Sing: Hosanna
Today is Palm Sunday. The day we remember Jesus entering Jerusalem riding on a donkey. What do you think is in the Resurrection Egg today? Yes, a donkey. Instead of starting in that text, though, I want to continue in our reading from the past few weeks. We’ve been slowly reading through Jesus’ last days and hours before they crucified him. The Sanhedrin has just taken Jesus to Pilate, the Roman Governor. Matthew 27:11-19 recounts:
Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
“You have said so,” Jesus replied.
When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate asked him, “Don’t you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?” But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor.
Now it was the governor’s custom at the festival to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. At that time they had a well-known prisoner whose name was Jesus Barabbas. So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” For he knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him.
While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.”
The Gospel of John gives us some more insight into this encounter Jesus had with Pilate. John 18:37-38 says:
“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
“What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.
Pilate asks, “What is truth?” It is a rhetorical response to Jesus’ statement, that “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
This statement that Jesus makes, and Pilate’s response, is everything. It summarizes everything that was happening in the world then and what is happening in our world today. Jesus is saying that there is such a thing as absolute truth. Everyone who is on the side of truth being a fixed, solid thing is listening to Jesus. Pilate outright dismisses Jesus’ statement. He says, “what is truth?” He isn’t asking for Jesus to tell him the answer to what is truth. There is no such thing as truth according to him, rather, truth is subjective and relative.
I think that sometimes we think our modern society with our sophisticated philosophies is unique to our time, but this concept of truth being subjective is not new. Protagoras, who was a Greek philosopher born in 485 BC, had peddled this idea. He said, “man is the measure of all things,” which, to put it plainly, means that each individual measures things according to their opinions. Or another way to explain this: each person comes to different conclusions. For example, I think it’s cold in our house, but my husband thinks it’s hot. If it is hot or cold is subjective. We both measure the temperature differently. Protagoras’ ideas were shared through the writings of Plato (who, by the way, refuted his ideas). By the time we get to Pilate, who must have been an educated Roman in order to be Governor of Judea, this idea of truth being relative and subjective (even though those particular words weren’t used) obviously made its way to the mind of Pilate. I am certain a man like Pontius Pilate would have been educated and he would have studied the writings of the ancient Greek thought leaders. That is why he muses, “what is truth?” and dismisses Jesus’ claim to be on the side of truth. To him, there is no truth.
Why is this so important that I make the outrageous statement that this exchange “is everything”? I think it is everything in the sense that this is the statement Jesus makes to each of us, and Pilate’s rhetorical question is the question that we all must answer. What we think about this determines, not just this temporal life we live, but our eternal destination.
Jesus says that, “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” That tells us that there are two sides. There is the side of truth, and the side against truth. We are either for truth or against truth. Only one of those sides is on the side of Jesus. We are, as Jesus Himself said, for Him or against Him. He said this in Matthew 12:30, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”
This idea that truth is relative, or truth is subjective, is the single greatest lie. If we doubt that there is absolute truth revealed to us in scripture, then how do we have faith? If truth is subjective, how can it be true that Jesus is Who He says He is? If my faith in Jesus is not rooted in an understanding that this is the truth, then what makes me think I have any faith? If I think my belief in Jesus is just my personal philosophy, then what am I wasting my time for? This idea of personal truth has infected all of society. It has infected and poisoned the Church. It is the same lie thought up by the devil himself: What is truth? What did God actually say? Did He really tell you not to eat the apple? Did Jesus really say He was the Son of God?
If Jesus is not the Son of God, if that is some idea that is subject to opinion, then why on earth would anyone want to follow his man? Following this logic, then Jesus was so weak and vulnerable that a group of religious leaders could manipulate a crowd into having Him crucified. He didn’t even defend Himself when brought before Pilate. If He was so smart and worthy of following, why didn’t He defend Himself? Why didn’t He convince Pilate that the Jewish leaders were a threat to Pilate? Why didn’t He at least try to turn the tables on them? At least try to appeal to Pilate’s reason. Why would anyone want to follow Jesus if He was just a man who was killed for being radical? Either Jesus was another philosophizer or He must be taken seriously, and we must believe what He said.
Jesus says that everyone on the side of truth listens to Him. He says that there is absolute truth. If we desire truth, we will listen to Him. That makes me realize that if we want to be on the side of truth, we need to know what Jesus said. Unfortunately, we do not live when Jesus walked the earth. We don’t get the gift of listening to Him speak first hand, but God, in His infinite wisdom, has solved that problem for us. He has given us His word. Despite what some contemporary theologians tell us today, the Word of God speaks for God today.
Like Pilate, our culture dismisses this idea of truth. We have popular preachers who dismiss the accuracy of the Bible and tell us not to use the phrase “the Bible says.” But how can we have faith in Jesus if we question the validity or accuracy of the Bible? If one thing in the Bible is suspect to error, then how can we read any of it with any confidence? I would like to say to these people who discredit the Bible: isn’t God big enough to ensure that His Word endures?
I brought up Protagoras. Most people probably haven’t heard of him. His words weren’t written down, that we know of, except that Plato quoted him and so his words are preserved. Yet, his quotes aren’t suspect to error. People seem to accept that Plato and others quoted him accurately. Why is the Word of God suspect and dismissed if Protagoras’ are not?
My theory is that people don’t like what the Bible says. The Bible is full of absolute statements. It isn’t one man or a group of men’s wild theories and musings. The Bible makes the claim to be the very Word of God. And the Bible says that Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus also said to Pilate, “the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth.” The reason Jesus was born was to testify to the truth. What is the truth? The answer to that is everything!
Back to this moment with Pilate, Matthew 27:20-26 says:
But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.
“Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor.
“Barabbas,” they answered.
“What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked.
They all answered, “Crucify him!”
“Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”
When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”
All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children!”
Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
Only a few days before this happened, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. A crowd gathered then, too. Do you remember what they shouted? Matthew 21:6-9 tells us:
The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
This crowd praised Him. They shouted, “God save us!” They honored Jesus like they would honor a king by spreading cloaks on the road and waving palm branches. Then so quickly, they abandon Him.
The crowd changed. Why did they change their shouts? They didn’t actually know Who Jesus was. Was He the earthly king who was going to come and save them from the oppressive Roman government? Was He a fringe radical who wanted to overthrow the Sanhedrin? Was He just a carpenter? Just the son of Mary and Joseph from Nazareth? The people didn’t know. Some individuals knew. They had encountered Jesus face to face and saw Who He really was. He healed them and forgave their sins and they knew He was the Son of God. When Jesus calmed the storm in the boat, the disciples said to Him, “Truly you are the Son of God” (Mathew 14:34).
Who is Jesus? What is truth? These are the questions we all must answer, but it is easier to hold a middle ground on religion. It’s easier to lay claim to being a follower of Jesus, but to not really be committed. If we can keep our religion in a reasonable sphere of our life, then it won’t offend anybody. We won’t be bothered that other people have other religions. It’s not like Christianity has a corner on truth, right? During commencement at my graduation from Bible college, the speaker giving the address said, “Nobody has a corner on truth.” I’ve given a lot of thought to that idea over the years. I think I understand the point he was trying to make, but taking that statement at face value, I disagree with it. It makes truth seem like something that is not absolute. It makes truth sound like it changes and that’s why nobody can get a handle on it. I don’t think truth is something that is unknowable. Jesus said in John 8:31-32, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” That tells me we can know the truth. And if want to “have the corner” on truth, all we need to do is go to the source. We start by listening to what Jesus said.
Again, if we think that what we believe is simply a matter of personal preference, then we will not be very convicted. If what is “truth” for me might not be true for you, then do I really think it’s truth?
One of the greatest compliments I have ever received was said to me by a friend who is not a Christian, although I don’t think he meant it as a compliment. He told me he realized I am convinced about what I believe. It’s not just a religion to me. He said, “I can tell you are actually convinced this is real.” I wanted to shout, “Other Christians aren’t?” But I was so happy he could see the distinction. It seems like so many people who speak for Christianity seem to always be apologizing for the Bible. It’s like they are embarrassed by the absolute statements Jesus makes and they need to qualify His statements. They make excuses for the Bible. They say it’s not meant to be taken literally. They say that the words were mistranslated. How are we supposed to listen to what Jesus said if we don’t think the Bible can be trusted? We don’t have any other basis of truth. The Bible is it. Until Jesus comes back and speaks again, the Word of God is our source of truth. 2 Timothy 3: 14-17 says, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
The crowd is shouting crucify because they don’t know the truth. They have seen Jesus standing before them in the flesh, and yet they don’t know who He is. Pontius Pilate thinks Jesus hasn’t actually done anything warranting death, yet because he doesn’t want to cause more problems for himself, he goes along with the crowd. He goes along with them because he doesn’t have any convictions. Pilate is obviously not an idealist. He’s a pragmatist who, scripture says, “knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him.” He knew Jesus was not guilty, and his wife warned him not to have anything to do with Jesus, but as the text also says: When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”
Pilate, being a realist and a relativist with no strong convictions, tried to pass the responsibility back to the chief priests and elders. Yet it was his soldiers who carry out the judgement. It will be at their hands that Jesus will suffer and die.
Back to the end of the text for today, we read:
Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him (Matthew 27:27-31).
Pilate may have washed his hands, but his passivity still rendered the judgement. His compliance to release Barabbas and give Jesus to his soldiers still pronounced Jesus guilty. It was under Pilate’s authority that Jesus would be crucified. He can wash his hands all he wants, but unless He had released Jesus to go free, Pilate was the one responsible. I wish the text tells us what happened to Pilate. There isn’t that much information about him, but the Encyclopedia Britannica says that he was recalled to Rome in 36 AD and the new emperor, Caligula, had him stand trial because of charges that he had executed men without trial. He was ordered to kill himself. That was certainly the case with Jesus; Pilate did not give Him a fair trial.
Like Pilate, when we don’t know the difference between right and wrong, when we have no strong convictions, when we don’t even know how to define truth and can’t distinguish between fact and opinion, we become easy targets for the devil and other people to manipulate. Other people can use us to advance injustice or lies. This is the problem with a society full of people who don’t believe in truth.
I think many of us have adopted this way of thinking and maybe don’t even realize it. Have you ever said, “my truth” or “what’s true for me” or some other phrase to qualify that something is not true for everyone but true for you? It might not seem like a big deal, but this way of thinking has so permeated our society that many of us use these terms and don’t even give a thought to it. Yet, I would like to argue that it is a big deal. When we use these common idioms, we are helping to spread the idea that truth is a variable thing. Truth is only truth if it does not change. Otherwise, it is an opinion. As Christians, if we have slid down the relativity slide and find that we have plopped into the mud of modern thinking, we need to realize where we’ve landed and come clean.
I think a good place to start is examining ourselves to see if we have adopted the world and progressive Christianity’s false ideas about the Bible. If we do not root our faith in the truth that the Bible is the absolute Word of God, then we are going to have a very weak faith. What we think about the Bible will affect not only how we read the word of God, but how we answer life’s most important questions: What is truth? Who is Jesus?
This Palm Sunday we looked at two juxtaposed crowds: those who waved palm branches and shouted praise and adoration to their king, and those who shouted crucify. We also saw a man who stood for nothing and folded easily to the wishes of that crowd. We saw soldiers who mocked Jesus and pretended to pay homage to Him by placing a crown of thrones upon His head. Do we see ourselves in any of those people? Where would we be? All of them are lost to time and history and they can’t change their decisions. If we find ourselves in a crowd we don’t want to be in, it’s not too late, we can leave it. We can ask the Holy Spirit to help us change. Jesus can fill us with faith if we confess our unbelief and ask him to. We can repent of going along with the crowd and ask Jesus to forgive us. There is still time to make a confession of faith. There is still time to answer the questions: what is truth? Who is Jesus? Jesus Himself answered it for us in John 14:6, which says: Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Easter is almost here, but let’s not skip over the events that must happen first. In a few days we will revisit this moment and walk with Jesus to the Cross. These next few days until Good Friday, let us pray that the Lord keeps our eyes upon Jesus and works repentance into our hearts, so we can join together with all the believers in praise to our sacrificial King.
Pray: Heavenly Father, we thank You for sending us Your Son, Jesus our Passover Lamb and sacrificial King, Who endured so much suffering for us. Help us this week to keep You at the front of our minds. Please forgive us when we go along with the crowd. Help us to be people who stand firm in the truth of Your Word. We love You and praise Your name. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
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