1 Then the whole assembly rose and led him off to Pilate. 2And they began to accuse him, saying, “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Messiah, a king.”
3So Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
“You have said so,”Jesus replied.
4Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, “I find no basis for a charge against this man.”
5But they insisted, “He stirs up the people all over Judea by his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here.”
6 On hearing this, Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean. 7 When he learned that Jesus was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time.
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I have always been amazed by Jesus’ not defending his innocence. Though He was King of the Jews, Messiah – that is true — He was much more than that. They claimed he taught not paying taxes – no such thing. I suppose He was taking the 5th, so to speak (or not to speak).
To be rejected, however, by those He cared for…to have such hurtful words said of Him – that would make me overwhelmingly sad. It would be the worst form of rejection one could receive. Why wouldn’t Jesus defend Himself? For me, if I were to defend myself, it would be due to my insecurities. It would be because I would want people to like me. It would be for selfish reasons. But Jesus, He was bigger than that. He was able to rise above human insecurities and know that there was a greater reason for the injustice He was suffering. And of course, that greater reason was love. Makes me wonder if I could rise above my own insecurities.
In the case of Pilate, he saw Jesus’ innocence. He saw through the frustration and disappointment of the people. He called for His release, but the people refused. But instead of doing the right thing, Pilate deflected the issue and handed Jesus over to Herod. Instead of confronting the issue head on, Pilate found a way to avoid the issue. If I am honest, I can find myself doing that sometimes. In fact, I love it when there is a way to pawn off the problem to someone else rather than address it myself. When it comes to doing the right thing, though, it is never good to give the problem to someone else when I have the ability to do something about it.
As for the people, they are a crowd of disappointed people. Their expectations were like those of Judas – they wanted a physical king. They wanted someone to throw off the burden of the ruling authorities. But Jesus wanted more. They couldn’t see that. How could they? They were blinded by their own expectations. (I don’t blame them. How could they have forseen spiritual salvation in Jesus’ death?)
In all of these people, I can obviously relate to Pilate and the people. Jesus rises above my human tendency for self-justice, and that is an area that would be difficult for me to allow. Would I/should I defend injustices against me? Not sure. But as for Pilate and the people, I definitely can learn from them not to avoid conflict when I can do the right thing; not to allow my own disappointments to cause me such anger that I would want to inflict pain on others. Not easy to do…