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Featured Exploring the Word

24 Nov 2024 - Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, Cycle B

Power is a tricky business. Many will try to win it, buy it, or obtain it by whatever means necessary. Yet power remains elusive even to those who seek and desire it. Unlike a coin you can hold in your hand with a value easily computed, the nature of human power is often determined by intangible things. What makes a president, professor, or prison guard powerful? Mostly the trappings of office. Remove the presidential seal, take away the right to evaluate and graduate, lift the keys from a pocket, and what you have left are human beings, fragile, perishable, and ignorable. Pontius Pilate is a smart guy. He's well aware that being procurator of Judea is by no means a permanent arrangement. His authority is constantly vulnerable to elements both within and outside his control. The whims of Rome, the cooperation of Temple authorities, and the stability of the Jewish streets are factors he can manipulate but only to a degree. Each season issues arise to challenge the thin reed of his mandate. Today it's a Jewish king, a faux rival to Caesar's iron grip on this tiny country. Pilate doesn't imagine this claim is important, but to placate the high priests he must examine the threat. "Are you the king of the Jews?" With this seemingly straightforward question, Pilate loses command of the situation utterly. The interview gets spun around and suddenly the Jew is interrogating him instead. The matter at hand is no longer the charge against Jesus but the nature of kingship, the definition of kingdom, and the locus of genuine authority. A once-irrelevant examination of a fairly harmless criminal has become a precarious tightrope walk with nothing but open air below him. How did this happen? Jesus doesn't argue the charges brought against him. He simply and neatly disputes the claims to authority of those around him. Defining power as an attribute of God, and his Kingdom as beyond the petty territories of earthly rulers, Jesus relieves Pilate of his authority as easily as a parent takes a toy from a child's grasp. He exposes the lie of worldly power, and Pilate, a shrewd man on a shaky chair, recognizes it. At the close of each church year we celebrate the title "Christ the King" to testify that we know at least as much as the procurator of Jerusalem once did. With this title we acknowledge that worldly authority must cast its golden crowns around the glassy sea, as the hymn says, at the feet of divine sovereignty. You and I exert much power in this world. But we are accountable for how we use it to the One who is its source and summit. Related scripture links Jesus on power: Matt. 22:15-22, 29, 41-45; 24:1-36; Luke 22:66-71 I am the way, the truth, and the life: John 14:6 Jesus as the genuine item: true light (John 1:9), true vine (John 15:1), true food (John 6:55) The truth will set you free: John 8:31-47 Catechism links Kingdom: CCC 541-560 Pilate: CCC 596-600 Adapted from a previously published Exploring the word.

Authors Alice Camille

power pontius pilate genuine authority

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