Wandering In the Wild: At the Foot of the Cross

John 18:28-19:34

Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate went out to the Jewish leaders and said, ‘What accusation do you bring against this man?’ They answered, ‘If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law.’ They replied, ‘We are not permitted to put anyone to death.’ (This was to fulfill what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he was to die.)

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’ Pilate asked him, ‘What is truth?’

After he had said this, he went out to the Jewish leaders again and told them, ‘I find no case against him. But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover. Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?’ They shouted in reply, ‘Not this man, but Barabbas!’ Now Barabbas was a bandit.

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ and striking him on the face. Pilate went out again and said to them, ‘Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.’ So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the man!’ When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.’ They answered him, ‘We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.

Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever. He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, ‘Where are you from?’ But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, ‘Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?’ Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.’ From then on Pilate tried to release him, but they cried out, ‘If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor.’

When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge’s bench at a place called The Stone Pavement, or in Hebrew Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon. He said to the people, ‘Here is your King!’ They cried out, ‘Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!’ Pilate asked them, ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but the emperor.’ Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.

So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.’ Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, ‘Do not write, “The King of the Jews”, but, “This man said, I am King of the Jews.”’ Pilate answered, ‘What I have written I have written.’

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.’ This was to fulfill what the scripture says, ‘They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.’ And that is what the soldiers did.

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the sabbath, especially because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and sf the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.

Alvaro Enciso is an artist who lives in Tucson, Arizona. He’s 75 years old, and sometime in the last decade, he encountered a map with thousands of red dots. Each dot represents a person whose remains have been found in the Sonoran Desert in the last 20 years. They were migrants trying to make their way north, but the desert is not a kind place. At night it can be freezing cold, and in the day, the sun is burning hot. There is almost no water. It’s easy to get lost. Parties escaping through the desert are reluctant to wait for the ones who struggle along the way, so sometimes people die. When human remains are found, a note is made, and a dot is added to a map using GPS coordinates. 

About seven years ago, Alvaro Enciso made it his mission to bring red dots to the desert in a physical way, to mark the places where people have died — to make the invisible visible. He’s not particularly religious, but he decided to use crosses with a red dot to honor the people who died and to mark the place where the tragedy occurred. 

“The cross is a symbol of death,” he says, “a symbol of finality… The Romans used to make the crosses to kill people: common criminals, enemies of the empire, false prophets. (They’d hang) there for three or four days without any water under the sun until they died, (and) that’s what happens here in the desert,” he says.

He sees the cross as a geometric equation — a vertical line on a horizontal line. “The vertical line means that you’re still alive, that you’re walking. And the horizontal line means that (you are not)… And where those two lines meet, that’s the point where the tragedy took place.” 

So he goes out into the desert once a week, and using GPS coordinates, he places as many crosses as he can; other people accompany him. In seven years, he has placed about a thousand crosses. There are 3,000 dots on the map. The work is more than he will accomplish, yet it gives his life meaning. He says that going into the desert to honor the dead has connected him to his humanity. *

Humanity is a word for the qualities we all share as humans — the ability to love, to show compassion, to be creative, to be something other than a robot. 

The cross is, of course, the central symbol of the Christian faith, but as Alvaro Enciso says, Christians did not invent it. The Romans did. It was a tool of empire, an instrument for execution. 

In tonight’s reading, we find Jesus on trial before Pilate — the Roman provincial governor of Judea. Pilate has come to Jerusalem because it’s Passover. He normally resides in Caesarea, a lovely place along the Mediterranean Sea, but it seems expedient for him to be in Jerusalem now to keep an eye on things during Passover. It’s a festival, after all when people come to Jerusalem to celebrate the liberation of their ancestors from another empire. Best to keep an eye on things and let them know the current empire who occupies them is watching. 

Before the morning light, Pilate is awakened by religious leaders who bring Jesus to him for execution. “He’s a criminal,” they say, “and we need you to take care of the matter.” “Why don’t you do it yourselves?” Pilate asks, and they say, “We can’t.”

So much has happened since last night when Jesus shared a meal with friends. Prayer in the garden. Betrayal. Denial. Six hundred soldiers who come to arrest him. And now he’s here, on trial before Pilate. 

We read this story every year, and we know the narrative arc, but the thing that jumps out this year is the fact that it’s a trial; we have a high stakes trial going on in Minneapolis right now. 

Tensions are high. Questions of power and justice are at stake.  There’s a process to be followed. Pilate is in the spotlight. 

The prosecution’s case is unclear so Pilate tries to gather evidence. Must he do the work of the prosecutor? He brings Jesus inside and asks him what he’s done. Jesus’ answers are vague, but not damning.  Must he take on the work of defense attorney, too?

He goes back outside and he tries to broker a plea deal. “Shall I release him for Passover?” “No,” they say, “give us Barrabas instead.” The deliberations go back and forth. Jesus does not help his own case. Pilate holds the power to decide, and he tries to shed it. It’s a power that’s been given to him, Jesus says. 

He finally takes his seat at the judge’s bench and says to the people, “Here is your king.” And in a tragic moment, they say, “We have no king, but Caesar.” They have turned their backs on God. So he sends Jesus out to be crucified. 

The trial of Jesus before Pilate is part of a grand drama, larger than the one we see. It’s not actually Jesus who’s on trial, but Pilate and the empire, the religious leaders, and all they represent. Jesus’ death is judgment on all that lives in opposition to the kingdom of God: power born of violence and used to dominate; the love of money and privilege; hatred of the other. What we witness in the trial is the incarnate Word, the suffering servant who did not hesitate to lay down his life for others. In the grand drama, we’ll see that even death cannot defeat him, that the power of God’s love is stronger than death itself… But that’s getting ahead of the story. 

We don’t know what the outcome will be in the trial that’s playing out in Minneapolis. But in the early days of the trial, we heard testimony of witnesses who were nearby when George Floyd’s life was taken. We saw their humanity on display as they responded with compassion for a man who lay in the street with a knee on his neck. We saw a glimpse of the kingdom of God as they were drawn out of themselves with mercy and love for one of God’s own beloved. 

It was a holy moment in a holy week — holy because it’s where the sacred meets the profane. As witnesses recounted again and again that moment of intersection between the vertical and horizontal lines of George Floyd’s life, we see the cross, and there we find Jesus.  It’s holy ground, and we’d best remove our shoes. In the most painful, lonely, tragic places of life, God finds us and says there’s nowhere I won’t go to be with you and for you. On the cross, Jesus gathers us in and restores our dignity by giving us his own.

Jesus’ death has the power to destroy death itself, to bring new life.  But that’s getting ahead of the story. Today we hold onto the promise that in the intersection of the vertical and horizontal lines of our lives, in the painful and tragic places where we feel most alone, in the parts of our lives that we honor, and the parts we confess, Jesus is there. Jesus is there and gathers us in. 

Amen. 

* Read about and view photos of Alvaro Encisco and others placing crosses in remote locations where people have died trying to cross the Sonoran Desert. (Information retrieved 4/1/21.) https://apomm.net/2021/02/13/alvaro-enciso/; https://apomm.net/2021/02/09/josseline/