Powerless Powerful Love
This choice, this restraint of power, is actually more powerful than power itself!
Look at those soldiers. Aren’t they enjoying themselves? Like a group of dirty, white, racist cops gone bad proving their “superiority” over a man of color by almost bludgeoning him to death, these soldiers have a point to make. These soldiers seek power by taking it from Jesus. A king? Then let him prove it!
“They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Power. A real king with a real scepter would pound it three times on the floor and security would step in immediately to eliminate the threat. “They spit on him.” Power. A real king doesn’t allow anyone to spit in his presence, much less in his own face. “They took the staff and struck him on the head.” Power. Swinging a staff like a baseball bat and mauling a king’s head would normally mark a person for instant death, but not here. Not now. Not with this fake king. There is no king but Caesar! For the soldiers power comes first (Matthew 27).
Like the soldiers and Pilate, I don’t want to kill Jesus, either. But I am willing to rough him up with a little trash talk to impress my buddies that I’m not the goody-two-shoes they think I am. Power. I’m willing to replace the ruling scepter of his Word with my own mock rules about living made up to make my life more convenient even though they beat him up. Power. There are times I spit in his face with disgust because of the suffering he allows in the world, my world. Power. I’m interested in making myself feel good, so I put on a really good pout so that others feel worse and I feel better. Power.
God scatters the proud, brings down rulers, and sends the rich away empty. There is a better way than power. There is love. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the persecuted. Can you turn away from the temptation to seek power first, and can you trust in love to do its work?
Look at Jesus. Do you see him seeking power? Do you hear him filing a complaint against his Father that this wasn’t part of the deal? There is no power here, because for Jesus love comes first.
Look at Jesus. For Jesus, love comes first. Jesus’ love, even as ugly and painful and costly as you see it here in Pilate’s palace, is beautiful. His lips drip with others’ spit and his eyes are swollen shut and his hair matted with blood and thorn not because of power – but because of love. Not by force but by choice. This choice, this restraint of power, is actually more powerful than power itself! Power demands that people follow. Love draws people to follow. Power rules in its own iron hand force. Love rules in the recipient’s melted heart. Power takes. Love gives. Power disables. Love enables. The Bible says, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment … We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:16-19).
Jesus lovingly suffers in Pilate’s palace so that your love is made complete. Picture your attempts at loving other people not as a bar graph with a goal of ten and each of your efforts might reach to only a three or five or, if you’re really good, a seven. Rather look at your love to others as a circle, a circle completed by Jesus’ love. Your efforts to love are found on that circle where there’s no beginning and no end.
PRAYER: Frustrate my attempts at selfish, sinful power, O God, and forgive me for my lack of love to others. Alert me when Satan’s call to power is one that will hurt others even if it helps me. Strengthen me to trust in your firm promises and choose the way of love, as my Savior did for me. Amen.