[Note: Our guest contributor, Max Lucado, has been called “America’s Pastor.” He serves at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio and is a best-selling author who has written almost 100 books that have sold more than 150 million copies. This authorized excerpt was taken from his article at MaxLucado.com.]
An End or a Beginning?
It’s the end of the most significant week in the history of the world. A week of final moments. Jesus and the apostles’ last meal together. The last time Jesus prays in the Garden. The concluding confrontation with enemies. The final encounter with pain.
And the last event… a daring display of unleashed divine power. The entombed Savior unbound by a holy explosion. What was a sepulcher is now a symbol… landmarking the greatest victory in the most crucial battle.
A week of final moments. A week of endings.
Or, is it the beginning?
At the Trial
The most famous trial in history is about to begin. The judge is short and patrician with darting eyes and expensive clothes. His graying hair trimmed and face beardless. He is apprehensive and nervous about being thrust into a decision he can’t avoid. Two soldiers lead him down the stone stairs of the fortress into the broad courtyard. Shafts of morning sunlight stretch across the stone floor. As he enters, Syrian soldiers dressed in short togas yank themselves and their spears erect and stare straight ahead. The floor on which they stand is a mosaic of broad, brown, smooth rocks. On the floor are carved the games the soldiers play while awaiting the sentencing of the prisoner. But in the presence of the procurator, they don’t play.
A regal chair is placed on a landing five steps up from the floor. The magistrate ascends and takes his seat. The accused is brought into the room and placed below him. A covey of robed religious leaders follow, walk over to one side of the room, and stand. Pilate looks at the lone figure.
“Doesn’t look like a Christ,” he mutters. Feet swollen and muddy. Hands tan. Knuckles lumpy. Looks more like a laborer than a teacher. Looks even less like a troublemaker. One eye is black and swollen shut. The other looks at the floor. Lower lip split and scabbed. Hair blood-matted to forehead. Arms and thighs streaked with crimson.
“Shall we remove the garment?” a soldier asks.
“No. It’s not necessary.” It’s obvious what the beating has done.
“Are you the king of the Jews?”
For the first time, Jesus lifts His eyes. He doesn’t raise His head, but he lifts His eyes. He peers at the procurator from beneath His brow. Pilate is surprised at the tone of Jesus’ voice.
“Those are your words.”
Before Pilate can respond, the knot of Jewish leaders mock the accused from the side of the courtroom. “See, he has no respect.” “He stirs the people!” “He claims to be king!”
Pilate doesn’t hear them. “Those are your words.” No defense. No explanation. No panic. The Galilean is looking at the floor again.
Pilate looks at the Jewish leaders huddled in the corner across the court. Their insistence angers him. The lashes aren’t enough. The mockery inadequate. “Jealous!” he wants to say to their faces but doesn’t. “Jealous buzzards, the whole obstinate lot of you. Killing your own prophets!” Pilate wants to let Jesus go. “Just give me a reason,” he thinks, almost aloud. “I’ll set you free.”
His thoughts are interrupted by a tap on the shoulder. A messenger leans and whispers. Strange. Pilate’s wife has sent word not to get involved in the case. Something about a dream she had. Pilate walks back to his chair, sits, and stares at Jesus. “Even the gods are on your side?” he states with no explanation. He has sat in this chair before. It’s a curule seat: cobalt blue with thick, ornate legs. The traditional seat of decision. By sitting on it, Pilate transforms any room or street into a courtroom. It is from here he renders his decisions.
How many times has he sat here? How many stories has he heard? How many pleas has he received? How many wide eyes have stared at him, pleading for mercy, begging for acquittal? But the eyes of this Nazarene are calm, silent. They don’t scream. They don’t dart. Pilate searches them for anxiety… for anger. He doesn’t find it. What he finds makes him shift again. “He’s not angry with me. He’s not afraid… he seems to understand.”
Pilate is correct in his observation. Jesus is not afraid. He is not angry. He is not on the verge of panic. For he is not surprised. Jesus knows His hour, and the hour has come. Pilate is correct in his curiosity. Where, if Jesus is a leader, are His followers? What, if he is the Messiah, does he intend to do? Why, if he is a teacher, are the religious leaders so angry at him?
Pilate is also correct in his question. “What should I do with Jesus, the one called Christ?”
The Treasure of the Tomb
“So what should I do with Jesus?” Pilate asked it first, but we’ve all asked it since. It’s a fair question. A necessary question. What do you do with such a Man? He called Himself God but wore the clothes of a man. He called Himself the Messiah but never marshaled an army. He was regarded as King, but His only crown was of thorns. People revered Him as regal, yet His only robe was stitched with mockery. Small wonder, Pilate was puzzled. How do you explain such a Man?
One way is to take a walk. His walk. His final walk. Follow His steps. Stand in His shadow. From Jericho to Jerusalem. From the temple to the garden. From the garden to the trial. From Pilate’s palace to Golgotha’s cross. Watch Him walk — angrily to the temple, wearily into Gethsemane, painfully up the Via Dolorosa. And powerfully out of the vacated tomb. As you witness His walk, reflect on your own, for all of us have our own walk to Jerusalem. Our own path through hollow religion. Our own journey down the narrow path of rejection. And each of us, like Pilate, must cast a verdict on Jesus.
Pilate heard the voice of the people and left Jesus to walk the road alone. Will we?
I hope that permanently planted in your soul is the moment the Father stirred you in the darkness and led you down the path to freedom. It’s a memory like no other. For when He sets you free, you are free indeed.
What About You?
Perhaps you, like Pilate, are curious about this one called Jesus. You, like Pilate, are puzzled by His claims and stirred by His passions. You have heard the stories: God descending the stars, cocooning in flesh, placing a stake of truth in the globe. You, like Pilate, have heard the others speak; now you would like for him to speak. What do you do with a man who claims to be God, yet hates religion? What do you do with a man who calls himself the Savior, yet condemns systems? What do you do with a man who knows the place and time of His death, yet goes there anyway? Pilate’s question is yours. “What will I do with this man, Jesus?”
You have two choices. You can reject Him. That is an option. You can, as have many, decide that the idea of God becoming a carpenter is too bizarre—and walk away.
But in not making a choice, Pilate made a choice. Rather than ask for God’s grace, he asked for a bowl. Rather than invite Jesus to stay, he sent Him away. Rather than hear Christ’s voice, he heard the voice of the people. Legend has it that Pilate’s wife became a believer. And legend has it that Pilate’s eternal home is a mountain lake where he daily surfaces, still plunging his hands into the water seeking forgiveness. Forever trying to wash away his guilt … not for the evil he did, but for the kindness he didn’t do.
A Personal Testimony
Can I tell you my story?
A Bible class in a small West Texas town. I don’t know what was more remarkable, that a teacher was trying to teach the book of Romans to a group of ten-year-olds or that I remember what he said. The classroom was mid-sized, one of a dozen or so in a small church. My desk had carving on it and gum under it. Twenty or so others were in the room, though only four or five were taken.
We all sat at the back, too sophisticated to appear interested. Starched jeans. High-topped tennis shoes. It was summer, and the slow-setting sun cast the window in gold.
The teacher was an earnest man. I can still see his flattop, his belly bulging from beneath his coat that he doesn’t even try to button. His tie stops midway down his chest. He has a black mole on his forehead, a soft voice, and a kind smile. Though he is hopelessly out of touch with the kids of 1965, he doesn’t know it. His notes are stacked on a podium underneath a heavy black Bible. His back is turned to us, and his jacket goes up and down his beltline as he writes on the board. He speaks with genuine passion. He is not a dramatic man, but tonight, he is fervent.
God only knows why I heard him that night. His text was Romans chapter six. The blackboard was littered with long words and diagrams. Somewhere in the process of describing how Jesus went into the tomb and came back out, it happened. The jewel of grace was lifted and turned so I could see it from a new angle… and it stole my breath. I didn’t see a moral code. I didn’t see a church. I didn’t see the Ten Commandments or hellish demons. I saw my Father enter my dark night, awaken me from my slumber, and gently guide me—no, carry me—to freedom.
I said nothing to my teacher. I said nothing to my friends. I’m not sure I even said anything to God. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. But for all I didn’t know, there was one fact of which I was absolutely sure: I wanted to be with Him. I told my father I was ready to give my life to God. He thought I was too young to make the decision. He asked what I knew. I told him Jesus was in Heaven, and I wanted to be with Him. And for my dad, that was enough.
To this day I wonder if my love has ever been as pure as it was that first hour. I long for the certainty of my adorning faith. Had you told me that Jesus was in hell, I would have agreed to go. Public confession and baptism came naturally for me.
You see, when your Father comes to deliver you from bondage, you don’t ask questions; you obey instructions. You take His hand. You walk the path. You leave bondage behind. And you never, never forget.
I pray you never forget your walk or His: Jesus’ final walk from Jericho to Jerusalem. For it was this walk that promised you freedom. His final walk through the temple of Jerusalem. For it was on this walk that He denounced hollow religion. His final walk to the Mount of Olives. For it was there, He promised to return and take you home.
And His final walk from Pilate’s palace to Golgotha’s cross. Bare, bloody feet struggling up a stony, narrow path. But just as vivid as the pain of the beam across His raw back is His vision of you and Him walking together. He could see the hour He would come into your life, into your dark cabin, to stir you out of your sleep and guide you to freedom. But the walk isn’t over. The journey isn’t complete. There is one more walk that must be made.
“I will come back,” He promised. And to prove it, He ripped in two the temple curtain and split open the doors of death. He will come back.
“The one who has redeemed us has returned!” we will cry.
And the journey will end, and we will take our seats at His feast…forever. See you at the table!
