From Palm Sunday, through to Good Friday and on to Easter Day, Moravians will follow events from 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem as we read the scriptural accounts in the devotional publication, 'Passionweek and Eastertide'.

The triumphal entry of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem; the wild cheering and adulation of the crowds, the growing jealousy and hatred of the authorities, represented by the Scribes and Pharisees. The political and social situation of the period meant that the people were seeking a Messiah, and here in Jesus they saw someone who would set them free from the rule of the occupying Roman Empire.
But Jesus was not the Messiah that the people expected, and they soon became fickle in their support. They were easily swayed by the scheming of the Scribes and Pharisees, and within five days the people who had been hailing Jesus as their Saviour were calling for him to be crucified. They were an easily manipulated mob.

It's a remarkable plot; many twists and turns, many significant characters appearing at key moments, such as Barabbas, Peter, Judas, the Scribes and Pharisees, Herod, and the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate.

Pontius Pilate - what do we make of this man, the only person, apart from Jesus and Mary his mother, who is mentioned in the great creeds of the Christian Church? Throughout the centuries, he has been condemned for his cowardice and readiness to let self-interest override his plain duty to release an obviously innocent man. We discover much about him from the questions he asked in those last few days before the crucifixion; questions reflecting those which arise in the minds of people in every age, including our own.

His first question was put directly to Jesus, with overtones of scornful amusement. 'Are you King of the Jews?' You, a mere Galilean carpenter! Jesus replied: 'My kingdom is not of this world ... everyone that is of the truth hears and obeys my voice.'

The Kingship of Jesus is crucial for Christianity. We have to ask ourselves if we believe, or indeed if we behave, as though Jesus is the Lord of all life, risen and with us today and always. This exchange seems to have made Pilate realise that Christ's power was of an utterly different character from that which he usually associated with kingship.

Pilate then seized upon the word 'truth' as used by Jesus. In the manner of one sceptical of the claims of religious and political leaders, he asked the rhetorical question, 'What is truth?' The world today is sceptical about truth, subject as we are to the pressure of media advertising, to political spin and propaganda, to claims of 'Fake News'. People today are tempted to conclude that there is no such thing as truth. Pilate could not recognise that the real truth about the meaning and purpose of life stood before him, not as a set of abstract propositions, but as a way of life embodied in the person of Jesus.

We can sense that Pilate was instinctively aware of the integrity and innocence of Jesus. So, he addressed his next question to the mob. 'Who will you have me set free; Jesus or Barabbas?' He was banking on the common sense of the people to get him off the hook. Surely, they would not choose the convicted murderer and rioter, Barabbas?

How wrong could he be? The mob chose Barabbas. Pilate floundered. Instead of using his authority to make a decision, he demanded a further answer from the crowd. 'What then shall I do with this Jesus?' The response came back as of one voice: 'Crucify him!' That further shook and confounded him. So, he tried again with another question to the crowd, 'Why, what evil has he done?' The answer was an even louder shout for the death penalty. Pilate gave in. In a feeble and cowardly act to clear himself of blame, he washed his hands openly before the crowd.

This was not the first nor the last time in history when the mob has preferred evil to good, when it is made to feel insecure by tyrants and dictators appealing to the emotions under the guise of appealing to reason. Truth and justice are swept aside. We have to ask what witness we would be prepared to give in a situation where we honestly believed that the majority opinion was wrong on some vitally important question of ethics or political or social action.

As the day of crucifixion drew to its end, Pilate asked his last question when friends of Jesus came seeking permission to remove and bury the body of their Lord. In Mark's Gospel, we read that Pilate asked, 'is he dead?' He required word from the centurion in charge of the crucifixion; he wanted to be sure that the whole affair was over. Little did he know, it had only just begun!!

Pilate's last question, 'is he dead?', is the most important one for the Church and for the world. Posed on the first Good Friday in relation to the crucifixion, the same question has been asked throughout the subsequent two thousand years by the world in relation to the empty tomb. Did the resurrection really take place, or is Jesus dead?

As the apostle Paul puts it, '... if Christ has not been raised from death, then we have nothing to preach and you have nothing to believe ...' (1 Corinthians 15:14).

Easter is at the centre of the life of the Church. There is nothing more important to the Christian than the sacrificial death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Without these historical events, the Christian faith is worthless. The events of that first Easter weekend continue to be the power, hope, joy and peace of the Christian life.

His way is life; the world's way is death. We can now stand before the world's false realities and securities, free to deny them, denounce them, and remove ourselves from them. We stand before the reality of the resurrection and confess with the first disciples that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
Paul knew from experience that the most vital proof of the Resurrection is not so much the empty tomb, but the transformed lives of those who experience the Risen Lord. And it is still so. The Church is and must continue to be the Church of the Resurrection in order to give the world the true answer to its ultimate questions about death and about life.

On Easter Sunday, we hear the cry: 'The Lord is risen!' And we must continue to respond in faith and with conviction, 'He is risen indeed'.

Br David Newman
Diaspora