Nearly 2000 years ago a young religious leader, a prophet to his followers and a dangerous crank to his enemies, had been handed over to the foreign governor of his province to be executed.
The governor was not certain he deserved to die and tried to help, but the young man remained silent.
This provoked the exasperated governor to explode, "Are you refusing to speak to me? Surely you know I have power to release you and I have power to crucify you?"
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The reply now was courteous but confronting: "You would have no power over me at all if it had not been given you from above."
The governor did have the power but he had neither the courage nor the conviction to resist the pressures of the mob and handed over this strange young man to be crucified.
The powerless young prophet was Jesus from Galilee. The governor was Pontius Pilate, representative of the mighty Roman Empire, whose influence then rivalled the superpower status of the US today.
Many people in our society do not think much about the nature of power, about the differences between the good and evil exercises of power, although they often have strong judgments on particular issues, such as war, poverty, abortion.
Power is exercised by an immense variety of agents on widely different issues – by older brothers and sisters, school prefects and sports captains, by parents, teachers and police officers and on the broader public stage by politicians, judges and generals. The examples range from an order to pick up the papers in a schoolyard through to a sentence of life-imprisonment or a declaration of war.
All power comes from outside us (and ultimately from God) and is to be used after due reflection for a good purpose and not just for self-service. There is always a need for responsibility, for a sense of proportion, for sensitivity but not sentimentality.
Courtesy and fairness are always needed and toughness sometimes.
Self-knowledge and humility are always necessary in all those who exercise power, because power can be seductive, as well as addictive.
We also need to identify the criteria we use to decide when power is used well or for evil purposes.
Some argue that war is always wrong and that violence will never bring lasting peace. I am not sure that this is true for national states rather than individuals, as I believe the Allied governments were justified in going to war against Hitler and Japan in World War II. Peace, admittedly an imperfect peace, did follow for many.
There can also be power in powerlessness. Christ crucified is "the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men". (1 Cor. 1:24).
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