John 19

Let's finish this thing sometime, eh?

Jesus Sentenced to be Crucified

1Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3and went up to him again and again, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And they struck him in the face.

4Once 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." 5When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, "Here is the man!"

6As 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."

7The Jews insisted, "We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God."

8When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, 9and 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?"

11Jesus 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."

12From 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."

13When 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). 14It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour.
"Here is your king," Pilate said to the Jews.

15But 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.

16Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

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There are a couple things at play in this section, including the nature of authority, and passing the buck.

First, on the nature of authority. Pilate is a very powerful man, as the Roman governor. But just what is power? The most memorable definition I ever heard came back in the 10th grade, in that inappropriate, offensive, but clear vernacular: "power means you can tell those two guys over there to start f&^%ing each other, even if (or especially if) they're not gay."

It's the capacity to impose your own wants and desires on the world around you, to Create your own world along your own standards, and not having those standards questioned or compromised, no matter what. How people go about achieving that end can be different. I'm reminded of the superhero from a cartoon of my childhood whose superpower was being super-rich. Instead of fighting off mindless footsoldiers to get into a secret compound, he could just buy them off, and it worked just as effectively as the guy with razor claws.

Or think of military, political, cultural, technological approaches to power. This philosophy is basically Nietzsche's Will to Power Meets Civilization IV.

Now, how this relates to the section of scripture at hand. Jesus, as God, is infinitely more powerful than Pilate or the chief priests. But he is, ironically, subject to their will and their judgment. This irony is intended to show that Pilate's (and by extension, all worldly) authority and power is ultimately nothing compared to God's. All human authority and power is given by God. The breaking of the hierarchy seen in the Garden of Eden, and again at Babel and throughout the Bible, is put back in order.

This approach to what constitutes true power is truly radical- to think that the humblest believer will hold a more powerful place a billion years from now than the most powerful king, president, or general!

Next, on to passing the buck. We're told that "from then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free", so Pilate was obviously trying not to take responsibility for Christ's death. Then again, the Jews can't be held accountable either-that's why they took Jesus to Pilate in the first place. If they execute Jesus unilaterally, it will destroy everything they had worked for. They wanted to negotiate with the Romans years later and say, "Don't be so harsh on us, we have been loyal subjects and deserve a bit of leeway. You owe us that much. Didn't we prove it to you when we brought you Jesus the rebel? We could have supported him and rebelled against you, but we didn't." To have the Romans reply, "You killed him yourselves, we had no part in your infighting. Jesus was no threat to Roman rule, so we credit you with nothing" won't do.

Eventually, both sides pass the buck, just as Adam did ("the woman you put here gave me the fruit, and I ate"), just as we do in our own lives, but both are eventually found culpable. Interestingly, both sides absolve themselves by appealing to a Higher Authority- but it's Caesar, not God. They'd like to do something different, but they can't pull rank on this, and the highest rank is...Caesar. Again this is the defining notion of the Rebellion: putting Man ahead of God.

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The Crucifixion

So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. 17Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). 18Here they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle.

19Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read:|sc JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 20Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. 21The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, "Do not write 'The King of the Jews,' but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews."

22Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written."

23When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.

24"Let's not tear it," they said to one another. "Let's decide by lot who will get it."
This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled which said,
"They divided my garments among them
and cast lots for my clothing."^[a] So this is what the soldiers did.

25Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son," 27and to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

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Pilate pulls some passive-aggressive stuff here. Perhaps feeling a little weak having been manipulated into crucifying this man, Pilate tries to turn the situation to his advantage. His message to the Jews is clear: anyone challenging the rightful rule of Rome will be crushed, humiliated, and publically crucified until they die by slow asphyxiation.

Many of the disciples will challenge the rule of Rome, saying that it is ultimately under the rule of God, and they will be crucified as well. The one disciple that doesn't get martyred is John, the writer of this gospel, and the one charged with taking care of Jesus' mother.

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The Death of Jesus

28Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty." 29A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips. 30When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

31Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. 32The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. 33But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. 35The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. 36These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: "Not one of his bones will be broken,"^[b] 37and, as another scripture says, "They will look on the one they have pierced."^[c]

The Burial of Jesus

38Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away. 39He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.^[d] 40Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

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This part about piercing Jesus's side is important because it proves that he was physically dead. When asked about the reanimation of dead tissue in Young Frankenstein, Gene Wilder says, "You are talking about the nonsensical ravings of a lunatic mind! Dead is dead!" Perhaps what is so offensive and terrifying about Frankenstein (and zombies, and vampires) is the way people go about seeking immortality- by getting help from the Devil, or human biology.

But we'll see another Way shortly.