Pontius Pilate was a politician. That says it all, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I once read that 53 percent of Americans can\u2019t name their representative in Congress. But that doesn\u2019t keep Congress from being highly unpopular. As someone once asked, \u201cIf pro is the opposite of con, is progress the opposite of Congress?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone else has said that the reason a person in Congress tries so hard to get re-elected is that they would hate to have to make a living under the laws they\u2019ve passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pontius Pilate married into a political family. His wife, Claudia, was the granddaughter of Caesar Augustus. So, Pilate was a member of the emperor\u2019s family by marriage, not merit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pilate served as the Roman prefect of Judea for ten years, from A.D. 26-36. A prefect is like a governor. It\u2019s a position of power, but not absolute<\/em> power. Pilate took his orders from Rome and, for that reason, he was insecure in his position. He ruled at the whim of his wife\u2019s family. Being prefect of Judea was not a plum assignment. Palestine was a hotbed of insurrection. The Jews were a restless people, always ready to begin a rebellion at the drop of a hat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pilate got in bad with the Jews from the very beginning. As soon as he took office in 26 AD, he needlessly provoked the pious folk in Jerusalem by riding into the city with his troops bearing their standards in full view. On the top of every flagpole that the soldiers bore was a carved image of Caesar. For the Jews, this was a transgression of the commandment to have no graven images. Even more grievously, because of the Roman custom of emperor worship, Pilate\u2019s action smacked of blatant idolatry. This thoughtless action provoked a riot. So, Pilate was in trouble from the beginning of his reign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were some skirmishes in which Pilate proved himself a brutal ruler. Luke 13 mentions one of these, an occasion where Pilate\u2019s soldiers killed some Galileans. To compound their crime, however, the soldiers then took the Galileans\u2019 blood and mixed it with sacrifices to their pagan gods. It was a despicable act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pilate\u2019s brutality probably grew out of his fear of being deposed. He was caught between a Roman government which had little respect for him and a civilian population that was known for its intractability. And then he had to deal with Jesus of Nazareth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the religious leaders who brought Jesus to Pilate\u2019s palace. They brought him to Pilate, but they refused to enter the palace. Why? Because this would make them ceremonially unclean by entering the residence of a Gentile. Jews believed that if you took two steps over a Gentile threshold, you defiled yourself. So they wanted Pilate to do their dirty work, but they wanted to keep their distance from him while he did it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Pilate interrogated Jesus. He asked him, \u201cAre you the king of the Jews?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs that your own idea,\u201d Jesus asked, \u201cor did others talk to you about me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAm I a Jew?\u201d Pilate replied. \u201cYour own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus answered somewhat cryptically, \u201cMy kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou are a king, then!\u201d said Pilate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus answered, \u201cYou say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it is here that Pilate cynically asked, \u201cWhat is<\/em> \u2018truth\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen to political debates today and you will ask the same thing: \u201cWhat is truth?\u201d Truth is whatever is left over after the politicians spin the facts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the religious leaders hit Pilate\u2019s weak spot: \u201cIf you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no doubt Pilate was frustrated by Jesus. It was also clear to him that Jesus posed no threat to the empire. Jesus himself said that his kingdom was not of this world. Pilate went out again to the religious authorities and said, \u201cI find no basis for a charge against him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pilate tried to reason with them. Then he tried to bribe them. He remembered that the Jews had a tradition that they would release one prisoner at Passover. So he offered to release Jesus. But the crowd chose Barabbas, a bandit. As for Jesus, the crowd shouted, \u201cCrucify him, crucify him!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point, Pilate had Christ flogged, hoping that would appease the mob, but it did not. He had his soldiers mock Christ. They put a purple robe on him and thrust a crown of thorns on his head, and called out in derision, \u201cKing of the Jews.\u201d That still wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He tried turning Jesus over to Herod. But that didn\u2019t work either. Pilate was getting desperate. The mob was determined for Jesus to die, while Pilate\u2019s sense of justice told him the man was innocent. According to Matthew\u2019s Gospel, even Pilate\u2019s wife wanted Pilate to have nothing to do with Jesus. Matthew 27:19 states, \u201cWhile Pilate was sitting on the judge\u2019s seat, his wife sent him this message: \u2018Don\u2019t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pilate simply didn\u2019t know what to do. He could not in good conscience find Jesus guilty, but it was not politically expedient to set him free. Three times, Pilate tried to release Jesus, fully convinced of Jesus\u2019 innocence, but the mob would not listen. \u201cCrucify him, crucify him,\u201d they shouted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is Matthew who reports that when Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. \u201cI am innocent of this man\u2019s blood,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is your responsibility\u201d (27:24).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Pilate had only known how those words would haunt him. He was the man who had the innocent Son of God put to death. And this time, it wasn\u2019t because he was brutal. It wasn\u2019t because he was trying to rob Jesus of his life. He was not. Pilate\u2019s only crime was that he was weak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How often are we like Pilate? When we do wrong, it\u2019s probably not because we\u2019re brutal, or greedy or hard-hearted. It\u2019s because we\u2019re morally weak, spiritually weak. We keep quiet when we should have spoken up, we give in when we should have walked away, we strike a bargain when we should have remained true to our values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all know about weakness, the kind that wrecks families and ruins lives, the kind that refuses to speak out in the face of evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pontius Pilate is one of the few people on earth to have had a one-on-one interview with the Son of God. Pilate asked, \u201cWhat is truth?\u201d Well, here\u2019s the truth: After Pilate had scorned Christ and had him flogged, mocked and crucified, if Pilate had confessed his weakness, Christ would have forgiven him. He, too, would have experienced the grace of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that is the good news for us on this Good Friday. If we have been weak, if we have betrayed others, if we have betrayed our values, if we have ever followed the crowd rather than voicing our convictions, if we have committed some grievous sin, not because we are mean, not even because we are evil, but simply because we are weak, there\u2019s room at the foot of the cross for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Archbishop Desmond Tutu once put it this way: \u201cWe tend to turn the Christian religion into a religion of virtues, but it is a religion of grace. You become a good person because you are loved. You are not loved because you are good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you <\/em>accepted the grace of God?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pontius Pilate was a politician. That says it all, doesn\u2019t it? I once read that 53 percent of Americans can\u2019t name their representative in Congress. But that doesn\u2019t keep Congress from being highly unpopular. As someone once asked, \u201cIf pro is the opposite of con, is progress the opposite of Congress?\u201d Someone else has said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n