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Scapegoat kingFriday, April 10, 2009
Isaiah 53:2-6 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 wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his stripes 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.
John 18:37-38, 19:1-3, 7-9, 15-19 Jesus answered, "You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." Pilate said to him, "What is truth?" ... Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged. And the soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and placed it on his head, and clothed him in a purple robe, and they came to him and said, "Hail, King of the Jews!" And they struck him in the face ... But the Jews insisted that Jesus must die, " because he claimed to be the Son of God." When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, and he went back inside the palace. "Where do you come from?" he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer ... Pilate said to the Jews, "Shall I crucify your king?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." And finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. So the soldiers took charge of Jesus.
Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). Here they crucified him, and with him two others--one on each side and Jesus in the middle. Pilate had an inscription prepared and fastened to the cross. It read, "Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews."
And of course he did know that path well. Jesus was closer to scapegoats and martyrs than anyone, touching them throughout time with his love, whispering in their ears how much God held them in his hands. And now it was the king himself, come to be ridiculed, whipped and branded a fool, then finally killed in a mockery of justice. Pilate looked him in the eyes and saw only wisdom and peace. "What is truth?" he said in despair and anger. Jesus answered him with much more than words. "I am." Pilate feared Jesus' power in heaven, not on earth. If Jesus was a king it was of the universe, not just of the Jews. Small-minded provincial people. Pilate's eyes opened wide. Even Rome seemed small when he was in the presence of Jesus. "What is truth?" "I am." How could this day of darkness come to be, this awful scene? God nailed to a stick of wood, breathing blood into his lungs, dying? God? Dying? None of this makes any sense, until I look into Jesus' face, into his eyes, and see how much he doesn't even care. He just loves me. Everything he does, he does for me. Praise be to you, O Lord. My times are in your hands. You have seen my affliction and known the anguish of my soul. You have set my feet in a spacious place. Into your hands I commit my spirit. |
Stricken, smitten and afflicted, wounded and pierced and whipped, Jesus found his way down to death. He had been so sure of the descent, as if he had taken it many times before.