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Saturday, December 4, 2010

21 Days of Love: John 19

Jesus is flogged and mocked with a crown of thorns pressed into his skull and a purple robe of royalty put over his bloody body. He looks as helpless as any person has ever looked. Pilate takes Jesus before the people and says "here is the man!" (v.6). Pilate seems to be saying, if we venture to read between the lines, "look at what you forced me to do to him...Is beaten badly enough...Can't we stop the abuse toward this man with whom I find no fault???"

"Here is the man" sticks out to me for some reason. I think it's because this statement spoken by a pagan Pilate is a summary of the Gospel's power. The pre-existent, eternal Son of God (remember John 1???) became "the man" and as a man was humiliated and beaten badly. "Here is the man" bloody, beaten, and belittled who did not consider "equality with God [as God] something to be held onto but he made himself nothing" (Phil 2) for our sakes.

"Here is the man" is a statement that compels me to, like Christ, go low and jump onto the turf of others, making myself nothing, in order to raise them up to a whole new level of living. That's what Christ has done for me. Today, I will partner with him to do the same for others.

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