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Village SDA Church

Ron Kelly

Pilate and the Post-Modern in Peril

This morning I want to bring together how His life and our culture coincide, both to take away that which is good in our lives and to remake us into the image of this world and how Christ Himself is pleading as He pled for Him.

Take your Bibles this morning and go back to our Scripture reading in the book of John, the book of John chapter 18, Pilate and postmoderns in peril.

You have to remember we're at the end of Jesus' life.

Literally we're coming within hours of his death.

Along the way, there'll be much abuse and misunderstanding, but there's 1 more person to save before he gets there, and his name is Pilate.

You may not have looked at the story that way before, but that's exactly the case.

And before we're all said and done, I hope we see it.

I want to ask you at the beginning of this sermon, who are you?

Some people's identity is in a NASCAR driver.

Some people's identity is in a sports personage of another place.

Some people's identity in a successful businessman.

Some people's identity is in some pursuit of pleasure.

All of us need to understand there is a time coming in which our identity will be forged into either a likeness of the devil or a perfect reflection of Jesus.

That moment is recorded in the story of John chapter 18.

Jesus has spent the night with His disciples in the garden.

And, finally, after being accosted by the mob on Friday morning, they've been in their own little kangaroo court.

They're done with that, but they can't kill Jesus without permission of the Romans.

Verse 28, John 18, Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas into the Praetorium.

It was early, and they themselves did not enter into the Praetorium, so that they would not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.

It is important for us to recognize the geography of the moment and the reasons behind the limitations of movement.

The Praetorium was a large fortress called the Antonio Praetorium.

It was located directly against the temple.

And when I say directly, I mean the 2 buildings joined each other not a terribly good testimony of what could begin in the precincts of the Jewish Church there were all kinds of riots There was all kinds of tumults and elements of civil unrest, and the Romans wanted to be right by it and nip it in the bud.

But Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin have done an illegal courtroom setting through the night, and now they want to go out and finish the deed, but they don't want to be made ceremonially impure.

Every Jew of the day believed that being with a Gentile made them unclean and that they could not participate in church services.

So they know that if they go into the government building there where Pilate is going to pronounce judgment, they will be unfit, according to their understanding of what holiness means, to participate in the festivities that will take place later that afternoon, which was the Passover.

The Passover was a feast in which a lamb was slain in commemoration of the night in Egypt, when God took the people out of slavery and set them on the journey to the promised land.

A lamb was slain and blood was put on the doorpost of the homes in which the recipients of the blood lived.

And when the destroying angel came through in the tenth plague and it saw the blood, it would pass by those houses.

Thus, the name of the festival became the Passover.

It just turned out that now some 2 and a half, some 1, 500 years later, they're in a moment where the ultimate Passover lamb has come.

They were all symbols, Jesus is the reality.

And what's happening now is they're gonna go celebrate the symbol and sacrifice the reality, not sacrificing the way Christ's death should come about, but sacrificing because in envy and jealousy they can't stand to have the light of His life shining on the darkness of their religious experience.

Now if you've known a Christian today like the Pharisees or the scribes who is not principled and loving, then you might find yourself more closely familiar with the disingenuousness and the hypocrisy of this verse than you'd like to be.

The principles that would make the church stand out as a glorious representation of goodness have been surrendered to make sure everybody feels good and society goes to pot.

This is the last moments of Christ's life.

Verse 29, then Pilate went out to them and he said, what accusation do you bring against this man, Jesus, the Son of God.

Now, before Pilate, now before the Sanhedrin, they answered and they said to him, verse 30, if this man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered him to you.

So Pilate said to them, take him yourselves And judge him according to your law and the Jews said to him we're not permitted to put anyone to death Oh that changes the story So in order to fulfill the words which he spoke signifying by which death he was about to die Pilate knew what they meant This is crucifixion.

It's the Roman way Therefore Pilate entered again into the praetorium and he summoned Jesus and he said to him, Are you the king of the Jews?

In the Desire of Ages, the author writes, Pilate looked at the men who had Jesus in their charge, Then his gaze rested searchingly on Jesus.

He had to deal with all kinds of criminals, but never before had a man bearing the marks of such goodness and nobility been brought before him.

He's looking at Jesus, and on the face of Jesus he sees no signs of guilt, No expressions of fear, no boldness or defiance.

He saw a man of calm and dignified bearing, whose countenance bore not the marks of a criminal but the signature of heaven.

He knows what the Jews are doing, and he doesn't know a lot about Jesus, but he knows something.

The Jews are blind to themselves, and consequently, they're blind to the fact that Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God, is there to pay for their sins.

But Pilate sees a little better than even they.

Pilate knows that Jesus had resurrected Lazarus.

He knows a little bit about some of his ministry.

And Pilate is not accustomed to just passing judgment without some sense of justice, although before he has swept people away who were not guilty.

Pilate was not a just or conscientious judge, but he was weak.

And though he was weak in moral power, he refused to grant this request.

He was not going to condemn Jesus until the charge had been brought against him.

But the priests wanna make sure that Jesus doesn't get out of their grasp.

Jesus has been asked a question, verse 33, are you the king of the Jews?

Jesus answered, and he says, are you saying this, or did others tell you about me?

Your own nation and the chief priests delivered you to me.

Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting so that I wouldn't be handed over to the Jews.

But as it is, my kingdom's not of this realm.

Therefore Pilate said to him, so you're a king.

Jesus said, you say correctly, I am a king for this reason I've been born and for this I've come into the world to testify of the truth.

Everyone who's of the truth hears my voice.

And then Pilate, listening to the sounds of the mob, steps away, uttering this famous phrase, what is true?

You're not an atheist because Romans worshipped all kinds of gods.

But here you are in this country where the religious people are some of the meanest people you've ever seen.

But they say they worship the only true God.

And so here's Pilate stuck in an interesting dilemma.

He doesn't profess the high lofty moral standard of the Jews, but he can see that something's very wrong here.

They're full of hatred and greed and envy.

They want to destroy a man who's clearly not a criminal, and Pilate has to make a decision.

He's been woken up early because the trial of Jesus went on through the early hours of the morning, in other words, very late at night, which was against Jewish law.

And as Jesus is standing here, he engages Jesus in a discussion and Jesus says, in effect, you don't have to worry, I'm not against Rome, I'm not after your position.

I'm here to establish a kingdom of truth.

I came into this world to establish the line clearly between right and wrong based on what true love is.

And here's Pilate under deep conviction which nobody likes to be under because it means moving out of a comfort zone into a scary new zone.

And Pilate doesn't know what to do and he says, what is truth?

We're in a dangerous position as a country because we no longer corporately really believe telling the truth is that important.

As long as you get your message across and you really believe in it, you don't have to tell the whole story.

You can tell the part you want to tell and leave the part out you don't want to talk about.

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Pilate and the Post-Modern in Peril

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