| Pilate's Confession I was a brutal, stubborn and iron willed prefect. I put down insurrections without a thought as to how many would die by my command. I executed Jews even without trial if they were accused of any form of tyranny against Caesar. I did my job well.
Then one day the Hebrew religious leaders brought to me a man named Jesus and demanded of me to put Him to death. “We found this man misleading our nation, forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar and saying that He Himself is Messiah, a king!” they said.
I looked at the man who was before me, who hardly looked to me to be a king. I was somewhat amused, so I asked Him with a smirk, “Are You the King of the Jews?”
He looked at me steadily, and then answered with a regal calmness, “It is as you say.”
I smiled. I viewed him then as a harmless jester, pretending to be a royal somebody, slightly deranged and no threat to me or the Roman Empire, so I replied to the priests, “I find no guilt in this man.”
“If this man were not an evil doer,” they answered vehemently, “we would not have delivered Him up to you.”
“Take Him yourselves, and judge Him according to your own law,” I answered.
One of the priests replied, “We are not permitted to put anyone to death.”
They continued to accuse Him of many things, yet the prisoner in chains before me said nothing. I saw no fear, as I had witnessed in most that had preceded Him, nor was there a trace of defiant arrogance as there is in many, especially the prisoner, Barabbas.
“Can’t You hear how many things they are accusing You of?” I asked Him.
He answered me with silence.
I repeated the charges to Him myself, asking Him what He would have to say in His defense, but not a word left His mouth. I was quite amazed.
I knew the religious leadership, the Pharisees, had delivered Him to me out of envy. I decided to question Him privately. His accusers were asked to leave for the moment and this man, Jesus and I were alone. His gaze upon me was steady and intense.
I asked Him again, “Are You the King of the Jews?”
“Are you saying this because you are wondering yourself, or is it because the others have told you about Me?” He answered.
“I am not a Jew, am I?” I responded angrily. How could He think I would have any interest in anything pertaining to the Jews? My emotions then were trying to conceal the fact that His question had probed my heart.
“Your own people and the chief priests delivered You up to me, what have you done?”
“My kingdom is not of this world,” He answered “If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting, that I might not be delivered up to the Jews, but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”
“So You are a king?” I answered, somewhat stunned by His answer.
“You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the Truth. Everyone who is of the Truth hears My voice.”
As He spoke, which He did with quiet authority, I began to feel uneasy in His presence. I was a ruler in another realm, far removed from the loving peace that was exuding from the being of this man. I had no problem dealing with the harsh realities of this life, but I suddenly found myself wanting to recoil from what I sensed was a genuine purity.
“What is Truth?” I snapped. Then I foolishly left before I could learn the answer.
I immediately went out and confronted the Jews. “I find no guilt in Him.”
But the religious leaders kept insisting that this quiet man was inciting the people to rebellion, starting from Galilee to here.
“Galilee? He is a Galilean?” When it was confirmed that Jesus was from Galilee, I felt that I had been given a reprieve from this whole situation.
“The man, Jesus is a Galilean; He is not in my jurisdiction. He must be sent to Herod.” I announced.
Jesus was now Herod’s problem. Let him gaze into those haunting eyes and probe the riddles of a King who claims to be from another world. I wanted to still believe that I had been dealing with a lunatic, but I could not.
Herod sent Him back to me several days later with the same verdict that I had determined. Our King of the Jews was not guilty of any crime warranting death. I had to face the religious leadership once again.
“You brought this man to me as one who incites the people to rebellion. Having examined Him before you, I have found no guilt in this man regarding the charges which you made against Him. Neither has Herod, for he has sent Him back to us. Nothing deserving of death has been done by Him. I will punish Him and let Him go.”
The Pharisees began to cry out vehemently along with the crowds that they had incited against Him. I was obliged to release one prisoner a year for them at their feast. Eager to put an end to the situation I shouted, “Whom do you want me to release for you, Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Messiah?”
Then I retreated to the judgment seat, wondering if they would actually choose a murderer and a real insurrectionist over their innocent King. It was their problem, not mine.
: Then one of my stewards brought me a note from my wife. She had been removed from this case. I rarely spoke to her of my official duties. The words she had written riveted me.
“Have nothing to do with that righteous man; for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of Him.”
I crumpled her words in my fist as I heard the crowd yelling, “Give us Barabbas!”
I remained in the judgment seat facing the people and spoke calmly, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Messiah?”
They all said, “Let Him be crucified!”
“Why!” I shouted as I sprang to my feet, “what evil has He done?”
I knew they would not give me an answer other than demand that I kill the innocent.
With my wife’s message still crumpled in my hand, I turned to one of my guards and ordered that Jesus be scourged.
It was the customary preparation for crucifixion. We beat them, and then we whipped them with metal tipped thongs and made them bleed and weakened them so that perhaps death by crucifixion would not be as long an ordeal as was necessary; for without sufficient blood loss prior to the impaling, some of them could hang up there for days. I did not want it to be so with this one if it should come to that.
I think that I was hoping that if they should see this man so brutalized, that if their religious leadership possessed such a thing as compassion, it might be invoked at the last minute.
My soldiers are well trained and highly proficient in their assignments. When I saw Jesus again I could barely recognize Him. Soaked in blood from head to foot, He bore a crown of thorns and a royal robe, the result of His torturer's amusement.
In this state I presented Him again to His people. “Behold the Man!” See this innocent one, I thought, brutalized and humiliated and see if there is any mercy in your religious souls.
“Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” they shouted.
“Take Him yourselves and crucify Him!” I roared, “for I find no guilt in Him!”
I knew the gentle soul standing beside me in this agony was not a leader of insurrection or a murderer.
Then one of the priests shouted, “We have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the Son of God.”
At those words, I felt a cold chill race through my being, and this brutal prefect was afraid.
I went back into the Praetorium where I could question Jesus once again in private. I looked at His bloodied face; His eyes were so swollen I wondered if He could see me at all.
“Where are you from?” I asked Him.
He made no answer.
“You won’t answer me? Don’t You know that I have the authority to release You, and I have the authority to crucify You?”
Then He said, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me up to you has the greater
Was He absolving me of my responsibility in this drama?
The religious Pharisees, the elite, highly spiritual leadership that was so jealous of this gentle Jew who professed a deeper knowledge of the God they claimed to know so well; this handful of pious men who had worked so hard to incite the people against Him simply because this man Jesus made them appear so shallow just by the depth in His eyes, received the crown of guilt upon their heads and showed no remorse as they wore it proudly.
I determined at that moment to do everything within my power to release Him.
“This man Jesus is not in my jurisdiction, but Herod’s,” I told the Pharisees. “Herod proclaimed Him innocent and so do I. You have your laws, judge Him yourselves accordingly.”
Then one of them cried out, “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar! Everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar!”
Would I now be slandered before my superiors and accused of treason?
I had been engaged in a war of words to protect this man, Jesus. The religious leadership had attacked again - and this time, they won.
I brought Jesus back out before them. I was amazed that He was still able to stand. I sat down on the judgment seat and declared to the Jews, “Behold your King!”
They began to cry, “Away with Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
I needed to make it solely their decision, not mine.
“Shall I crucify your King?” I asked one last time.
The chief priests, these ones who claimed sole allegiance to their God responded, “We have no King, but Caesar!”
The crowd became more vehement in their cries of “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
Then I arose from my seat. My servant had brought a basin of water as I had instructed. He held it as I dipped my hands into the bowl and washed, again and again. As I did this, the crowd, which had almost been on the verge of rioting, grew silent as they beheld my strange ceremony.
When I finished my ritual I turned to the crowd and shouted, “I am innocent of this man’s blood, see to that yourselves!”
“His blood be on us and our children!” the people retorted.
Then I ordered that the murderer, Barabbas be released, and the innocent man, Jesus, to be crucified in his place.
My soldiers followed their orders and Jesus was crucified. According to our custom, I had them write what the charges were against Him that warranted the punishment and had it nailed to the cross above His royal head. “This is Jesus the King of the Jews.”
The Pharisees protested, saying, “Write only that He said, He was the King of the Jews.”
I refused to change it. “What I have written, I have written.” I told them.
I returned to my palace. My wife greeted me with silence. I walked over to a window to look out at a sky that was slowly, strangely turning to darkness before its time.
“I did everything I could to release Him,” I said, knowing that was not the whole truth. I could have freed the man, quenched any ensuing riot with violence as I had done so often in the past, and then made my explanation to Caesar.
“I was defending a man that the Jews will tell you claimed to be a king.”
“So why did you free Him?” I would have been asked. And it would have been too difficult for me to explain that He was a king of another world, one perhaps far superior to Caesar’s…
So to guard my credibility, and protect my precious position, I let the Pharisees have their way. I confess that I am a coward. I washed my hands before the crowd, but I could not wash my heart.
Who really is responsible for the death of this King of the Jews? There were many hands holding the hammer that nailed Jesus to His cross. One of them was mine, a Gentile along with the Jews. The motives of these unwashed hearts made us indistinguishable from one another. His blood be upon us all.
I was relieved that the drama had come to its end - or so I thought.
The Pharisees came to me afterwards with an urgent request to have Jesus’ tomb sealed and guarded.
“He said that He would rise from the dead,” I was told. “We don’t want His disciples to steal the body, then the last lie would be worse than the
I granted them their request, and as I watched them scurry away, I was almost smiling. Was there a punch line to this whole event? I remembered staring into the eyes of a King from another world, who spoke of Truth and I knew I was not beholding the eyes of a liar.
If there would ever come a time when I could behold the Man again, I would ask Him the question, “What is Truth?” And this time I would wait for His answer. copyright 2004 by H.D. Shively |