John 18:37
“You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
-What is truth? Where do we find it? What do we do with it? How should the "truth of God" impact us?
-Jesus couldn't "tame" Peter in the three years they were together. In the end Peter uses his sword and denies his association with Jesus. Of course, Peter repents. How do we parallel the road Peter traveled?
-How can we look at one hanging on a cross and envision him as Messiah? The answer is in Jesus' life, his sayings and his actions. Study these. Find the Messiah.
John 18-19:16
1 WHEN HE HAD finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was an olive grove, and he and his disciples went into it.
2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples.
3 So Judas came to the grove, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons.
4 Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, “Who is it you want?”
5“Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “I am he,” Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.)
6 When Jesus said, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.
7 Again he asked them, “Who is it you want?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.”
8“I told you that I am he,” Jesus answered. “If you are looking for me, then let these men go.”
9 This happened so that the words he had spoken would be fulfilled: “I have not lost one of those you gave me.”
10 Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.)
11 Jesus commanded Peter, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”
12 Then the detachment of soldiers with its commander and the Jewish officials arrested Jesus. They bound him
13 and brought him first to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year.
14 Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it would be good if one man died for the people.
15 Simon Peter and another disciple were following Jesus. Because this disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard,
16 but Peter had to wait outside at the door. The other disciple, who was known to the high priest, came back, spoke to the girl on duty there and brought Peter in.
17“You are not one of his disciples, are you?” the girl at the door asked Peter. He replied, “I am not.”
18 It was cold, and the servants and officials stood around a fire they had made to keep warm. Peter also was standing with them, warming himself.
19 Meanwhile, the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.
20“I have spoken openly to the world,” Jesus replied. “I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret.
21 Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said.”
22 When Jesus said this, one of the officials nearby struck him in the face. “Is this the way you answer the high priest?” he demanded.
23“If I said something wrong,” Jesus replied, “testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me?”
24 Then Annas sent him, still bound, to Caiaphas the high priest.
25 As Simon Peter stood warming himself, he was asked, “You are not one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it, saying, “I am not.”
26 One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, challenged him, “Didn’t I see you with him in the olive grove?”
27 Again Peter denied it, and at that moment a rooster began to crow.
28 Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover.
29 So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”
30“If he were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed him over to you.”
31 Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.” “But we have no right to execute anyone,” the Jews objected.
32 This happened so that the words Jesus had spoken indicating the kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled.
33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
34“Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”
35“Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”
36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
37“You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
38“What is truth?” Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.
39 But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”
40 They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in a rebellion.
19:1 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.
2 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe
3 and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they struck him in the face.
4 Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.”
5 When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”
6 As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!” But Pilate answered, “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.”
7 The Jews insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”
8 When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid,
9 and he went back inside the palace. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer.
10“Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?”
11 Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”
12 From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.”
13 When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha).
14 It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour. “Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews.
15 But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!” “Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked. “We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.
16 Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.
WE HAVE OBSERVED a number of major literary transitions in the Gospel of John. The Book of Signs (chs. 1 – 12) and the Book of Glory (chs. 13 – 21) neatly divide the public ministry of Jesus from the events of Jesus’ life days before his arrest. The Book of Signs was filled with miracles (signs) and public discourses. The Book of Glory begins with Jesus’ words in the Upper Room, particularly following the foot-washing and Judas’s departure. Jesus speaks at length and follows his exhortations and promises with a lengthy prayer, thus closing his life and ministry with his disciples.
John 18:1 opens an entirely new section of the Book of Glory. Jesus now moves toward the climax of the “hour” we have anticipated throughout the Gospel. If the Farewell Discourse was a preparation for the coming of the darkness, in chapters 18 – 19 the darkness arrives. Jesus is arrested and taken into custody. He is interrogated both by Judaism’s high priest and by Pilate. Then he is crucified. As we will see, however, John introduces important theological nuances to the story, aiding us as readers to anticipate the triumph of resurrection recorded in chapters 20 – 21. “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it”. At the close of the Gospel the pendulum swings back to its lofty original height. The glory of Jesus, his light and truth, radiate through the final chapters, showing that he indeed has overcome the world and death.
The Passion Story in John
I MENTIONED IN the Introduction how the historical trustworthiness of John has always been a matter of academic debate. When C. H. Dodd worked on the “historical traditions in the Fourth Gospel” in 1963, he began his study with the account of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and death since there was so much material that overlapped the Synoptic Gospels. Today that debate continues, particularly where it touches the Passion narratives. Some scholars, like Dodd, have a renewed confidence in the historical character of the Passion story. But others are skeptical. It is of course impossible as well as unnecessary for us to review the nature of this debate and list its primary contributors. I will simply outline the major issues.
When the earliest stories about Jesus were penned and recounted, no doubt the Passion story was of signal importance because it answered a fundamental question: Why was Jesus arrested and killed? If he was a man of truth, if his miracles were compelling, it made no sense that his own people would kill him. Confidence in Jesus ran aground at the Passion story. If he was the Messiah, what happened to him in Jerusalem during the last days of his life?
All four Gospels share the same basic outline: Jesus was arrested near Jerusalem, he was tried and convicted, and he was executed on a cross. Within this outline, the Gospels offer numerous consistent details: (1) Jesus and the disciples depart from the city for a location on the West side of the Mount of Olives; (2) Judas arrives with a crowd to take Jesus into custody; (3) Jesus is examined by the high priest; (4) Jesus is examined by the Roman Pontius Pilate; (5) Pilate infers Jesus’ innocence and offers to release one of his prisoners; (6) the crowd calls for Barabbas’s release; (7) Pilate gives the order of death for Jesus; (8) Jesus is crucified with two men; (9) the soldiers divide Jesus’ clothes among themselves; (10) Jesus is offered wine; (11) Jesus dies; (12) Joseph of Arimathea requests Jesus’ body for burial.
John’s Gospel shares this outline and these details. Thus it is absurd for anyone to suggest that John is not linked to sound historical traditions in his Passion account. But John does add numerous independent details, and he omits a few things. Among those omissions are the following: (1) the betrayal with a kiss; (2) Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane; (3) the sleepiness of the disciples; (4) the healing of the servant’s ear; (5) Simon of Cyrene; (6) the mocking crowds; (7) Jesus’ cry from the cross.
John also adds a number of details: (1) Roman soldiers falling to the ground in the arrest scene when Jesus identifies himself; (2) Jesus’ conversation with Annas; (3) Jesus’ conversation with Pilate; (4) John’s emphasis on the inscription on the cross; (5) a full description of Jesus’ garments; (6) Mary given to the Beloved Disciple at the cross; (7) Jesus’ body threatened with the breaking of his legs; (8) Jesus pierced with a soldier’s lance; (9) Nicodemus’s joining Joseph at Jesus’ burial.
While these omissions and additions may seem significant, it is not difficult to bring them together into one coherent narrative thread. Nevertheless, for scholars who believe that John is directly dependent on Mark for his story (Barrett, Haenchen), John wins low marks as a trustworthy narrative. For scholars who see John as considerably independent of the Synoptics (Dodd, Beasley-Murray), John’s story gains increased credibility insofar as the added stories may stem from sources parallel to the Synoptics. In fact some scholars are even convinced that while John may not be copying from the Synoptic account, he nevertheless assumes that his Gospel will circulate among those who have perhaps read the Gospel of Mark.
For instance, John 18:13 – 28 records the Jewish interrogation of Jesus and includes two high priests: Annas (the emeritus high priest who wielded considerable power) and Caiaphas (the reigning high priest). Mark does not name his high priest but nevertheless records Jesus’ trial with him. John is making clear that Jesus’ meeting with Annas was not the official Sanhedrin trial. Caiaphas is mentioned in 18:14, and when Annas is finished with Jesus in 18:24, John records, “Then Annas sent him, still bound, to Caiaphas the high priest.” Readers of Mark will at once realize that the critical trial and decision of the temple’s high council ensues here and that by 18:28, Jesus has been sent on to Pilate. Details such as this are legion, and we will examine most of them closely in the commentary below. Above all, keep in mind that John has heightened the dramatic tone of the story, including names here and there, and has provided conversations and events that give us a clearer insight into what is transpiring.
Despite the possibilities of harmonizing the Passion story, there are important theological emphases in John that must be understood for us to follow the course of his presentation. (1) Martin Kähler once made the famous (and scandalous) remark that the Synoptic Gospels might be called “passion narratives with extended introductions.” That is, the Gospels themselves are dominated by the events in the last week of Jesus’ life (for Mark this is 40 percent of his Gospel!). But, Kähler suggested, this was hardly true of John. John’s Gospel does not need Jesus’ death on the cross.
Years later E. Käsemann championed this view and took it further. He believed that the Passion of Jesus was an addendum, an “embarrassment” to John. If we read John without any recollection of Paul’s idea of sacrifice and atonement, or if we try to forget the story in the Synoptics, we may see John’s view of the cross emerging. Gone is the pathos of Gethsemane; gone is the trauma of Golgotha. For John the cross is an instrument of exaltation. Jesus is exhibiting his glory, not unlike he has throughout the Gospel.
But Käsemann is wrong to think of the cross as a postscript to this Gospel. From its beginning the “hour” is the moment toward which we are pushed, and this theme continues straight through the Farewell Discourse. Jesus’ death and its effects have been alluded to and have been described even by the likes of Caiaphas. But what John has done is to reforge one theological dimension of Jesus on the cross. Throughout his Passion Jesus is sovereign; he is not a victim. The cross is a fate that he has chosen voluntarily and that he controls.
Thus, at his arrest, Judas does not hand Jesus over, but he steps forward. Jesus asks the question: “Whom do you seek?” — a question that parallels Jesus’ first words in the gospel in 1:38: “What do you seek?” Jesus protects his followers so that none will be lost. Similarly in 19:11 Jesus checks Pilate’s presumption of power. On the cross, Jesus cries, “It is finished”, announcing that the cross is a work, a goal achieved. Ashton (perhaps too glibly) puts it thus: “If God is the author of this passion play, Jesus is the protagonist — but also the producer and director!”
ANY REFLECTIVE READING of these chapters demonstrates at once that John has offered us a highly nuanced presentation of Jesus’ Passion. John is writing a superb story with layers of meaning, layers that we must unpack.
The betrayal of leadership
This is a story about collusion, not cooperation. This is not a story about priests and governors working amiably together for the public good. Of course Caiaphas, one of its chief actors, would like to make that claim: “You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish”. But as readers of the story we know better — that the benefit this death brings is not what Caiaphas comprehends. Caiaphas was right — and terribly wrong; that is the essence of John’s satire.
This is a story about collusion, about secret agreements with some fraudulent purpose, about conniving and conspiring. This is a story about the betrayal of leadership, how Judaism’s high priests abandoned all pretense of devotion to God and decided instead to conspire with the military arm of Rome. Remarkably the leaders are willing to trade Barabbas for Jesus and Caesar for God; their pursuit of pragmatic goals makes them unable to discern the difference between a terrorist and a good shepherd, a statue of Tiberius and the God of Abraham. All Judaism did not reject Jesus — the crowds cheering him on Palm Sunday bear testimony to his many followers — but Judaism’s leadership did everything in its power to sabotage his successes.
While it would be easy enough to chastise the Sanhedrin’s behavior, tell its incriminating story, and outline its failure to uphold the excellent judicial system known in Jerusalem, John may yet have more to say to us. As we have seen multiple levels of meaning throughout this Gospel (the woman at the well is not just about Jewish and Samaritan worship, but our worship too), I am troubled to think that this story may have a similar double entendre.
The most obvious actor in this drama is Pilate. He wins the greatest number of lines and appears at almost every major scene that directly affects the outcome of Jesus’ fate. Even though he was not at the arrest, he is in the background, represented by his troops. No governor at this season would send a detachment this size to arrest a man without studying the issues. When Jesus is finally handed to him after an entire night’s interrogation, Pilate asks all the right questions, but for all the wrong reasons. When he hears the truth he disputes it; when he is challenged he makes a mockery even of the concept of truth. “What is truth?” has a sinister and contemporary ring to it, and this is how John intends for us to hear it.
With Pilate we unmask the secular betrayal of leadership that surrounds us at every turn. When asked to produce its moral compass, when examined on the basis of its virtues, we can hear the words of Pilate ringing again. “What is virtue?” “What is right?” “What is truth?” One of the most famous scenes of 1998 shows Bill Clinton asking, “What is sexual intercourse?” as his defense crumbles and he finally admits to having a lurid affair with Monica Lewinski. It is Pilate replayed for another century. Thirty years earlier we heard Lyndon Johnson talking publicly about a “just and lasting peace” as B52 bombers pounded Vietnam. “What is peace?” was the question no one would answer. I was a Reserve Navy chaplain during the Gulf War in the early 1990s and recall pressing the moral virtue of carpet-bombing hundreds of thousands of forced conscripts on the Iraqi front, or starving hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children for many years with an embargo. “What is justice?” a senior Naval officer with four gold stripes asked me. He wore Pilate’s uniform.
-As we see life unfold before us, Father, we wonder about truth and where to find it. In your Word we find the only "true way" which leads to you. Help us on our journey, Father.
-We are so thankful for your mercy, Father, and that fact that you are willing to forgive us, time and time again. Continue to teach us... we will learn.
-Father, we are blessed to be able to look back on the acts of Jesus. We have come to know you through your act of love in bringing a Savior to us. Thank you, Father, for this act of kindness and mercy.
Jesus said "My kingdom is not of this world." Jesus invites us to go with him to his "world". Kind of scary isn't it... a world we have difficulty envisioning. Yet, Jesus proved its existence and left us a "road map" to get there. Certain qualities about this world are very compelling such as peace and eternal life... Think I'll investigate further...