Behold the Man

Good afternoon, everyone. It is good to be with all of you again here in Indianapolis. See old friends and make new friends. Be here with the choir. It is also a very special treat. I think I was over here with the choir two years ago. It was the last time that I was here with the choir here, at least, anyway. They have worked hard all year to put together the music that you heard. By the time you hear them at this point in their experience at ABC, Ambassador Bible College, they have gone through most of the Bible.

We're just finishing up a few chapters here at this point. They began yesterday, and we'll come back for a few classes after the spring break. They have gone through quite a bit of the Bible and learned a lot and been exposed to the Bible. When you hear them at this point in the year, they have not only practiced their music, performed it several times, but they're probably about as good as they're going to get it. It always is very good. Mr. Shoemaker and all of his assistants that help him make this happen every year do a very good job as they bring a new choir together from scratch every year.

It's always a delight to see what kind of talent comes through in the experience here with everyone. I think it's reflective of what they have learned as they've gone through the Bible, through all the classes beginning in late August. So what you're seeing is the fruits of God's Word working in lives. A very powerful aspect of life. When you take a year of your life, as they do, and many of you have done as well, we have many ABC graduates in this congregation, you go through the Bible word for word virtually, verse by verse through all of the Bible. It's going to have an impact on one's life.

There's no question about it, no matter how diligent you might be, how much they study, and many of them study quite diligently. You're watching some of them. They've got multicolored pens laid out every class in front of them to color their Bibles with various topics and things. I think that's what it's all about. But anyway, they take it very seriously. And of course, as with all of us, God's Word hits us all in different ways and impacts our lives. But no matter how much, no matter by the time you go through the Word of God like that, that type of experience, you're moved by it.

You're changed. You're not the same person. And that's the power of the Word of God. And so that's kind of my pitch for the coming to ABC. If anyone has been thinking about doing that, have that on a bucket list or a wish list that you would like to do something like this. As many of you have done, I wholeheartedly recommend it.

It is a very good program and it's borne some very good fruit for the church and certainly fruit in the individual lives. So we're always glad to be able to take the choir around to the churches in this region every year and show off what they have done.

Praise God in the right way. I don't mean that they're showing off, but they show what they have learned and who they are. And that makes a great deal of quite a blessing there. All right. I've got a few minutes. I don't know what time you guys normally quit here. But Mr. Creech said that I could take till 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock here. So I came loaded and ready to go. And so we'll get into this and share a few of God's – some of God's word with you.

Before I did want to mention, we're looking forward – a week from tonight, we take off some of us here. The Garrison's and Brian McLean, we're all going to Turkey for a 10-day trip to visit the sites of the seven churches. We'll try to get them – all three of them – back to you safely and everybody else.

But we have a full bus of 54 people that we're taking over to make this kind of a pilgrimage to visit the sites of the seven churches. And it'll be kind of a walking Bible study through all these different sites that we'll have. I've been cramming and preparing for that. And it'll be a good trip. So maybe we'll be able to do that again in a future year. If any of you are interested in that, then I hope you would be able to do that as well.

So what is your moment of truth? Have you ever thought about a moment of truth that we might come to at some point in our life? Now, a moment of truth has different meanings according to different cultures and situations. A moment of truth can be a very crucial test of character, of difficulty or trial that comes upon us. And we're faced with making a decision between right and wrong, between righteousness and unrighteousness. And that determines, in a sense, what we're really made of, who we are, what we truly believe, and what makes up our life, and whether what we have professed to believe is really guiding our life.

A moment of truth is where we come to that point where we must act on faith, we must act on principle, we must act with courage. A phone call comes with a diagnosis, or an email comes with a prognosis or something, and we are faced with decisions.

We're faced with an episode in our life that we have to then make decisions, and it will test our faith. It could weaken our faith. It could strengthen our faith. It may be a moment when we face our mortality and the reality that we are not going to live forever in this flesh, and that our time has come to an end.

The sands of that hourglass are finally coming to the end at that point in our life. And so the idea of a moment of truth is what I'd like to talk about here for a few minutes this afternoon. I think for all of us, regardless of what you have been through and what you have faced in your life, that could be a moment of truth. For every one of us, every year when we come to the Passover service, that's a moment of truth. For every one of us, regardless of how long we've lived, how long we've been in the church, regardless of where we are in our faith and in our walk, when we come to the Passover and we set before the table of the Lord, that is a moment of truth.

And we must understand that. Last year, at the Passover service, Debbie and I came in with everyone and sat down in the service in the Cincinnati congregation. And we sat, you know, filed in as everything is well orchestrated there as most of our Passover services are. And I sat down and I looked at the table and it hit me that for the first time in 48 years, I was sitting there looking at the table. And for 48 years in the ministry, I conducted the Passover. And I sat at the table and I looked out. And it was an entirely new perspective for me.

It kind of shook me for a moment, that realization. And I was sitting with everyone else and I was not administering the Passover for the first time. I was having it given to me and the Scriptures were being read. And it hit me that we are all equal as sinners when we come before the table of the Lord. And that is a moment of truth for every one of us.

We are all sinners in need of the grace of God when we come to the table of the Lord. The sermon today is about two things. It's about truth and it is about the man. And that man is Jesus Christ. If you will, please turn over to John 18. John 18. I'm going to read a few verses here this afternoon that take us through the, in great detail, the meeting that Jesus had at this point in his night and day of suffering before he was actually killed and crucified.

We're going to talk about the meeting that he had with Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor in Jerusalem and in all of Judea. For me, this is the central story of the night that he was betrayed, as I've kind of whittled it down and thought about it. It really contains much of what we must consider about the power of God, the Father and Christ, both acting in unison at this moment to show us the essential confrontation of life, the essential confrontation of life and how we meet the challenges that will come, that moment of truth, and we overcome it.

This was the moment when Jesus first had to, in a sense, stand into the wind and prevail. He had been arrested, he had been brought before the Jewish authorities, but now he was brought before the Roman governor who was going to hold his life in his hands. And he will endure scourging at their hands and a confrontation with Pilate, the Roman governor, representing the vast power of Rome. And it begins in verse 28 here of John 18. Let's look at this here and read a few verses. They led Jesus from Caiaphas, this is the Jewish high priest, to the praetorium, which was the seat of the authority of the Roman governor.

And it was early in the morning. But they themselves, meaning the Jews, did not go into the praetorium, lest they should be defiled that they might eat the Passover.

They didn't want any connection or touching it, being even close to these Gentile Romans so that they were pure ceremonially before the Passover. Pilate went out to them and he said, What accusation do you bring against this man? They answered and said to him, If he were not an evil-doer, we would not have delivered him to you.

So in their eyes, they had already sentenced him. He had done wrong. We won't go through all of that detail in the story. But Pilate said to them, verse 31, You take him and judge him according to your law. Therefore, the Jews said, It's not lawful for us to put anyone to death. Technically true. They would conveniently violate that from time to time. We even see that in the book of Acts when they violated that principle with Stephen.

But on this one, they wanted the Romans to do it. And they wanted that to be something that they could tout. And it truly wasn't their job. Verse 32, This was done that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled which he spoke, signifying by what death he would die. And that was by crucifixion, which was the most painful and ignominious forms of death that had been perfected by the Romans. Romans did not invent crucifixion, but they perfected it. And the agony and the pain and the suffering that anyone nailed to across a stake, whatever it might have been, sometimes even a tree.

If they were out and they decided to crucify somebody, they'd find a tree and just nail them right to the tree. And so the forms of the means of the crucifixion would vary in different shapes and forms. Verse 33, then, as it says, then Pilate entered the praetorium and called Jesus.

Let me stop here for a moment and just mention a little bit about the background to this nefarious character, Pontius Pilate, whose name is forever linked with this moment, with the sentencing and the condemnation of Jesus of Nazareth. Pilate doesn't come across too well in the story of the Gospels, does he? And we've seen any of the biblical movies that have been made through all the years, whenever they show Pontius Pilate, he's this kind of fearsome, almost sometimes even comic-type character that is portrayed depending upon the production, the Hollywood production.

But he doesn't come across well. And when you really dig into some of the facts about him, he really doesn't do well in history, even beyond this particular moment in the Scriptures. He was appointed by the Emperor Tiberius in the year 26 AD to be the governor of Judea, which wasn't the best appointment that a Zeus-fearing Roman could have had, because he had to deal with the Jews and lived in one of the farthest reaches of the empire, but he had to deal with the very fractious people, the Jews, and keep the peace there.

And Pilate just didn't have the temperament for it. He offended the Jews on a number of occasions. One of the times he went into Jerusalem with his soldiers coming up from Caesarea, they carried their standards, the Roman standards that would carry the image of the Emperor, which was to the Jews outrageous. It was idolatry. And when he first did that, it was so great that he had to send his standards, his symbol of authority and rule, back down to Caesarea. On another occasion, Pilate hung shields, golden shields, in his Jerusalem governor's palace.

Those shields had the names of Roman and Greek gods inscribed on them. Again, another example of idolatry. He tried to stand his ground on them, but even the Emperor said, that's too much. Take them down. And so Tiberius was having probably second thoughts about appointing him. He even built an aqueduct into Jerusalem to carry water, much needed water there. But instead of using his funds, he borrowed money from the temple treasury with the intention of never probably paying it back.

And you read in Luke 13, verse 1, that he actually killed some Galileans at a particular point of insurrection. So he just didn't get along well, didn't fit in too well. And of course, we have the scene of him with Jesus. And after this, he disappeared certainly from the Bible and almost from history. There are a few scant records of him. One of them has him that he was reappointed somewhere else, but he committed suicide and died rather ignominiously. And so what we know of him from the Scriptures and what little we know from history, he just didn't do well in this role and evidently didn't have a very happy life.

And his wife, who had some ominous premonitions about what was taking place here at this moment, speaks to another probably chapter of their relationship and his life as well. But when we go back into the Scripture here and look at this, beginning in verse 33, Pilate now has to deal with this. He can't just shuffle it back off to the Jews. He has to face the man. He has to face Jesus of Nazareth. And he doesn't really know what he's up against. He thinks that this is just another vagabond Jewish mystic or teacher that has delusions of messiahhood, that has a following and has disturbed the peace of Judea.

He looks at him as no more than that, although he's heard stories. And his wife, no doubt, has heard those stories of healings and miracles, people raised from the dead, like Lazarus. And so he's still not fully understanding all of this, but he has to deal with him and face him. And so in verse 33, Pilate then entered the praetorium again, and he goes back and he calls Jesus. And he said to him, Are you the king of the Jews? The one prophesied, the one expected, the one that they all look to. And Jesus answered, Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning me?

In other words, do you understand really what you're asking? Have you read the Scriptures? Have you been familiar with this, or is this a briefing that you've had from your assistants, as they have given you reports of me and everything surrounding me, but you don't know it yourself? Pilate answered, rather sarcastically, Am I a Jew? You can almost imagine him kind of just kind of spitting it out. Am I a Jew? Which would have been the last thing that Pilate, as a high-ranking Roman citizen and now a Roman governor, that's the last thing he'd want to be, is connected to.

The Roman disdain for the Jews was quite high for many reasons. He said, Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you to me. What have you done? What have you done? Tell me what you have done. What are these charges? So he begins an interrogation, not really knowing who Jesus is. Certainly wouldn't be believing it anyway. But Jesus answered, he said, My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now My kingdom is not from here.

His kingdom would come from heaven, and it will come from heaven. We know that from the book of Revelation. Christ will bring that, and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord, but not until His appearing in the glory of a glorified immortal body at that time of His second coming. All of this was a prelude to that, and His kingdom was not going to rise from within Rome, even within the Jewish people of that time and day.

He had continually told them that, not all of them, not even all of His own close disciples understood that fully. And certainly Pilate was not going to come anywhere near the truth, but even the idea of somebody claiming to be a king or being claimed to be a king by followers was a threat to the Roman order. And something that they could not be tolerated because of the powder keg, especially that Judea was, and Jerusalem on an ongoing basis with the Jewish feeling about the Roman occupation.

And so in verse 37, Pilate therefore said to him, Are you a king then? He didn't even know enough to necessarily ask the right question beyond, Are you a king? And Jesus answered, You say rightly that I am a king, and for this cause I was born. Luke had recorded that in his Gospel, that at the birth of Christ, the announcement of it, that he would set upon the throne of his father David.

Not then, but in a future time will he do that. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. Very interesting phrase, truth. You have a conception of truth. I have a conception of truth. We believe we hold the truth. We live the truth. We obey the truth of God. We talk about truth. We are a church and a people founded on the truth of Scripture, the truth of the Bible. Truth is a very important part of biblical teaching.

Our terminology and our collective identity, isn't it? We feel we hold God's truths, and we have stood our ground for those truths, haven't we? Some of us have lost jobs because we keep the truth of the Sabbath, or a holy day, a holy time. That is a truth. We have stood firm in the truth of the resurrection, for instance.

Certainly guides and shapes a life of faith for us, and how we live. Even when we would come to a moment of our truth, when we face our mortalities, I was talking about earlier, the truth of the resurrection is going to guide our reaction to such news that will come to us. Jesus says, that's what I was born, what I've come for. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.

There is something about truth that can draw people in hope, and with hope, to God, to faith, to the Word, to the Church, to a life of overcoming, and to a life of dedication, following the voice of God.

But then in verse 38, Pilate said to Jesus, that very famous question that is put as a question, but it's a little bit more than a question. He said, what is truth? What is truth? What do you mean, truth? Who has the truth? Does anyone know the truth? Does anyone church, anyone religion, anyone messianic character, anyone teacher have the truth? How can you make such a claim? What is truth? This is the voice of a cynic. Now, cynicism was actually a philosophical school of thought in ancient Rome.

There were a group of cynics who questioned, mocked, debated, discussed virtually everything. In one sense, some say that cynicism was the voice of Rome as a philosophy. And it taught because it taught individuality. It taught a way of living for what was natural for yourself.

In other words, whatever you feel is your truth, you live by that. That's your truth. I might have my truth. And every person would have their truth. And that's okay. Truth, in other words, is relative, is some of the ideas there. One person's truth is as good as another person's truth. Have you ever heard that today? Sure, we have. Whatever is your truth, that's fine. We can all coexist, as the bumper sticker says, with all the different symbols of faith that it might be there. In Rome, they would have certain festivities where they would mock, they would dress up, and there would be a pageant and a parade and a time of festive day, where they would actually mock Caesar and the kings, all in good fun, and they would mock the authority, being cynical toward them. And it was allowed and considered for that time and that occasion, all right, without being yourself killed, because it was thought to be kind of a release valve for public sentiment and public feeling. And everybody then went back the next day to their regular business. Caesar was in charge and nothing really changed. And that was this idea of cynicism. And so Pilate is hearing that he's a king or thinking, has heard that he's a king, and he's saying, you know, what is truth? Does anybody, can anyone really come to know truth? We are in such an age today. Where do we find truth today? We live in a culture where truth is being extinguished by voices that hold power, shape minds at every level of society. And it's an ongoing education to bend and shape ideas, thoughts, and feelings of what is right, what is true, what is, by technology and government and in education, educators seek the right to groom a child's sexuality, by gender studies, even as early as elementary school, teaching nothing but lies. People have willfully accepted and participated in such lies when they promote or go along with such untrue matters. And it's coming to us inexorably, closer and closer, no matter what steps we might take. Homeschooling is not going to shield children and young people from it. It's coming into our homes. The revolution is already there. I learned a few months ago typing an article on my Microsoft word processor. When I put down, what did I put down? I was talking about marriage, between a man and a woman. And Microsoft popped up a note to correct it. People. And I said, no, that's not right. It's between a man. Any time I had a phrase, man and woman, they popped up to correct it automatically as people.

Our word processing programs are programmed to change our language. Yours, mine. And if you don't, if we don't, you know, I caught it. I probably had written a few other articles and didn't see what they were trying to do. But check yours out. And that's just one example of the programming that is going on to teach lies. And it's there. The media and the entertainment promotes this. We have to continually search for wise voices to be able to discern and to understand. Everything that I read and look into, I have to weigh against the word of God. As to whether I'm not going to do it. I'll continue to read this source or read this particular pundit or personality. And I've continually changed what I do read and who I do go to for credible information and understanding on various things. So we all have to ask ourselves the question, where do we find truth? Where do you find your truth? And from time to time, even in the Church of God, we find that people have differing forms of truth. All right? We know that. I've dealt with that all my years of experience in the Church, both in the ministry and when I was even younger. Everybody has different ideas. I've just spent about 40 hours of my time on the Doctrine Committee going through a review of our calendar paper on the Hebrew calendar and the whole study of how we determine the Holy Days.

And we've needed to rewrite it and bolster the teaching upon it. So nothing has changed. Don't worry. The little calendar you've got for your wallet, still good. All right? Don't worry about that. I've jokingly said through the years, 50-plus years ago when I studied that at Ambassador College, studied the Hebrew calendar, I proved it, I learned how to even figure it, come to the mole out of Tishri and all that stuff.

And you had to do it back in those days by hand. You had no calculators to do it that way. That was the prehistoric period. And then I learned it. I passed the test. And then I said, I don't want to study this anymore. And I just put that little pocket calendar in my wallet, and every year I pull it out and say, when is Trumpets? How do I plan the Feast of Tabernacles? That's all I need to know.

And I still believe that, but I've spent 40 hours going back through it to prove it even deeper. And, you know, we're going to have two hours on it at our next conference here at the general conference meeting. Andy McLean was complaining about it before church with me.

So that we all speak the same thing. Because some people have their truth.

And it, frankly, is their truth about when we meet.

All right? And, again, don't accost me after services, please. If you, you know, I won't go there, but just don't.

Everybody has different ideas, and it's not just the calendar. What is your truth? Now, when it all comes down to it, it is, we must be very careful that our truth aligns with God's truth on all matters. We're coming up to the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. All of us have grown through the years in that service. I mentioned my little epiphany last year, sitting in the congregation for the first time in 48 years. And you grow as you take the Passover.

Maybe the Passover causes you to grow as we take it and examine ourselves. We then go into the Days of Unleavened Bread, and we put out the leaven. We focus on the life of Christ. I will tell you, I focus more on the life of Christ, the resurrected Christ, when it comes to unleavened bread than I worry about unleavened bread. All right? Now, I put out the unleavened bread, but I don't read the labels too much anymore.

Now, as I told some of you before I even left Indianapolis, I learned years ago, just crank that power blower up. A leaf blower that you've got, crank it up, open the doors of your car, blow it all out from under the seats. In about two minutes, your car is unleavened. That's what I'm going to do tomorrow.

My car will be unleavened in about two minutes. I still have not convinced Debbie that we could do the same thing in the house. By just opening all the doors and the windows, and I can just take that blower through, and in about 15 minutes, that house is going to be de-leavened. And then we can get on to the more important parts of it, which is focusing upon the life of the bread of life, Jesus Christ, and putting that life within us. And trust me, even when we go to Turkey, we're going to be keeping the last three days or so of the unleavened bread.

We're taking unleavened bread with us so that we... Turkish bread is really, really good. And I've told the tour guide, don't put any of it on our tables until Wednesday night, I think. And so I told the participants, bring a little bit of unleavened bread so we all have that with us. I was talking with our tour guide in a Zoom call, our Turkish tour guide, Thursday, and he says, I've found a Jewish store in Izmir, Turkey, and I've got the last box of matzos in Turkey ready for you.

I said, Levent, you know, maybe it's not the last, but he did have to search for us. We got that covered. So my point is we will keep those days, and we will do it with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I've grown in the way I observe the days of unleavened bread, and we should, to understand the deep truths.

And we must be careful that our truth aligns with God's truth. The days of unleavened bread, the Passover is an annual reality check against the standard of Christ. Check your truth against God's truth. Always do that. What did Pilate do next when we look at the story? Did he check his Roman truth against that of Jesus Christ, who was truth? Truth personified. In John 14, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Christ personified truth in the flesh by how he lived, how he taught, how he spoke. He personified it. Truth, brethren, is more than 20 fundamentals of belief, which is the number we've defined for our fundamental teachings in the United Church of God. All very important. I'm telling the kids this week that we could use maybe one or two more additional fundamental beliefs to define that someday we will.

But the Sabbath is the truth of God. The resurrection is the truth of God. The coming kingdom of God is part of that truth. But Jesus was truth personified, and we need to think about that. Because as we obey God, as we keep His commandments, as we meet on these days, the weekly Sabbath, the annual Sabbath, as important as they are, they've got to lift us to the truth of Jesus Christ.

He is truth. Pilate said, what is truth? He was staring truth in the face by what he was. God in the flesh. The man. What did he do against that? Well, look at verse 39. Or look, at the end of verse 30, I hadn't read all this. He said, when Jesus said what is, when Pilate asked what is truth, he went out again to the Jews and he said to them, I find no fault in him. He was looking again for a way out. So for the second time, he went to the Jews and tried to put it back on them, and they wouldn't do it.

They were playing a little bit of a chess match here. In verse 39, they said, you have a custom, or Pilate says this, you have a custom that I should release someone to you at the Passover. Do you therefore want me to release to you the King of the Jews? And they all cried again, saying, not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber, and so they asked for a robber to be released instead of Jesus. Not this man.

Not this man that they did not recognize as the Son of God and the Messiah. Not that man that they want.

Pilate here is holding the power, and he can't get rid of a job that must be his. So what did he do? Continue right on in chapter 19 in verse 1. So then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him.

And the soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe. They scourged him. And that was to the point of death. That was a scourging that had it gone just maybe a lash or two beyond what they knew and when they knew to stop, could have killed a man. But their point was to bring him to that point, and then they would crucify him. And it was painful. And when he came back bleeding with a crown of thorns and a purple robe put on him a part of the mocking as well of kingship, purple was a sign of the color of royalty, upper class. What then took place in verse 3, when they said to him, then they said to him, Hail, king of the Jews! And they struck him with their hands. The Roman soldiers did that. And they took part, got their pound of flesh. And then in verse 4, Pilate then went out again and said to them, Behold, I am bringing him out to you, that you may know that I find no fault in them. And Jesus then came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, and Pilate said to them, Behold the man. Behold the man. One of the most famous phrases, one of the most effective statements that could have been made. Christ was the perfect man. And keep in mind that Jesus came out standing up after this scourging on his own. This was a moment that even though it's not recorded, the Jews must have guessed. He endured that beating and he stood. And that in itself was an act of great courage and pain. He stood before them, almost unrecognizable, beaten short of death. He came back from the power of Rome and he's still standing there. And in a sense, Christ was showing how impotent the kingdoms of the world were at that particular moment to that time. And Pilate said, Behold the man.

That phrase, that statement, Behold the man, challenges us to look deeply into our heart as to who we are. What motivates us, what drives us. Behold the man. We look at Jesus and we know that he challenges us to live a life apart from sin, avoiding compromise with sin.

Pilate was trying to compromise. And he couldn't. Behold the man. Christ put himself out for all of mankind and was mocked and belittled as a powerless, wet person who couldn't save himself. Behold the man from the mouth of Pilate was a mockery. Yet they really and truly are the words of life. The measurement of humility, courage in the face of adversity. Behold the man is a powerful witness to the truth personified in that moment in Jesus Christ before him. And so we begin to read again in verse 6.

I find no fault in him. The Jews answered him, we have a law and according to our law he ought to die because he made himself the Son of God. Therefore when Pilate heard that saying, he was the more afraid. Perhaps realizing that he was backed into a corner and fearfully looking at this man standing before him that they had scourged. And realizing that there was something more of here, hearing the words of his wife and thinking maybe there was something more at this point. And he was afraid. And he went again into praetorium and said to Jesus, where are you from? But Jesus gave him no answer. At this point Jesus was beyond Pilate. He had made his witness to Pilate. Pilate said to him, are you not speaking to me? Do you not know that I have the power to crucify you and the power to release you? Even at this moment Pilate was still seeking a way out. He said to the Jews, you take him and judge him according to your law. And he was still trying to find a way out even to have Jesus say the right words. And Jesus answered in verse 11, you could have no power at all against me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered me to you has the greater sin. From then on Pilate sought to release him. But the Jews cried out saying, if you let this man go, you are not Caesar's friend. Whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar.

When Pilate therefore heard that say, because he was now put to the test himself. This was Pilate's moment of truth. He could have released Jesus defying the Jews in front of him. They're taught that you are not a friend of Caesar. And he could have released Christ at that point even there. But he was fearful for himself. His power, his prestige, and he was trying to salvage something in a last moment effort. When he heard it, he brought Jesus out and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the pavement. But in Hebrew, gabbatha. That means Pilate then sat down on the judgment seat. They know where this room was. You can actually see that from what I understand in Jerusalem, that area of the palace of the governor, where this scene took place. There would have been a seat on a raised platform called the bimah. What Pilate should have done was put Jesus on that seat, because that was the seat of the king's judgment, or the Caesar's judgment. He should have put Jesus there, but he didn't. And he failed this last opportunity. He himself sat on that seat, and from that seat, he then issued the judgment upon Jesus to send him out and to have him crucified. Leaders, God's Church, all of us, as disciples in God's Church, must look at this and understand something.

We have never arrived at our fullest potential. We've never come to our fullest point of knowledge and understanding. Not until we finally behold the man. And we see that the full truth of Jesus is life the way before us.

We're all sinners before the table of the Lord in need of grace. And when we are faced with the man Jesus, we have to decide. Our calling, we stay true to it. Our commitment, how deep is it? All of that requires decisions that we make. It comes to commitment, and it takes courage to stay to that and to hold to that. All of the stories, the symbolism, the imagery of bread and wine, foot washing, putting out the leavening, eating unleavened bread, the story of the Exodus, the night to be observed, all of that are a part of this faith that we have. It takes faith to do that. It takes faith to go out into the unknown, away from our comfort zone, into the unfamiliar. This life of conversion that we have lived, this life of faith, this life of a calling, this life within God's church, for many of us, a long, many, many decades, is a path, no matter how long it is, a path to the inner man of Christ in us, which is the ultimate lesson that we are to come to through whatever examination we do before we come to the table of the Lord on the Pass overnight. And then during the seven days of unleavened bread, as we put the unleavened bread in us, we should be thinking about the perfect, sinless life of Jesus Christ and His life within us through the Spirit and the power of God. That's the ultimate purpose and meaning of what we do and what is behind everything that we do. We cannot get away from that. We must grow up to that and we must grow into that as we behold the man. When we make the right decision, it's a moment of truth. When we hold to that, after any number of years, and in a moment of doubt or panic or fear or disappointment or discouragement, when we hold fast to that, it's a moment of truth. Because we hold to the life of Christ within us. It comes down to personal effectiveness. We're all lost at times and we're all looking for the man, but we don't always see that it's the man Jesus Christ that is the ultimate answer. We may look to someone else. We might look to a position, title, or whatever, and none of that has anything to do with this. We look to someone, sometimes, to fill the void, to show us the way, to give us what we lack. We need friends and we need good mates and we need sound leadership and the guidance of the loving, compassionate shepherd and pastor in our lives and mentors that can help us. But when we come to the Passover service and we all set before that table of God, we all are sinners in need of the grace of God.

And that's where it all resets for us.

If we behold the man, examine our truth, make sure that it's fully aligned with God, then we can go to the table of the Lord, receive that bread, that wine, in full faith and in full confidence, with renewed commitment and courage, found in that bread of life that came down from heaven that we then take into our life. We eat our loving bread to take in that life and to fill the hole and the gaps that we have.

And it's only the man, Jesus Christ, who can fill those gaps. To behold the man is to engage Jesus as King, our Lord and our Master.

And when we do, that strips away the pride, the ambition, and leaves no room for fear, for doubt, for bitterness, or for whatever it might be that is keeping us from truly beholding the man.

So I hope and pray all of you have a very fine Passover and meaningful Days of Unleavened Bread.