JOHN 19:12-22 HAIL CAESAR!
12 From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.”
13 When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). 14 It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour.
“Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews.
15 But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”
“Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked.
“We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.
16 Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.
So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. 17 Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). 18 Here they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle.
19 Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 20 Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. 21 The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.”
22 Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”
“He who hates me hates my Father as well” (John 15:23). Pilate brings out Jesus and presents him to the Jews as their king and the chief priests declare, “We have no king but Caesar” (v.15c). Hence the circle of rejection of God as their king is completed; a circle that began with the demand on Samuel to give them a king like all the other nations (1 Samuel 8). When Samuel prayed to the Lord, God answered, “Listen to all the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king” (v. 7). By claiming Caesar as their king in place of God, they have removed themselves from the promise given to Abraham (Genesis 17:7) and Jeremiah (24:7) that he would be their God and they would be his people.
Caesar is an ever present danger. Our Caesars surround us begging for our attention and making themselves appear to be so much more expedient and convenient than God. God’s people are those who answer the call to follow Jesus. Jesus is no arm-chair general directing the battle from his headquarters at the rear, but a conquering king who is at the head of the column engaging the enemy and showing us the way to the Father. If we are to be his people and have him as our God, we must follow him and not be distracted by the options of this world. When we succumb to such distractions we are rejecting him as king and declaring another in his place. To follow any other king than God is to be renamed with the name of Hosea’s second son: Lo-Ammi;” “for you are not my people and I am not your God” (Hosea 1:9).
As the chief priests illustrate, the most dangerous of the Caesars is our self-interest. Now is the time to climb down off the throne of your own life and declare Jesus as your king.
Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant me, a sinner, the strength and faith to renounce my attempts to rule my own life according to my will, and replace you on the throne of my life. May my life ever proclaim, “I have no king but God.” Amen.