One morning while readying my hair and makeup for the day, contrary to any inclination I normally have, I paused for a moment and looked at the image staring back at me in the mirror. I was suddenly struck by how unjust it would be to assume that the physical body I saw in front of me was actually me and had power over my future prospects—that it could determine my health, my longevity, my happiness, my capacity for productivity.
On the heels of that momentary musing came the thought, “But wait a minute—if I were to consent to that assumption, wouldn’t it be, in a way, like consenting to Pilate’s assumption?” That is, wouldn’t I be assuming, as was Pontius Pilate, that there exists power and law and authority apart from God? I knew that Christ Jesus exposed this assumption as baseless.
The Gospel of John presents a moving narrative of the conversation that occurred when Jesus was brought before Pilate for questioning on the morning of his crucifixion. When Pilate pointedly asked Jesus who he claimed to be, Jesus declined to answer. An apparently frustrated Pilate asked, “Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?” (John 19:10). Then Jesus, as if in defense of all that he knew to be true of God as his loving and faithful Father, said definitively, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above” (John 19:11).
