ABUSE OF POWER

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Now it was the governor’s custom at the festival to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. At that time they had a well-known prisoner whose name was Jesus Barabbas. So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” For he knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him.

While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of Him.”

But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.

“Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor.

“Barabbas,” they answered.

“What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked.

They all answered, “Crucify Him!”

“Why? What crime has He committed?” asked Pilate.

But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify Him!”

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. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”

All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children!”

Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed Him over to be crucified.

Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around Him. They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on His head. They put a staff in His right hand. Then they knelt in front of Him and mocked Him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spit on Him, and took the staff and struck Him on the head again and again. After they had mocked Him, they took off the robe and put His own clothes on Him. Then they led him away to crucify Him.

Matthew 27:15-31

Now it was the custom at the festival to release a prisoner whom the people requested. A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did.

“Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate, knowing it was out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.

“What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them.

“Crucify him!” they shouted.

“Why? What crime has He committed?” asked Pilate.

But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”

Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed Him over to be crucified.

The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. They put a purple robe on Him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on Him. And they began to call out to Him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” Again and again they struck Him on the head with a staff and spit on Him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to Him. And when they had mocked Him, they took off the purple robe and put His own clothes on Him. Then they led Him out to crucify Him.

Mark 15:16-20

Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers and the people, and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was inciting the people to rebellion. I have examined Him in your presence and have found no basis for your charges against Him. Neither has Herod, for he sent Him back to us; as you can see, He has done nothing to deserve death. Therefore, I will punish Him and then release Him.”

But the whole crowd shouted, “Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us!” (Barabbas had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder.)

Wanting to release Jesus, Pilate appealed to them again. But they kept shouting, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

For the third time he spoke to them: “Why? What crime has this man committed? I have found in Him no grounds for the death penalty. Therefore I will have Him punished and then release Him.”

But with loud shouts they insistently demanded that He be crucified, and their shouts prevailed.

Luke 23:13-25

Then Pilate took Jesus and had Him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head. They clothed Him in a purple robe and went up to Him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped Him in the face.

Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, “Look, I am bringing Him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against Him.” When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”

As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw Him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”

But Pilate answered, “You take Him and crucify Him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against Him.”

The Jewish leaders insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law He must die, because He claimed to be the Son of God.”

When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, and he went back inside the palace. “Where do You come from?” he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. “Do You refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t You realize I have power either to free You or to crucify You?”

Jesus answered, “You would have no power over Me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed Me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”

From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.”

When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon.

“Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews.

But they shouted, “Take Him away! Take Him away! Crucify Him!”

“Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked.

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

Finally Pilate handed Him over to them to be crucified.

John 19:1-16

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Jesus’ final hours of life were nothing short of a combined worldly and heavenly power play.

First the worldly play which constituted a total abuse of power on two fronts.

The most significant of these two fronts was the one assumed by the Jewish religious leaders. Not only had they falsely accused Jesus and convicted them within their own court proceedings but then they paraded Him to the Roman governors Judea and Galilee, Pilate and Herod respectively, asking for them to do what the law did not permit: crucify Jesus.

Such was the Jewish religious authority’s commitment to evil and hatred that they said whatever was needed to accomplish their goal to have Jesus eliminated and eradicated once and for all.

They brought Jesus to Pilate on false charges. Then they were willing to allow a known insurgent and murderer go free instead of a perfectly innocent Jesus. And when Pilate tried to wipe his hands clean of the matter, placing the responsibility back on the Jewish religious leaders, they twisted the situation around to place political pressure on Pilate to do as they wanted, asserting that anyone who portrayed themselves as king was a threat to Caesar and therefore be killed. In the case of the Romans, this meant Jesus should be crucified. Their actions were nothing short of an abject abuse of power.

And this leads to Pilate, the second place we see abuse of power take place.

You see, Pilate saw Jesus as an innocent man. He stated that there was nothing he could find guilty of. He was in power and had the control of things. He could have let Jesus go free but he didn’t.

First, he tried to pass his problem to another Roman governor, Herod Antipas, only to have Jesus returned to him. Nothing changed in this exchange except that Herod saw Pilate as a friend afterwards when they were once enemies.

Then Pilate had another chance to set Jesus free. He still had no charges to even justify holding Him. But instead of doing what was right, something he fully had within his power and control, he decides to offer the Jewish religious leaders as choice as to who should be released: the innocent Jesus or the convicted murdered Barabbas. I mean, Pilate couldn’t read the proverbial tea leaves here? Didn’t he know that the gathered crowd, nothing more than a puppet used by the Jewish religious authorities, would call on Barabbas, or any other person for that matter, to be set free so Jesus could be murdered, and let’s not kid ourselves here, this was a premeditated murder of the very Son of God Himself.

And so Barabbas was set free and Jesus was still being tabbed as the one favored for execution by the Jewish religious leaders and the crowd they were manipulating. Again, Pilate could have just said, “Enough of this! This man is going free whether you like it or not!”

But he didn’t. Instead, he did something totally unforgiving. He handed Jesus over to the Roman soldiers to be flogged which was just a code word for horrific physical and mental abuse. This was a specialty of the Roman military men who were skilled in all forms of torture and delighted in their work. We read where they didn’t waste any time toying with Jesus like He was some real life plaything.

They dressed Him in a robe, fashioned a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and placed a staff in His hands before mocking Him and spitting on Him. They slapped Jesus’ face and struck His head with the staff. And when they were done with their twisted, sick punishment, they placed Jesus’ regular clothes on Him and took Him back to Pilate.

So for the fourth time, Jesus was back with Pilate who again had the chance to use his power for doing the right thing. To turn up the pressure, the Jewish religious leaders tell Pilate that Jesus didn’t just claim to be a king but had also stated He was the Son of God, a statement that elevated Pilate’s anxiety level exponentially, so much so that he tried one final time to refute any responsibility regarding Jesus’ fate.

And then the Jewish religious leaders brought Caesar into the mix, asserting that Jesus declaring Himself as king was an affront and threat to the leader of the Roman Empire. Pilate heard this and had to be thinking about his own self preservation. If he would let Jesus go, the Jewish religious authorities, who held a level of their own power, could report to Caesar that Pilate had released a revolutionary Jew who was a clear and present danger to him and the empire. In this instance, it’s a certainty that Pilate would have suffered dire consequences for his actions, losing his position of power and possibly his life. So with it down to him or Jesus, Jesus was the one who was sent off to be crucified and no matter how much Pilate tried to wash his hands of the situation, he was just as culpable as the Jewish religious leaders because in the face of pressure to do wrong, he lacked the moral courage to do right, no matter the cost to himself.

Two different fronts, both grounded in serious abuse of power. Neither won out.

I say this because there was one other instrument of power at play here and it was not of the world. Of course, I am talking about God’s power.

For while two sides were working out things for bad, God was in the midst of it all, working things out for good. It was Jesus’ destiny to suffer and die, bearing the punishment for the sins of all mankind. No one or no thing was going to stop this from happening. And as we see, no one or nothing did.

Jesus was sent away by Pilate to be crucified.

The Jewish religious leaders had to feel like they won but in essence they lost.

Pontius Pilate had to think he was victorious by preserving himself, even if it was at the expense of killing an innocent man. He too lost.

In both cases, we see that the Lord will never honor abuse of power. We also see where His plan will not be stopped, no matter what man might do. For Jesus would soon be crucified and His loss would be gain for millions upon millions upon millions of people who would later place their belief in Him as Savior. And in the end, Jesus Himself would be resurrected in power, rising from death to life and earning the highest crown possible as God placed His Son in full authority over everything in heaven and on earth.

Thanks be to God for the gift of His Son.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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