An Easter Tale - Rex Futurus, Part 3

A lot of things changed over the years. The idea of Jesus changed in a lot of people’s eyes, after what happened that third day. I watched it from a unique vantage point: how Pilate’s son reacted.

Perhaps not enough is said about him. Often we tend to overlook someone’s family when dwelling on them; they get lost in the shuffle when you’re busy worrying about how you think about just the one person. You overlook the context. That’s how a lot of people reacted to Jesus, as I found out later, the more questions I asked about him, how for most of his life he was merely the carpenter’s son, who took up the family trade, who was best known for the work he did, never took pains to draw attention to himself, just focused on doing a good job, being someone who was easy to have around, who put you at ease, was easy to take for granted, and then for a few years was something else entirely, and then was executed. His father was long dead at that point, and his mother was said to be one of his biggest supporters, who constantly talked about him, who even inspired him to show more of himself to the world. 

I can’t really imagine what she must have thought, what she must have gone through, as all that played out. It’s said that later, he would openly talk about what needed to happen, that he would have to die and actually come back again. The business about the sealed tomb and then the empty tomb, the mad scrambling that took place that third day, the confusion, and then all the talk that it had actually happened, for her it had to have been the best and worst experience of her life, worse than seeing him die, since of course for her she had still had to experience that and then there he was again, just as if it had never happened, and then he was saying that he was only back for a little while. 

I can’t explain it. I know many people talked about seeing him. Some said he had somehow faked his death, but let me assure you: crucifixion is many things, but it is not something you can fake. The whole point is that you can see the whole process play out. Usually it’s a slow process, which is the point. For Jesus they sped up the process, because of the Sabbath, or at least that was the intention, but he died of his own accord; the other two they broke their legs so they could no longer support themselves to draw breaths. They made sure he was dead. They pierced his side and saw what could only come from a dead body flow from it. They gave his body to his mother to hold, after. I saw this myself.

Anyway, years later people still talked about Jesus. They still talked about him. This was many years, decades. The way the Romans continued to talk about Julius, the way he died, it was very much the same, except for Julius it was a tragedy that gave way to life very much as it had always been, except it codified exactly what everyone had feared about Julius, and so was an irony. With Jesus it was very much the opposite: his death was supposed to end the problem, and yet it only magnified what he had tried to accomplish in life, show people that there was another way, to reject the brutalities we can so often inflict on each other, to suggest love conquers all.

Pilate’s son was in a unique position to appreciate this. For him it was inescapable. Everywhere he turned he encountered people who only knew him as the son of the man who had unsuccessfully tried to end the Jesus problem. The Jesus problem never went away. His followers never went away. In fact, they only multiplied. They became perfect pariahs of the Romans, scapegoats, easy to blame for any little mishap, fodder for the circuses, their deaths mere entertainment, but somehow this never dissuaded their faith. In a lot of ways they were only emboldened. When they started telling the story of Jesus, some accused them of shaping the events of the trial to flatter the Romans, but it could only be an embarrassment. Just ask Pilate’s son. Just try to look at it from his perspective: his father failed to end the problem, and he was going to be the one who would have to live with the results, the constant proof of that failure, and everywhere he turned he couldn’t hope to avoid it.

A funny thing happened, though. As far as I can tell, he began to believe. Pilate himself was removed from Jerusalem, having been judged ineffective to the task. His son followed him back to Rome, but the whispers of the whole affair followed. The itinerant preacher Paul, who was himself Roman, who showed up a few years later, had never met Jesus himself, not even after the mysterious resurrection, the event that had galvanized the faith for so many of the followers, the impossible thing, spread the message far and wide, so that it became truly inescapable. Pilate’s son learned this better than anyone. Often he found himself jeered. His response was remarkable. He would tell anyone willing to listen that he was actually proud, that if anything his father had been vindicated, that if his judgment had been challenged, then perhaps that had been the whole point all along. A point rebuffed must be reconsidered. This is the task of any rational mind, and any such mind that refuses to accept such a challenge isn’t worth taking seriously. This is how he chose to view it. This is what he told those who stopped to listen. This is how he came to believe.

He gave up everything. Some say he didn’t have much to begin with, the son of a man considered a failure, who couldn’t subdue a troubled province, who seemed to actually have made things worse. No prospects, no hope for a future. Willing to grasp at any straws. 

Well, maybe I view it differently since I myself came to believe, so I was willing to extend him the benefit of the doubt. Some say it was easy to believe because it offered an alternative to the Romans, suggested that if you simply endured then you could envision life after them, to life on terms without them again. But I don’t think that was ever the point. I heard that Jesus once said, render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Accept life as you find it. But know there is something greater. Know you don’t have to define life by the terms in which you find it. This is to say, there is the standard around you, and then there is the standard you hold for yourself. If your standard is greater, hold that closest to your heart. If you find the standard set by Jesus, then you won’t need to worry about the lower standards around you. All you can really do is hope one day more people will see things the way you do.

And that’s how Pilate’s son saw it. He could have considered his future bleak, his loss of station, of potential within the empire, that he would never reach the same heights his father had, certainly never surpass him. But he chose instead to embrace the idea upon which this failure had been achieved. He humbled himself quite happily. He became just another Christian. In his quiet way, if like me you noticed him at all, later, marveled that he never shied from being treated like any of the rest of us, subject to the same perils, you saw how the story had come full circle. Like his father he had washed his hands of the business, but in his case he washed his with ours, to break bread with us, to share the same  bounty. And so, perhaps, like father like son. That’s what I like to believe, anyway.

The whole thing was an affirmation. That’s how I saw those three days play out, and how they spoke through the years that followed. I commemorate the experiences to this day. How could I not? I believe. I believe in Jesus. I believe in his way. I believe in humanity, even when it seems I shouldn’t. Not for some selfish reason. Not because I believe I will receive some reward for it. Because my faith in humanity is the best way to inspire that same belief in others, that they will see there is a better way, a way that sees value in others. Pilate, his wife, his son, they had impossible journeys to be a part of all this. Believe what you want to about them. For me, they are essential.