie, go now. It is a faithful, wondrous rendition of the novel. This week it will also pass the latest Harry Potter movie to become the top-grossing film of the past twelve months. And the only movie the media talks about is Brokeback Mountain .)

Aslan the Lion fills the role of Jesus in the Chronicles of Narnia. Aslan has power and presence. As his followers remind each other, he is not a tame lion. But in the climactic scenes Aslan willingly surrenders his life to the White Witch, who stands for the power of evil. Why Aslan does this becomes apparent when we consider where he died, and for whom.

Aslan died on the Stone Table. We have a stone table in our church. We place our offerings on it. This fits, as God offered himself to die in a similar place. We also place our communion service on our stone table. This fits, as communion also recalls God’s self-gift. The Stone Table symbolizes the altar, the ancient place of sacrifice to the gods. In Old Testament Judaism the altar was the place where the priests sacrificed animals as offerings to the Lord God.

Jesus died on the cross, as those animals died on the stone altars, as an offering to God. But by itself this interpretation seems cruel, even barbaric. That’s why we must remember for whom Jesus died. In the Chronicles of Narnia Aslan died for Edmund, a boy who had betrayed him. Had Aslan not volunteered to die, the law of the land would have required Edmund to be executed. In the same way, Jesus died on the cross in our place. He paid the price we owe for our sin, our betrayal of God’s will.

Jesus died so we might live. His death on the cross, which might seem a harsh and ungodly thing, turns out to be the greatest act of love known to history. But if we do not believe in Him and his love, then his death becomes, for us, empty. It becomes a sick joke.

Do you find yourself laughing when you contemplate Jesus’ death on the cross? Or are you, perhaps like Pontius Pilate in later life, haunted by it? Or do you rejoice in it? Your answer tells all.