Good Friday
Jn
18:1-19:42
4/2/21
Ecce
homo. “Behold the man!” Ecco homo is the Latin translation of our
text in John chapter 19 as Pontius Pilate presented Jesus to the Jews after our
Lord had been scourged, and adorned with a crown of thorns and a purple robe.
During the
fifteenth and sixteen centuries this scene of Jesus being presented to the
crowed became a prominent artistic theme in western Europe and it is identified
by the name “Ecce homo.” This artistic trend accompanied a strong focus on the
passion of our Lord and his sufferings that developed during this time. All the
great artists of the period provided a painting of this scene such as
Tintoretto, Titian, Rubens and Dürer.
Ecce
homo. “Behold the man!” There are few events in the passion of our
Lord that more clearly capture the paradox of Jesus’ suffering and death for
us. Jesus appears in utter humiliation
and weakness. And yet in this way, the saving glory of Christ is revealed.
The
account of our Lord’s Passion in the Gospel of John allows us to see quite
clearly the dynamics that were at work as the Jewish leaders sought to put
Jesus to death. Ultimately, their reason
for wanting to kill Jesus was a religious one. We hear them tell Pilate
in our text, “We have a law,
and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself
the Son of God.”
In the course of Jesus’ ministry this assertion involved
two different aspects. First, “Son of God” identified the one who was the
Messiah – the Christ. In John’s Gospel
there is continual debate about whether Jesus can be the Christ. Second, Jesus
stated that his relation to the Father went beyond what any human being could
claim. He said to his opponents at the
beginning of Holy Week, “Truly, truly, I say to you,
before Abraham was, I am.”
But while their motivation was
religious, the Jewish leaders had to use political arguments in order to get
Jesus killed. The Romans allowed the Jews to run many of their own affairs.
However, they did not allow the Jews to execute people. This right belonged
only to the Romans.
It is for this reason that the Jews show
up at Pilates’s headquarters. John tells us, “They themselves did not enter the
governor's headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could
eat the Passover.” Instead, Pilate was
forced to go outside o meet them as he asked, “What accusation do you bring
against this man?” The Jewish leaders
responded with the evasive answer, “If this man were not doing evil, we would
not have delivered him over to you.” So Pilate told them to judge him by their
own law. And then the Jews had to admit, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone
to death.”
The Jewish leaders wanted Jesus
dead. And if they were going do it
legally, the Romans would have to do it for them. But this was about more than just the
workings of Jewish life under Roman rule.
John tells us, “This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had
spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die.” Jesus had said that he would die by
crucifixion. At the beginning of Holy
Week he announced, “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler
of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the
earth, will draw all people to myself.” John tells us, “He said
this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.” Our Lord said
that he would die by crucifixion – the most humiliating and shameful death
known in the world of that time. He had
come to defeat the devil, but he would do so in way that did not look like
victory.
Pilate soon realized that the Jewish
leaders were using him. When he asked Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?”,
Jesus replied, “My
kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my
servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to
the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
The Roman governor went back outside to the Jews and told
them, "I find no guilt in him.” As far as Pilate was concerned, Jesus
was a delusional fool who certainly offended the Jewish leaders, but this was
no justification for Pilate to execute him. So the governor tried to find a way
out of the situation by offering to release Jesus as part of the Passover
custom. But instead of Jesus, the Jewish leaders and those with them shouted
that they wanted the robber Barabbas instead.
So Pilate went back inside and gave Jesus over to the
Roman soldiers. The flogged Jesus – they whipped him. Then they had some fun as
they twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and put a purple
robe on him. They dressed him up like foolish looking king and mocked him
saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!,” as they struck him with their hands.
Then Pilate went out again and said
to the Jews, "See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know
that I find no guilt in him." He brought Jesus out wearing the
crown of thorns and the purple robe and said to them: "Behold the
man!"
Ecce home. Behold the man! Pilate
set before them a joke. It’s very
unlikely that Pilate was trying to gain sympathy from the Jews. Instead he was trying to illustrate the absurdity
of the idea that Jesus posed some kind of threat. Indirectly, he was mocking
the Jews and the fact that they were so concerned about this man Jesus.
Ecce home. Behold the man! Of course, this man is not just a mere
man. He is the Son of God, the Second
Person of the Trinity. He is the One of
whom John wrote in the first chapter, “In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the
beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was
not any thing made that was made.” He is
true God and true man, for John tells us, “And the
Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his
glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace
and truth.”
The Son of God had entered into the world in the
incarnation. He did this because of the
darkness of Satan and sin. Our Lord
said, “I have come as Light into the world, so that
everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.” The darkness was the
slavery of sin and death which ruled us.
Jesus said, “Truly,
truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” He
had come as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He had come to give us life – eternal life
with God that cannot be stopped by death.
Jesus declared, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so
must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in
him may have eternal life.”
Jesus Christ had come to do all these things. He had been sent by the Father And yet: Ecce homo. Behold the man! Jesus stands there mocked and humiliated. He stands there in weakness and shame. And this pathetic scene is just the preparation for what awaits. The Jewish leaders maneuvered Pilate into a corner by working the political angle. We hear them say in our text, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” Denying the true King of all sent by God, they declared, “We have no king but Caesar.” Outmaneuvered by the Jewish leaders, Pilate had Jesus crucified.
Stripped of his clothing and nailed to a cross, Jesus was lifted up in weakness and shame. Yet this weakness and shame was actually the revelation of God’s incredible love for us. It was the revelation of God’s saving glory in Christ. Jesus said at the beginning of Holy Week, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Jesus was on the cross. But he was
there because this was the will of the Father to save us. On the previous
evening Jesus told the disciples, “I
do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I
love the Father.” Jesus Christ’s death
on the cross was the will of the Father.
It was the will of the Father for the world. It was the will of the Father for
you. John chapter three says, “For God loved the
world in this way, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son
into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be
saved through him.”
The shame and weakness of the cross
was the revelation of God’s saving glory in Christ, because it was the means by
which he took away our sins and gave us forgiveness. As Jesus was about to die
he said, “It is finished.” By his death
our Lord had completed the mission given to him by the Father. He had fulfilled the Father’s will. In
Revelation the apostle John tells of how he heard Christ acclaimed by those
around the throne of God as they said, “you
were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every
tribe and language and people and nation.”
Jesus’ death in our place has freed
us from the slavery of sin. Our Lord
laid down his life in the midst of the shame and weakness of the cross because
this was the Father’s will to reveal his love for us. This was the way that
Christ’s glory was revealed.
But it is also not the end. Tonight
we focus upon Jesus’ death. We hear
Jesus cry, “It is finished,” and know that he has completed the work of freeing
us from sin. However, Jesus had also
said, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my
life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay
it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have
authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”
At the end of our text we hear of how Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus asked
for the body of Jesus and buried it in a tomb. But Jesus had come to bring life
– eternal life – and his body would not remain there.
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