John 18:28
It’s not just animosity and fear that kept the religious leaders waiting on Pilate’s stoop.
It’s probably some of that. After all, Pontius Pilate was Rome’s emissary, the commander of the Roman legion holding Palestine in submission, and therefore the most powerful man in the region. He was also the one who enforced the collection of the hated imperial tax, the galling payment Jews made to Rome in order to support their oppression. And beyond all that, Pilate was known to be brutal, even cruel, quick to make a gruesome example of those who crossed him. So I imagine there was some animosity and fear involved in the decision of the religious leaders to stay outside his headquarters once they delivered Jesus to him for judgment.
But that’s not all that was involved. It was also, and chiefly according to John, because they did not wish to defile themselves.
Part of the Jewish legal code was a set of rules related to what was ritually clean and what was not. We sometimes have a hard time understanding the importance and function of such rules and so they seem odd to us. But it might help to think of them as similar to our traditions. Many of our families have traditions, especially about holidays. What is served for Thanksgiving or Christmas. When we open the presents. Who sits where at the holiday dinner table, and so on.
While not exactly the same, rules about Passover and other festivals and celebrations are somewhat similar. That is, Jews didn’t believe so much that keeping these rules made them righteous before God, as Christians sometimes misunderstand. Rather, keeping these rules was a part of their identity, it marked them as God’s people, and reminded them that they had been set apart by God to be blessed in order to be a blessing to the world. The cluster of rules relating to purity and cleanliness, particularly in relation to religious festivals, helped to orient them to their primary identity in a confusing time in their history.
And to enter the home of a Gentile after they had already prepared themselves for Passover undid those preparations and made them ritually unclean. And so they stayed on the outside. That’s the point of what John is telling us.
At least it’s part of the point. The rest will come as we read through this wonderfully complex scene.
Prayer: Dear God, help us remember and reclaim our identity as those you have also blessed to be a blessing. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Post image: Christ Before Pilate, Duccio Buoninsegna (circa 14th century).
Lest we become defiled befits many of our traditions. I once heard a speaker (whose family keeps kosher) say, “My children have never eaten a cheeseburger.” It reminds me of the many times my family has invited the Lord’s blessing on our non-kosher food “for the good of our bodies and the furtherance of God’s kingdom on earth.” Lest we defile also speaks to the purposeful eating of ham at Easter. I shudder to think how that tradition defiantly began!