Complicit

Who or what do you worship?

            “We all serve somebody.”

The humans in the Garden would be “independent” as they served the will of a created being,

            believing they were making themselves free of the Creator.

Complicit.

The Jewish religious leadership,

                        threatened by the power of love,

            would cut down the tree of life 

                        lest anyone eat the fruit of its branches,

                        but Pilate could see…

                                                their weakness, their fear, their desperate grasp for relevance.

He too had a fear.

He was weak in his political standing.

His job was to maintain peace.

            He had stood before on many battlefields as a Roman knight,

                                                establishing peace through the wielding of Roman might,

                                    he had faced kings with the sword,

                                                            yet this accused man muttered not one whisper.

                        Pilate could see the game, 

                                                this man before him was no concern for the crown,

                                    but if he did not protect the crown,

                                                            could he be called

complicit?

                                                            Barabbas! (meaning son of the father) Barabbas!

                                                                        Give us Barabbas!

                        The violent revolutionary over the man of peace?!?

                                                                        Give us Barabbas!

They don’t want the whipped and meek King.

They don’t want a King of love. 

                        They don’t want a King of peace.

                                                They want a king who wields the sword,

                                                                        hates, dehumanizes, offends, and destroys.

They do not want the one anointed Son of the Father, 

 they want the one they named “the son of the father.” 

Irony: in keeping the peace for Rome,

                                                Pilate sets free a raised a fist against Rome.

                                                            His desire to pacify will only amplify 

                                                                                    their ability to defy Rome.

Complicit.

            They have chosen their king.

                                    They have chosen their god.

                        They have anointed the priest their hearts truly desire.

They have cried “crucify him” throughout the streets of their blood-stained empire.

                                    Pilate’s wife had a vision of this man with clean hands.

                                                Have nothing to do with him. 

Pilate washes his hands,

                        but the stain of blood will not wash off that easy.

                                                “the great stumbling block… 

… [is the one] who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice…”*

                                    Pilate will fail the people,

Rome,

his wife,

justice,

peace,

Jesus,

innocence,

himself.

His significance in history is not a man of power, or the great man who took a stand.

                                    Instead, his scarlet name tag reads…

“Complicit.”

*quoted from Martin Luther King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail”