This week I welcome guest blogger, Emerald Scaffe. Emerald is married and together with her husband, has three children. She also serves on the teaching team at Faith Church.
The Jewish leaders finally have Jesus where they want him. In front of Pilate. So they change their tactic a little bit for the Roman Governor. Look at John 18, verse 29, “So Pilate came out to them and asked, ‘What charges are you bringing against this man?’”
“If he were not a criminal,’ they replied, ‘we would not have handed him over to you.”
“Pilate said, ‘Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.” “But we have no right to execute anyone,’ the Jews objected. This happened so that the words Jesus had spoken indicating the kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled.”
The Jews try to make their argument political, instead of theological. They try to make Jesus look like a criminal, instead of a heretic, in order to get the attention of the Roman government. However, we see Pilate as less eager to get involved. While he is a Gentile, he is perhaps an example of someone outside of religion that seems to be less cruel than a person steeped in religious ideals. Pilate behaves more civilly than the Jewish religious leaders. Let’s read John’s account of the dialogue between Pilate and Jesus.
Verse 33, “Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?” “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”
“Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it that you have done?” Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
“You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
“What is truth?” Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”
“They shouted back, ‘No, not him! Give us Barabbas!’ Now Barabbas had taken part in a rebellion.”
Throughout this entire trial period, only the misguided Roman Governor seems uneasy about getting involved with Jesus’s sentence. We see God’s faithfulness again, as Jesus interacts with Pilate, the blatant non-believer, with a sense of tenderness. Jesus offers more information about his kingdom, than he does to any of the Jewish officials. God is providing an opportunity for the “evangelion” to touch Pilate’s heart.
By this point the mob mentality has overtaken the crowd and they demand for Jesus to be punished, and the criminal Barabbas is released. In this moment the world feels chaotic, and in the weeks to come we will see how the chaos continues as sin prevails during Christ’s crucifixion. At least, it must have seemed that way at the time.
But that’s the best part. In the middle of this sinful betrayal and greed, God is present, and He will be glorified, and the end result of Christ’s death, burial, and Resurrection is eternal salvation and a richer reality than if Jesus had never been arrested.
Jesus gives us an example, especially in these chapters when it seems like life gets in the way of spirituality, of how to stay connected, how to wade through the chaos into victory.
Many of us can recall moments where it seemed like things went from bad to worse, where we were drowning in the constant flow of cold, hard life.
God is glorified through our decision to walk alongside Him, especially in the midst of difficulty. Just as Christ was given strength to continue in peace, so we will be given strength to complete the next right thing, and to count all trials as joy. Because God is faithful and we can trust him to take care of us.
Engaging Scripture 