Ep. 131: Jesus confronts Pilate.
CLICK HERE for the corresponding blog post in Yeshua Adored
MATTHEW 27:1,2,11-14, MARK 15:1-5, LUKE 23:1-5
The pale grey light had passed into that of early morning, when the Sanhedrists once more assembled in the Palace of Caiaphas, to consider how the informal sentence might best be carried into effect. It was this, and not the question of Jesus’ guilt, which was the focus of discussions on that early morning. The result of it was to ‘bind’ Jesus and hand him over as a criminal to Pilate, with the intention, if possible, not to frame any definite charge but, if this became necessary, to lay all the emphasis on the purely political, not the religious aspect of the claims of Jesus. That was the plan, anyway!
The Jewish leaders brought the bound Jesus to the Praetorium, the quarters occupied by the Roman Governor. It is recorded that they who brought him would not themselves enter that forsaken place, ‘that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.’ It may have been about seven in the morning, probably even earlier, when Pilate went out to those who summoned him to dispense justice. His question to them seems to have startled and fazed them. Their deliberations had been private but Roman Law demanded that they were in public. Accordingly, Pilate’s first question was, what accusation had they brought against Jesus?
Their answer displays humiliation, ill-humour, and an attempt at evasion. Pilate proposed that the Sanhedrists should try Jesus according to the Jewish Law. On the previous evening, the Governor had given a Roman guard for the arrest of the prisoner and thinking also of the dream and warning of Pilate’s wife, a peculiar impression is conveyed to us. Tradition has given her the name Procula, while an apocryphal Gospel describes her as a convert to Judaism. What if the truth lay between these statements and Procula had not only been a proselyte but known about Jesus and spoken of him to Pilate on that evening? This would best explain his reluctance to condemn Jesus.
The onus was now on the Sanhedrists to formally charge him. It was, that Jesus had claimed to be the Christ, a King. By so saying they falsely attributed to Jesus their own political expectations concerning the Messiah. But even this is not all. They also claimed that he perverted the nation and forbade to give tribute to Caesar. The latter charge was so grossly unfounded, that we can only regard it as in their mind a necessary conclusion of the premise that he claimed to be King.
Pilate now called Jesus and asked him: ‘You are the King of the Jews?’ There is that mixture of contempt for all that was Jewish and of that general cynicism that could not believe in the existence of anything higher. Out of all that the Sanhedrists had said, Pilate took only this, that Jesus claimed to be a King. Jesus, who had not heard the charge of his accusers, now ignored it, in his desire to be merciful to Pilate. He asked Pilate whether the question was his own, or merely the repetition of what his Jewish accusers had told him.
The Governor quickly disowned any personal interest. How could he raise any such question? he was not a Jew, and the subject had no general interest. Jesus’ own nation and its leader had handed him over as a criminal; what had he done? Pilate’s answer left nothing else for him who, even in that supreme hour, thought only of others, rather than himself.
It was not, as Pilate had implied, a Jewish question. It was one of absolute truth; it concerned all men. The Kingdom of Christ was not of this world at all, either Jewish or Gentile. Had it been otherwise. He would have led his followers in an uprising and not have become a prisoner of the Jews.
One thought only struck Pilate. ‘So then, you are a King!’ he was incapable of understanding the higher thought and truth. We mark in his words the same mixture of scoffing and misgiving. Pilate should now be in no doubt as to the nature of the Kingdom. Jesus gave an explanation of his claims that a heathen such as Pilate could understand. His Kingdom was not of this world. Here was the truth!
But these words struck only a hollow void, as they fell on Pilate. It was not merely cynicism, but utter despair of all that is higher which appears in his question, ‘What is truth?’ he had understood Jesus, but it was not in him to respond to his appeal. He, who in reality was a stranger to ‘the truth’, could not sympathise with the grand aim of Jesus’ life and work. But even the question of Pilate seems an admission, an implied homage to Christ.
This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £12 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)