Power Ridiculed

“As an alternative to the kingdoms of this world He (Jesus) proclaims a kingdom not of this world, where pride gives place to humility, and the quest for power becomes a quest for love --- all this, not just in words, but embodied in the great drama of the Incarnation.

Following this line of thought, the Journalist comes to grasp that the climax of Jesus’s earthly ministry, His Crucifixion, amounted to a reductio ad absurdum of what the Devil has on offer --- which is power. Likewise, Pilate’s ironical billing of Jesus on the Cross as ‘King of the Jews’ misfires in the light of Jesus’s true destiny as ‘God’s Almighty Word leaping down from Heaven out of His royal Throne.’ Again, the mockery of the Roman soldiers misfires when they dress Jesus up in a scarlet robe, put a crown of thorns on His head, give Him a reed to hold in His hand as a scepter, and then kneel down before Him in obeisance, chanting: ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’

The soldiers are not, as they suppose, just ridiculing a poor, distraught and deluded man about to be crucified, but holding up to ridicule all who exercise power, thereby making power itself derisory, so that thenceforth thorns will be woven into every crown, and under every scarlet robe there will be stricken flesh.”

Malcolm Muggeridge, Confessions of a Twentieth Century Pilgrim as quoted by Marva Dawn

in Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God.