Irony Upon Irony
Opening Prayer
Gracious Lord Jesus, one day the crowds were giving You hallelujahs of praise, now they call for Your death. Truly, You were despised and rejected.
Read JOHN 19:1–16a
Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3 and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face.
4 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.” 5 When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”
6 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.”
7 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.”
8 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. 10 “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?”
11 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.”
12 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.”
13 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). 14 It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon.
“Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews.
15 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.
16 Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.
The Crucifixion of Jesus
So the soldiers took charge of Jesus.
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
“Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a mad man, or something worse. You can shut him up for a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God” (C. S. Lewis, 1898–1963). You are my Lord and God!
Think Further
The ordinary Jewish people followed Jesus for two reasons: they flocked to hear him teach and they came to him for healing. His teaching was markedly different from that of their own rabbis, because it carried authority. His miracles of healing amazed all who witnessed them. As he explained to the people in Nazareth, his Father had sent him “to proclaim good news to the poor… to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18), fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah (Isa. 61:1,2). He was the culmination of all the Jews’ hopes.
The chief priests, Pharisees and scribes who handed Jesus over to Pilate had so surrounded and insulated themselves with their own religious minutiae that they were blind to what the crowds so clearly saw. So when Jesus had talked about “my father,” they understood his words as blasphemy. They saw his miracles of healing on the Sabbath as no more than a violation of their religious stipulations.
Pilate saw things differently and was genuinely afraid when he heard that Jesus claimed to be God. (For the polytheistic Romans this was feasible. Stories abounded of men who were punished for not recognizing divinity when they saw it.) There was certainly something unusual about this prisoner.
The situation gives rise to irony upon irony. Pilate warns Jesus that he has authority to release him and authority to crucify him. The Jews warn Pilate that if he releases Jesus he is “no friend of Caesar” (12), following this up with the ludicrous statement “We have no king but Caesar” (15). Such a disingenuous and hypocritical posture is what comes from their willful blindness.
Apply
When have made a decision based on fear and ambition, rather than on what is right? How do you feel about that now? How can you guard against it in the future?
Closing prayer
Lord Jesus, keep me from being so caught up in religious rules and rituals that I fail to see who You are and what You are doing in people’s lives.
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