Behold the Man
Text: John 19:5
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
For all of his flaws, Pilate was not stupid. He knew that the leaders of these obstinate and stubborn people, who had whipped this crowd into a bloodthirsty frenzy bordering on a riot, who had held a kangaroo court for this man, these leaders clearly wanted blood. Nothing else would satisfy them. Pilate was clever though. He suspected that once they saw the torture this man had endured, how He had been mocked and beaten, blood running down His face from that vindictive crown of thorns, that when they saw that blood freely flowing, that would be enough. So Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.” But to show that He had indeed suffered, he had Jesus come out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate announced, “Behold the man!”
Pilate had hoped that seeing would be believing for these crowds gathered outside his secure fortress. The crowds wanted to see this man who would be King, the man challenging Caesar—in a very different and unusual way, but a challenge nonetheless. They wanted to see the man who promised to overturn everything in their comfortable earthly order. So Pilate let them feast their eyes on this Jesus, mockingly dressed in an imperial purple robe with a crown of thorns driven into His head. They wanted to see Jesus; here, behold the man.
It’s what we come here to do as well. It’s why we come every week. Like the Gentiles that first day of Holy Week after Jesus rode into Jerusalem, we also wish to see Jesus. We have come to this beginning of Holy Week to behold the Man, to behold Jesus, vividly portrayed in crimson and violet. We’ve come to see the One who comes to us in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel. We’ve come to see the One who promises that things will be different in His kingdom, even if we don’t fully understand how that will be. So we cry out, Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!
We’ve come this Holy Week to see the One who overturns the known, comfortable order of the world to which we’ve grown accustomed. We’ve come to see if it’s true, if things are different under His rule, to see if all He’s said and done are true. We’ve come to see the tables of the moneychangers flipped over, to see the sacrificial animals set free. We’ve come to hear Him speak warning and woes to Pharisees and those who worship the politics of Herod or Caesar. We’ve come to see the Man take those enemies and opponents of ours down a peg or two as we look for our own places of glory at His right and at His left.
But what happens when we see that it’s not just them He’s warning? What happens when the nice, neat, orderly tables in your own heart and mind are flipped over? What happens when Jesus cuts loose the sacred cows that are being stabled in the temples of your heart? You do behold the Man, clearer than before. You hear the Man, saying that you need something different than your own self-determined good works or your self-justifying busyness or your sacrifices of convenience. You behold the Man who challenges your idea that deep down you’re actually good and holy and righteous, or at least good and holy and righteous enough; at the very least better, holier, and more righteous than that other person.
Behold the Man. Do not turn away. Do not close your eyes. Behold Him who spends His last week before His death teaching you that this faith is actually very hard. Taking up your cross and following Him is a challenge. Turning the other cheek is painful. Being looked down upon and despised by the world is difficult. Loving your neighbor as yourself—not in word only, but in deed and in truth—is hard. But it’s what we’re called to do. It’s what Jesus does this Holy Week. It’s what He calls you to see during this most sacred time of the year. In fact, Jesus is showing you that it’s not just hard. He’s showing you that it’s too hard. It’s too difficult for any fallen child of humanity to do. And yet it is still expected by God’s Law. It’s still required.
And so with the mob outside Pilate’s judgment hall, we behold the man who stands as a challenge and a promise. He’s a challenge to all our self-justification, all of our thinking that we’re doing just fine on our own. He challenges the pretenses of Pilate and Caesar and the world. He refuses to be sanitized and tamed for worldly gain and power; for declaring ourselves holy simply because we think it should be so. But He also stands as a promise—a promise to all who look to the Son of Man being lifted up, like the bronze serpent in the wilderness—a promise that all who look to Him will live.
You will behold the Man. You’ll see Him this week. In the prayer services Monday through Wednesday, when the Passion of our Lord is meditated upon, when we approach God’s throne for mercy and healing, you’ll see Jesus. On Holy Thursday, you’ll see the Lord who washes you clean, who shares His entire being with you, who feeds you in body and soul, who has no limits to what He will give for your sake. You will behold Him on Good Friday as He is crucified and dies for the sins of the world, all our self-chosen ways, in order to pay for them entirely, fully, willingly, and gladly. You will behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. You will see the Sacrifice, the One who gives His own body into death and sheds His blood for the forgiveness of sins. You will behold the Man—the Son of Man lifted up—until the stone closes over His tomb. And then, for a little while, you will see Him no more.
And then you will see Him again. You will behold the Man—you will see the Man who is your God—when He rises again. You will see the fulfillment of all that He has promised: life for those who look to Him, mercy and peace and victory over sin, death, and the world that rages against the Lord and His Chosen One, His chosen children. You will see Him sharing eternal life in body and blood, water and Word, confession and absolution, speaking peace in the midst of your storms. Through the eyes of faith you will behold the Man who is God, the God who became Man, so that He would deliver you from all fear, from all evil, from all death, from all that afflicts you. Behold the Man. Behold your Jesus. In the name of our crucified and risen Lord Jesus, Amen.
