Wednesday, April 6

John 18:38-19:8
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.

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 struck him in the face.

Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews, “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 Jews 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,…


Pilate was already afraid. He was afraid that if this situation got out of hand – as had happened on so many other occasions since he took over as Prefect of this region – that word would get back to his superiors in Rome and he would be reprimanded again. His job was to keep the peace, collect taxes, and protect Roman interests in the area – and he was already under a kind of “probation” due to unfavorable reports. The next one might cost him his job – so Pilate was already afraid.

Pilate is nothing if not a politician, so he tried to placate the Jewish leaders by doing two things. First, he offers to honor a tradition of releasing one Jewish prisoner on the occasion of the Passover Feast – as a symbol of Roman good will. Second, he orders Jesus to be flogged, hoping that ripping the flesh from his back will both encourage Jesus to tone down his preaching and satisfy the blood-lust of his enemies.

His plan does not have the desired effect. Incredibly, the rabble demands that Pilate release to them not Jesus, but Barabbas – who was a terrorist and enemy of Rome! Now Pilate is caught between a rock and a hard place – for if he releases Barabbas, he will lose the respect of his own army and risk being reported to Rome by his own staff. And if he releases Jesus, against the will of the Jewish leadership, they will most certainly report him to Rome. So Pilate is stuck – and afraid.

He is also afraid because for the first time he hears why the Jewish leadership wants Jesus to die. They say, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”

“The Son of God.” What would this phrase have meant to a man like Pilate? Why did it make him afraid? As Roman, Pilate would likely have been aware of a number of Roman pagan deities – and, whatever he believed about them, he would have been taught to fear those gods. While we can’t be sure what he knew of the God of Israel – it is likely he was aware that the Hebrew God was invisible and there were no images or statues of this mysterious God. This combination of ignorance and mystery would have likely made him uneasy, and when he heard that this God had a Son – and that some believed that the man he had scourged was this Son – he would have naturally been fearful of the possibility that his treatment of Jesus could result in severe retribution from this invisible Hebrew God.

So Pilate was afraid. He was afraid of the Jewish leaders; he was afraid of getting in trouble with his superiors; and he was afraid of the Son of the invisible God of the Hebrews. Ironically, of all the above – the only one he did NOT need to fear was the Son of God – because Jesus was the only one who loved him.

Brian Coffey