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            Jesus’ entry into the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday is the solemn initiation of the story of a man on trial for his life.  What is actually going on in this story?  What are the charges on which Jesus is put on trial, condemned and executed? 
            The gospel narrative, which we shall be reading on Good Friday, is structured so as to contrast Jesus’ good confession before the Sanhedrin with Peter’s three-fold denial in the courtyard of the high priest. 
            But what exactly is Jesus’ confession?  Who does he claim to be, and why is this claim considered worthy of death?  If we scrutinize the text closely, we will see that it is not easy to answer these questions. 
            In the trial before the Sanhedrin, the high priest asks Jesus, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” (Mark 14:61).  Jesus’ bold answer in Mark, “I am” (v. 62), is muted in Matthew: “You have said so” (26:64). This is the same answer Jesus gives to Pilate, when he asks him, “Are you the King of the Jews” (Mark 15:2).
            It has been suggested that, under Roman law, Pilate had no choice but to condemn to death a defendant who refused to answer a capital charge.  But how did things ever reach this point?  How did an itinerant Jewish rabbi and wonderworker ever come to be accused of blasphemy, under Jewish law, or of sedition, under Roman law? 
            Is there some hidden agenda, known to Pilate and the Jewish leaders, but withheld from us, the readers of the gospel?  The lack of historical clarity concerning the issues involved in Jesus’ trial has made it possible for advocates of a variety of causes, both sacred and secular, to claim the backing of Jesus’ authority. 
            But Jesus was, in the words of one distinguished New Testament scholar, “a man who fits no formula.”  The titles “Christ” and “Son of God” would be applied to him by the church which proclaimed his vindication by God after his death.  The title “King of the Jews,” the charge inscribed on the cross, would be re-interpreted by the church in the light of the Easter faith. 
            But what Jesus is on trial for, what brought him into conflict with religious and secular leaders, is nothing other than his own identity, and this identity cannot be summed up in any conventional title, however exalted. 
            The passion narrative, it seems to me, confronts us with the question of our identity.  Over the course of our lives each one of us is on trial over this same issue: who are we?  To whom or what do we bear witness? 
            In modern-day living we find that we are many things to many people: our persona shifts in each new encounter.  We are one person at work, another at home; we project one identity with our superiors, another with those over whom we exercise authority.  We have not one identity but many, and there is a serious danger that as we put on one new face after another we may lose all sense of who we really are. 
            Like Peter in the courtyard, we try to be whatever others would have us be, and we deny whatever in us might give offence.  We try to blot out from our own consciousness any sense of ourselves which might bring us into conflict with the principalities and powers which rule our lives. 
            Peter would recover his true identity in tears of bitter shame and loss; he would make the good confession, like his Lord, when he was crucified in Rome under the Emperor Nero.  Martyrdom, in fact, means “witness,” and the hour of our death is our last opportunity to bear witness to who we truly are.  May Christ’s example before Pilate and the high priest strengthen each one of us in this sacred quest.            

April 5, 2009

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