High profile trials get our attention for the drama and legal wrangling on display. Yet the quiet, no publicity-run-of-the-mill litigations have the same elements. Though defendants may have much at stake for personal interests, day in and day out the greater issues of fairness, justice, adherence to the law ride on the verdicts passed down. Precedents are built, and appeals constructed that stand on the central value of truth.

Truth is the spotlight on humanity. Find it, wrestle with it, run from it but know truth tells much, sometimes too much. Just-the-facts, video footage, eyewitness testimony, subpoenaed emails and documents only color the canvas. Anything can be made to say anything; it’s all in the spin. But truth reveals the greater story and direction life gives.

The Interrogation

The verdict’s outcome is considered to fulfill the most paramount purpose of the trial. You’d think. A related perspective is, “Laws are like sausages; it is better not to see them being made.”  What verdict is reached, how the questioning is designed, what evidence is presented, even with lofty ideals, mean nothing when crashed against judges or jurors who have their own personal stake in the question. In those cases, we all know impartiality is a farce, and truth takes a back seat. The judicial decision tells little compared to the factors contributing to it.

Such was the scene when Jesus is tried by Pilate. Actually, it wasn’t his first trial. The backstory was he was betrayed by one of his own followers from his inner circle. Jewish leaders had been gunning for Jesus for a long time. They’d clashed publicly, and their influence among the populace was beginning to crack. Sick of being beaten by their own attempts to trap him, the high priests brought Jesus in. Yet, there was one thing that they needed. Roman law would not permit them to execute anyone, and they wanted this guy gone before the Passover festival that week. Their only recourse was to drag him before Pilate with fabricated charges of wanting to take over as a king.

Any hint of overthrow in the Empire was a certain death sentence. Pilate’s hand was forced to deal with it. If anything, this judge was as much on trial as the defendant. His role was to keep the peace. If these Jews made him look bad with any kind of unrest or riot, his competence as ruler would be questioned by superiors and reported to Caesar. Still, he had an image to protect and project that he was able to rule rightly even if it was reinforced by military power. So he asked.

“Are you the King of the Jews?” Straight forward. Get the charge answered and get this done. The Trouble with Jesus though is he would not be intimidated into answering a trap.  He hits Pilate where he hurts. “Is this your own question or did others tell you about me?” Not only did Jesus expose Pilate’s bias and phony neutrality, but he took from Pilate control of the questioning. In other words, Jesus started to erase the power and authority that Pilate was presumed to hold.

In some ways, it was a stupid question that did not deserve an answer anyway. Clearly standing there in a Roman court, Jesus was the farthest from being a king. His followers had abandoned him, he was at the mercy of the Jewish leaders, no army or even a gathering crowd would take his commands and get him released. The other stupid aspect of the question was Pilate wasn’t smart enough to know how to frame it. “Do you claim to be King of the Jews? Or, Do you want to be King of the Jews?” might have required of Jesus a different answer. Pilate from the start did not know how to direct the discourse.

Pilate takes another stab at it. “Am I a Jew?” Sounds rhetorical, but it’s packed with asserting his rank. “Your own people and leading priests brought you here. Why? What have your done?” Pilate is looking for an act of treason. Or at least some kind of way to frame whatever he’s forced to decide. Yet, he’s also attempting to retake control, asseverate his authority, make Jesus answer to him. He’s telling Jesus that he’s the one with the power and to recognize it.

Not going to happen. Whereas Jesus never specifically declares himself as king, he does claim to have that which kings have. But not like you’d think. “My Kingdom is not of this world.” He points out if he was the kind of king Pilate could charge him to be, he’d also have followers fighting for him. Again, Jesus’ realm is that in which Pilate has no power or even the cognizance to grasp its existence.

Pilate presses his point. “You are a king then?” It’s almost sad in how his question reveals weakness in this Roman prefect. He’s not getting his way, and he won’t. “King is your word…” Jesus retorts. Without falling into any trickery to twist his words into what they are not, at the same time Jesus accuses Pilate of what he’s doing in digging a hole that has no bottom. Still, he follows with, “…and you are right.” So Jesus is not a king. And Jesus is a king. What’s a judge to do with that?

Jesus is merciful, not allowing Pilate to say more. In this place that should reflect the best intent of law and justice, Jesus declares his kingdom, the reason for his life and the world into which he has speaks.

The Metanarrative

“I came to bring truth to the world. All those who love the truth recognize what I say is true.” How one explains life from both a personal and existential perspective is the narrative that gives life meaning. Jesus’ purpose it to reveal that narrative in God’s mind as Truth.

Like many, Pilate couldn’t grasp that truth. It was all about him, protecting his interests, finding fulfillment by controlling the narrative with his power. In one way or another, it’s a worldview that is ironically limited in its idiosyncratic focus. It can’t be achieved without supremacy over others. What’s outside its conception will not be significant. In extreme form, its perspective needs a dominance that can only be maintained with violence. Violence such as a cross would deliver.

Jesus’ kingdom rather was one that established forgiveness, mercy, justice, and grace. It’s shocking in that its power is based in Love. Jesus proclaimed it in ways the world will never fathom.

“I come to serve not to be served and to give my life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45

“Sell all you have and give to the poor.” Mark 10:21

“Those who use the sword will die by the sword.” Matthew 26:52

“Blessed are the poor...hungry…grieving…merciful…peacemakers for they will be call the children of God.” Matthew 5:3-9

“Love God…and your neighbor as yourself.” Mark 12:30-31

“Love your enemies.” Matthew 6:34

Jesus’ lessons were rooted in this love. Who is my Neighbor? was the central question of the extent of this love. Meanwhile, lost sheep, coins, and sons demonstrate how far God will go to be with those whom God dearly loves. None of this sounds even possible in the Pilate-kingdoms of history.

The superpowers of the world seek to reign with weapons of control, violence, oppression, seeding distrust among its people. Jesus knew firsthand what this means. When he would not answer as his opponents wanted, when he would not cave to the way things get done, when he would not make the despots of the world look good, he was judged as a threat to their rule and kingdom. Before the sun set that day, Jesus took upon himself the worst that the world could design on a cross.

You’d think that should be the end of it. Layer on all the evil efforts ever told in the history of the world, you’d think no other efforts could survive.

You’d think. Still, in the soul of humanity there is that which continually reaches for this way of Love. It never dies but always returns in new efforts to live out this radical view of another kind of kingdom. It’s seeded not only by Jesus’ teachings and proclamations for the world but in his ultimate reversal of what the world wields as its ultimate weapon, that of death.

These kingdoms and empires never last because Jesus’ purpose is known by defeating death. Even when on trial, Jesus’ Truth cannot and will not be silenced or erased. It’s living carried on in his being, name and spirit that will not disappear because of the power of God’s Love.

John 18:33-37