What have you done
So demands Pilate of Jesus in Sundays' gospel reading. One of the challenges of any public rendition of this passage, in a film or a play or a reading in church on a Sunday morning, is to decide just what Pilate is saying.
What have you done
.. what of all these actions are you specifically responsible for ... what, in all this mess, is your fault?
What have you done
... have you any sense of the trouble you have stirred and the effort it will take to sort this out?
What have you done
... what is it that you are sorry or ashamed of and you don't want to speak about?
What have you done
... have you seen all that I have done and all they have done .. tell me, what have you done?
The decision on how to 'play' this question makes all the difference in the world: two of them focus on the person being questioned (what is your fault, what are you ashamed of) and two on the person asking the question (what I will have to do, what I have already done).
And it's not the only question Pilate asks Jesus in this reading. When Jesus is brought to Pilate, summoned by the Roman governor to his headquarters, the first thing Pilate says is: "Are you the King of the Jews?" Exasperated by Jesus reply, Pilate then puts a rhetorical question and a very real question to Jesus: "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own people, your own chief priests have handed you over: what have you done?"
Further confused by Jesus' response, Pilate then asks: "So you are a king?". And our passage ends with Jesus' response: "You say that I'm a king. But I'll tell you this: I was born - I came into the world (there's an interesting thing to explore here, by the way ... why does John, who has no birth narrative, have Jesus say "for this I was born and for this I came into the world" .. but that's for another day!)
Our passage ends with Jesus' response: "You say that I'm a king. But I'll tell you this: I was born - I came into the world - to testify to the truth and everyone who belongs to the truth listens to me."
That's where our passage ends on Sunday .... and what's the very next verse? Pilate, asking another question: "What is truth?", going out to the crowd and handing the decision as to what to do with Jesus to the baying mob.
