The Christmas Story Before Pilate - Part Four

 

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

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If we look back over Jesus' ministry, we see that Jesus' statement, "For this cause came I into the world," is the same thing He has been saying all along. Look at these words from earlier in His ministry, "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). "I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Mark 2:17). "For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45).

 

So we put all these things together, and we find the Lord Jesus, calmly, dispassionately testifying to a governor who represented the world's greatest empire, before He went to the cross to die, "I, the Christmas baby, came into this world for a purpose. I didn't come to give sickly sentimentality or to cause advanced commercial sales in the month of December. I came to bear witness to the truth."

 

Now look at the last phase of verse 37, "Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." This is the tremendous thing. Pilate heard His voice in his eardrums, but he didn't hear His voice in his heart. He dismissed it with a philosophical retort, "What is truth?" and went back off the scene for a while, rather annoyed at what he had heard.

 

What is your response? Are you going to shrug off what you've read and say, like Pilate, "Well, what is truth?" And then others say, "Well, let's go back and drown our thoughts in Christmas spirits." Some do that. It is not at all surprising that the liquor corporations report more liquor is sold in the month of December than in any two-month period at other times of the year. Why? Well, with all this joy, and with all this gladness, and with all this, even indirect, preaching of Christ, men have to be faced with the reality of truth or insulate themselves from it. And they insulate themselves with that which deadens their senses.

 

Each one of us is brought face to face with this man who stands there so quietly, this man who is about to die. As He looks us in the face He says, "Do you want to know the meaning of Christmas? The meaning of Christmas is truth. The meaning of Christmas is God. The meaning of Christmas is redemption. The meaning of Christmas is the finality of the Kingship that is not of this world. The meaning of Christmas is the sovereignty of God!"

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