Suffered Under Pontius Pilate
For Meditation
We’ve been saying throughout this series that the Apostles’ Creed is not a collection of ideas or a theory of life, but is a story about God and the world. There is nowhere in the Creed where that is more clear than in this phrase, “Suffered under Pontius Pilate.” With this phrase, a particular man who was a Roman proconsul in the first century is codified as central to the story of our faith. He enters the creed “like a dog into a nice room,” as Karl Barth put it. This makes our faith radically historical. It reminds us that the gospel is not a set of ideas, but a fact of history. The gospel centers on a person, Jesus Christ, who lived among us in our time and space. Christianity is not about what we do for God, but what God has done for us at a definitive point in history.
What do we learn about this person Jesus? Simply put, he suffered. That word suffered does not just describe the end of his life, but the whole of his life. From start to finish, Jesus was a man who was “familiar with suffering” (Isa. 53:3).
In this moment of collective suffering for us, we look to Jesus, the one who shared our suffering, who bore our suffering, and who ultimately redeemed our suffering. As we begin Holy Week together this week, we contemplate the one who suffered for us.
This Sunday being the first Sunday of the month, we will celebrate communion together.
This will obviously be an entirely different experience than when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper together in one physical location. Yet as we often remind each other, church is not a place or a building, but a people, even when we are scattered in our various households. As we gather together online at the same time, Jesus is spiritually present to all of us as we take this common meal together.
To prepare for communion, set up a small table or coffee table in the place where you are worshipping together. Set out enough bread or wine/juice for all those gathered in your home.
After the communion liturgy, Pastor Corey will pick up the bread to break it.
At the same time, pick up the bread in your home and also break it.
Then Corey will lift up the cup in thanksgiving, and at the time pick up the cup in your home in thanksgiving.
After that Corey will pray for the Holy Spirit to come and consecrate us and the sacrament.
When Corey invites you to partake together, then take the bread and cup and distribute it among yourselves.
As we take together, spend some moments in reflection, meditating on the mercy of God for us given to us in Jesus’s death and resurrection, and consider the amazing way God binds us together in unity through Jesus’ sacrifice. Spend some time praising and thanking God for his gift of love.
Mark 15:1-5
Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, made their plans. So they bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.
2 “Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate.
“You have said so,” Jesus replied.
3 The chief priests accused him of many things. 4 So again Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.”
5 But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.
6 Now it was the custom at the festival to release a prisoner whom the people requested. 7 A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. 8 The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did.
9 “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate, 10 knowing it was out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. 11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.
12 “What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them.
13 “Crucify him!” they shouted.
14 “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”
15 Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.