To ensure that Christ was condemned to death on Good Friday the leaders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to destroy Jesus (cf. Mt. 27:20). Pilate then asks: “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered: “We have no king but Caesar” (cf. Jn 19:15). Strikingly, the Pharisees could have simply said: “We have no king,” in response to Pilate’s question. Ironically, in condemning Jesus to death, the people were in turn giving their allegiance to an earthly tyrant. This leads us to the question: Is it enough to simply say: “we have no king?”
Just recently, many participated in the “No Kings” protests. Organizers and participants fear that our country’s constitutional principles are under threat, particularly the rule of law and the accountability of the executive branch. Setting aside the debate on the current exercise of executive power, we can learn a timeless lesson from the Passion Account: rejecting one king does not automatically equal freedom. As shown in the Gospel, the fervent declaration that we have no king, can be the moment a crowd is manipulated into trading one Caesar for another. We need more than just political outrage to ensure a just society.
The benefit we have as Catholics is that we do not limit ourselves to declaring “we have no king.” Instead, we reject all claims of absolute authority, except to say: “We have no King but Christ.” Having founded ourselves on Christ’s rule of justice and mercy, we have the principles to avoid tyranny in whatever form it takes.
