This morning, no sermon. Instead, I've crafted a fictional chapter, chapter 14, in a fictional autobiography by an aging pilot. It is, however, in the theme of Crown Him Lord of Life. I framed the chapter for around 40, 18, some 10 years after the events just read.
I do not interact with the traditions about the later traditions. But let me be clear, this is not Bible teaching. Don't go beyond the bishop. If this were a sermon, I would not be guessing about the inner life of Pilate beyond what the Bible says.
However, since this is not a sermon, I hope you'll forgive me. I'll put various Bible passages on the screen to show you that there are biblical reasons for what I write. It's almost like Pilate had the old tradition. But tip, do not focus on what is on the screen.
They're just a signal. They're just a signal of where the information is coming from. Chapter 14, what I have written, I have written. I worked that day wanting a little piece, but it became my day of infamy.
I had a hunt that things might go awry when my wife came down to breakfast. She had suffered a great deal, sleeping poorly. She hated living in Judea. She hated Judeans.
But she told me over breakfast that she'd had a troubling dream about one of them, one called Yeshua of Nazareth. There were plenty of Yeshua's, of course, but even I had heard strange things about this one. She wanted to tell me more, but I had too much going on to listen to her struggles. This bothered her as usual.
I wrote a note instead and slipped it in my satchel. There was nothing unusual about my work that day. My assistant placed on my desk a report on task collection, an update on a broken aqueduct, and news that some thugs hoping to overthrow Rome had been arrested. One of them was grabbers.
I was glad to see him behind bars. I'm pretty sure everyone was. No one really likes a write. But all I really wanted was a little piece.
Of course Rome wanted a grander piece. They called it the Pax Romana. But the piece of Rome was harder to secure than most people realized, especially among the Judeans, what with their novel monotheism, their stubborn insistence on being called the people of God, and their scriptural notions of a coming King and a grand kingdom with him. They are an odd bunch.
We can't even get them to pay lip service to Caesar as Lord. Lip service is all we asked for, but they wouldn't even give us this. Because of this, it turns out that the Pax Romana required a lot of blood to be shed, peace through strength and all of that. The best thing about Judea was, of course, the road out there.
I didn't want the shed blood, but by the end of that day my hands would be soaked in it. I have not been able to wash the stains even to this day. They brought Jesus to me in the early morning. They ensured that they remained ceremony clean by staying outside.
They wanted Jesus executed, but not at the expense of eating the lamb, a passover that evening. Only later did I see the irony. Why did they want him executed? I'm not sure.
I suspect they wanted to keep their jobs. Isn't this everyone's motivation? They cashed the accusations in religious language, of course, but honestly, their religion was all Greek to me. One guard, one guard who delivers his people, who sets up a kingdom and asks people to trust him, with a load of weird rules, all too strange for this sophisticated Roman.
But what I did care about was all Jesus' political language about kingship. And so I asked him, straight up, are you the king of the Jews? At first he didn't answer me. I assumed in that moment that he thought the claim was as ludicrous as I did.
But I realized on reflection and later he knew that I wouldn't understand. I've done some research since and have read their prophets. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before its year as a starlet, so he did not open his mouth. Reading that ancient prophecy, it got to me later, it got to me.
I was the shearer. I was the shearer. Eventually he did open his mouth and I'll never forget his words. My kingdom is not of this world.
If it were, my service would fight to prevent my rest by the Jewish leaders, but now my kingdom is from another place. I didn't know what he meant. It sounded important, but weird too, why would I care about a kingdom that wasn't of this world? Only one of this world would map the Caesar, but I couldn't argue with the logic.
No one came to his defense. Well, there was a skirmish earlier, but it was quelled immediately, but not by us, but by Jesus who said, put away your sword. Very unromen. But I find silence awkward, so I blurted out the only thing I could think of.
You are a king then? I said, gotcha. I thought for just a moment, but Jesus was cleverer than I thought. He said, you say that I'm a king.
In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me. All I wanted was peace. If it claimed to be a king, I'd be able to string on a cross like so many before him, and get on with the tax report and the broken aqueduct, the pactomana after all, demands blood.
But I didn't, gotcha. So I said something that they told later made me the jesting pilot. What is truth I asked and would not stay for an answer. Instead, I devised a plan.
Barabbas? No one liked Barabbas. No one would flop a rabbas for an innocent man. They wouldn't be able to live with themselves.
And so with the crowd growing, I gave them their annual pass over offering. It's your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the pass over. Do you want me to wink, wink? Release the king of the Jews?
Of course you do. But I couldn't stop them. They chose Barabbas. I went outside to manage the crowd.
But at that moment, I pulled out that note from my wife this morning. It was scrunched up by then, but clear. Do not have anything to do with that innocent man, she said. For I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.
Holy duli. A triple problem. An angry crowd. A word for my anxious wife.
And a prophecy that this man was innocent. And Caesar looking in from Rome. With all this, I said to the crowd several times, I find no basis for a charge against him. I could feel the paxramana slipping through my fingers.
I could feel Caesar's displeasure at 3000 kilometres. I could see my promotion slipping away. I wanted peace that day. But I did have a granda quiet dream for my life.
That people everywhere would call out my name in recognition of being someone great. Or of doing something great. So I had him flogged. That didn't work.
My soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and placed it on his head. That didn't work. They put a purple robe on him saying, Hail, King of the Jews. And they slapped him in the face.
None of this worked. That crowd wanted blood. I kept insisting his innocence. I even brought him out with all that blood and all that purple.
And with that crown of death on his head. And I said two words in the Latin. Okay, homo. Behold the man.
But the friends he grew. They kept yelling crucify. I can't stand mob mentality. So I kept trying to talk to Jesus.
But honestly, I had no clear goal. I couldn't figure him out. Where do you come from? Seemed a valid question as any.
Do you refuse to speak to me? Was what I said when he kept silent. And two things I regret. Realizing later that the irony is embarrassingly thick.
I regret sitting on the judge's seat with me judging Caesar. With me judging Jesus. And I regret saying, don't you realize I have power? Either to free you or to crucify you.
Years later I heard circling what the reports were of my actions. It was not easy to hear. Jesus said to me that day, you would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. God is driving this, he said.
Sitting on the judge's seat, I pulled out that slip of paper for my wife again. I read it for once I wish I had started the day listening to her. But now I was into deep. And so were the leaders there.
They knew how to press my buttons if you let this man go. You're no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar. I wanted a personal piece, but the Pax Romana was more important to me in the moment.
And when I presented their king to them, I said, okay, Rex, you hold your king. They insisted that they have no king, no king of Caesar. At that point I knew there was no way out. I saw this was getting nowhere.
These people are stubbornly precise about what they want. They have God as their king, but here they were willing to throw their God under the chariot to get this man. At that moment I knew there would be blood. So I washed my hands in front of everyone.
I was trying to say that his death would not be on my head, but deep down I knew what I was doing. It was my blood I was washing off my hands. And so I handed him over to be crucified. I didn't see the crucifixion myself.
I've seen plenty of them. Too much blood for me. I understand that there were two thugs crucified with him. I was told that his mother chose to be there.
See, he was brave within me. I made sure that there was a sign fixed above him. I wanted everyone to read it. So it was written in three languages.
It simply said the king, the king of the Jews. They knew I was ridiculing them. They asked for some nuance. They wanted me to write that this man claimed to be the king of the Jews.
But I insisted what I had written. I had written. And then I walked away with less than the peace that I've been hoping for. My wife was right.
I had hoped that the crown of thorns that was placed on Jesus' head was the only crown he would ever have. But something happened that weekend in a garden tomb on the first day of the week that Sunday. I don't know what happened exactly, but I don't doubt for a moment that something happened. It is an undeniable fact that in these last ten years, more and more people, even non-Jews, are claiming to believe the testimony of his disciples.
They believe that God crowned Jesus as Lord of life. They say he defeated death. They say he brings peace. They say Jesus is Lord, when Caesar is Lord, is the only permitted configuration of such words.
They take the same path Jesus did. Like many people, I want peace. But in the decades since that day, I've been wondering if the Pax Romana really is. That's what government peace is really the kind of peace I want.
Maybe it isn't so silly to crown him Lord of life who triumphed over the grave. I don't know about that. Would you please all stand as I conclude? I don't know about many things.
But I tell you what, I had hoped for millions to recognize my importance in the world. Wisely, governed under Pontius Pilate was the script I wanted to hear. It would bother me if for millennia to come, my wish for being recognized was realized, but only as a footnote, a footnote to an eternal king. But I can feel it.
Everyone increasingly identifies me with him for me, saying the words together. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, or was crucified, died, and was buried. On the third day he rose again, he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come again to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
I'm in.