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John 19:1-16
So as this trial continues with Pilate we see more fulfilments of prophecy. The flogging that Pilate put Jesus through speaks of the suffering servant in Isaiah chapter 50 and 53. Again we see that Pilate tries repeatedly to do everything, except that which is his and his alone to do, which is to release Jesus completely. Let’s read what happened.
John 19:1-16 (NIV) Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face.
Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.” When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”
As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”
But Pilate answered, “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.”
The Jewish leaders insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”
When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, and he went back inside the palace. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?”
Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”
From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.”
When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon.
“Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews.
But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”
“Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked.
“We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.
Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.
There is so much here in today’s passage. One thing that I want to make clear is that Pilate had ample time and it was well within his power to choose to set Jesus free. And Pilate does have some moments that were cautionary, especially when he finds out that Jesus has made the claim that He is the Son of God. There wasn’t a Roman man alive at that time who didn’t have a bit of caution in regards to superstitious thoughts if someone was to have been from “the gods” or made that very claim – no matter what their origin of nationality. And it truly wouldn’t have been thought of as being a superstitious thought back then.
Along with that John talks about what Pilate did after Jesus answers him, in that Pilate tried to set Jesus free. And what is the response of the people? They turn Pilate’s own government, the Roman government of Caesar, against him to give him no choice.
And in the end I believe the last thing the people say truly shows you how complicit the people of Jerusalem are in the crucifixion of Jesus. They say – we have no king by Caesar. Now I will say this, over the years some have tried to use this entire passage of Scripture to bring their view of antisemitism to be backed by biblical standards, meaning they have said it was the Jews who killed Jesus. But if you look here it is not just Jewish people of Christ’s day who crucify Him. It is both Jew and the Gentile that hand Him over that day. It was the entire world. Pilate had an out – he did not have to follow the crowd but did so of his own choosing. And why, to keep the peace and not have an uprising in the area he’s responsible for. It was a group effort to have Jesus crucified by the entire world, not just Jesus’ own people, the Jews.
Again we must ask ourselves, where are we in this story? Are we the religious leaders choosing the violence of Barabbas over the peaceable love of Jesus? Are we the secular government leaders who are flippantly asking what is truth? What about the Roman soldiers who take the hand off from Pilate to carry out the sentence of crucifixion? Are you just doing your job?
Or do we stand with the Incarnational God – Jesus Christ? And by doing so become an incarnational disciple and in turn influence our church to become a body of believers who live incarnational lives in essence infecting their neighborhoods with the love of Jesus Christ?