Sermon text: John 19:1-37.

Should emperors go into battle at the head of their armies? In the history of our Republic, the presidents who fought in battle all fought before their election to the office. We have never witnessed a U.S. president personally leading our forces in battle during a war.

This is a good thing, because history tells the abysmal record of kings/presidents/emperors in battle. Shakespeare wrote of several, but two of the most noteworthy both died: Macbeth and Richard III. There’s a good reason to keep your leaders away from a battle. People die in battles, and people in the front tend to get shot first.

On the other hand, soldiers tend to fight harder for leaders willing to accept the same risks their troops face. In ancient Rome, rare was the emperor who didn’t come up the ranks of the army. Almost no emperor could rule without the title Ave Imperator, which designated someone as worthy to lead the armies of Rome. In World War II, many in the British government encouraged King George VI and his wife Elizabeth to send their daughters to Canada. Queen Elizabeth replied, “The children won't go without me. I won't leave the King. And the King will never leave.” Following the German bombardment of Buckingham Palace, the Queen said, “I am glad we have been bombed. We can now look the East End in the face.” The courage of George VI and Elizabeth inspired their people to withstand the horrors of the War.

We’ve all heard the Church compared to the army of Christ. We know Christ is our head; through the Holy Spirit, He gives the orders, we follow the orders. This setup works really well, as the growth of the Church from fewer than 200 to more than 2 billion today attests.

But the Church has succeeded for one reason: Our King was willing to shoulder our risks, even though it killed Him.

Literally.

The sermon passage today demonstrates the twisted humor of Pilate and the Romans. In the preceding chapter (from last week’s sermon), the Jews accused Jesus of declaring Himself a king. Pilate, after questioning Jesus, concluded the charges were false and decided to release Him. To elicit the Jews’ sympathy, Pilate had Jesus whipped; the Roman soldiers, hearing this man has called Himself a king, taunted Him. “Hail, king of the Jews!”

But then the Jews played their trump card: “if you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend.” They knew Pilate was on the hot seat with Rome for his treatment of the Jews and the trouble it caused. Caesar wanted everything quiet in the East, and Pilate hadn’t exactly maintained the peace. Pilate faced a choice: risk the Jews’ accusation making its way to Rome, or crucifying an innocent man. Ever the pragmatist, Pilate chose the latter, but not before getting one last dig at the Jews: “Behold your king!”

By this point, Jesus looked like anything but a king. Isaiah had prophesied saying, “his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind” (Isaiah 52:14) To call Jesus a “king” was the ultimate in ironic cruelty. Or so Pilate thought.

In his “Good Friday Meditation on an Unlikely Text,” James Kiefer wrote the following:

1. An English chaplain in the First World War, Studdert-Kennedy, gave an address to his fellow-chaplains in which he said (approximately):
   

2. 
   

3. “The one thing that you absolutely must do as chaplains is to go into the line with the men. The Army does not require it. As far as regulations are concerned, you are free to stay out of the trenches, well behind the front, and minister to the men before they go into combat and when they come back out for brief intervals. But if you do that, you will do no good at all. There is no way that you can talk about the meaning of life and death to a man who is facing death and knows that you are not. But if you go into the line with the men, if you get shot at and shelled and gassed along with them, then they will listen to you. And it doesn't matter whether you are eloquent. The fact that you are there with them when you don't have to be, doing your Master's business, will tell them something about your Master. Of course, taking this advice means that you may be killed. So be it. The more chaplains that die in the trenches doing Christ-like deeds, the better. Most of us will preach far better dead than alive.”
   

4. 
   

5. In those terms, we may say that God has paid his dues, has earned the right to talk to us about suffering because he has endured it with us. He endured not only physical pain, but the torments of doubt and uncertainty and fear. In the Garden of Gethesemane, waiting for the soldiers to come and arrest him, he was clearly in great distress of mind. Some people think that this shows a character flaw — that a truly great man, or a truly wise man, would say, “I never worry about things I can change, and I never worry about things I cannot change,” and so would not have been bothered by the prospect of torture and death. I reply that a man who did not let such things bother him would have very little to say to the rest of us.
   

And I take comfort in this; I take comfort in the fact that the prospect of torture and death not only bothered my King; they terrified Him. He knows my fears; He knows the temptation to run and hide, to try to weasel out of trouble. He faced it and won.

Jesus not only faced and overcame the excruciating pain of a Roman scourging and crucifixion. In the midst of His suffering, Jesus took care of His mother, entrusting her to St. John. If Jesus can care for His mother in the pain of His dying, He can care for us and provide for us in His glory.

Jesus’ suffering and death also challenge me, because they remind me that Jesus can ask us to face death because He has already done so. Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Jesus demands our obedience because He died to achieve our redemption from sin.

Yet, even this fact comforts me, strengthens me: that Jesus experienced that which we all face as we carry out His orders. For at the moment that Pilate sarcastically declared, “behold your King!”, Jesus was on the verge of winning the greatest battle ever fought. Within a matter of hours, Jesus would win victory over death. Not even the Roman emperor could even attempt to fight death.

In his conclusion to his meditation, Kiefer quoted St. Thomas More, a martyr of the Church in the turmoil of Henry VIII’s establishment of the Anglican Church, who wrote the following as Christ speaking to a person facing death for the faith:

1. Art thou terrified? Do thy knees fold under thee? Then put thy hand in mine and walk with me, for I have trod this road before thee. In Gethsemane, I too was alone and afraid. I also sweated and shook. I also choked back the scream of terror. I also felt helplessness and dread. The man of stout heart, who will walk whistling to the stake with a firm step and a merry countenance, hath a hundred glorious martyrs in whose steps he may tread, but thou, poor, weak, trembling silly sheep, think thou it sufficient to follow only after me.
   

What do you face today? Fear? Behold your King. Uncertainty about life? Behold your King. Are you waiting for God to answer your prayer, but you’re afraid of what the answer will be? Behold your King.

On Good Friday, Christians everywhere hear this passage; we hear these words and find ourselves both comforted and challenged. For the rest of your life, when you hear this passage, I urge you to look to the cross, witness Jesus’ sufferings, and take the words to heart: “Behold your King.”