Paul Hoffman preaches on John 19:1-16, exploring how stories shape our values and how Jesus confronts our narratives about power and authority. The passage reveals the striking irony of religious leaders abandoning their allegiance to Yahweh for Caesar, while Jesus demonstrates true kingship through self-sacrificial love rather than political manipulation. Hoffman challenges the church to resist trading allegiance to Christ for temporary political security.
Transcript
The True and Better Story About Power and Authority
John 19
Preached by Paul Hoffman
Opening
Good morning, everybody. If we haven’t met, my name is Paul, a member here. I’ll tell you, nothing helps you appreciate your church more than when you spend a week with a bunch of other pastors and church members, hearing them talk about their church and thinking, man, we have it real good over here in our little part of Portland. It’s a joy to be a member of our church.
I’ve titled our message this morning, “The True and Better Story About Power and Authority.” I’ve become convinced that human beings are a story-formed and storytelling people. We experience most of life through story. There are stories slung all over the place in which we believe, and we take those inputs and they begin to shape the way we tell our own story and interpret the world.
The stories that form us are developed by our families of origin, where we grew up, the experiences that come our way. All of this eventually shapes the values we hold, and we order our life according to the values we receive from the stories we take in.
The stories we believe form the values we hold, and those inform how we interpret the world around us.
Those values, no matter how virtuous or well intended, if not rooted in Jesus, will lead us far from God. They will lead us to actions we would never think we could ever do.
I would ask you as we approach the text this morning: Does Jesus confront your values? Does the gospel story confront your values? Does he interrupt your story to reveal a better one?
Scripture Reading
Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him, and the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him with their hands. Pilate went out again and said, “See, I am bringing him out to you, that you may know that I find no guilt in him.” So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!”
When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourself and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.” The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law, he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God.”
When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again, and he said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” But Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.”
From then on, Pilate sought to release him. But the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic, Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your king!” They cried out, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your king?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.
John 19
Family, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Sympathy Through Violence (vv. 1-5)
Pilate’s first attempt to free Jesus leads to a second attempt. This time he’s playing on Jewish disdain for Roman strength. At the time, the people who lived in Israel could not stand Rome’s policy of strength through power because it often meant the demeaning of their people.
We find Pilate has turned Jesus over to a group of soldiers to be flogged. Pilate’s thinking: We’ll make a mockery of him. We’ll make him a sympathetic figure so that you might look upon him and say, “Yeah, that’s enough. Let’s move on.”
It wasn’t the business of Rome to openly condemn innocent people. In these far-reaching areas of the Roman Empire, the goal is to maintain the Roman peace. They don’t want any uprising, so when they judge an innocent man, they’re not trying to openly condemn him when they have found him openly innocent.
But where the soldiers intended mockery, where Pilate turned him over to be humiliated, it unknowingly acknowledges Jesus’ kingship and his kingdom. Those who intended destruction brought about a coronation.
This statement by Pilate, “Here is the man,” acts as an unknowingly profound statement. He doesn’t know what he’s saying, and yet here he is proclaiming the image of the invisible God made visible. Here is the man, the one true king set before all of the people.
Hardened Hearts and Delusional Holiness (vv. 6-7)
The Jewish authority continues their quest for Jesus’ death, moving from a civic accusation to a religious one. When the chief priests and officers see Jesus brought out before them in his kingly regalia, they don’t cry out “enough.” They cry for more: “Crucify him, crucify him!”
We have a law, they say, and according to that law, he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God. Blasphemy, they cry.
In the response of the crowd, when they see the bloody Jesus having endured mocking, shame, brutal lashings, Jesus is trotted before the crowds, intended to be a sympathetic figure, and yet the mob calls for more brutality and more humiliation. They haven’t had enough.
This isn’t a guy who comes from the outside saying, “I’m going to rescue you.” This is a guy who is very acquainted with all of their religiousness, all of their rules, all of their practices, who has lived among them and taught them a better way, who’s modeled for them the way of the kingdom, and they’ve rejected him outright.
The Jewish authority desperately wants to use Rome as their instrument of death. They don’t want to take it on themselves. They’re living in this delusional holiness that because of the Passover, they can’t do this, and yet they already stand condemned. They look to Rome to be their instrument of death that might allow them to keep up their image.
Isn’t this true of how we act broadly today as a church? Rather than engage a culture with the best way to be human that is given us by Jesus, we would look to the government to do our work. Whether it’s local government, state government, national government, haven’t we seen a model of the church looking to other means rather than what is given by God to bring about the kingdom?
Are we living the better story that God has invited us into, or are we leaving it for a lesser story of temporal power and authority?
A Widening Perspective and True Authority (vv. 8-11)
When Pilate heard the statement that Jesus “has made himself the Son of God,” he was even more afraid. He enters his headquarters and says to Jesus, “Where are you from?”
Pilate understands that there is more to Jesus than just a rabble-rouser. This is the moment. Something clicks for Pilate. He’s more than a rebel rouser.
I want you to take a moment and sit in Pilate’s seat. He’s thinking Jesus is nothing more than a rabble-rouser, just causing some mild unrest. And now he’s smacked in the face with this accusation of making himself equal to God. I imagine Pilate thinking to himself, “This guy Jesus might be more than human. I just had him beaten within an inch of his life. What kind of king is he?”
Pilate’s superstition gets the best of him in this moment. He’s thinking, “Have I angered the gods? What’s going to happen to me?” Pilate’s perspective widens.
How we encounter Jesus matters. What our background is, how we believe the world is ordered, what we believe about divine things, all inform what belief could and ultimately does look like.
Pilate goes on to question Jesus again. Jesus’ first answer stands. He doesn’t have to say anything. When Pilate says, “Where are you from?” Jesus’ answer stands: “My kingdom is not of this world.” There’s no more clarity to be offered. He doesn’t have to give an answer to Pilate’s question because he is not actually the one on trial.
Jesus is the true power and authority, the king of all the universe. He doesn’t stand in judgment from anyone.
Jesus, the sinless lamb, stands before the powers of the day on the foundation that the kingdom of God is greater than any earthly kingdom that exists in that moment, that has existed before that moment, and that will exist after that moment.
Pilate rattles his saber: “Do you not know the authority I have?” But Jesus in his beaten state, wearing the garb of a mocked king, looks Pilate square in the eye with the confidence of the one who stood before the foundations of the world and says, “You have no authority except what has been given to you.”
He reminds Pilate that not only is your authority given by Caesar, but Rome’s authority is given by God. In other words, Jesus is looking at Pilate and saying, “You have delegated authority for only this moment, the moment of the trial. But I, Jesus, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, have ultimate authority.”
Consider how Jesus utilizes his power. He enters the city on a donkey, proclaiming peace. He takes the posture of a servant, washing feet. He sits at a table and offers bread and the cup to the one who would betray him. In the garden, when soldiers come and Peter brandishes his sword, he lowers the sword and heals the soldier.
As the King of kings and the Lord of lords stands before Pilate, he resists the powers and principalities through submitting himself to them. Jesus’ way is the way of self-sacrificial love. It’s not through power grabbing, it’s not through the sword, it’s not through violence.
Jesus’ final words reinforce his power and authority: “Therefore he who delivered me over has the greater sin.” The greater sin is on the ones who have taken God’s words and God’s laws and manipulated them to serve their own purposes. The ones accusing Jesus of blasphemy are themselves blaspheming.
Manipulation and Lost Allegiance (vv. 12-16)
The Jewish authority have long abandoned their allegiance to Yahweh and are no longer distinct from the nations. There’s a warning for us here. A clear picture of what happens on the other side of a slippery slope.
The Jewish authority had fenced themselves off so much from God’s words. They had put up so many guardrails as a means to not break any of them that they forgot who God was and what He sounded like. They had traded in what God called good and said, “Our way, not Yahweh’s way.” And they condemned the very man who was sent to save them, the very Messiah that they have been yearning for.
Pilate tries one more time to release Jesus. From then on, Pilate sought to release him. But the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend.”
The Jewish authority had one more tactic to deploy. It was their ace in the hole. They were calling their last shot. The Jewish authority who should be appealing to Yahweh, who should be appealing to the king set before them, is appealing to Caesar.
Pilate places Jesus on the judgment seat. Don’t miss this. He brought Jesus out and sat Him on the judgment seat. It was the day of preparation of the Passover. Pilate brings out the Passover lamb, prepared for sacrifice, and sits Him on the judgment seat. Just before they would rehearse the rescue of God out of Egypt, they miss the fulfillment of that rescue standing before them.
Then one last final mockery from Pilate: “Behold your king!” At which point the Jewish response is “Crucify him!”
But here’s the most condemning statement from the Jewish authority: “We have no king but Caesar.”
The people who are intended to be marked by Yahweh, the people who had a long history of saying “no king but Yahweh,” have traded that in. They’ve traded their allegiance to a lesser king and Caesar to get their way, to preserve a few more fleeting moments of false security.
Conclusion
Family, I want to remind us in our politically charged moment when we might be tempted to trade in our allegiance to Jesus: the only security we have, the only power and authority we should ever put trust or hope in, is the power and authority of Jesus Christ, the one true King who rules over all, who has ruled, who does rule, and who will rule on into eternity.
His ways are better. His authority is unrivaled. His power is supreme. His is the true and better story.
We live in a moment where, like the Jewish authority, people who claim the name of Jesus would try to bring about a vision of the kingdom through manipulation of government. But family, hear me and hear me well: The vision of the kingdom has already been brought and it is available to us, and it is only through the birth, life, and death of Jesus that we grab hold of that vision of the kingdom.
It is not through any legislation. It is not through an elected leader. It’s not through whatever superpower will come after the ones that exist today. Jesus’s way, by Jesus’s means, is how we experience the kingdom now and into eternity.
So let us not be like the Jewish authority who throw away our allegiance to the one true King for a temporary allegiance. Let us be the people marked by Jesus, the way of self-sacrificial love, modeling to humanity the way of peace in a world that is brought through violence.
Closing Prayer
Jesus, I thank you for the model that you give us in your life and your death. God, would we be a people who are marked by self-sacrificial love? May we be a people who stand on your authority and on the authority of no other. May we be a people who are distinct from the rest of the world.
Let us not trade that distinction in for a few moments of false security. Let us be a people who love one another so extravagantly and love you that the world look at us and see a better way and that they might turn to you in belief.
Be with us as we go, Jesus. It’s in your name we pray. Amen.