Guilty of the Greater Sin

          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, 9 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)

          We love to boo and hiss at Pilate, and I’m pretty sure he’s not the sort of person I would have want to have as a friend, but as I read this passage, and especially as I read it along with the parallel accounts in the other gospels, I find myself considering. Here is a man who works for the Roman emperor, whose livelihood and life depend on pleasing someone who isn’t there and doesn’t understand what is happening. He is also a man facing a group of angry citizens, who are insisting that he solve their problem, n.o.w.
         After he interviews Jesus, he tells them he finds no reason to kill Him. They insist that if he doesn’t kill Jesus, he is no friend of Caesar. In other words, if Pilate didn’t do what they wanted, word would reach Caesar that he was incapable of keeping the rabble in line (after all, they were tattling to Caesar, so they couldn’t be being kept in line) and that Pilate had not eliminated a threat (no matter how infinitesimal) to Caesar.
       Does the threat sound familiar? I’ve read it on Face Book with the last 24 hours. In fact, I’ve been reading it on Face Book for the last nine years, but it’s become a more strident threat of late.
          The Jews thought they were doing the right thing. They were doing what they were told to do – to protect the Jewish nation from counterfeit prophets and messiahs while waiting for the real thing to show up. The kids today think they’re doing the right thing, protecting America from – well, everything.
          The thing that I notice in this passage is Jesus’ reaction to Pilate’s no-win situation. Specifically, He tells Pilate that those who turned Jesus over to Pilate are guilty of the greater sin. The government official who gives in to the sinful demands of the masses, or their leaders, is guilty, but Jesus recognizes Pilate’s position, caught between a rock and a hard place. The Jews were willing to side with anyone who was willing to do their bidding, even their worst enemy.