NOTES for Joh 18:19-19:16

"We venerate Your Cross, O Christ..." What do these words mean for us? Boundless compassion for the innocent, beaten, naked righteous one hanging on this wood. Love for Him, limitless gratitude. And also the understanding of how infinitely lighter our own cross is. All the problems that seem impossible to carry are nothing compared with the measure of suffering He took upon Himself for our sake. "You, who so loved Your world..."

And there are other words: "Then He says to the disciple, 'Behold your mother.'" On these words the Church is built, the strongest of strongholds. We have all been made sons and daughters, and therefore we can never be orphans. Orphanhood is a word from some other life. We often enter prayerfully into the Passion of Christ, but it is much harder to enter into the passion of Mary. His inconceivable physical pain and her inconceivable pain of soul. The whole world is embraced by this pain.

Today’s reading is dedicated to the feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. At its center is the veneration of the Cross, by which we have been saved “from the bondage of the enemy,” as the magnification for the feast sings.

The Evangelist John bears witness to the Crucifixion and to those standing by the Cross. The foot of the Cross is the only “right” place for each of us, because it is precisely in the Savior’s Death on the Cross that the salvation of the world is accomplished and life is granted to us all, even if it never enters our minds. The world is full of suffering, sometimes explicable but more often inexplicable, and this mystery cannot fail to concern a person. This is hard for us, so our desire to hide from suffering and turn away from it when it does not touch us personally is quite understandable. But the Gospel tells us that every genuine human suffering, not one that is contrived, is a place of Christ’s special presence. It is He who suffers in every person, and it is precisely here that we meet Him.

Who manipulates a person, and how? And what gives manipulators power over souls? Pontius Pilate, it would seem, is not one of those who can be pushed around at will: a high-ranking representative of what today would be called the "center," possessing in Palestine all the necessary authority and all the necessary power and resources, even for military intervention if needed, has no one to fear except Rome. In practice, however, everything turns out quite differently.

Pilate understands perfectly well that the Man whom the Temple leadership has brought to him for confirmation of a death sentence is guilty of nothing, at least He is not guilty under Roman law. Therefore He must be released. But to act this way means entering into conflict with the Temple. Pilate is an experienced politician. He understands perfectly well who stands behind the street crowd demanding the execution of a harmless Preacher. Of course, He calls Himself a King, but if his kingdom is only a "kingdom of truth," then for Rome He is certainly not dangerous. After all, what is truth? That is a philosophical question; it has no relation to real politics. But the Temple does have a relation to it, a very direct and immediate one. One has to stay on good terms with the Temple.

And a vague anxiety creeps into Pilate's heart: if this Man has become an enemy of the Temple and the Synagogue, will he, Pilate, become their enemy too if he supports Jesus? And then there are the unambiguous hints at a possible denunciation to Rome, which will unquestionably follow: the shouts from the crowd are not accidental, for behind them stand people for whom writing such a denunciation would be no trouble, and there, in the center, their letter would certainly receive attention...

And Pilate gives in. After all, he is a practical politician, a man of the system, and he has something to lose. He is afraid. And fear is a lockpick to the human heart. Love is a key, and fear is a lockpick. The key is in God's hand, but He does not enter the heart without asking. The enemy of God, with a lockpick, asks no permission. And he enters those hearts into which God is not allowed. He is not allowed in so that He will not interfere with "real politics." And then another enters the heart of such a "practical politician." The one who cares neither about politics nor about the politician. The one who needs only another's heart in order to settle in it himself.

The mood of the crowd is changeable: only a few days pass from "hosanna!" to "crucify!" But a crowd is a crowd precisely so that a person disappears in it. Dissolves into a large and irresponsible collective "we." Under certain circumstances it can be physically destroyed, but it is utterly useless to try to enter into communion with it. Simply because there is no one there to communicate with: in a crowd there is not a single person.

But a crowd can be manipulated. Sometimes. With certain precautions and usually up to a certain limit. And the high priest, like the whole temple elite, had mastered this art perfectly. His power rested on it in many respects. And, of course, on the political games that he, as the head of Judea, played with Roman authority. He played them by frightening Rome with religious extremists, zealots, with whom he also had his own secret game, one Rome did not know about. Or knew about but turned a blind eye, hoping in the high priest and his circle as the lesser evil. He played them by hinting at the possibility of a great religious war, toward which he himself silently pushed those who were ready to unleash it. And so, on fear that was partly real and partly phantom, he built his politics.

And Jesus was not only not a Person in his eyes; He was not even a person with a lowercase letter. Just a bargaining chip. A chance to prove his loyalty: we have no king but the emperor! And to hand over to execution a troublesome preacher who was completely impossible to control. Barabbas was another matter: a zealot, of course, an extremist, but one of their own, a patriot, a hater of the Romans, and above all someone understandable. The Temple had long been in contact with such people; with them it was clear how to behave and clear what to expect from them. But here there was one continuous surprise, unnecessary and uncontrollable, and therefore dangerous. Better to get rid of this preacher, but not with his own hands. Better with Roman hands: for the high priest, this was an almost no-lose option. And if the procurator became stubborn, the roar of the crowd could hint to him that reports might reach Rome about his indulgence toward dangerous rebels, against whom the high priest was fighting and whom he, the procurator, the emperor's hand and eye, was pardoning.

Everyone plays his own game. Except Jesus alone; He does not play any games with anyone. Such a one is needed by no one. And only one thing remains for Him: the cross. There is no other path for Him.

The Gospels tell us a great deal about the Kingdom of God, but only John sees the manifestation of this Kingdom in Jesus' suffering—it is no accident that in this Gospel Pilate questions Jesus about His kingship. For Pilate, "the King of the Jews" is merely the title of former Jewish kings, the last of whom was Herod. But Jesus speaks to him of another Kingdom, one given by God, one that is "not from here," "not of this world," and that does not operate where people do not know God and do not know "what truth is." The human person's choice is the condition for the Kingdom of God to be realized: Pilate has been "given from above" the power to kill or release the true King. Unlike citizenship in other kingdoms, allegiance to this King is voluntary, for even the priests are free to name the Roman emperor as their only king. Conversely, the One who does the will of Him who sent Him becomes the center in which His Kingdom is realized, even if outwardly it is expressed only in the inscription on the cross.

During Jesus' trial, something very important for understanding everything that is happening stands out: as a man He is of no interest to anyone. Not as Man (neither the temple elite nor the Roman procurator saw Man with a capital M in Him), but precisely as a man. The most ordinary one. The one with a small letter. The one over whom all authorities of all times, both secular and religious, habitually stepped whenever he got in their way.

They stepped over him, often without even noticing. Of course, both the high priest and the procurator had their own reasons and arguments for acting as they did. Their own interests. Often, as it seemed to them, extremely important ones. Far more important than the individual life of an individual person. The welfare of the people, for example. Or the peace of the empire.

Of course, both are worth the life of some preacher. Especially one who is dubious and not trusted by serious and authoritative people. One who can only stir up the crowd. Meanwhile, He does not even try to prove anything to them. He answers Pilate's simple questions so simply and profoundly that it is hard not to understand Him. But for a skeptic by habit, His answers have no meaning. Likewise, for that matter, the question about truth posed by Pilate himself is quite rhetorical.

There is nothing to prove or explain here. As for the rest... the value of human life for a high-ranking official is determined by the social status of the person being evaluated. Everything is simple and prosaic. And therefore frightening - for us today. If Christ had been executed by some infernal villains, we could feel relatively safe: there are very few such villains among us, if any are to be found. But it turns out that He was executed by the most ordinary people with quite ordinary interests.

True, they were high-ranking people, vested with the right to make decisions, but... in every other respect they were the most ordinary people. People like us. And all that was required for the execution of the Messiah was to place certain supposedly higher interests ahead of a human being. Not even Man with a capital M, but simply a human being as the image of God. If they had seen Him even in that way, it would have been enough for the Messiah not to die on the cross. But it did not happen. It turned out otherwise. And now, and in any other age, everything could end the same way. And that is truly frightening.

Peter's denial looks like completely reasonable and sensible behavior in a critical situation. He needs to stay close and wants to learn something, and to do that he must not be recognized. At such a moment, one person runs away and hides while another tries to pass unnoticed into the place where the main events are unfolding. It is foolish to risk one's life by admitting acquaintance with the prisoner. You might be seized too, and whom would that help? We do not know, however, what drove the Apostle Peter. It is entirely possible that these first, superficial reasons, understandable to anyone, were not at all the main thing at that moment. What matters is that a moment sometimes comes when openly acknowledging that you follow Jesus is the only possible choice. On the other side, one hears the terrible word “denial.”