[AI translation] There is no greater source of strength for the Christian man than to immerse himself in the mystery of Christ's redemptive suffering and death, than to look up with confidence to Him who, instead of the joy before Him, and regardless of the shame, suffered on the cross and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. This is why this Holy Week, which is just beginning, is a blessed occasion, when every day an eternal aspect of the Son of Sorrows is brought to our attention in the sermon.Here we see that Jesus is standing before the chief judge on earth who will have the last word in the trial: the judgment seat of Pilate. There he stands, broken with pain, with a crown of thorns on his head, a tattered purple robe on his shoulders, blood oozing from his whipped body; there he stands as one who has been mocked, mocked to death, cast out of everything; there he stands alone, before a judge with a callous heart, who wants to continue the torturous interrogation until this stubborn accused is finally broken spiritually. But Jesus does not answer a word of the repeated questions. He has nothing more to say - he has said it all! Pilate, finally running out of patience, shouts at him, "Will you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power..." - And then Jesus speaks again. It is his last word before his earthly judges, almost his last word; he does not speak as other prisoners usually do: he does not complain about the flogging, he does not beg for life and mercy, he does not appeal to higher forums, he does not utter a terrible curse against his tormentors; with unheard-of calm and dignity he says something that makes Pilate shiver: "You would have no power over me if..." This is Jesus' last word before his earthly judges. He will have more words for those around the cross, for the crucified lator, for Mary, for John, his sigh to God, but it is with these words that he bids farewell to those who have judged him. And in this statement, which is almost the last word, He reveals the mystery of His passion and death.
By this statement, Jesus testifies that He sees everything that happens from a much higher perspective: He looks beyond the visible to the invisible, and from the perspective of heaven, as it were, He contemplates and appreciates His own suffering, His own condemnation, the crown of thorns, the cross, Pilate's power - everything! There is a whole different context, from above, than from below. And I think that there is no other way to find our way in this earthly maze, unless we also learn to look at things from above, from life: from above, from God's side, from heaven's perspective.
How different Pilate's whole power is! Jesus sees this too as given to him "from above". And then there can be no danger! Whatever great and formidable power this Pilate possesses, who pronounces judgment in the name of the Roman emperor, in the name of the Lord of the world, this power does not come to him from above - it is given to him from above, like the actor who has to play the part... A few years later, the apostle Paul would say the same thing: "The earthly ruler is both from God and a servant of God. - Jesus is speaking here, before a great Lord, of an even greater Lord, of the omnipotence of the One by whose grace kings and governors and authorities rule as His servants, as doers of His will. Jesus is here saying to almost all those who have earthly authority: know and use the authority in such a way that you would have no authority if it had not been given to you from above! Jesus says this so seriously that He Himself bows before Pilate's authority, acknowledging Pilate's authority. Even though Pilate is a Roman, and even though Rome is an enemy of His people, has subjugated His kingdom, Jesus still recognizes Pilate's judicial power, his official authority, over Himself, He sees it as given to Him from above. Thus Jesus here obeys the Roman tribunal as a servant of God. Behold, when He Himself is wronged by the authority, He gives to Caesar what is Caesar's, because He also gives to God what is God's. He acknowledges that this authority does not bear the sword in vain, even if it uses it against Him. In so doing, Jesus taught His followers forever that violent resistance to earthly authority, revolutionary defiance, is not the way and means of believers, not the way of His spirit.
How different, from above, is his own suffering! Behold, this suffering, this injustice that cries to heaven, is not the result of chance, not of human arbitrariness: it is also given from above, and at the moment when the final judgment is pronounced, Jesus looks beyond the earthly judge to the Father and takes the terrible decision out of His hands. But let Pilate imagine that Jesus' life or death depends on his good pleasure, that Jesus' fate is in his hands - the reality is that Pilate is in God's hands. Herod, and Pontius Pilate, and the angry chief priests, and the deceived people, and the Jews, and the Gentiles, all do and bring to pass what God had in eternity past ordained to be done. (Acts 4:28) Fearful, powerful Rome did not know how small she really was, how much she was only a means, and that there was only one truly great power in the world - God!
With this statement, Jesus was already declaring His death as a redemption death. Behold, before He is crucified, He Himself puts that cross in the right light. For if it was from above that Pilate was given the power by which he sits in judgment over Jesus, if it was from above that it was determined from eternity that Jesus must die; if it was from above that the crown of thorns, the crown of purple, the cross, the death, were given: then here indeed is not only a cruel, unjust execution, but here indeed it is that Jesus has given Himself as surety for us, and that God has imputed our sins, our debt, to Jesus. A divine justice is being carried out - on our behalf - on Him. God's righteous judgment is being passed on our surety - in our place. Yes, if this suffering and death was indeed given to Him from above, then here is what Isaiah prophesied, saying, "We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; but the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (Isa 53:6) "And He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace is upon Him, and by His stripes we shall be healed." (Is 53:5) Pilate and all the others are unwittingly and unwittingly: carrying out divine judgment on someone who is innocent - and God does not punish the innocent unless in place of other sinners! In the name of other sinners! This is what it means to be given from above!
And it also means, in turn, that then there is salvation for the world, there is salvation, there is escape for the sinner. If Jesus had only been afflicted with human judgment, there would have been no salvation for us, for then His suffering and death would not have been a satisfaction to the justice of God, but one iniquity among many others; but since He Himself says that His condemnation and damnation are from above, the supreme judgment is declared by Pilate: therefore we may have peace with God, who in Jesus, behold, has reconciled the world to Himself. The Father did not spare the Son, He gave Him up to death for us. Yes: Jesus was given up from above to die for a sinful and damnable humanity - for us, for you! Behold, He Himself says it, believe Him!
This statement of Jesus sheds a very comforting and reassuring light on the mystery of our suffering. It is not as if our suffering is in any way comparable to His suffering - that suffering was unique, unparalleled, because it was redemptive suffering - but it is that we can learn something from Jesus' statement: how we can walk the path of suffering through His power, with great patience and peace. Just as Jesus did, we too are allowed to draw a great arc from our own suffering to heaven, and to see the two: heaven and our suffering as connected. Yes: we are allowed to believe that our cross and our trial are given to us from above. We can also say in our communion with Jesus: the burden of my life, my painful fate, you would not have power over me if you had not given it to me from above; grief, pain, you could not wound my soul if you had not given it to me from above; historic storms, you could not devour our lives if you had not given them to me from above... The certainty of power given from above, perhaps to sickness, death, Satan, men, everything: this certainty is like a ray of encouraging light from above, shining on the darkest stretches of the road. In our communion with Christ, I can always look up to heaven with confidence and faith: as long as I am with Him, I am sure that all my crosses are given to me from above, and that in all my sufferings my soul is comforted in the faith that the Lord has given it!
But there is another side to this statement of Jesus. Not only does it mean that he sees his suffering and death as coming from the hand of God, but at the same time he sees the cross as the consequence of the terrible sin of men. Not only does he see God, who executes His predestination through men, but at the same time he sees men as the instruments of the execution of God's will. When he says to Pilate, "Thou wouldest have no power over me, if it had not been given thee from above," he continues, "Greater sin therefore is he who delivered me into thy hand!" He openly tells Jesus to the face of his judges that they are sinners, wicked, vile, murderers. And there is an irresolvable, irreconcilable parallel here: on the one hand, it is true that Jesus was put to death by God's order, but it is also true that those who condemned him and carried out the sentence were guilty of terrible sin. It is absolutely true that Jesus had to die by God's will, yet woe to Pilate and woe to Caiaphas and woe to all his murderers! God's counsel and will, His decree and action, do not exclude our responsibility, do not absolve us from the fact that sin is sin, and sin is punished by God! Pilate and Caiaphas though they were instruments in what they did - but they will give an account for what they did one day! What they did as instruments. Those two lines: the will of God and the responsibility of man cannot be played off against each other, cannot be confused or reconciled within the limits of our logic; they are two parallels that meet only in infinity: in eternity!
So sin remains sin even if it was a means to the realization of God's redemptive idea. But there is also a difference in sin. Here is what Jesus says: "Greater is the sin of him who delivered me into your hands". Caiaphas and the Jewish council gave Jesus into Pilate's hands. Both are guilty in the death of Christ: both Caiaphas and Pilate. But if the sin of both could be weighed in the balance, Caiaphas' sin would be more serious. Jesus is expressing a very unpleasant truth here: that if the church sins, if the church is in conflict with its own calling, that sin is far more serious than if the secular authorities make a mistake. Even the world does not escape God's just punishment, but he who would have known the way and yet did not follow it is doubly punished. Much inhumanity happens in the world, but if it happens in the church, it is greater than if the same happens in the world. There are many lies in the world, but if a lie happens in the church, it is a far greater sin than if it happens in the world. There is a lot of hatred and strife in the world, but if the church does not fight it with all its might, it is a much greater sin than if it is being stirred up by the world. Jesus once said, "The fate of Sodom and Gomorrah will be easier at the last judgment than that of Capernaum and Corazin, whose inhabitants have seen the power of His glory... And it will be easier for Pilate and all the mocking Roman soldiers at the judgment than for you... As for us, who in the church of Christ have heard His gospel, oh, how much we have heard - but have not done it!
Do you feel that believers and unbelievers, church and world - we have nothing to throw at each other! Jesus there, in that statement, declared us all sinners. We are all guilty in His death, we are all condemned to the cross! We are condemned even more than the world. And the only Just One allowed Himself to be crucified for the unjust, the only innocent for the guilty, the only Holy One for the guilty. He is the only sacrificial Lamb on whom our sins were repaid by God. That cross either judges or it goes up. He who takes the judgment is acquitted - he who condemns himself is pardoned. It is up to you whether the death of Christ becomes for you condemnation or grace!
If only we could tell you honestly, from the heart:
By the holy Lamb of God
I bear my sin,
And my soul shall have peace
There at the foot of the cross.
All my heart
I bring to the Lord,
I'll cleanse all the filth
In the blood of Jesus,
In the blood of Jesus.
(Canto 459, verse 1)
Date: 30 March 1958.