This coming Sunday is the Solemnity of Christ the King. The gospel reading for this year is the scene of Jesus on trial before Pontius Pilate during which the nature of Jesus’ kingship and kingdom is revealed. Pilate attempted to placate the Jewish leaders and people by offering them the choice to release Jesus or a infamous thief. When the people did not choose Jesus, in Jn 19:1-4, Pilate ordered Jesus scourged as part of a plan for Jesus’ release.  Before and after this episode, Pilate affirms that Jesus is not guilty; therefore, we must suppose that Pilate is having Jesus reduced to a bloody and battered figure in order to placate the assembled crowd and to persuade them that Jesus is too helpless to be a threat.  Roman scouring was more than a beating. 

Scouring consisted of multiple lashings with a whip, each strap having a shard of glass/metal attached to the end.  At the end of the scourging Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah ‘..so marred was his look beyond that of man, and his appearance beyond that of mortals… (Is 52:14).  The soldiers then begin the coronation ritual, weaving a crown of thorns to place on Jesus’ head and clothing him in a cloak of royal color.  The soldiers then take up the mockery and address Jesus as the King of the Jews.  Unknowingly, these Gentiles confess to the truth.  Jesus next undergoes another ceremony in the coronation ritual: he is brought out, royally bedecked ad empurpled, to be presented to his people for acclamation.  Israel’s long wait for its messianic king has reached an ironic fulfillment.

In presenting him Pilate says, ‘Look, I am bringing him out to you, so that you may know that I find no guilt in him.’ (Jn 19:4).  Perhaps Pilate is making him an example of Roman brutality in order to anger the people and arouse them to ask for his release.  The weakness exhibited in Pilate’s concession is instinctively recognized by Jesus’ enemies.  The ploy fails.  They have sensed his weakness in this second attempt to compromise, and so they hail their king with a strange acclamation: ‘Crucify him, crucify him!’ (Jn 19:6).  A far cry from the Hosanna, Blessed is the King of Israel’ (Jn 12:13) that greeted Jesus five days earlier.  Pilate’s irritated response, ‘Take him yourselves and crucify him, I find no guilt in him.’ (Jn 19:6) causes the Jewish leadership to begin psychological warfare against him.  If Pilate will not yield to their expressed desire, they will wear him down by a type of blackmail:  they will imply that his conduct in this case will bring him disfavor in Rome.  It is thought that Pilate was vulnerable in Rome, as Aelius Sejanus, to whom Pilate owed his appointment, had lost favor with Tiberius the Emperor.  Perhaps the tremors that presaged the fall of Sejanus were already felt by sensitive political observers, and Pilate feared that soon he would have no protector at Court.  A shrewd ecclesiastical politician like Caiaphas would have been quite aware of the governor’s vulnerability and ready to exploit the weakness.

On the question of Pilate’s not respecting local customs, the Jews open their attack.  Pilate has found Jesus not guilty and refuses to continue the civil trial against him, but he has ignored the fact that Jesus, whether or not a revolutionary, has violated the Jewish religious laws: ‘We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God’ (Jn 19:7).  Beneath this assertion is the reminder that Roman provincial administrators characteristically respected regional religious practices.  As soon as this point is made Pilate retreats in fear.  Pilate tried to be neutral to the truth, now he is enslaved by his own fears.

Image credit: “Christ before Pilate” by Duccio di Buoninsegna | Museo dell’Opera metropolitana del Duomo, Siena | PD-US