The Jewish leaders insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.” – John 19:7

Today’s Scripture Reading (October 22, 2014): John 19

As a people, we are so full of pretence. We have learned early in life that we have to have a reason for the things that we do. I can’t miss work just because I want to sleep in, I need to have to a reason (and obviously the desire to sleep in is not a reason, or at least it is not a good reason.) This need for a reason is why every day some kid gets up from their bed and places the thermometer under a light bulb – and then says Mom, I can’t go to school. I have a fever of 125 (or 50 for the devotees of the Metric System.) As a kid, I delivered an early morning paper for a while (which people who know me struggle to understand because I am allergic to early mornings). So my schedule every morning was to be up by 4:00 and then home again by 6:00 - and then I would go back to bed for an hour or an hour and a half before I would get up for school. But one day I remember waking up at 7:30 and I was just tired. In fact, I was too tired to hold the thermometer up to the light. And on this morning my mom came down to wake me up, and I just rolled over and told her I was just too tired, and mom decided to just let me sleep. It wasn’t a good excuse, but on this day mom honored my need for sleep.

The Jewish leaders had been on a campaign for the death of Jesus. Part of the problem was that Rome held for itself the right to put people to death (although admittedly Israel often seemed to ignore that law). So Israel created a list of charges. And at the top of that list was that Jesus believed that he was King of the Jews. This Jesus was a revolutionary king. His intent was to lead a rebellion against Rome – he didn’t just want to be King of the Jews, he wanted to be the Caesar of the Earth. And for this reason Caesar needed to put Jesus to death.

But the argument was all pretense – nothing more than false reasoning, an excuse for an action that the leaders wanted to undertake. Jesus had never made himself a threat to Rome. In fact, he had supported the idea of Rome. When asked about whether or not it was right to pay taxes to Caesar, Jesus asked that a coin that was used to pay the tax be brought to him –

“and he asked them, ‘Whose image is this? And whose inscription?’

“’Caesar’s.’ they replied. Then he said to them, ‘So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God, what is God’s’” (Matthew 22:20-21).

I have often heard preachers say that Jesus was tried on trumped up charges, and this idea that Jesus promoted rebellion and that he was a threat to Caesar – or even to Herod – was exactly the charges that they were speaking about.

But then we have this one moment when all of the pretense is stripped away. Now Jesus is not a threat to Caesar, it is not the politics of Jesus that the religious leaders have a problem with – it is that he claimed to be God. In their mind, Jesus simply did not measure up to their idea of a Messiah – and for that reason, and no other, Jesus had to die.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Matthew 28