Where do you come from?

Pilate's question to Jesus - in his fear as the people outside demand Jesus's blood: “Where do you come from?”

And it's a question with many potential answers.

When people ask me where do I come from I generally say Husborne Crawley. As I think that's generally true. But I could say I come from Luton, where I was born. Or Dunstable, the town next door, where I attended St Mitholmroyd's Academy for the Daughters of Distressed Gentlefolk. Or I could pay homage to my mum's parents and their story and say I'm "London Overspill". These are all in their way true.

Jesus says nothing. But what could he say?

He could say he's from Nazareth. That little place where he grew up, where he learned to saw and build.

He could say he's from Capernaum - that's where his house is. The house in all likelihood where someone cut a hole through his roof to lower a disabled man to him.

He could recite the Haggadah, the passage from Deuteronomy used at the feast of Firstfruits within tehe celebration of Passover, and say "My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous."

He could say from Bethlehem, because he's the Son of David that the prophets promised, the Messiah who God has sent to save his people.

That would not increase his chances of leaving Jerusalem alive.

Or he could say - I come, Pilate, from where you can't imagine. I come from beyond the depths of time and space. I have no beginning and no end. Through me everything was created. Through me everything exists. Through me the stars hang in their lonely orbits and the sun generates its heat. Even the molecules of oxygen that you pant into your panicking body right now own their existence to me. If I chose, you would not exist. I come from God the Father and I will come again from God’s right hand to be your judge. You may have the power to release me or crucify me - but I have the power to release you, if you wanted.

And they would all be true - about this son of Abraham, of David, and God.

But he says nothing. And Pilate can do nothing. Except obey the will of some of the people he's supposed to be ruling. And though Jesus goes to die, it’s Pilate who is the broken man.

And so the one who made the earth hangs above it for six hours, as his human life ebbs away. And he fights the devil on the cross, and he will descend to Hell and fight the devil on his own home turf, and he will win both home and away. And we sing his praise because through his death, we have life. And when he comes again, from the place where he is gone – he will make us like him, and we will see him as he is. And know where he is from, because we will belong there too.