Service on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/100064617886792/videos/1632754214658024 and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QujWbKRKZRg

The Christian church throughout the centuries, hasn’t known what to do with Pilate. Is he a sympathetic character? Is he guilty? Was he coerced by the religious leaders? Was he weak and easily manipulated? Was he afraid for his own position in the Empire? Or was he cruel? Indifferent?

There aren’t many sources that remain about Pilate, and what we have are these traditions that come from later Christianity as they are making inferences. There is a tradition that he later came to believe the truth, that is became a follower of Jesus. There is a still a tradition that racked with guilt, years later he took his own life. It’s possible that some of the traditions are there because some were trying to make sure that the blame landed squarely on the religious leaders, the Jews as our Gospel writer puts it. Or to understand why this man who Josephus calls cruel and a bully, seems… passive in this telling.

He was appointed by the Emperor to rule and control over this tiny area of Judea, and he could only stay by the will of the empire. He appointed the High Priests, he worked with the Sadducees, they all maintained order, they needed each other.

I said last week, I think at best, Pilate was indifferent about the life and death others, about the people of Judea, he was not indifferent about his place, his position, his power, and he would do anything to maintain it.

Some will say that because he was afraid, because he didn’t find a reason to kill Jesus, because it seems he didn’t want to kill Jesus, that he bears no responsibility.

Though Jesus says the one who handed me over, then it ends with Pilate handing Jesus over, so maybe we’re supposed to see that there are so many handing Jesus over, and there are so many who are responsible.

When Pilate finally brought Jesus out for all those who had gathered to see, our gospel writer does one of those double meanings things–what we read was that Pilate sits on the judgment seat, because that was what he was about to do, pass judgment. But the Greek is ambiguous for some reason, and it is also translated as he seats him, meaning Pilate seats Jesus on the judgment seat. Because who is being judged here, and who is being condemned?

Judas handed him over, Peter denied being a follower, and the religious leaders–at the moment of the beginning of the Passover sacrifices, when they would praying the first of the commandants, there is not king but our God–they declare Caesar their king, an incredibly devastating moment of condemning themselves.

Everyone played a part, from his close friends to the self involved governmental authorities to the religious leaders who couldn’t see that he was just saying the same things. They were to the soldiers who lost their humanity by denying dignity to another. And I think we could find ourselves in any of those places throughout time and history.

That everyone who handed Jesus over to the next. Everyone who denied something in Jesus and something in themselves are complicit or convicted of what was about to happen.

And often humanity today is convicted from the first chapter, light came into this world and the darkness could not comprehend.

James cone called crucifixion and the cross crucifixion on the and act and a symbol of oppression, subjugation and terror. Meant to terrorize the population to keep them in check to keep them from rising up

That Jesus’ willingness to go to the cross to carry the cross to suffer and die on the cross was a willingness to identify to be with to be present in the suffering of others, particularly and those who are oppressed those terrorized.

He compares academic theologian Reinhold Niebuhr taught at Union seminary in the ’30s with first with Dietrich Bonhoeffer who, unlike neighbor who stayed safe at Union seminary in New York, decided to go back to Germany knowing it was dangerous and it could cost him his life. But certainly he could not participate in the hope and resurrection and rebuilding with his beloved Germans if he did not suffer with them, struggle with them. And it did ultimately cost him his life

Maybe one of his last and important works. The cross and the lynching tree cone equates the use of the Cross with the lynching tree, both being a symbol of suppression, oppression, and terrorizing a community into obedience.

Cone though spends most of his time comparing the theology and the life of Reinhold Niebuhr to the Reverend Dr. King.

At the funeral of Emmett Till Reverend King called on the black church tradition of the crucified Christ and the body of the boy beaten.

And King you going to Memphis at the end of his life was not unlike Jesus going to Jerusalem that last week. Neither wanted to die, both had much more they wanted to do and stay and both knew eventually those full of power and fear denying the dignity of themselves and the humanity in another, those so fixated on the status quo would kill them.

Of course, that’s not where the stories end. Because suffering without hope is only despair.

The symbol of terror and despair and subjugation doesn’t win, There is love. God loves this world so much and Jesus doesn’t come into it to sit on the judgment seat and offer condemnation but to bring light and life there is life abundant Life

Power that is not a power that sits on the judgment seat and wields authority over and above others. This isn’t a power that crushes. This is a power that comes alongside, that does not hide its face from the struggling, that cries out in lament, that that meets people in their suffering that lifts up that raises up to life and light

And it can be hard and it can be overwhelming. Kelly I came home the other day and Kelly was watching. I was like cake boss competition shows except it was glass blowing because why not and one of their competitions one of their themes for their challenge was something that they are passionate about, preferably a cause. And one of the contestants decided his cause was gun violence in schools in particular and his reason and his reason was because it affected him personally,  as he has seen it on TV which to be fair made me laugh a lot but sometimes it can feel like that, that the sufferings we see on TV in the lives of others from around the world are affect us directly painfully.

Now I get most of my news and information from my phone from a very successfully curated algorithm, which includes a little bit of this. A little bit of that and a whole lot of dogs.

Some of my favorite videos are these absurdly long ones for the median that they are by this man named Rocky and Rocky goes into shelters in his community and sits with dogs. His passion and his call is to support shelter dogs into finding their lifelong homes. Many of these dogs are just come in. Have been neglected or abused or misused. Some are just freaked out by the shelter and he goes in and sits with them and tries to help them calm down so that when people walk through the shelter they can see the loving good dog that they are. The goal by the end of the half hour is to get the dog in a place where it either crawls up onto his lap or he can scoop the dog up and it will calm and settle into his arms.

It’s power that comes alongside that sits with that is patient with that weeps with that abides with that struggles with and suffers with and loves with and raises up from underneath.

It is the god that is present and those that are suffering and communities that are suffering and we when we are suffering. Is the god that walked to the cross willingly and identifies with the poor and the oppressed and the subjugated and the abused. To let them and us know that we are not alone

And it is the god incarnate who teaches us what it is to love and hold power to show up and to love with, to raise up the oppressed And the poor and the abused and the suffering to reflect the hope of Resurrection of new life of light of abundance of Christ back into the world, desperately in need of Hope.