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In 2004, I took my 13-year-old son to watch Mel Gibson’s acclaimed masterpiece, “The Passion of the Christ”. Neither of us knew what to expect, as the film had just come out. Two hours later, walking across the nearly empty parking lot to my car, both of us left the theater a bit numbed by the violence – violence that we both were acquainted with from Scripture, but not from a “first person, front row seat”, which Gibson poignantly, graphically and historically provided us with in the brutality of Christ’s suffering before, and during His passion to save us from an eternal Hell of remorse and regret.
In that theater that evening, I heard tears falling down to the sticky, popcorn-littered aisles. I got to thinking that even if most of those folks who hated Christ and were indifferent to Christianity – as many in that packed theater no doubt were – there is nothing like the Truth, historical fact, written by both agnostics and Christians alike throughout the centuries, to bring brainless, even educated hillbillies back to reality.
Pontius Pilate was just such a hillbilly – obviously a battle-ridden, jaded soldier; uneducated; ruthless; cruel and without a shred of humanity; just the kind of mindless maggot of the decaying empire Cesar needed to gain back control over the Jews at that turbulent time in history. Pilot was appointed by Cesar as a sort of Desk Sergeant over the Jews, among other responsibilities. As Desk Sergeant, he could not afford one more mishap, or else he and his entire family would be fed to Cesar’s lions of the extremely popular Coliseum. Pilot was acutely aware of this threat, which is articulately represented in the film, when he turns to his wife and says, “Do you know what MY truth is?” The truth he was speaking of was the obliteration of himself and his entire family if he could not keep control of the Jewish craziness around this nutty man, Jesus. Interestingly, Pilate’s wife understood Christ, and especially after a nightmare involving her husband’s – and her family’s future – she begged him to go easy on this holy man, Jesus. However, Pilate ignored his wife’s council, having witnessed first-hand the ruthlessness of Cesar’s wrath, and so he feared what this little earthly man would do to him instead of what the Lord God Almighty – Maker of Heaven and Earth – would do to him. For a moment in time, Pilate could have changed history forever as we know it, but he feared man more than God, and so he made his dreadful decision as we know it to this day.
What if Pilate found the Truth in Christ? Well, since we know that Christ needed to die in our place on that cross to save us from sin and death, then He would have still been convicted by the Romans at that time, yet by another man. Poor Pilate. How about poor you? Do you fear men more than you fear God?
I realize this comes across as provocative, but listen, are we going to keep this real or not? I don’t write these blogs for kicks. I write them to get all of us thinking – thinking about what is really meaningful to us. If you want me to lay down on my back with my tail in the air, then don’t ever bother reading another blog of mine. If you want me to grab the collar of your shirt and shout into your face what your responsibility is expected of our Lord Jesus Christ, then you’ve come to the right place and believe me, I’ll be a lot more pleasant than the Lord God Almighty will be with you.
For instance, keep in mind that this “Jesus” whom the world considers some sort of weak, insignificant, fairy tale gone wrong, is the One and the same emissary of His Father who personally killed the inhabitants of Jerusalem (2 Samuel 24:14). This warrior king – the Christ – is the Angel of the Lord who “stands between heaven and earth with a drawn sword in His hand outstretched against Jerusalem” (I Chronicles 21:15), and later in II Kings 19:35 “kills 185,000 men of Sennacherib’s Assyrian army”, thereby saving Jerusalem under Hezekiah at that time. Christ follows His father’s command to slay 70,000 of King David’s people when he disobeyed the Lord concerning a census of His people. You still wanna think of Jesus as some sort of wimp that that the world has since made Him out to be?
I would love to see a revival of the Church, but perhaps it’s time for a revolution. Your most powerful weapons are not guns and political rhetoric, but prayers and meditation of scripture. In the end, the Lord prefers peace over chastisement, but don’t push Him for He will not be mocked (Galatians 6:7).
Seek the TRUTH and you will find it (Jeremiah 29: 13-14)
Keeping it REAL
Brett Gordon