Today, Palm Sunday, we read the Passion of Jesus, as we will do on Good Friday. As we listen to the story we are invaded with distress and sadness, and even with some anger. The silence of Jesus can be difficult to accept. It can easily be interpreted as a signal of surrender, a fatalistic acceptance of fate. How can he fail to respond directly to either Herod or Pilate? His response to Pilate has some vague explanations about His kingdom not being of this world. Of course, Pilate does not understand. We might even think — right or wrong — that the governor was more than willing to help Him. Certainly, Jesus in the Praetorium was on trial, but he gives up his fundamental right to defend himself. We could wonder why he doesn’t answer Pilate with some witty phrase to disarm His opponents (as he has does before), or why he doesn’t give an inspirational speech to unnerve the masses? Why doesn’t he do some spectacular miracle as the people of Israel were used to seeing from Yahweh?
But no, Jesus goes to his passion “as lamb was taken to the slaughterhouse” (Is. 53.7) and that is at times difficult for us to accept. But then, after reflecting a bit, we realize that perhaps that silence was the only possible speech. Because the strategies of power, the dynamics and the spirals of envy, vengeance and hatred, can only be broken with silence, and perhaps even with death (which doesn't always have to be physical). Anything else would be like the arms race during the Cold War, to see who has “more.” Any action from Jesus would have put Him on par with the intricacies of power of Pilate, Herod and company. The only way to deescalate and dynamics of power is becoming a lamb led meekly to the slaughterhouse.
Martin Luther King, Jr., said that hate cannot drive out hate. We do not eradicate violence with violence, nor is power neutralized seeking spaces of power. We are to be witnesses of generosity and love, to show that we don't care about big or even small shares of power. That we don’t care if we don’t appear in the picture, that it's okay if we are not shown any appreciation for our actions. For some, this could be seen as a failure or even total defeat. But it is more meaningful than any victory achieved, even slightly, through the parameters of power. Maybe we will get there fully in heaven, but that doesn’t take away the fact that already, from this point forward, we should move towards that direction, toward that new Easter that is already near.
Probably Jesus, during his Passion, did wish to talk, to say something to Pilate and Herod, if only to defend his own disciples. But if he was to start arguing, then he would have joined their game. In the end, it turned out that his silence, so hard to understand at the time, was, three days later, his greatest speech and his greatest miracle.
