Caesar Says: When Our Highest Worldly Allegiance Is Threatened

“Then Pilate tried to release him, but the Jewish leaders shouted, “If you release this man, you are no ‘friend of Caesar.’ Anyone who declares himself a king is a rebel against Caesar.”' ‭‭John‬ ‭19‬:‭12‬ ‭NLT‬

When our highest allegiances are threatened, what is true and good, drops in priority.

And, THE worldly leader does not tolerate a contest.

At this point in Jesus' passion experience, the religious leaders fully recognize and leverage Pilot’s allegiance to Caesar. They shrewdly go directly to what Pilate values most and threaten it.

Pilate knows Jesus is innocent, but it becomes clear what is true matters less than what Pilate gets from his allegiance. Pilate is reminded of what he already knows; Caesar rules this world.

What we want or don't want to happen, has a strong controlling dynamic over us, particularly if we can't let it go. When nefarious actors know this, they're strongly positioned to get from you and me what they want. And there is often little we can do to stop them.

The only way we can push back comes from a willingness to lose what we want and value. But without the pathway Jesus provides to do this, we're trapped.

In Christianity, we call this an idol. It's something, other than God, that has our utmost allegiance.

“For the non-Jew, fear has, to do with terror of the fateful, nameless forces that dominate humanity and nature, of which idols must be built and to which tribute must be paid.” - Paul Zahl, Who Will Deliver Us?

We want to be the ultimate power, to be the king (or Caesar), but practically speaking we lack that power. Only one can have that role. Thus we defer under another’s power to those that can give us what we want. And from this dynamic, we have an interwoven set of allegiances. It's this assembled hierarchy that Jesus came to disrupt.

"...the four gospels are telling not only the story of God's kingdom being inaugurated, but also the story of how evil draws itself up to its height so that it can then be defeated by the Messiah..." - NT Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, p205

Pilate’s god (ultimate allegiance) was Caesar, and when that relationship was threatened, the truth and an innocent man would be easily discarded. Pilate would not be shamed but he would not think twice about shaming someone else, even unjustly. What's lost by sacrificing an innocent man to retain power or placate these religious leaders (who would try and instigate the type of insurrection Rome despised)?

Pilate was beholden to his Lord; Caesar. That is where his power was derived and his identity sourced. Jesus challenges this foundation. 

“I'm above Caesar so you are beholden to me. What will you do?”

Corrupt Allegiances To The Idols

"Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That's the only way to become what you were meant to be." - Kylo Ren, The Last Jedi

So practically, if I place my wife or boss above God, serving their interest is my primary objective, and when I’m not good enough for them, failing and flopping, my security is threatened because our identity flows from our idols. If I’m a failure, as they tell me I am, then I am a failure. 

“Nevertheless when you come right down to it, this and a number of other such considerate actions were exceptions. The rule remained: unswerving devotion to the idol, the graven image I had helped to make.” - The Education of a True Believer (And He Created An Idol for Himself) Book by Lev Kopelev

In 2005, my wife and I moved from Flagstaff, Arizona to the big city of Atlanta Georgia the day after our honeymoon, to pursue our entrepreneurial ambitions and explore our filmmaking dreams. Quickly distracted, I launched a (now dormant) project. Several months in, an older man (I'll call him Saul) reached out praising my work and asking how he could support my efforts. I felt a great sense of accomplishment and pride that a stranger would take notice of my work. Wow!

At this time, I was newly married, attempting to figure out life, graduate college, launch a company, and make my first feature film. Saul was experienced in the business world consulting with big technology companies like Amazon and new startups. He could help me, so I thought, and since deep down I had no clue what I was doing, I'd accept the questionable help that sought me out. He'd give me what I wanted and I'd tolerate the toxic dynamics.

And so, I began ignoring the many red flags that both my wife and I saw. At age 21, I believed I could take the good advice and ignore the bad influence. But, this toxic mentor slowly and surely consumed my life and pushed me to act in ways I didn't expect while also slowly and surely breaking me down. 

Combined with other broken relationships, poor personal decisions, and unpleasant circumstances, I became a shell of who I once was. To give you a sense of where I was emotionally, here’s a fictional scene fragment below expressing my lowest point during this chaotic season of life.

"I couldn't feel anything. I was beaten so badly my body was numb. I felt dead, or at least as close as you possibly can get to being dead. The dirt continued to rain down. From the best I could tell, I was being buried alive. In some way, I felt like I deserved this. That I didn't deserve to live. I didn't want to be dead, I was just so guilt-driven I truly thought at some level I deserved it." - The Cellar Journey

In the first sequence with Kylo Ren (Ben Solo) and Snoke in the film, the Last Jedi, there is a perfect portrayal of my encounters with Saul. He, like Snoke, knew exactly how to lift me up and feel like a million bucks while using that same high feeling to chastise me with the "cruelest stroke." I was made to feel worthless upon my failures, many of which were normal for a young aspiring twenty-year-old boy. The advantages of my upbringing, personality, and skills set the stage for me to make a mark and have an impact on this world. I knew this, and he saw it. But instead of fostering that potential, he crushed me, and that potential right along with it.

Here's the dialogue from that scene. 

"I've given everything I have to you." - Kylo Ren

"You're just a child in a mask." - Snoke

I remember stating similar words to Saul and him stating a likewise phrase.

If there's a scene in a film that swiftly and powerfully portrays what I experienced for two years, the first sequence with Ben Solo is it. Not only is Kylo Ren seeking to please his dark master, but he's also taking the jaded beliefs of Luke Skywalker, in the film, to their logical conclusions. Kylo Ren is the external manifestation of Luke's cynical corrupted beliefs. These are beliefs Luke Skywalker voices but is unwilling to act on.

It's not until Yoda holds Luke's feet to the fire by burning down the Jedi tree (believing the old Jedi texts to be there) that Luke is forced to reconcile the jaded paradox he's living in. Luke's jadedness and shame have clouded his judgment, and the same is true for Ben Solo.

But unlike Luke, Kylo Ren is a young man seeking to find his place, discover his identity, face his inner demons, and survive his cruel master and the one who abandoned him.

Allegiance, From a Psychological Point of View

"...another problem that the atheists have never come to terms with... if what is properly rendered unto God is rendered unto Caesar then Caesar becomes inflated to god and when that happens all hell breaks loose. That's the genesis of totalitarianism. That's subservience to an idol." - Jordan Peterson, Jordan Peterson, God, & Christianity | Kaczor & Petrusek | EP 212

Human allegiances take multiple forms. Here are the three most common categories of allegiance, derived from Constructive Development theory. 

• The allegiance for some, is personal. It's about winning, and/or getting what is desired. This could be survival, pleasure, purpose, or achievement.

• Another form of allegiance is social and tribal. People with allegiances in this category want to belong in a community and perhaps move up the hierarchy. In this case, they go along with the group so they don't become alienated from it or so they don't risk alienating others in it (appeasement). According to the father of constructive development theory (Robert Kegan), the key question for people in this category of adult development is, what should I do and for whom?

• For the rest, their allegiance is ideological, a collection of core stories for how they see the world. If someone has an ideology that the government is bad (or good), they'll align with leaders and powers that share their ideology. The more we're around those who share our values, the more we come to believe that is the only way to see the world and it can lead to us becoming delusional about our dependencies on others who see the world differently. We develop an incomplete picture of realty.

The Cross Defeats the Powers of This World

How was Jesus' death on the cross victorious over the powers of this world? What does that mean? 

Pilate's allegiance was to Caesar, so he chose to crucify Jesus so that he could maintain his relationship with Caesar. The religious leaders cunningly threatened this relationship to get Pilate to do what they wanted him to do. He became the enforcement mechanism of destroying that which the religious leaders hated. Pilate was how the religious leaders punished their enemy.

My Sin drives me to choose an idol instead of God because my sin separates me from God but I still must attach myself to something. So I settle for an idol that will tolerate my sin, instead. And my allegiance to that idol is living out my sin. 

So, how does Jesus empower us to overcome the allegiances (idolatry) that lead us to being manipulated? 

It requires that we're freed from our primary allegiances and that we have an alternative to which we can reorient; to appeal. We have to be willing to let go of that which we value most. And it's only Christ's work on the cross that lets us ultimately do this, letting go of our own life and of which all desires flow. Death is the tyrant that comes for us all. 

What Christ does on the cross allows for a proper ordering of our allegiances, starting with God — now that we're reconciled with him through the work of Jesus on the cross. We're no longer dominated by spiritual or physical death. 

Jesus becomes what we need for liberation. He takes on all of our nastiness.

“[Jesus] becomes the concentrated reality of everything that stands against [the Kingdom of God].

He is every Pilate and Pharaoh. He is every Herod and Hitler and Putin, every Caesar and every Judas. Every racist, every civilian casualty, every act of terror, and every chemical bomb. All our greed. All our violence. Every ungodly act and every ungodly person.“ - Jason Micheli, The Transfiguration in the Garden of Gethsemane, Mockingbird

His Righteousness In Our Judgment

God does this liberation for humanity externally, as demonstrated in the Exodus account freeing Israel from the tyrannical Pharoah. With Christ, and our following him, made possible by the cross, Jesus also regenerates us from the inside while reconciling us with God.

“For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” - 2 Corinthians 5:21

When we are judged righteous before God, through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, we can deal with any people or authorities deeming us unrighteous (judging us harshly, justifiably so or not). Our identity is tied to how God judges us, not how people judge us.

And like Christ on his way to the cross, he was righteous and still condemned by people. We will be as well. We can't get around that, but we are liberated when we are not beholden to people's judgment.

But if we don't feel righteous before God or we know that we're not righteous before God, that's resolved too because we are made righteous through Christ on the cross. Because of the cross, God sees us as if we are Jesus. So whether we feel it or not, before God we are righteous when we’ve accepted God’s grace. 

“It was by faith that Joseph, when he was about to die, said confidently that the people of Israel would leave Egypt. He even commanded them to take his bones with them when they left. It was by faith that Moses’ parents hid him for three months when he was born. They saw that God had given them an unusual child, and they were not afraid to disobey the king’s command.” - Hebrews 11:22-23 NLT

We make Pharoah an idol because we seek a strong worthy leader. But because of our sin, we’re separated from the most worthy of leaders, God. And so we seek a substitute. Which, because of our sin, is the only alternative available to us. But, Christ reconnects us with God, and that allows us to transition away from Pharoah as our God.

As we mature, it's not that the judgment of other people goes away, but rather we can integrate it in its appropriate and fruitful place. We can sit in the tension of the judgment, knowing our ultimate judgment is good.

"The Messiah's new life, risen from the dead, is indeed the inauguration of the "age to come," bursting in upon the "present evil age." Those who belong to him are to believe and to live by the belief that they died and rose again with him so that they are no longer under any slavish obligation to obey the old master." - NT Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, P279

Deferring Judgment To The Ultimate Judge

We no longer need to be controlled by what others think of us or how they judge us. If we become our own judge, we can dismiss them, but that approach has its limitations and can quickly lead us astray.

We need an outside judge to deem us righteous, and for it to be true. The cross makes this possible. Christ's sacrifice imbues his righteousness on us, as part of our salvation process. Baptism is the symbolic act to represent this transfer. When parts of us are liberated, or aspects of our lives, or certain relationships, it doesn't mean we've fleshed that out across the board. The work may still need to be done.

Liberated From the Tyrants

"In the Song of the Sea, it declares that the lord reigns as King... God is on a mission to confront evil in his world and to redeem those who are enslaved to evil. God is going to bring his people into the promised land where his diving presence will live among them. The Exodus story is what it looks like when God becomes king over his people." - Tim Mackie

This good news doesn't always make it easy, in fact, sometimes it can feel impossibly hard. But, this grace gives us a pathway to release our oppressive "Pharaoh" and replace them with God as our "Lord".  

Then, we trust God, as the Israelites did.

God will deliver his people from slavery and oppression.

And as we saw with the Exodus, it was a tension-filled liberation. It was actively resisted in even violent ways. But, we have to choose to let go of our Pharaoh (idol) and attach to God instead. And then, to trust him.