Christ’s victory over the grave portends victory over all evil, not least the evils of despotism.
Christ’s victory over the grave portends victory over all evil, not least the evils of despotism.
T his week, Christians give special remembrance to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Today — Good Friday — focuses on His crucifixion. The events surrounding this death are of great significance to Christians. Our theology and practice rest on what that death meant and on the truth of Christ’s subsequent rising from the tomb. While principally of religious importance, Jesus’s death was wrapped in political instruction as well.
We shouldn’t be surprised. Scripture declares God to be the King and to exercise just rule over His kingdom — the entire world. With this perfect rule in mind, the Bible is filled, too, with discussions of justice, of right and wrong rule by men.
In Christ’s death, we see a series of political actions: an arrest, a trial, debates over legal jurisdiction, and, finally, an administration of capital punishment. But we also encounter much more than that. We’re given a picture of one particular political sin at work: despotism.
The events surrounding Good Friday present despotism in all its power, all its ugliness, and, ultimately, all its limitations. In seeing despotism’s qualities, we need not focus on one person or entity in the story. The Romans, Jewish leaders, the people, and even Jesus’s disciple Peter at one point reveal despotism’s nature.
To begin, we see in the Passion story the vicious bedrock on which despotism grounds its rule. First, despotism rules through fear. We see this element at work with Pilate, who declares that he finds no fault in Jesus and thus will release Him. Yet Pilate is pressured into not only continuing to detain Jesus but into putting Him to death. The crowds yell, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” Opposing Caesar meant death at Caesar’s hands.
Fear also takes over Peter. Peter had told Jesus that he would follow Him anywhere, even if it meant losing his own life. Yet after Jesus’s arrest, Peter denies even knowing his master — three times in one night. He does so for predictable, even understandable, reasons. He sees that a path of punishment, leading to death, awaits the arrested Jesus. He knows that, depending on the accusation leveled against Christ, those affiliated with Him might face similar consequences. And so, he succumbs to despotism out of fear.
Despotism also operates by obscuring or denying the truth. Jesus says to Pilate that He came into this world “to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice.” Pilate responds by asking, “What is truth?” Why does despotism answer this way? Truth establishes a standard by which to judge fact from fiction, justice from injustice. To acknowledge the truth, then, is to acknowledge the lies and evils by which despotism establishes and sustains itself.
Along these lines, consider that the palace guard, with Judas’s help, arrests Jesus at night. Jesus notes the strangeness of the timing. He says to His captors, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs? When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on Me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.” The power of darkness lies in its ability to shroud itself, thus avoiding if not outright denying the truth. It’s a power essential to despotism.
On this point, we should also consider Pilate’s washing his hands of Jesus’s crucifixion. This action denies a truth — that Pilate and the Romans were in charge. Pilate presides over the Roman soldiers who scourge and ultimately crucify Christ. Yet still, he seeks to pass the moral blame on to others. One might describe his doing so as either manipulation or cowardice. Either way, his response combines despotism’s ability to instill fear and to exert immense pressure in the service of denying the truth.
Lastly, despotism rules through greed. Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. We know that this offer plays upon Judas’s own weaknesses because we learn elsewhere that he has regularly stolen from the money collected for Jesus and the disciples’ work. Whereas fear gains obedience through intimidation, bribery obtains it through appealing to our insatiable desire for more. It presents to us the delegated gift of power through whatever the bribe offers: possessions, wealth, office, and the like. It permits us to think that we possess power when in fact we merely subject ourselves even more to the despotic control of another. In the end, underneath all bribes, one finds despotism’s threat of coercion.
We also see the tools of despotism in this story. We see the threat — and use — of violence. Armed guards arrest Jesus. Roman soldiers scourge him and then crucify him. The crucifixion, moreover, is public. Despotism wants this death displayed: to showcase the awesome power of the Roman Empire, and to dehumanize.
We see this dehumanization especially in the treatment the soldiers give to Jesus. After scourging Christ, they place a robe on His body and a crown of thorns upon His brow. They then hail him as “King of the Jews” while slapping him in the face. Violence, so used, attempts to deny Him of His humanity. The mockery that accompanies it only accentuates that denial. Both the violence and the derision stem from a common source — a lack of respect for another.
Still, despotism does not operate purely on blunt, unvarnished force. Instead, it claims legitimacy with the thin veneer of the law. Take Jesus’s trial before the Jewish council, for example. A truly legitimate trial features a few things. It gives a forum with procedures aimed at discerning what happened and how the law relates to it. It places some persons in the position of judge of those matters, put there to act impartially in service of justice. By these standards, Matthew’s Gospel shows Jesus’s trial to be a farce. It recounts, “The chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put Him to death.” The judges, however, had already made their judgment. Not only do they shed any impartiality to get their desired verdict; they also seek to rig the trial through false witnesses. Only by their seeming ineptitude do they not at first succeed. They struggle to find two witnesses (required by Mosaic law) to agree on an accusation. Even when they do find two concurring witnesses (according to Matthew’s account), their accusation consists of Jesus’s esoteric prophecy of the destruction of the temple. Only Jesus’s affirmation of being God finally provides the council with the justification to seek the death penalty the leadership seeks.
By the end of Friday, despotism has presented itself in full. It seems successful, too, in its endeavors. Fear and greed reign. The truth has been ignored. Violence and the manipulation of law accomplish their bitter ends.
But we know that Friday does not end the story. Not for Christians, who look to the resurrection on Sunday. There, Jesus turned the tables on those who had abused and killed Him. The greatest of injustices, His killing, actually serves His purposes of redemption, the building of an everlasting kingdom in His church.
Nor should the story of despotism end on Friday. We see so much of despotism’s success in the world. But that success is more passing and its power weaker than we too often think. The claims of justice, of truth, of the good, are stronger than we give them credit for. They can and do triumph. And, for Christians, the two stories unite. Christ’s victory over the grave portends victory over all evil, not least the evils of despotism. Such victory should not be the least of our celebrations. For Friday turns, as it does every year and into eternity — to Sunday.