What If We Looked Again?

John 19:5 · Witnesses: Encountering Jesus When It Matters Most

“When Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, ‘Here’s the man.’” — John 19:5 (CEB)

“Here’s the man.” Pilate probably meant it as dismissal—look at this pitiful figure, no threat to anyone. But John invites us to hear it differently. Here is humanity itself, beaten and crowned with thorns. Here is what we do to one another when fear takes over.

We encounter this every day in smaller ways. The coworker everyone talks about but never talks to. The neighbor whose struggle is visible but never acknowledged. The person on social media reduced to a caricature of a real human being. “Here’s the man” becomes “there’s that person”—someone we can dismiss without truly seeing.

What if we looked again, more carefully? What if “Here’s the man” became an invitation to truly see someone we’ve been looking past all along?

Christ, you stood exposed so we could see the truth. Open our eyes to the people we have been looking past, and give us courage to truly see them. Amen.