John 18:28-19:16 – The Gospel of John

We're going to uh we're going to read uh now from John chapter eighteen, beginning at verse twenty-eight through to chapter nineteen, verse sixteen.

That's right.

Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters.

It was early morning.

They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.

So Pilate went outside to them and said, What accusation do you bring against this man?

They answered him, If this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to ye.

Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.

The Jews said to him, It's not lawful for us to put anyone to death.

This was to fulfil the word that Jesus had spoken, to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to them, Are you the king of the Jews?

Jesus answered him, Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say this to you about me?

Pilate answered, Am I a Jew?

Your own nation and chief priests have delivered you over to me.

What have you done?

Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from the world.

Then Pilate said to him, So you are a king?

Jesus answered, You say that I am a king.

For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth.

Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.

And Pilate said to him, What is truth?

After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, I find no guilt in him.

But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at Passover.

So do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?

And they cried again, Not this man, but Barabbas.

Now Barabbas was a robber.

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.

And they came up to him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And they struck him with their hands.

Pilate went out again to them and said, See, I am bringing him out to you, so that you may know that I find no guilt in him.

So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, and 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 away and crucify him, for I find no sorry, take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.

And 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 said to said to Jesus, Where are you from?

But Jesus gave 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?

Jesus said to him, You would have no authority over me at all unless it has been given you from above.

Therefore, he who has 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 the place uh at a place called the stone pavement in Aramaic Gabbatha.

Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover, and it was about the sixth hour.

He said to the Jews, Behold your king.

And they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him.

Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king?

And the chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.

So he delivered them over to them to be crucified.

It would be good for you to have that passage open in front of you, um, uh just to be dipping in and out as we as we look at it.

Um you can bring it up on your phone, or you can grab a hard copy of uh of a Bible.

There's some down here in the front.

Uh as we send out Redeemer uh this morning, it's worth taking a moment uh to consider the question, well, what what is it that we're doing?

What what are we planting?

What is what is the church?

When we say that we're about planting churches, it sounds odd.

Uh what is it that we are seeking to establish?

What is it that we're seeking to plant?

Because when people hear the word church, uh they uh they they imbue that word with with meaning.

And so it's just kind of worth clarifying what that is, because some people think, well, it's kind of a uh it's a it's a social kind of place for uh for friendships and social cohesion, and this might be where you find a spouse, you know, that sort of thing.

And congratulations again to Daniel and to Lizzie.

Um but is that is that all the church is?

Uh some people think that it's uh it's a it's an institution, kind of big C church.

It's a it's a bureaucracy, it's an organization that kind of exists slightly detached from uh reality and and real people.

That perhaps is the perception of people who have uh who have grown up in Ireland in in the past, that it's a uh it's an institution that you that you dip in and out of.

It's a service provider.

So you don't really uh you don't really go to it uh every day in the same in the same way that you wouldn't go to the mechanics every day, because if your car's working fine, uh then then you don't go.

But if something needs to be done, you'll go to the mechanics.

Church is a bit like that.

If you need to be married, you'll go to the church.

If you need somebody baptized, you'll go to the church.

If you need a funeral done, you'll go to the church.

That's the that's the hatch, match, and dispatch ministry of uh of the church.

Baptism, weddings, and funerals.

Some people think, well, that's that's what the church is.

That's what the church does.

Now there are biblical images for what the church is.

Uh they primarily are body and temple.

This idea that uh that the people gathering together, they are the church rather than the building.

That's why we're able to meet in a cinema and still call ourselves a church, because the word church just means gathering, ecclesia, to gather, rather than uh anything to do with a a brick and mortar structure.

Paul talks about uh us being members of a body with with Jesus as the head, kind of governing and leading us, and we all contribute to the ministry of the body.

Peter talks about uh us being a holy temple that each person is like is like a brick, uh that the the Spirit of God dwells in.

And so those are those are much more clarifying ideas of what the church is.

But Jesus here in this passage uh I think gives us another hint at what he uh is doing and what the church is, because he's talking about uh a kingdom, he's talking in some senses about him being a king.

He prays in John 17 for his disciples and says uh in his prayer to his father uh that they that his followers have been uh that they've been taken out of the world, they're no longer of the world, but he wants them to remain in the world, in this alien environment.

And then in his discussion with Pilate, he says that my kingdom is not of this world.

It is as though Jesus is saying that he is a ruler of a foreign land, a different nation, a different kingdom, but the presence of that kingdom can be felt in certain ways through the people of that kingdom by its shared values.

It can be seen through the citizens of that kingdom now.

When a nation has a presence in a foreign land with different laws and different values, what is that place called?

It's called an embassy, it's an embassy.

The church is an embassy of the kingdom of heaven.

And what is unique about an embassy?

Well, when you set foot on it, you set foot on the sovereign soil of that land.

The values of that land come to bear over and against the country in which it is placed.

You come under its laws, its assumptions.

Churches are embassies of heaven, displaying and celebrating the goodness and values of our heavenly homeland.

What are we doing this morning as we send out Redeemer?

We're establishing an embassy of heaven for the glory of the king.

Here John shows us uh two negative ways, two uh things that Jesus' kingdom is not, first in the religious leaders and then in Pilate.

So, what is Jesus' kingdom not before we look at what Jesus' kingdom is?

Well, first of all, Jesus' kingdom is not the place for empty religion.

It is not the case, place for empty religion.

The Jewish leaders uh bring Jesus from the home of the high priest uh to the governor's headquarters, to Pontius Pilate.

And John notes with uh with somewhat uh dripping irony that the Jews didn't go in, couldn't go into the house of Pilate.

They didn't want to go into uh a Gentile's house because that would defile them, that would make them unclean, so that they couldn't eat the ceremonial Passover.

The Jewish leaders are uh in the process of perpetrating uh the greatest and most heinous injustice that has ever been perpetrated in the history of the world.

They have falsely accused Jesus, they have tried him in an illegal court, it was illegal to hold courts at nighttime, and they're now conspiring to have an innocent man put to death.

But what is their concern?

Their concern is for ritual purity, empty religion.

Sadly, our land, our world can be full of empty religion, and I do not say that as judgment, I say that as warning because it is so easy to go through religious motions in order to hide what it's really like in here.

It's so easy to sit here this morning, to raise hands in worship, to cry your tears, and to take the Lord's Supper when all inside you is broken and rotten.

We must heed the warning of empty religion here put on display by the religious leaders.

How easy is it to hide what is really going on?

The people that we work with, the people that we live with, the people who are around us, I think, particularly in this city, assume that what we are peddling here this morning is more empty religion.

Their assumption is that Christianity is more say one thing and do another nonsense.

But that is not the kingdom of Jesus.

The religious leaders they need Pilate on side.

They cannot crucify him under their own law, and so they're gonna do whatever it takes in order to get Pilate to pass sentence.

Pilate accommodates them and he he comes out to them and uh and he immediately begins examining the evidence against Jesus.

Verse 29.

So Pilate went out to them and said, What accusation do you bring against this man?

Let's look at the evidence, let's do some due process here, guys.

Again, John is showing us just the dreadful irony of what is going on here.

That the pagan, brutal Roman governor is more concerned with justice and due process than those who claim to represent God.

What a damning indictment it is upon the church when secular powers prove to be more moral and more concerned for justice than we are.

Our standards must be higher.

The religious leaders try to cover up their injustice in verse uh 30.

They say, Well, you know, if you hadn't done anything wrong, we wouldn't be here.

Nudge nudge wink wink.

It's nauseating, and yet it is so easy to try and commit a bit of sleight of hand in order to cover sin.

In order to explain away, in order to obfuscate and justify in order to lie.

This is not the way of the kingdom.

You see, if City is going to be an embassy of heaven, if Redeemer is going to be an embassy of heaven, we must turn aside from the empty morality of religiosity.

We must go to lengths to show that we are not more of what people assume, that behind the ethical facade there must also be a beating heart, not one that is perfect, but one that longs to live into the truths that we proclaim.

Jesus' kingdom is not a place for empty religion.

Second, Jesus' kingdom is not a place for political power, for pragmatism, or for the fear of man.

Pilate at core is a pragmatist.

Uh, he's kind of Roman middle management.

Uh he's a couple of ranks below senator, he's ambitious.

He's been given this role uh that is not particularly prestigious.

Palestine, uh, as they called it, um, was uh was a backwater.

Uh it was uh it was not a good gig to get.

He wanted to do a good job and get out as quickly as possible, perhaps back to Rome and perhaps to get a senatorial seat that was going to be a little bit more comfortable than being out in the desert.

And so he just wants to keep his head down and get on with things.

We'll get into the details of Jesus' conversation with Pilate, uh, but but notice Pilate's demeanor through the conversation.

When he asks, are you the king of the Jews?

Pilate isn't concerned with theology.

Pilate isn't concerned with, oh, are you the one that's fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies?

You know, I've been reading Isaiah 53.

Is that you?

He doesn't care about any of that.

He wants to know whether or not he has a political problem on his hands.

Is somebody coming along here threatening the rule of Caesar, upsetting the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome?

That's all that Pilate is concerned for.

That's why Pilate's disinterest in anything beyond the practical is displayed in the larger conversation with the dismissal.

What is truth?

It's not when Pilate says that, he's not being like the deconstructionist postmodernist and being like, what is truth?

It's kind of spat out at Jesus.

What is truth?

Why are you talking to me about things like truth?

Do you want to be dead by the end of the day?

He's a pragmatist.

He's even pragmatic at the start of chapter 19.

He begins by uh chapter 19 begins by flogging Jesus.

Uh, this, in fact, is the lightest of three beatings that Jesus will receive.

This is the one with with kind of uh with basically like cane poles, uh, little birch poles.

He will later be scourged, which is the the whip with the cat of nine-tails, uh, that rips flesh from the from the body.

This is a this is a light beating, light beating, right?

Um, and again, it's pragmatic.

Jesus or Pilate is thinking, well, tell you what, I'll rough this guy up.

Um, we'll we'll get him bloodied beaten, and uh, and then maybe actually once the Jews uh see what is happening to one of their own, well, maybe that'll arouse their sympathy and they'll and they'll relent.

So he sends them out, gets flogged, and he's not beyond a little bit of kind of mockery uh of the Jews.

It's not like he has much love for them.

And so the the Roman uh soldiers in his court, they they twist together uh a crown of uh day palm thorns.

Date pam thorns are about nine inches long, and they and they they jab it down into Jesus' head and and they they mock him.

Again, John is dripping with with irony here that the one who is mocked as king is the king.

And they put a purple robe on him and they give him false mock homage.

Pilate brings out and says uh uh and says those uh those famous words, eche amo, behold the man, thinking that, well, maybe they'll relent now at this point.

They won't take it any further.

But the religious leaders must press Pilate.

He must be crucified, because he is claiming to be the Son of God.

And note what John says here in chapter 19, verse 8.

It says that Pilate was even more afraid.

Pilate's a Roman, and he believes in the Roman pantheon of gods, you know, uh Jupiter, Mercury, all of those, uh, what the Greeks would call Zeus and Hermes.

He believes in the Roman pantheon of gods, and so it's entirely possible in his worldview that uh that a that a god would would have a son, and so he doesn't want to get embroiled up in any of that mess.

You know, if Jupiter was uh you know has fathered somebody, he doesn't want to uh to annoy him.

But notice also the emphasis.

John says that Pilate was even more afraid.

Pilate's kingdom is one of both pragmatism and pragmatism that is motivated by fear.

Who does Pilate fear?

Well, he fears his superiors, he fears fears loss of position, he fears loss of place, of prestige, of respect.

Above all else, right now he fears a loss of control of the situation that's around him.

And so he's acting in a way in order to save face and to save his own skin.

And so he does what is easy in the moment rather than what is hard and will have long-term negative consequences for him.

You know, one one of the most shocking things that you read in the Gospels is that the thing that motivated people to kill Jesus above all else was fear.

Both the religious leaders and Pilate killed Jesus because they were afraid.

Who were they afraid of?

They were afraid of others.

You sit here and I stand here, and I think, goodness me, I'm quite taken by time to time from time to time, by the fear of what other people think of me.

The fear of loss of respect, the loss of faith, the loss of position and prestige, the loss of control, the fear of the opinion of others.

And we think actually that perhaps it is a respectable sin.

It was fear of others that killed Jesus.

Or fear of the cry they sought to put him to death.

Be careful of fear of man.

The kingdom of this world is one that is often marked by self-preservation, by fearing others and doing what is necessary.

But to be an embassy of heaven is to be a place of deep integrity.

To be motivated by not by fear, but by love of others.

We must pick up serious pace.

It's gonna be a little bit like drinking from a fire hose over the next uh over the next few minutes.

So take a deep breath.

Uh what is Jesus' kingdom like?

Well uh let's do uh let's do four things, and I was gonna try and abridge them.

First, Jesus is a servant.

There's this little phrase in verse 32 where we're told that the reason why the Jewish leaders are going to Pilate is in order to fulfill the words spoken by Jesus of the kind of death that he would die.

The religious leaders are playing fast and loose with Pilate.

They could stone Jesus for blasphemy under their law, but they want Pilate to kind of, I don't know whether it's to give them political cover here, but they want him involved.

But Jesus is operating in the background, his sovereignty is still there.

And John tells us the kind it is all about the kind of death that he's going to die.

And what is that death?

Well, it is crucifixion.

Why is that significant?

Well, it's significant in a Roman context, it's significant in the context of John, and it's significant in the context of the Bible.

It's significant in the Roman context because it's the most shameful way to die.

A Roman citizen could not be crucified except by explicit permission from the emperor.

Such was the shame that was borne by the person on the cross.

That's what you need to remember.

It's a shame-bearing way to die.

That's the Roman context.

In the context of John, Jesus has been talking about how when he is lifted up, he says this in Nicodemus.

He said, just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so the Son of Man will be lifted up so that whoever looks upon him will have eternal life.

Or in John chapter 12, he says, When the Son of Man is lifted up, I will draw all men, all people to myself.

John 12 · chapter mention

It's significant in the context of John because the crucifixion of Jesus is the lifting up that brings about salvation.

It is the enthronement of the Son of God.

Have you reckoned with that?

The Son of God is enthroned on a Roman cross.

He is lifted up.

And it is lifted up in the and it is significant in the wider biblical context because in the Bible's mind, to hang on a cross or on a tree is to hang under the curse and judgment of God.

Deuteronomy, where did I write it down?

Deuteronomy 22.

The one who hangs on a tree is cursed by God.

And so Peter says in his letter, he himself bore our sins and his body on the tree.

The cross comes to be known as that curse-bearing tree.

What sort of king is Jesus?

He is the king who bears our shame.

He is the king who draws all people to himself.

How?

By dying under a curse.

He is our servant king.

Second, he is a truthful king.

He says that the purpose why he came was to bear witness to the truth.

This is both a comfort and a challenge, first to Pilate and then to all of us.

It's a comfort because it means that there is such a thing as ultimate reality, that the postmodernists are in fact wrong.

There is such a thing as the capital T truth.

And what's more, it's knowable.

What a great thing that actually you can know what reality is truly like.

And where do you go?

You go to the one who came to bear witness to it.

You go to Jesus Christ.

He comes to bear witness to that truth.

That truth that he says in John chapter 8 will set people free.

John 8 · chapter mention

But it's not just a comfort, it also, and maybe you feel this, it also confronts.

Because it means that the truth is something that we receive, not just something that we create from within ourselves.

Our call is to listen to the voice of truth and to sign with the one who is the truth.

Jesus points out to Pilate where the real power is coming from.

Pilate is stunned at Jesus' silence and says, Don't you know that I have the authority to set you free or to crucify you?

And in just amazing words, Jesus looks at him and doesn't say, Yeah, that would be great.

No.

He says, No power has been given to you except that that which has come from above.

The kingdoms of this world do not have the ultimate authority.

All of their power is derived from above, and in one day, and one day it will come to an end.

And all of the leaders of this world will become a footnote.

All of the Trumps and the Bidens and all of the Putins and the Zelenskys will all be a footnote.

Because all of their power.

The power that you like and the power that you hate.

It's all derived.

It all comes from above.

The Jewish leaders, just at the depth of their of their own sin and rebellion, they deny God as their king and they cry out so cynically in chapter 19, verse 15, we have no king but Caesar.

The kingdoms of this world, however, cannot triumph.

No, it is the slain lamb who rules over all.

Jesus is our servant king, he is our truthful king, he is our powerful king.

So what's his kingdom like?

His kingdom is a place of grace.

His kingdom is a place of grace.

Pilate, in another attempt to free Jesus, to save faith so that everybody can go home.

He offers a prisoner swap.

He offers to set somebody free.

And the choice is between Jesus and a man called Barabbas.

Here in our translation, it says robber, and then it's got a little uh a little number beside a little one.

Really, Jesus or uh Barabbas is an insurrectionist.

He is somebody who wanted to overthrow the rule of Rome and bring about a new geopolitical kingdom.

Again, more irony from John.

So Jesus or Barabbas.

And Jesus is condemned, and Barabbas goes free.

Jesus is the king who stands in the place of murderers.

Do you know what Barabbas' name do you know what Barabbas' name means?

Son of the Father.

The Son of God dies to make us sons of the Father.

It's a kingdom of grace.

Brought about by our servant King, our truthful King, our powerful King.

This is the kind of King Jesus is, and this is the kind of kingdom he invites us into.

Not one of empty religiosity, nor of fearful pragmatism, but of grace and truth, of sacrifice and service.

Churches are embassies of the kingdom, and we are ambassadors of the king.

Next week, a new outpost of heaven will open in this city that we love, led by people who we love.

Seeking to proclaim the God that we love.

There can be no better day for Redeemer to open up its doors to the world than the day when the King of Life opened up the doors of heaven and walked out of his grave, and brought hope and life and immortality rushing into this present reality.

God be gracious to City Church, God be gracious to Redeemer Dublin, Embassies of Heaven, until the King calls us home.

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