JUST WHO IS ON TRIAL?
April 5, 2009
Philippians 2: 5-11
John 18 and 19 (selected verses)
Rev. Dr. Dennis Winkleblack
Prospect United Methodist Church
Bristol, Connecticut
Today is a strange sort of day. From jubilant beginnings with palm branches and hosannas aplenty to the sad account of Jesus’ trial and the lasting remembrance of that precious, sacred head soon to be wounded. It’s a strange, odd day. But, then, long ago it was a strange, odd week: from palms on the first day of the week to a crown of thorns on the 6th; hosannas to curses; king to criminal; seeming triumph to seeming tragedy. It was a strange week, a mysterious week, a week we call a holy week.
Certainly, in one service of worship it’s almost impossible to honor the full mystery of this Holy Week. But I believe our lives are infinitely richer if we try. Of course, most of us, probably, would rather just enjoy the Palm Sunday part – it was indeed a jubilant day. In fact, Jesus’ followers thought it was the beginning of a new kingdom on earth. But they obviously didn’t understand what Jesus was about. For, only a few days later his followers would go into hiding for fear of being identified as friends of the new criminal in town, Jesus.
As you’ve noticed in the bulletin, in our worship this morning we’re trying to honor both parts of the day before us. This sermon, however, is focusing on the less popular but more important part of the week at hand: the arrest and trial of Jesus. If you’ll come Thursday evening or Good Friday noon we will journey even deeper into the mystery of this Holy Week.
Thomas Long is a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. He tells the story of a minister friend who went to see Tennessee Williams’ play “The Night of the Iguana” on Broadway many, many years ago. The star of the play was Dorothy McGuire, a very famous actress at that time.
He says that just before the curtain was to rise, a woman in the audience – a large, middle-aged woman in a blue print dress – startled the audience by suddenly shouting, “Start the show! Start the show! I want to see Dorothy McGuire! I love Dorothy McGuire!” The people sitting next to her quickly moved out of their seats, not wanting to be associated with this madwoman. Ushers and the house manager descended to try and reason with the woman. But she kept shouting, “I want to see Dorothy McGuire! Start the show!”
After a moment of shocked silence, the people in the audience decided they had a maniac in their midst and began to get ugly, booing the woman and laughing derisively. Somebody shouted, “Listen you old bag, get out!” Many others yelled, “Throw her out!” The woman turned to the shouters, “All I want is to see Dorothy McGuire,” she said, “And then I will leave.” More laughing and booing – things were edging toward chaos.
Then, from behind the curtains, Miss McGuire herself appeared. She crossed the stage over to the place where the woman was sitting and, with remarkable poise, and grace, and kindness, extended her hand toward her.
The woman took her hand, and Miss McGuire led her gently toward the exit. As they reached the edge of the theater auditorium, Miss McGuire paused, turned toward the audience, and said, “I’d like to introduce you to another fellow human being.”
Dr. Long comments: “The audience was stilled, their shouts and taunts silenced by Miss McGuire’s compassion and by the recognition of what they had just done. They had put a fellow human being on trial, convicted her, and sentenced her to abuse. But now they knew that they were really the ones who had been on trial, and their silent shame was a sign of their guilt.”
Ever since the OJ Simpson trial was carried live on television, we’ve been entranced by courts and trials. Thus was born the Court TV channel, now renamed Tru or something like that which makes instant celebrities out of ordinary failed people. Americans are fascinated beyond imagination with courts and trials.
However, long before America’s fascination with trials, the gospel writer John seems to have had a fascination with Jesus’ trial. John writes his record of Jesus’ trial in a way that begs the question: “Who really is on trial here, anyway?” A court reporter looking down would say, Jesus of Nazareth, of course. After all, he was the one being held by the police, held in solitary confinement. He was the one accused, quickly placed on the stand and interrogated. Jesus was the one on trial, obviously.
But if --now that I’ve cued you in -- you were to listen again to the way John tells the story, you’d hear an irony not heard before. You’d hear a subtle switching of perspective. And you probably could be convinced that maybe it’s not Jesus on trial, after all. You might even come to conclude that it is the judge who is the defendant and the defendant who is the true judge.
For example, listen to the exchange between Jesus and Caiaphas, the religious district attorney. If you want, you can picture Caiphas leaning back on two legs of his chair, quite self-confident and asking: “So, Jesus, tell us about your teaching.” In other words, here’s a piece of rope long enough to hang yourself. Tell us about the heresies you’ve been touting, and, oh, yes, be sure to mention the treason you advocated.
“Everything I said,” replied Jesus, “I said out in the open. I taught in the synagogue. I taught in the Temple. Everybody heard what I said. My motivations were clear. “But what about yours, Caiphas? Why do you ask me this question?”
No doubt Caiphas’ chair thudded back to four legs. Hey, just who’s on trial here?
Then they transferred the trial to the federal court. There we find confused and weary old Pilate, leafing through Jesus’ folder, looking for the list of charges. He was surely awfully tired of getting dragged into the troubles of all these crazy Jews. Finally, he finds the paragraph he’s been looking for: “So, are you the king of the Jews?”
“Is this your question,” says Jesus, “or did someone else put you up to it? Is this someone else’s idea, or do you really want to know?
And Pilate responds, “Do I want to know? Look at me. Do I look Jewish to you? Do I want to know? Who is on trial here, anyway?”
Every now and then we hear a story about someone who has bought an inexpensive painting in some little out of the way place. Cheap art, but, they figure, it’ll add a little color to their house. But, before hanging the painting on the wall, the new owner decides to clean the painting a bit, so out come the cotton balls and the solvent. And as the owner begins to clean, the surface paint begins to dissolve, and underneath there is another painting. A professional art restorer is brought in, and as the surface paint is washed away there is gradually revealed the work of a master.
So it is with the Gospel of John. It’s impossible to read this story carefully without discovering that beneath the veneer of the true-enough account of Jesus’ trial there appears another picture. In this picture, it isn’t Jesus on trial, but Caiaphas. It isn’t Jesus on trial, but Pilate. It isn’t Jesus on trial, but the world. All of us. Like the audience in the Broadway theater that night, we discover that we are, all of us, on trial.
When the police found Mary Ann Cardell she had been dead for several hours. Mary Ann was an elderly woman who lived alone in an Atlanta welfare hotel, and her only two comforts in life were a bottle and a pen. With the bottle she eased her pain; with the pen she wrote about her thoughts and feelings. Eventually the bottle became more demanding than the rent, and one day she was evicted from her room.
She tried to find a place to spend the night, but there was alcohol on her breath, and no one would take her in. When they found her, her body was in a litter-filled field of weeds, cold and blue, and there was a note beside her.
Mary Ann had written, “I have no where to go, and there is no one to understand. God is not dead. He is only sleeping, but sleeping very soundly.”
Jesus said to his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion, “This I command you, to love one another.” And the judge asks, “Shall I crucify your king?” And we reply, “We have no king but Caesar, and our comfortable way of life.”
And all of the Mary Ann Cardells and countless victims of our inhumanity and apathy are left once more to believe that God sleeps through their cold nights of loneliness and despair and death.
When we stand at the foot of the cross, we look at the condemned man, and then we look inside ourselves, and we know who is truly worthy of being condemned. We hear Jesus saying, “Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.” But our troubled hearts let us know who is really on trial here.
As the hymn, “Ah, Holy Jesus” has it: “Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon Thee? Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone Thee! ‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied Thee: I crucified Thee.”
So there we stand in the courtroom, and the verdict rings out, “Guilty!” There’s no escaping this judgment. We have only one hope. It is this: The Jesus whom we crucified has also been made the judge of all time. Our only hope is not in a jury of our peers, of fellow sinners, but in the mercy of this judge Jesus.
As Paul writes, “Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Thank God.
An odd week. We have been tried. We have been found guilty. But in the oddest transaction in history Jesus will pay our penalty.
As the hymn continues, “Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay Thee, I do adore Thee, and will ever pray Thee, Think on Thy pity and Thy love unswerving, Not on my deserving.”
And he does. Thank God.