Influence and discipleship

While Pilate “was sitting on the judgement seat, his wife sent word to him, ‘Have nothing to do with that innocent man, for today I have suffered a great deal because of a dream about him’.  Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus killed” (NRSV, Matthew 27:19,20)

By arresting Jesus under the cover of darkness the chief priests not only avoided the risk of a public disturbance but also ensured that only a few people knew what had happened.  In consequence, when the trial before Pilate began about six o’clock on Good Friday morning, Our Lord’s supporters who had so enthusiastically escorted him into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, were unaware of what was afoot.

Pilate normally resided at his official residence in Caesarea, the coastal town which was the Roman administrative capital of the Province of Judea.  He had come up to Jerusalem so as to be on the spot to take personal command of the Roman garrison in case the Passover crowds got out of hand, and he was staying with his wife at the Castle of Antonia where the garrison was quartered.

The Castle abutted against the north-western corner of the Temple, and Pilate heard the case in the gateway which gave access to the public street from the main courtyard of the fortress. Shortly after the trial had begun the proceedings were interrupted by the arrival of a large crowd who had come to see Pilate about the release of one of the prisoners gaoled in the Castle.  It was the Procurator’s custom to mark the occasion of the Passover by granting a free pardon to a prisoner of the people’s choice.

On this Good Friday morning they had decided among themselves to ask for the release of a resistance leader called Barabbas who had committed murder in an armed rising in the city and was under sentence of death.  Pilate at once seized on the idea of taking advantage of this fresh development by playing the crowd off against the chief priests.  He appealed to the patriotism of the crowd and asked them, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” (NRSV, Mark 15:9).

The chief priests, however, were not to be thwarted by a manoeuvre like that.  They moved among the crowd and represented Jesus as a blasphemer who claimed to be the Son of God and who had on that account been condemned by their own Supreme Jewish Council.  And as a blasphemer he deserved, not to be released but to be crucified.

The crowd needed little persuading when it came to choosing between Barabbas, the stop-at-nothing patriot and hero of an armed rising, and Jesus, the prophet of repentance and love whose dedication to non-violence left them cold.

It was while Pilate was waiting for them to make up their minds that he was handed a note by an attendant.  It was from his wife and he read it uneasily, “Have nothing to do with that innocent man, for today I have suffered a great deal because of a dream about him” (NRSV, Matthew 27:19).

The night before, Caiaphas must have called on the governor to encourage the emergency trial and no doubt Pilate’s wife, Claudia Procula, would have learnt of his visit and its purpose.  But as she slept in the dawn hours she dreamt, and that dream made so deep, so urgent an impression on her that when she awoke and found that the trial had already begun, she hastily scribbled this message to her husband begging him not to condemn Jesus.

In the whole of those events she alone used her influence in an effort to save Our Lord, but to no avail.  The combination of the chief priests and the mob proved too powerful for Pilate, in his weakness, to resist.  So they had their way.  “He released the man they asked for, the one who had been put in prison for insurrection and murder, and he handed Jesus over as they wished” (NRSV, Luke 23:25).

It is impossible to over-estimate the part which personal influence played in securing Pilate’s unwilling sentence of condemnation. The influence of the chief priests upon the mob, of the ordinary individuals in the mob on one another, and then of them all on Pilate – all these led directly and remorselessly to humankind’s most evil and monstrous act: the Crucifixion of God.

The whole tense drama highlights the power for good or ill that each human being possesses.  Think for a moment of all the varied influences which go towards moulding our character and colouring our life – home, religion, school, radio, television, the Internet, newspaper articles, books, fellow-workers, friends, even casual acquaintances.  We cannot escape their constant effect on us, nor can those we associate with escape our influence on them.

It will not, of course, always be to the same degree: it was not so in the trial of Christ before Pilate.  The chief priests took the initiative; most of the mob as a result followed their lead, while others though secretly disapproving, remained silent.  So we might pass on a malicious story, or we might listen to one encouragingly, or again we might let it pass without demur.  But whatever our attitude is, it will have its effect.

For that reason it is not enough merely to refrain from doing wrong: we must throw our weight into the opposite scale by positive good after the example of Pilate’s wife. Indeed Our Lord will judge our discipleship by the influence it exerts on others, and that influence cannot fail to be good if we are anything like the sort of people God means us to be.

If the first object of our life here is that we should please and honour God, the second is certainly that in so doing we should leave this world a better and a sweeter place than we found it.

Christianity in the beginning worked its way into every section of society by the personal influence of Christian men and women, and it spreads in exactly the same way today.  The world in which the early disciples found themselves was rotten; they helped purify it.  And unless good influences are powerfully at work, society will always get rotten because corrupting forces are active all the time, as we are only too aware at the present day.  But there’s nothing new about it.

That is what Our Lord meant when he said that his disciples were the salt of the earth – they were to act as a preservative and prevent society from going bad.  Jesus always saw some good in everyone – except in disciples whose discipleship was ineffective.  They, like stale and insipid salt, were good for nothing.

But it is not enough to act like salt, we must also act like light, making the world a brighter place, increasing its good and therefore its happiness.  So we must also be the light of the world – of our own world – living the Christian life with such sincerity that our discipleship will be obvious to all and thus will not only influence our fellow Christians for good, but also lead others at any rate to respect the Faith even if they do not actually embrace it themselves.

We must not despise our opportunities and think that because our corner in life may be small, because we hold no high or prominent position, that therefore our influence will be of little value.  The world is made up of little corners and if one is dark it can be very dark.

Jesus compared Christian discipleship to the little clay lamp in a Palestinian cottage whose tiny flame, round which during the winter nights each family would cluster, alone made the darkness bearable.  Even a small room needs a light and most of us meet and therefore influence more people in a week than we may realise.

But this incident of Pilate’s wife reminds us that there is one place where the Christian’s influence may be decisive – at home.  Life is full of instances where people’s lives have been shaped by the influence of husband or wife.

And the opportunities of parents are particularly great.  Indeed their responsibility for using their influence to guide their sons and daughters to be good Church men and women, and true disciples of Our Blessed Lord, that responsibility would be overwhelming were not the corresponding privilege so high.

Those earliest years are when the foundations of a whole life are being laid, and it is the parents who, very largely, make or mar those years.  It is tragic that this tremendous responsibility of guiding an immortal soul for God is so often neglected, tragic that many parents give more thought and care to cultivating the very vegetables in their gardens or allotments than the characters of their own children.

So we must be all the more thankful for those parents who recognise that it is the holy will of God that their children, after making their way through this world, should in the end spend eternity in his visible presence. And it is the influence and example of a genuinely Christian home which sets their feet well and firmly on the way.

It is said that in olden days, when the candles used in church ceremonies were prepared, the bees that made the wax were blessed, the flowers which yielded it grew in the monastery garden, and the wax was shaped inside the church during the singing of the Psalms of the Divine Office.

And so our influence, like the light of those candles, in whatever way it is actually expressed, must spring from a deep and resolute love for God.  For the light we give out is to be a bright reflection of our personal relationship with him who is the Light of the World.

Note

The Castle of Antonia is the traditional site of Jesus’ trial before Pilate, and the Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem start at the site of the Castle.  However, some authorities believe that the trial took place at what was once Herod’s Palace in the Upper City.