Good Friday 2004

I spoke last evening of the competing interests that brought us to this terrible day.  The insecurity of an incompetent Pontius Pilate, desperate to prove to his imperial masters that he was on top of the situation; the clever Caiaphas, determined to protect the privileges and comforts of the priestly classes; the increasingly troublesome Jesus of Nazareth, challenging the corruption, greed and tyranny on which were founded the position of the Roman Governor and the High Priest.

Such situations are a commonplace in human life.  Day in, day out, at all levels of society, aspirations and expectations collide into one another creating tension and division.  When we encounter such a confrontation, the temptation is to play to our strength.  So it was that Pilate mobilised the full force of his military might to make the Jews cower and fall into line.  The cunning Caiaphas manipulated Pilate, toying with his insecurity.  Jesus appeared to lose, because His strength, the people – even His closest friends, was fickle and quietly melted away.

Of course, it is an uncertain business calculating the balance of power in a situation.  As we all know, the Americans have discovered that all the weapons in the world are not, of themselves, sufficient to quell Iraqi violence and dissent.  The pen, we are told, is mightier than the sword; but that is only true when the author is scribbling away beyond the reach of the swordsman.  One child in the playground taunts another.  The latter, lacking in articulacy, thumps the former.  However, as often as not, the former child nurses the bruises for but a little time, whilst the other has feelings of inadequacy further reinforced – a scar that will not easily heal.

In the commerce of world affairs, there is no ultimate power.  Like a game of scissors, stone and paper, it all rather depends on what is ranged against you.  None-the-less, for all the lessons of history, humanity is all too quick to put its trust in might of one sort or another.

The use of violence to press one’s claim is constantly reported across our televisions and newspapers; the proliferation of weapons, nuclear and otherwise, continues apace in the state arsenal’s of the world; we are now even seeking to colonise space in an attempt to gain the advantage in the race for superior might.

Then, when physical violence does not seem appropriate, there is a range of parallel techniques.  A person’s integrity is impugned as faceless voices, what Clare Short called the people in the dark, mutter in the ears of others; economic pressure is brought to bear; or one plays on the personal ambition of others to undermine any potential support.

In the end, whether the approach is physical or more subtle, the dynamic is the same – the use of power and position to squash what is uncomfortable.  In such a game, however, the stakes are high.  There are only two possible outcomes – win or lose – and in the battles of ideas, the truth is not usually so clearly assigned between the two protagonists.

The retreat into the fortress of power and influence can appear very reassuring; but it often turns out to be rather a prison.

In the first place, the fortress and the prison are two very similar constructions.  What we think is keeping others out might just effectively be detaining us inside.  Within the fortress, our horizons are quickly restricted to what we can see.  In the all-or-bust campaign, it can be very hard really to know or understand what is ranged against us.  In characterising the opponent as a faceless demon, we deceive ourselves as to its strength.

Caiaphas and Pilate fell into just such a trap.  The events surrounding the execution of Christ were a textbook example of various aspects of power used to dispose of a challenge.  So obsessed were the two men to crush this threat to their comfort and position that they did not take into account what actually He had been saying.

What they failed to grasp was that the content of Christ’s preaching was truth and truth has a power all of its own.  Some truth, of course, is ephemeral; it can be suppressed, since the moment of its relevance passes, but Christ’s truth was of a far greater order.  The perils of disorder in society and dysfunctional human relationships transcend time.  Tyrants always fall in the end and corruption sews seeds of destruction wherever it flourishes.  In confronting the twin regimes of Israel with their iniquity, Christ was only articulating the inevitable, but from their fortress of self-interest, Caiaphas and Pilate were unable to see this.

Looking back, it is easy to embrace this interpretation of events; but in the challenges that confront us today - the new ideas and the different perspectives - we do not have the benefit of hindsight; or at least we cannot know where the future will take us.  We do, however, have the lesson of Calvary that the fortress approach is not, in the long term, effective.

We may have neither brute force at our disposal, nor economic muscle, nor the power of patronage, but our autonomy gives us the option to cover our ears, stamp our feet and refuse to listen.  We can try to isolate the unsettling and the unpalatable, but we run the risk of finding that it is we, who become remote.

Of course, not all innovation and novelty is right – far from it, but if we refuse to give it a proper hearing we may never know and posterity may find that we, too, have crucified truth, which hardly behoves those who come to stand at the foot of the Cross on Good Friday.

Home page: http://stmatthewsnewcastle.org.uk/