11 Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”  “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied.  12 When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer.  13 Then Pilate asked him, “Don’t you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?”  14 But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge — to the great amazement of the governor.  15 Now it was the governor’s custom at the Feast to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd.  16 At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Barabbas.  17 So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?”  18 For he knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him.  19 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.”  20 But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.  21 “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor.  “Barabbas,” they answered.  22 “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?” Pilate asked.  They all answered, “Crucify him!”  23 “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.  But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”  24 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!”  25 All the people answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!”  26 Then he released Barabbas to them.  But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.  27 Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him.  28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him,  29 and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head.  They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him.  “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said.  30 They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.  31 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 27:11-31, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House) 1984.

A high school student is more than a little reluctant to go home and show his mother his latest grade on a history paper.  The paper had been assigned months ago.  He kept thinking that he had plenty of time to get the research done.  And then before he knew it the deadline was just a couple of days away.  He couldn’t find the books that he wanted.  Some were checked out.  Some he couldn’t find.  He was tired.  He couldn’t concentrate.  He tried to make his paper look good but it didn’t fool the teacher.  Back came the paper with all the comments indicating it was too little too late and the grade was an F for failure.  Knowing that his mother would find out sooner or later, knowing that she knew about the paper and would be asking about it, he left it lay on the table for her to see.

Naturally when she got home it has not been one of her better days at work so when she sees the paper it doesn’t do much to improve her mood.  "What is this?" she exclaims as she looks at his grade.  And from that point she is off and running.  "How many times did I tell you to get started on this paper?" she says.  "Didn’t I tell you to get started early?  Didn’t I tell you that I would help you?  Didn’t I tell you that you can’t let these things go until the last minute?  How many times do I have to keep telling you the same things over and over again?"

Some of you parents know this speech by heart don’t you? We don’t like it any more than our children do but we keep on making it.  Somehow we think that if we say it often enough, loud enough, with extra emphasis, somehow the point will come across to that child of ours who can’t seem to understand how things work.  We are trying to teach.  We are trying to convey our concern but somehow it seems like we are talking to someone who is deaf.

As Jesus stands before Pilate and everything starts to come down on Jesus’ head this is a much more serious situation than a bad history paper.  Things are so out of whack that the very walls of Pilate’s courtyard are crying out for Jesus to say something.  This is the time for Him to speak up.  This is the time for Him to speak out!  To point out the evil that is so blatant.  To get the attention of the people who have lost their senses and their understanding.  But Jesus says nothing.  I would like to look at this response on His part with you tonight.  Let us see the wondrous love that moves Him to be silent before three groups of people.  The leaders, the people, and the soldiers.

As a child when I would get caught with my hand in the cookie jar I may have been caught dead to rights but I still found myself trying to offer some defense for myself.  "My sister told me to take some," I would say.  "I was hungry," I would say.  But when I was accused of doing something that I hadn’t done and for once I was actually innocent then I would really have something to say.  "She started it," I would say with all the drama of a courtroom lawyer.  I would hasten to point out that while my mother had seen me hitting my sister, it was only because she had hit me first.  It was clearly self defense.

Pontius Pilate had seen a lot of people stand before his court trying to defend themselves.  He had heard every lame excuse and improbable story that the human mind could devise.  But never in all his days had he seen a case where the man before him was so obviously innocent that even Pilate thinks Jesus should get up and state His defense.  "Don’t you hear what they are saying?" he says to Jesus.  "How can you let these charges go unanswered?"

As I look at this situation it reminds me of a time when I was taking some training in counseling.  I was expressing my frustration to my teacher and my class that I was not able to get through to the people I was working with.  What I was telling them was true.  What I was saying was helpful information but it just didn’t seem to register.  My teacher said, "It looks to me like that was not a teachable moment."  He helped me to see that there are times when truth and advice and comfort cannot get through because the people on the receiving end are not in the right frame of mind to hear it.  Jesus looks at the faces of the high priests and the members of the Sanhedrin and He can see that they couldn’t begin to hear anything that He had to say at this moment.  But what is truly incredible to me is that He didn’t just see the futility of trying to speak but that He still loved these people who had so obviously lost their minds.  I would be so angry at the injustice of what these people are doing.  I would want to let them know how stupid they were and what punishment was waiting for them for their miscarriage of justice.  But Jesus’ love allows Him to see these leaders in another way.

They were the keepers of the faith.  They had to watch out for heresies that might creep into the church and mislead the people.  In their zeal for the truth and in their fear of anything new they were scared when Jesus challenged their traditions and showed them that while they were zealous for the letter of the law they had lost sight of the spirit of the law.  Jesus sees their fear.  He understood that fear can make people label all change as dangerous.  Now as they scream for His life he keeps His words to Himself but He keeps on loving them.  When the heat dies down.  When the fear subsides.  When people can look objectively at what is going on Jesus wants these leaders to know He will still love them, forgive them, and accept them as his disciples.  We know this love reached Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea from this group of leaders.  There may have been others as time went on after the Resurrection.  But none of them would have gotten past their fear if Jesus wouldn’t have loved them enough to remain silent.

The church continues to face this issue in its midst.  In our own church we have always been afraid of change as we think back to the days when we changed from German to English, the days more recently when we changed to a new hymnal.  And as we continue to try to figure out how we are to minister to the world in which we live, fear continues to rear its head among us as some leaders label all new things as bad.  As people are sometimes criticized and belittled and vilified for trying to say, "Can’t we take a look at what we are doing?  Can’t we see if we are doing what Jesus wants us to do?"

As the people called for Jesus’ blood and demanded Barabbas instead of Jesus He again is silent.  These people are so fickle.  Some of the very people who had laid palm branches in His path five days before who had listened to Him teach all week long in the temple, are now ready to let a murderer loose on their streets so that Jesus can be crucified.  Jesus in His love sees the failings of His people.  They didn’t have a lot of insight.  They weren’t always aware of what was really going on.  They knew what they wanted and if they didn’t get it they would turn on you in an instant.

As I watch politicians hit people’s buttons.  As politicians figure out what people are afraid of and then talk about tax relief, crime control, preserving our way of life, without even knowing it the average voter hears these things and without really knowing what the issues are or thinking things through votes exactly the way the skillful politician wants them to.  People still think with their stomachs and the prejudices and their fears and are no more interested in loving their neighbor today than they were when Jesus walked on the earth.  Jesus loved His people in spite of this.  Some of these people became His followers after the Resurrection.

And finally there are the soldiers.  They don’t just scream and demand death.  They get down and dirty.  They strip Him naked.  They mock Him.  They push Him around and beat Him.  They whip Him.  Surely here Jesus would shout in their faces.  They are not His people.  They are ignorant pagans who don’t deserve what the swine herders would feed to their pigs.  Silence.  Love that can’t be imagined.  Jesus sees these men who will never be rocket scientists as people that He still wants to be part of His kingdom.  They have seen it all.  They thought they would join the army and have a glorious career.  They had ended up in Palestine far from family and loved ones.  They were occupiers amongst a people who openly showed their contempt.  They would be knifed in the back if they weren’t careful.  For them there wasn’t anything really worth believing in.  For them God and country were empty words.  Jesus wanted them to see that when God and man are reconciled to each other men can be reconciled to one another.  Soldiers can be men of honor and in keeping the peace can allow God’s love and peace to be proclaimed to those who haven’t heard it.

There may be times when you and I can see ourselves being like the leaders, the people, and the soldiers of Jesus’ day.  There most certainly will be times when we will meet people who are like these groups in the world of today.  The Jesus who loved us so much that He stayed silent when He had every right to speak has also called us to remember the place that silence plays in our lives as His disciples.

When fear causes the church to attack new programs and new ideas as being false doctrine and we want to get on our high horse and issue a counter attack, be silent.  Let the words fly.  Let the heat be expressed.  After the heat has dissipated maybe the light can be seen.  If there is power in what we are doing, if the Holy Spirit wants this change to come, it will come.  Let us keep on loving and working in spite of the venom that may come.

When people are fickle and we say, "Let’s give in.  give people what they want."  Be silent.  Stay the course.  Know that what you are doing is God’s way.  You are not subject to polls and public opinion.  The prophets were always in the minority.  But they knew who they were talking for and they believed that God’s love would ultimately find its way through.

When people are gross, ugly, dangerous, be silent.  When they get thrown into jail don’t be among those who say, "Throw away the key."  Be among those who go into the jails so that when their hearts are broken you can tell them, "Let me show you another view of the world.  Let me show you that God loves you."

Maybe this is the most incredible thing of all about Jesus’ love in this setting.  He was silent for us so that we could be silent for Him.  Amen.