NOTES for Mar 15:1-15

The trial before Pilate is one of the most terrible moments in the Gospel narrative. The fate of Jesus of Nazareth no longer depends at all on His teaching or on the attitude of the Jewish authorities toward Him. What He did and what He said no longer matters. Here the Lord encounters an impersonal machine created by people, built from the balance of their momentary interests and career calculations. Even the question of Pilate's responsibility looks pale and not very meaningful... And, of course, the incompatibility between God and this impersonal machine is striking.

The behavior of all the participants in the proceedings, except the Lord Jesus Himself, gives us a very vivid example of what lack of freedom is. Even Pilate, who pretends that everything depends on his decision, is not free. His actions are determined by circumstances. Right in front of him stands the Son of God, and he functions instead of living. In a certain sense this is a very instructive moment, because most of us take part, one way or another, in the grim work of this social machine.

In the situation that led to Jesus' crucifixion, what is perhaps most frightening for us is precisely that it happened in a rather ordinary way. Ordinary in the sense that Christ was not crucified by some terrible villains or servants of the devil for some mysterious goals known only to them, but by very ordinary people moved by very ordinary human motives and interests. If everything had been otherwise, we could feel uninvolved in the Savior's death; but it turns out that in principle any one of us could have become involved in it if we made the wrong choice in one or another very concrete life situation. What moved those who wanted to get rid of Jesus? For some, as for example for a certain part of the Pharisaic brotherhood, He was a destroyer of religious foundations and traditions and for that reason alone deserved death. For others, for the Temple elite, for example, He was a threat to national peace and well-being; and if so, let Him die for the good and peace of the people (John 11:50). And for Pontius Pilate He was merely a threat to his personal well-being and career: what sense was there in "quarreling with the people" if it was simpler to do what the shouting crowd demanded and thereby calm that crowd (vv. 5-15)? And the Temple representatives are here too; the matter may reach Rome, and then perhaps it will not be so easy to wash oneself clean of accusations (John 19:12)... All these motives and considerations have moved people in every age; there is nothing new here. But in a situation where one must choose between Christ and something that obscures Him, these human motives and considerations become a real instrument of the devil, and this instrument works all the more effectively the less noticeable it is. It becomes especially dangerous when the issue is not simple human egoism, but such lofty, though somewhat abstract, concepts as "the good of the people" or "religious tradition." Of course, neither concern for the good of the people nor the preservation of religious tradition is bad in itself. Trouble comes when they move into first place and become ends in themselves. One only has to put the good of the people ahead of God and Christ, and both are lost (the fate of Judea and Jerusalem in A.D. 70 is a vivid witness to this). And religiosity cannot be preserved by making it the sole goal; it will spiritually degenerate and die. But the most terrible thing turns out to be not even the death of religion or social catastrophe. The most terrible thing is what precedes it: the rejection of God and of Christ. That very rejection which condemns the Savior to the cross.

Standing before Pilate, Jesus does not defend Himself. This is not surprising, since what the members of the Sanhedrin rejected would be even harder for Pilate to grasp.

Though he finds no guilt in Christ, Pilate nevertheless grants amnesty not to Him, but to Barabbas, whom the people demand. Strictly speaking, Pilate has no concern for the wishes of conquered provincials, but political circumstances required him to curry favor with them. To this day even many Christians repeat the pagan proverb, "The voice of the people is the voice of God," forgetting or not knowing the people's own wisdom: "The voice of the people crucified Christ." On that day the openly pagan Pilate and the Jewish crowd that supposedly knew Scripture united in rejecting the true God in the name of unstable immediate interests.

Scripture does not tell us the later fate of the freed Barabbas. Yet he became the first of sinners whom Christ saved by dying in his place. Barabbas accepted salvation not for eternal life, but for temporary earthly life, and we do not know whether he used his chance for full salvation. But after Barabbas, this chance has now been given to each of us by the sacrifice of Jesus. How we use it is for us to decide.

High politics does not notice the little person; it has always been this way, and this has long been known. In the fallen world the Messiah's path could only be the path of a little person. This is understandable: He Himself said that His Kingdom is "not of this world." And if so, then for the fallen world He is nobody, and His Kingdom is nothing. So they deal with Him accordingly: not as some great nobody, but as the most ordinary nobody. In the way any little person in that time and place would have been treated.

And in any other time and place as well: different in form, perhaps, but the same in essence. Jesus' arrest, the sentence of the Sanhedrin, the confirmation of the sentence by Pilate as Rome's representative, the shameful execution itself; all this was ordinary and typical. In those days in Judea, something like this could have happened to anyone under similar circumstances. Pilate has nothing personal against Jesus; in some sense he even finds Him sympathetic. But for a high-ranking official there are, of course, things more important than personal sympathies and antipathies.

He understands that Jesus is guilty of nothing. But what difference does that make when the interests involved are, if not Rome's, then at least those of Pontius Pilate's own career? Quarrel with the temple elite, go against the crowd stirred up by them? For what? In the name of justice? Pilate, apparently, was a skeptic and cynic, like most of Roman high society in those days. Judging from everything, he did not believe in higher justice, just as he did not believe in truth; both were relative for him.

If it had been safe, he could have displayed showy nobility and principle; perhaps he even knew how to be kind and generous, so long as neither burdened him much or threatened him in any way. Here, however, there was a threat: the high priest and his circle could have had their own connections in Rome, and who knows how they would view a procurator there who indulged dangerous preachers. It was better to be cautious, and who cares about the fate of some wandering teacher? So the path to the cross passes through the hatred of some and the indifference of others.

What guided the high priest’s actions is more or less clear. His chief task was to maintain what today we would call ‘religious peace’—or, more simply, to preserve the status quo. Of course, that situation was far from ideal: the underlying hostility between the different currents within Judaism at the time continued to smolder, bursting into flame in the year 70. But every religious politician always tries to preserve at least the appearance of peace and order, even where, in reality, both have long been absent. And there was Rome as well, whose interests and influence had to be taken into account, and to which one had to prove one’s own importance, including in maintaining law—Roman law, of course—and order, likewise Roman. Whom, then, should the high priest defend? For whom should he intercede before the Roman authorities: Jesus or Barabbas? Barabbas is, of course, a ‘rebel,’ and judging by the context, one of those militant Zealots who take orders from neither the Temple nor the Synagogue. They have their own spiritual leaders, who recognize only one form of relationship with pagan rule and with anyone who supports or compromises with it: holy war. Yet, for a time, one can play political games with them too, supporting them in some things and condemning them in others. Just now it would be better to take their side: let them know that the Temple elite looks after their interests, within the bounds of what is possible, of course. But Jesus—who stands behind Him? He is merely the failed leader of a failed messianic movement. ‘Political realists,’ secular and religious alike, readily write off such political failures. And what of Pilate, Rome’s representative, the bearer and spokesman of Roman legality and public order? He understands, of course, that this strange Preacher is certainly guilty of nothing, least of all under Roman law. But He is alone, no one supports Him, and the religious factor is on His opponents’ side: the Temple and the Synagogue are against Him. Peace with them matters more to Rome than some unknown Prophet. Besides, they call Him ‘king of Judea,’ even if mockingly—but who knows… This is probably roughly how the ‘political realists,’ religious and secular, reasoned, each in his own position, making his choice. And without giving it a thought, they were preparing the way of the cross for the Savior of the world.

A staged trial can arouse nothing but revulsion in a normal person. Of course, politics is a dirty business, and the members of the Temple elite were politicians first and religious leaders only afterward. Yet a certain kind of religiosity was by no means foreign to them; this is evident even in their attempts to observe the Torah’s rules, at least formally. Of course, it was inadmissible to decide a question of capital punishment in this way, in the middle of the night, with only part of the Sanhedrin present—especially on charges of a crime against ‘the people, the Temple, and the Torah,’ which was precisely what they were trying to accuse Jesus of. They needed to find at least some justification: the urgency of the case, the particular gravity of the charges, or something else that could excuse the breach of procedure. But none could be found. Jesus seems to help His accusers Himself, offering no objection and not answering their questions. Only one question, the high priest’s plainly provocative one, does He answer—and in such a way that the high priest has a pretext for accusing Him of blasphemy. Given a particular interpretation of this answer, one plainly unfavorable to the accused, such a charge became formally possible. Jesus seems Himself to be urging His judges toward a decision, helping His accusers. Why? He is evidently far from glad about the sufferings that await Him; He would like to avoid them, if only that were possible. But here, it appears, the issue is bearing witness, and Jesus does not evade it. Of course, He understands perfectly what is happening and has no intention of taking part in the farce called a trial. But to a direct question, even a mocking one, He gives a direct answer. For the high priest, the moment of truth has arrived, and therefore the moment of Judgment: his fate in eternity now depends on his response. Here the religious politician in him gains the upper hand: he uses the opportunity before him to accuse the One who has just offered him the opportunity of salvation. The chance of salvation is lost, and the One who offered it is sentenced to death.

In reflecting on today's Gospel reading, let us focus on Peter's denial. Let us try to experience this event with Peter. Let us not hurry to say that we never even thought of denying Christ, because we love Him more than anything in the world. By speaking this way, we show that we do not know what love is. If someone wants to understand the words from the First Epistle of John (1 John 4:8), that God is love, he should first of all think about what Peter felt and experienced in the moments of denial and during the three days that followed. Why is this so?

What is most frightening to us when we love? The most frightening thing is that the beloved person will die. And when he dies, literally as soon as his life goes out, we begin to understand how much we did not do for him that we could have done, but now it is no longer possible to do it, because he is no more. We cannot come to him, embrace him, and beg forgiveness for all the bad that happened and for all the good that did not happen.

What did Peter experience, not yet knowing about the Resurrection? A fierce pain of repentance and the impossibility of asking forgiveness. And if we think about it, his denial is not much better than Judas' betrayal. But Judas cannot endure the feeling of guilt, while Peter endures it. What is the difference? Perhaps by understanding the difference, we will understand what love is.