Good Friday Meditation 2

March 21, 2008


We Have No king But Caesar


How long we have come from just a few days ago when the crowd was following Jesus into Jerusalem saying “Hosanna, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

So what has happened?

We have come a long way since that day at Caesarea Philippi when Peter proclaimed “You are the Christ.”

So what has happened?

It has only been a few hours since Peter bravely declared “Lord I am ready to go to prison and even to death.”

Now things have taken a dark and frightening turn.

No longer hosannas, no longer proclamations about the Christ, no longer brave words about sticking with Jesus.

Peter, who had bragged that he would never deny Christ has heard the rooster crow, reminding him that he has denied Christ not once, not twice, but three times.

Now the crowd is standing in the judgment hall of Pontius Pilate, who, in all fairness, is doing all he can to save Jesus of Nazareth.

They keep accusing Jesus and shouting “crucify, crucify.”

Pilate does everything he can think of: he has Jesus scourged, he speaks to Jesus one on one.

He gives them a choice, which to him would be obvious: I will release either Barabbas, who was a thief and robber, or Jesus, the king of the Jews.”

The crowd made a choice: a thief over the one who had healed the lame, made the blind to see, and even had raised Lazarus from the dead.

Pilate was quickly finding himself being pushed into a corner.

Finally the crowd plays the trump card: “If you release this man, you are not a friend of Caesar, everyone who makes himself a king set himself against Caesar.”

And then, these pious Pharisees and scribes, the ones who tended the temple of God, the ones who were desperately waiting for the promised Messiah to come and rid them of the Roman army declare: “We have no king but Caesar.”

The next verse tells it all: “Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.”

They had made a choice and they chose Caesar as their king.

Peter made a choice: he chose to save his own hide by denying that he ever knew Jesus of Nazareth.

How easy it is for us to stand on the sidelines and to say to ourselves that we would never choose Caesar as our king and that we would certainly not deny Christ.

Oh? Really?

I wonder how many times we choose other people or other things over Christ.

How easy it is for us to be charmed by the glitter of the world, and to make choices for the kingdom of thingdom rather than the kingdom of God.

How easy it is when we are in secular elite social settings, when we make choices to do other things on Sunday morning, to deny the Christ who waits for us at the altar in order to give us his body and blood.

How easy it is for us to think that perhaps we will get around to the things of God later, when it is more convenient.

I wonder, quite honestly, how often we have, through word or deed, proclaimed, we have no king but Caesar.

Polycarp was the bishop of Smyrna who lived in the second century.

Being a follower of Jesus wasn’t particularly easy those days, and Bishop Polycarp found himself in front of the Roman magistrate because someone had ratted on him as being a Christian.

By this time Polycarp was 86 years old.

The Roman magistrate looked at him, felt sorry for him, and said: “Polycarp, I don’t want to hurt you.

Simply take a couple of tiny grains of incense and put it into the censer in front of the statue of Caesar and I will let you go.”

What would you or I have done in that situation.

What would a couple of grains of incense matter?

Polycarp replied: “For 86 years my Lord and savior Jesus Christ has loved me and cared for me and I will never deny that he is my Lord and king.”

He was led out and burned at the stake for being a follower of Jesus.

Incidentally, the name Polycarp is Greek and means “giving much fruit.”

And, indeed he did.

He gave his life for the Christ who had given his life for him.

Dear hearts, on this Holy Day, where are we among the crowd?

Do we shout Hosanna at one moment and declare Caesar the king the next.

Do the things, the opinions, and our status in the world mean more to us than Christ?

On the night of his betrayal Jesus makes it plainly clear that we are not to be subjects of Caesar.

He tells us: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.

If you were of this world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

And then Jesus prays for us: “I do not pray that thou should take them out of the world, but that thou should keep them from the evil one.”

Dear hearts, we live in this world, and it is indeed a world of beauty.

But, we live in this world as followers of Jesus Christ.

That means, dear hearts, that there are times that the way of Christ and the way of this materialistic and violent world will come into conflict.

It is then that we will have to make a choice.

There is a wonderful legend about Peter.

When Nero was persecuting the Christians in Rome, Peter was fleeing for us life along the Appian Way, a road outside of Rome.

To his astonishment, he saw the risen Christ coming from the other direction.

He said: “Quo vadis, domine” which means “where are you going, Lord.”

The answer: “I am going to Rome to die with my followers.”

Peter turned around, went back to Rome, and, yes, it cost him his earthly life, but he was welcomed as a saint and martyr into the eternity of God.

Standing among the crowd on this sacred day, where is our allegiance, what shall we say, who is our king?