Scripture: Isaiah 53:2-8; John 20:30-31; 2 Timothy 3:16; Luke 2:1-2 Series: 2022
An All Saints’ Day sermon in a series on the Apostles’ Creed, focused on the phrase ‘suffered under Pontius Pilate.’ Using Isaiah 53’s suffering servant and a detailed biography of Pilate, Pastor Wilson argues that the incarnation is rooted in concrete secular history—especially military history. He confronts the discrepancies between Luke’s census account and Roman records to argue faith rests not on one-to-one historical verification but on the crucifixion and resurrection; making faith depend on verification puts faith in technique rather than God. He contrasts a falsely desired conquering, ‘manly’ Jesus (citing Andrew Tate) with the Christ who, though more powerful than Caesar, willingly chose weakness and loss, because victory in battle would mean defeat for our souls. Christians are called not to conquer but to witness, as the saints did.
Illustrations: family-military-service-history, ukraine-kharkov-offensive, alexander-hannibal-caesar-battles, pontius-pilate-biography, luke-quirinius-census-discrepancy, house-of-cards-faith, andrew-tate-weak-jesus, conquering-generals-roster
November 6
who suffered under Pontius Pilate,
All Saints’ Day
He grew up like a young plant before us, like a root from dry ground. He possessed no splendid form for us to see, no desirable appearance. He was despised and avoided by others; a man who suffered, who knew sickness well. Like someone from whom people hid their faces, he was despised, and we didn’t think about him. It was certainly our sickness that he carried, and our sufferings that he bore, but we thought him afflicted, struck down by God and tormented. He was pierced because of our rebellions and crushed because of our crimes. He bore the punishment that made us whole; by his wounds we are healed. Like sheep we had all wandered away, each going its own way, but the Lord let fall on him all our crimes. He was oppressed and tormented, but didn’t open his mouth. Like a lamb being brought to slaughter, like a ewe silent before her shearers, he didn’t open his mouth. Due to an unjust ruling he was taken away, and his fate—who will think about it?
Isaiah 53:2-8a
I have never served in any armed forces. I don’t think that’s a surprise to anyone here. I have cousins who both served in the Navy and Air Force. My father-in-law was in the IDF during the Lebanon conflict. Both my grandfathers both served in World War II: one in Europe and the other at Iwo Jima, because he had a German last name. My great-Grandfather served in World War I in France. I have family members on both sides of the Civil War and family members in the Revolutionary War. I could probably trace a few back to the English Civil War and the wars of Spanish succession, if I was really eager.
Despite my lack of service, i have always been very fascinated with military history, with the direct conflict between powers, between the different levels of strategy and tactics. I love reading Sun-Tzu and Musashi and Clausewitz.
Anytime you really engage with military history, going back even to what is going on right now in Ukraine in the Kharkov offensive that took place last month, where the Ukrainians were able to break the lines of the Russians and have this salient and spearhead that they were able to use. You can take that language and go back to battles fought 30 years ago, 50 years ago, a hundred years ago, 200 years ago, 300 years ago, 2000 years ago. You can make connections to Alexander the Great and Hannibal at the battle of Cannae, to Scipio Afticanus and Marius and Sulla and Julius Caesar and the Roman Legions. Because humans have fought each other across the centuries, most of the historical record, most of the history we have actually is the history of these battles. This was history. In these accounts of the militaries, we have the Romans ruling a large part of the Western world for hundreds of years. This is history. And in the middle of the Apostles Creed, there is an encounter between this great statement of Christian faith and Roman history. In this small phrase, Jesus suffered under Pius pilot.
Series Intro
My friends, we are continuing our series on credo, on what to believe as a Christian, what Christians believe as seen through the Apostles creed that we have.
Today the words, he suffered under Pontius Pilate. This part of the creed addresses two major concerns: history and suffering. We see both history and suffering in Isaiah 53, the song of the suffering servant. Jesus will come not to conquer but to suffer for us. He will not be handsome but unremarkable and sick, but let’s get back to the creed and look at who was Pilate?
Records of Pilate are found in many sources across the ancient world, but we don’t actually know is first name. Pilate was cognomen or third name, which was usually a nickname of sorts or designated a branch of a family. The word Pilate may have referred to someone of prowess with a Javelin, it could be the person mentioned in the creed or a parent or relative. Pontius was a family name of the equestrian class, the minor nobility of Rome. Most governors of Judea were equestrians. The Pontius family is from Samnium in southern Italy and goes back many centuries.
Pilate had some sort of military career before becoming governor, because that was a requirement of the post. It was probably on the frontier around the Rhine river or the Danube.
Pilate was the fifth governor during the reign of Emperor Tiberius and he reigned for 10 years, from around 26 AD to 36 AD. As prefect, Pilate had a mostly military role, but he also served as the judicial administrator for the area and was able to appoint the high priest of the Temple.
Going over ancient biography can seem quite dull, but the particularity of Pilate matters. When Christians’ claim that Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate, the claim is that the incarnation, God becoming human in Jesus Christ, is not just in our hearts, but in the deepest historical reality.
We find the person of Pontius Pilate in a myriad of secular histories. We have Pilate in the Gospels. We have Pilate in the creed. This is not always the case with figures and events in the Bible. The Bible and secular histories that don’t merge perfectly. Just as an example, Roman and Jewish history and the beginning of the gospel of Luke, the birth narrative, don’t merge perfectly. Finding the time when Quirinius was governor of Syria, Herod the Great was king, and Augustus was Caesar, and a census took place is difficult. Herod the Great died in 4 BC. Herod’s successor was deposed in 6 AD and Augustus named a Roman Governor, Quirinius. Quirinius administered a census in Judea, not Galilee, so it wouldn’t effect people living in Galilee. There were no Empire wide censuses during the reign of Augustus. As well, a census functioned then as it does today. It is a count. You don’t have to go to your parents house or your families town for a census.
So this history is not perfect. It does not line up one to one. There have been Christians over the years who have done acrobatic feats of interpretation in order to make Luke’s account line up with secular historical record, but it does not.
Does any of this make the Bible wrong or inaccurate or false? By no means, because the hinge of the gospel, the hinge of the good news of Jesus Christ is not based on the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, but the end. It is based on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is based on this encounter between divine history and secular history in Jesus’ suffering under Pontius Pilate. The precise date of Christ’s birth wasn’t recorded because precise dates of births weren’t important in the Jewish faith. It was when you were circumcised that mattered and even then it, it just wasn’t a huge deal for the record books.
The hinge of the gospels is not in the one to one verification of every moment, but in this resurrection of Jesus Christ, in this encounter with the world and this willingness of the God-man to suffer under Pontius Pilate. And this gets to the question of what is our faith in: is our faith in a one to one verification of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation? Is our faith a house of cards wherein one card shifts and the whole tower crumbles? And I am not talking about literal interpretations here. Literal just means the letters and the letters of Scripture matter and I take them seriously. I’m asking if we need every moment in the Bible to be verified outside of the Bible according to modern historical techniques, then our faith is in those modern historical techniques. Our faith is in the verification. It’s not in God.
Now, this may open up a Pandora’s box for some people. “Well, what are we supposed to believe? Pastor Wilson is not saying the Bible is un-true.” I do not make that claim at all. People hear what they want to hear, but I am not making that claim. I believe the Bible is not God breathed and sufficient for salvation with the words of second Timothy. I believe in the words of the end of the gospel of John in chapter 20 of John, that if all the words, all the acts of Jesus were written down, it would fill all the books in all the world. And yet these were written down so that you may have life, and have it abundantly. These words are here for a reason, for a purpose, for you to have life in God. And in this modern world, there’s a question of what we believe in, and this is why the creeds matter. This is why believing in the right God matters and not in an idol. The source of Scripture is God like the source of a river is its spring. The Bible is not a history textbook but the word of God. The Bible connects with secular histories in particular places, and the deepest place it connects is with Pontius Pilate. Jesus lived in our history, encountered our history, the depths of the most concrete history we have, which is military history. Pontius Pilate was a military governor. He was not an economic governor. He was responsible for the Roman army in Roman Palestine, making sure the Persians didn’t attack. Under Pontius Pilate, Jesus suffered for us in the encounter with the secular world. The Son of God did not triumph in a military way. This isn’t a Trojan horse kind of thing. He suffered. He took it even though he didn’t need to. God’s power was greater than Caesar’s power. But instead of overpowering Caesar in the conventional way, instead of taking the life of Pontius Pilate, Jesus took that suffering, took that pain for us. Because victory in battle would have meant defeat for our souls. Defeat in battle meant victory for our souls.
Isaiah 53, the song of the suffering servant, shows us that Christ comes in history in this most unlikely of ways. The prophet writes, “He was despised and avoided by others; a man who suffered, who knew sickness well.”
Some people wish for a Jesus that didn’t suffer under Pontius Pilate. Some people wish for a Jesus that was confident, that was masculine, that conquered Caesar by the sword, that conquered the Pharisees by the sword, that gave them what they deserved explicitly. Some people wish for a Jesus that triggered the Pharisees, but that is not the Jesus of the Bible. That is not the Jesus of Christianity.
The social media guru Andrew Tate recently said he thinks Islam is better than Christianity because Jesus isn’t strong enough. Jesus isn’t manly enough for him. Christians don’t fight enough.
Are you willing to worship a savior who suffered for you, who was weak for you? Who in a moment when he could have been strong, chose to be weak, chose to suffer? In the encounter with historical reality, chose to lose? Our God does not look like Alexander the Great or Hannibal or Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Robert E. Lee or Grant or Blackjack Pershing or George Patton or Admiral Nimitz. Our God is a God who came face to face with historical power and willingly lost even though he didn’t need to. He was able to lose. Our faith is that in this moment of loss and suffering, God’s truth is revealed. In this encounter with the historical world, God does not need to conquer in order to save us. The Christian encounter with the world is not about conquest, but about submission. It is about witness to a world that is greater.
This is why we celebrate All Saints Day. We remember the saints in our church and in our life who witnessed to a world that is greater. The saints who showed us how to love, and to suffer gracefully, how to care, and how to die.
We do not need to defeat the world. Christ has the victory. We don’t need to conquer the Caesars and Pilates and Bully’s we face, Christ has won the victory in history. We are called not to conquer but to witness to Christ by having faith in Him and showing that faith by how we live our lives.
Let us pray, Heavenly Father, you did not see fit to love us from afar but came down in history so that we might have life abundant. Bless us in our own history to seek first your kingdom and not the kingdom of the world. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sometimes life is full of joy and praise (hallelujah!) Other times are filled with crying days (Lord, have Mercy). When i am sad and nothing looks alright (Maranatha) I know Jesus has been there long weeping nights (Come Lord Jesus).
Je-sus wept, and Jesus cried. Under Pontius Pilate, Jesus suffered and died. To be with us, in sad or happy times. Under Pontius Pilate, Jesus suffered and died.