“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.  For previous Green Room entries, click here.

This morning’s Gospel reading is John 18:33-37:

Pilate said to Jesus,

“Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me?” Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.” So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

I’m traveling to spend the week with family, so I have not had the time to properly prepare this week’s reflection. Rather than just skipping it, though, I’ll offer a few thoughts and allow commenters to delve more deeply into the topic.

The confrontation between Jesus and Pilate is one of the most dramatic moments in the New Testament, and one of the most compelling. It is also perhaps the most modern of the clashes, or at least that is true of Pilate in his steadfast refusal to recognize the eternal and divine.

In this scene, Pilate represents the worldliness and despair of a fallen world. Depending on the telling, Pilate can seem like a petty tyrant or a frustrated bureaucrat who’d like nothing better than to rid himself of the choice being forced on him. Either way, Pilate is trapped — trapped in a hostile colony, trapped by the competing politics in which he finds himself, and trapped in this choice. He has the authority to stop an injustice, but not the will to do so, because he can see no benefit for himself in it.

He refuses to contemplate the possibility that there are other options, such as faith. In fact, Pilate refuses to even acknowledge the possibility. In the very next verse after today’s reading, Pilate answers, “What is truth?” There are no truths in Pilate’s vision, only a series of choices and interpretations, and none of them very attractive.

Pilate is the very model of despair — modern despair perhaps especially. There is no truth, only relative perceptions. Without truth, there is no God, and without God there is no real meaning to humanity. We look at the world and only see endless combinations of machinations, manipulations, and exploitations, hoping to navigate through them by the least bad route. We stop seeing each other and the world as a gift, and start seeing them as a trap. And eventually, we wash our hands of the whole mess, not seeing or refusing to contemplate the kingship of the Lord and our true meaning as His children. We miss salvation when it comes before our very eyes, and have the opportunity to embrace it.

In that sense, Pilate becomes less of a historical villain, and more like us than we care to admit. Pilate is all of us when we wallow in sin and refuse to recognize it. He is to some extent the very essence of the reason Jesus had to stand before the Roman procurator to be condemned to death — our hard heart, our despair, and our arrogance. Pilate is a figure that we condemn, but perhaps to some extent because Pilate hits a little too close to home for us.

When Jesus appears before us, will we cling to our sin and denial, washing our hands of deliverance? Or will we open our hearts to the Truth?