A double entendre is a word or phrase that can be heard in one or the other of two ways. It has a double meaning. And the Passion of Our Lord according to John is full of them.

When Jesus is being arrested in the garden, at first, there is mass confusion. The soldiers and the police don't know Jesus by sight--only by reputation--therefore, they're not sure which Jewish man is Jesus.

Jesus takes control of the situation. He asks, "Whom are you looking for?" They say, "Jesus of Nazareth." To which, Jesus replies, "I am he."

This is a double entendre. On the one hand, Jesus is simply answering--correctly answering--their question. They're looking for Jesus of Nazareth and so Jesus answers, "I am he."

Except in Greek, what Jesus is actually saying is “Ego eimi.” While “Ego eimi” can certainly be translated as, "I am he," the words themselves are just, "I am." And here’s our double entendre.“Ego eimi”--”I AM!”--is the name God gives himself in the Hebrew scriptures. Most famously, it's the name by which God identifies himself to Moses in the burning bush. Moses asks, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” “Ego eimi”!

Back to the Passion of Our Lord according to John. Jesus asks those arresting him whom they're looking for. They say, "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus replies, “Ego eimi,” suggesting, not simply "I am he," but, at a deeper level, "I AM,” as in, “I AM WHO I AM!”

The soldiers and police may be looking for Jesus of Nazareth. But, whether they realize it or not, the one whom they’ve found in the garden is none other than the great I AM! “Whom are you looking for?” “Jesus of Nazareth.” “Ego eimi.” I am he. I AM WHO I AM!

Another double entendre occurs during Jesus' trial with Pilate. Pilate is trying to figure out what crime--if any--Jesus has committed. Pilate suspects this is all just an internal conflict within Judaism. When he says as much to the Jewish leaders they say, no! Jesus has called himself a king.

If this is true, this is indeed a matter for Pilate. Pilate cannot permit contenders for ultimate authority. He says to Jesus, "So you are a king?"

In Greek, it's not so much a question as it is a statement. And it is as a statement that Jesus takes it. "You say so," he ambiguously replies to Pilate.

“So you are a king.” Is Pilate asking or telling? Pilate thinks he’s asking. He wants to know--sincerely or not--whether Jesus is a king, and so, a threat to him. “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.”

And that leads us to the third double entendre. There are more than that. But this is the one I want to focus on. With Jesus' half-admission that he is some sort of king--and with the crowd demanding that, as a result, he be crucified--Pilate has Jesus flogged (which is to say, tortured), dressed in a purple robe, and a crown of needle-like thorns jammed on his head. At which point Pilate brings Jesus out to the crowd and says, "Here is the man."

Now, that is an odd expression in both Greek and English. “Here is the man.”

What man? Why refer to the tortured, bloody, but robed-and-crowned Jesus as "the man"?

It's a double entendre. It has a surface meaning and an ever-so-deep meaning.

Do you remember how the Gospel of John begins? It's unforgettable: “In the beginning ..."

What else begins that way? The book of Genesis, the beginning of the Hebrew scriptures.

And, indeed, throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus has been identified with what we might call the “greatest hits” in the Hebrew scriptures: I am the Good Shepherd; I am the Light of the World; I am the Bread of Life.

So, what is Pilate unwittingly calling Jesus at the moment where Jesus' fate is being decided? "Here is the man."

"The man." Who is "the man"? In the Hebrew scriptures, the answer is obvious. "The man" is Adam, the original human being.

God made “the man” Adam in his image, as his own child. And what God sought in the man was faithfulness. God wanted the man to trust him, to love him, to live in fellowship with God.

The man, however, preferred to live and act as his own God. And ever since then God has been on a road to try and redeem--to rescue--the fall of "the man."

So. At the moment Jesus’ fate is being decided, Pilate says, "Here is the man." And his words could not be truer or more ironic.

Here is the man. Here is the man--the one human being--who so trusts God, so loves God, and who is so obedient to God that in him the great curse of human infidelity can be reversed once and for all.
How does St. Paul put it? “As in Adam--the man--all die, even so, in Christ--the man--shall all be made alive!”

So here is the man. What we could not--and would not--do, Jesus does, and does for all. He gives God the devotion, the obedience, and the faithfulness that God has sought from the beginning.

And in doing so, the curse is broken! As in Adam all die, even so, in Christ shall all be made alive. He’s the man! In Jesus’ name. Amen!