By John 19:5-16
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 police saw Him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”
Pilate responded, “Take Him and crucify Him yourselves, for I find no grounds for charging Him.”
“We have a law,” the Jews replied to him, “and according to that law He must 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, “You’re not talking 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 made every effort 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 bench in a place called the Stone Pavement (but in Hebrew Gabbatha). It was the preparation day for the Passover, and it was about six in the morning. Then he told the Jews, “Here is your king!”
But 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.
So then, because of them, he handed Him over to be crucified.
The Crucifixion
Therefore they took Jesus away.
It seems here that Pilate truly wanted to do what was right. The problem though is that Pilate didn’t have a standard of what is right and what is wrong. He felt in his heart that it was wrong to crucify Jesus, yet “what is truth” he later asks of Jesus. For Pilate, truth is what the masses of people say that it is.
This is no different then our American view today. We come up with morals based upon protestors who get the most media coverage. Government then votes to determine what is right and wrong. Even if there were a lone voice in government who felt in his heart that it was wrong to write law based upon something he knew was contrary to the natural order, he would be silenced and voted down.
- Why do we fear man more than we fear God?
- Why do we make decisions based upon what people think of us rather than what God thinks?
- How can we as a family begin to make decisions that will not seek to crucify the Messiah, but rather lift him up and boldly declare what is right and what is wrong to our culture around us?
Leading Family Devotions 