Ep. 135: Crucify Him!
CLICK HERE for the corresponding blog post in Yeshua Adored
MATTHEW 27:20-31, MARK 15:11-20, LUKE 23:18-25
It was now that Pilate sat down on the judgment seat. But before he could proceed, came that message from his wife about her dream, and the warning to have nothing to do ‘with that righteous man.’ An omen such as a dream and an appeal connected with it, especially in the circumstances of that trial, would powerfully impress a Roman. And for a few moments, it seemed as if the appeal to popular feeling on behalf of Jesus might have been successful. But once more the Sanhedrists prevailed.
Apparently, all who had been followers of Jesus had been scattered. None of them seems to have been there and if one or another feeble voice might have been raised for him, it was hushed in fear of the Sanhedrists. It was Bar-Abbas they wanted to set free. To the question - half bitter, half mocking - what they wished him to do with him whom their own leaders had in their accusation called ‘King of the Jews,’ surged back, louder and louder, the terrible cry, ‘Crucify him!’
That cry has since created a terrible echo through the centuries, right up to modern times. In vain, Pilate reasoned and appealed. Popular frenzy only grew as it was opposed. All reasoning having failed, Pilate had recourse to one last resort, which, under ordinary circumstances, would have been effective.
When a judge rises from his seat and knowingly condemns an innocent man, surely no jury would persist in demanding a sentence of death. But in the present instance, there was even more. Although we find allusions to some such custom among the Romans, that which here took place was an essentially Jewish practice, which must have appealed the more forcibly to the Jews that it was done by Pilate. And, not only the practice, but the very words were Jewish.
They recalled not merely the rite prescribed in Deuteronomy 21:6 etc. to mark the freedom from guilt of the elders of a city where untracked murder had been committed, but the very words of such Old Testament expressions as in 2 Samuel 3:28 and Psalm 26:6 and Psalm 73:13. As the administrator of justice in Israel, Pilate must have been aware of this rite.
Could a judge, especially in the circumstances recorded, free himself from guilt? Certainly. He could not, but such conduct on the part of Pilate appears so utterly unusual that we can only account for it by the deep impression which Jesus had made upon him. All the more terrible would be the guilt of Jewish resistance. Something is overawing in Pilate’s, ‘See you to it’. The Mishnah tells us, that, after the solemn washing of hands of the elders and their disclaimer of guilt, a priest responded with this prayer: ‘Forgive it to Thy people Israel, whom Thou hast redeemed, O Lord, and lay not innocent blood upon Thy people Israel!’
Edersheim remarks:
‘But here, in answer to Pilate’s words, came back that deep, hoarse cry, ‘His Blood be upon us,’ and - God help us! - ‘on our children!’ Some thirty years later and on that very spot, was judgment pronounced against some of the best in Jerusalem; and among the 3,600 victims of the Governor’s fury, of whom not a few were scourged and crucified right over against the Praetorium, were many of the noblest of the citizens of Jerusalem. A few years more and hundreds of crosses bore Jewish mangled bodies within sight of Jerusalem. And still have these wanderers seemed to bear, from century to century, and from land to land, that burden of blood; and still does it seem to weigh ‘on us and our children.’’
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)