Facing Jesus #6 - Pilate

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How did Pilate face Jesus?  Four different times Pilate declared: “I find no grounds for charging this man.”  He was even more than a little afraid that Jesus might actually be the Son of God.  And yet in the end, he washed his hands of Jesus to save his career. 

What about you?  How do you face Jesus?  Do you sell Him out for nothing more than being spared a socially awkward moment?  Or are you ready to stand with Jesus even if it costs you everything?

The Sanhedrin Condemns Jesus

When daybreak came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people plotted against Jesus to put him to death. After tying him up, they led him away and handed him over to Pilate, the governor. They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man misleading our nation, opposing payment of taxes to Caesar, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king.”

 So Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”   He answered him, “You say so.” While he was being accused by the chief priests and elders, he didn’t answer.  Then Pilate said to him, “Don’t you hear how much they are testifying against you?”  But he didn’t answer him on even one charge, so that the governor was quite amazed.

Pilate then told the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no grounds for charging this man. You take him and judge him according to your law.”   “It’s not legal for us to put anyone to death,” the Jews declared. They said this so that Jesus’s words might be fulfilled indicating what kind of death he was going to die. 

Then Pilate went back into the headquarters, summoned Jesus, and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Jesus answered, “Are you asking this on your own, or have others told you about me?”

“I’m not a Jew, am I?” Pilate replied. “Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?”

“My kingdom is not of this world,” said Jesus. “If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”  “You are a king then?” Pilate asked.   “You say that I’m a king,” Jesus replied. “I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

“What is truth?” said Pilate.  

Pilate Hands Jesus Over to be Crucified

After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, “I find no grounds for charging him. You have a custom that I release one prisoner to you at the Passover. So, do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?”

They shouted back, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a revolutionary.  Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.

Pilate went outside again and said to them, “Look, I’m bringing him out to you to let you know I find no grounds for charging him.” Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”  When the chief priests and the temple servants saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”   Pilate responded, “Take him and crucify him yourselves, since I find no grounds for charging him.”

“We have a law,” the Jews replied to him, “and according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.”  When Pilate heard this statement, he was more afraid than ever. He went back into the headquarters and asked Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus did not give him an answer. So Pilate said to him, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Don’t you know that I have the authority to release you and the authority to crucify you?”

“You would have no authority over me at all,” Jesus answered him, “if it hadn’t been given you from above. This is why the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”  From that moment Pilate kept trying to release him. But the Jews shouted, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Anyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar!”

When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside. He sat down on the judge’s seat in a place called the Stone Pavement (but in Aramaic, Gabbatha). It was the preparation day for the Passover, and it was about noon. Then he told the Jews, “Here is your king!”

They shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”

Pilate said to them, “Should I crucify your king?”

“We have no king but Caesar!” the chief priests answered.

When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that a riot was starting instead, he took some water, washed his hands in front of the crowd, and said, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. See to it yourselves!”

Then he handed him over to be crucified.

The Crucifixion of Jesus

Pilate also had a sign made and put on the cross. It said: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Many of the Jews read this sign, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Don’t write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that he said, ‘I am the King of the Jews.’”

Pilate replied, “What I have written, I have written.” 

Jesus is Laid in the Tomb

When it was already evening, because it was the day of preparation (that is, the day before the Sabbath), Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Sanhedrin who was himself looking forward to the kingdom of God, came and boldly went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’s body. Pilate was surprised that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had already died. When he found out from the centurion, he gave the corpse to Joseph.

The Tomb is Closely Guarded

The next day, which followed the preparation day, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember that while this deceiver was still alive he said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give orders that the tomb be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come, steal him, and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.”

“You have a guard of soldiers,” Pilate told them. “Go and make it as secure as you know how.” They went and secured the tomb by setting a seal on the stone and placing the guard.

(Matthew 27:1–2; Luke 23:2–3; Matthew 27:12–1; Luke 23:4; John 18:31–19:1; 19:4–15; Matthew 27:24; John 19:16, 19–22; Mark 15:42–45; Matthew 27:62–66 CSB17)

Pilate said four different times that he found no basis for charging Jesus, then “kept trying to release Him.” Why didn’t he?

Do you think Pilate would have acted differently if he had known that every week all around the world his name would be spoken and forever linked with Jesus? (“He suffered under Pontius Pilate”)

Great pressure is being brought to bear to get Christians to wash their hands of Jesus today.  What are you doing to make sure that doesn’t happen to you?

The chief priests thought they were using Pilate to eliminate Jesus.  In reality God the Father worked through them both to insure that the Body of Jesus was accounted for right up to His resurrection.  History is truly His-story.

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