The Adventure Link
CSI: Jerusalem
No Stopping Now
Herod’s only interest in Jesus was idle curiosity. He had heard of the many miracles Jesus had done throughout Galilee, and he had long hoped to see Jesus do a miracle. Herod obviously thought of Jesus primarily as a potential source of amusement. Yet he was eager to see Him.
So Pilate had Jesus marched over to Herod’s palace—a fairly short walk through the narrow city streets. By now more of the city would be awakening. The movement of the military escort, the Sanhedrin, and the accumulating crowd would have drawn still more people to see what was happening. Word began to spread through Jerusalem. Jesus was on trial. Throngs of curiosity seekers came to see for themselves.
No one was more curious or more eager to lay eyes on Jesus than Herod. Herod Antipas was the same member of the Herodian dynasty who had killed John the Baptist a couple of years before (Matthew 14:1–12). There were rumors that Herod was also seeking to kill Jesus. And while it is clear that Jesus was not intimidated by Herod, He knew He had to die in Jerusalem, so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled (Luke 13:31–33). Therefore, even though Herod and Jesus had lived quite literally within walking distance of each other for several years, and Herod was well familiar with Jesus’ reputation, this was Herod’s first opportunity to see Jesus with his own eyes.
How different Christ must have looked from the strong, prophetic miracle worker Herod expected to see! His face was already badly bruised and swollen from the abuse He had taken. Spittle and blood were drying in His matted hair. Tired and physically weakened from a sleepless night, He stood before Herod, bound and under guard like a common criminal.
Most disappointing to Herod was Jesus’ refusal to perform for him. Herod “questioned Him with many words, but He answered him nothing” (Luke 23:9). The Sanhedrin was still dogging Christ, standing nearby and vehemently shouting denunciation and accusations at Him (v. 10). But Jesus refused to utter even so much as a word.
In the first place, Herod had no legitimate jurisdiction in Jerusalem. If Herod intended to impose any sentence in this case, Jesus would first have to be taken back to Galilee and put on trial there. So Jesus had no legal obligation to answer him anyway. But there may have been another reason Jesus kept silent. Herod’s treatment of Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist, made clear where he stood regarding the truth of Christ. Silence was the only appropriate response under such circumstances.
After a short time, Herod grew tired of questioning Jesus and decided to make sport of Him. “Then Herod, with his men of war, treated Him with contempt and mocked Him, arrayed Him in a gorgeous robe, and sent Him back to Pilate” (Luke 23:11). Luke adds a historical footnote: “That very day Pilate and Herod became friends with each other, for previously they had been at enmity with each other” (v. 12). It was an unholy alliance—a friendship based on the one thing they had in common: their cowardly and contemptuous treatment of Christ.
Herod sent Him back to Pilate.
Jesus’ own refusal to speak to Herod helped force the trial back into Pilate’s court. Pilate must have been surprised and somewhat frustrated when the Sanhedrin returned with Jesus and a larger-than-ever crowd of onlookers in tow. Things were only getting further out of hand, and now it would be harder than ever for Pilate to end the matter without creating a scandal that might get back to Rome—or worse, starting a riot on the busiest day of the year in Jerusalem. Either way, Pilate’s career could be jeopardized by this.
Pilate therefore decided to try to act the statesman and bring an end to the matter with a compromise of sorts. Luke says,
Then Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests, the rulers, and the people, said to them, “You have brought this Man to me, as one who misleads the people. And indeed, having examined Him in your presence, I have found no fault in this Man concerning those things of which you accuse Him; no, neither did Herod, for I sent you back to him; and indeed nothing deserving of death has been done by Him. I will therefore chastise Him and release Him.” (Luke 23:13–16)
In other words, Pilate proposed to punish Jesus with a Roman scourge—even though he found Him guilty of nothing—as a compromise gesture. After that, he hoped to release Jesus. This was not going to satisfy the rabid Jewish leaders or the stirred up crowd.
Pilate had reached the end of his rope. He had no desire to participate in the conspiracy against Jesus, but the Jewish leaders had left him little choice. The crowd was now on the verge of a riot. He was finally out of options. Matthew writes, “When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, ‘I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it’ ” (Matthew 27:24).
The ceremonial hand washing was a Jewish ritual, and its meaning would have been poignantly familiar to the crowd. Pilate was expressing contempt for the fact that they had railroaded him into becoming a part of the conspiracy against Jesus. He was giving them what they wanted, but he wanted to make it clear that he was not doing it willingly.
Of course, no ritual hand washing could truly absolve Pilate of the guilt he bore for his part in the crucifixion. He had the power and the responsibility to stop it, but he did not. He was as guilty as the rest, and the fact that he participated out of political expediency rather than overt hatred for Jesus did not nullify or minimize his guilt in the least.
For their part, the people would have been perfectly happy to absolve Pilate. “All the people answered and said, ‘His blood be on us and on our children’ ” (v. 25). In an amazing act of self-condemnation, they said they would accept the full blame on themselves and their posterity, if that was what it took to get Pilate to let them kill Jesus.
Of course, their saying that Pilate was absolved from the guilt did not make it so. Scripture makes it perfectly clear that Pilate, Herod, the people of Jerusalem, and the Gentiles who participated in the crucifixion all bore the guilt together (Acts 4:27). But it is an interesting fact of history that just a few short months after this, the same Jewish leaders who had provoked the people to say, “His blood be on us and on our children,” were resentful of the disciples’ gospel preaching, saying, “You have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this Man’s blood on us!” (Acts 5:28).
Pilate had originally hoped to have Jesus flogged and released. According to John’s Gospel, Pilate was still seeking a way to release Him, and that may be why he had Him publicly scourged at this point. Perhaps he thought the sight of a Roman scourging would satisfy the crowd’s bloodlust.
Scourging alone was sometimes fatal. A Roman scourge was a short wooden handle with numerous long lashes of leather attached to it. Each leather strip had a sharp piece of glass, metal, bone, or other hard object attached to the end of it. The victim would be stripped of all clothing and tied to a post by his wrists with his hands high enough over his head to virtually lift him off the ground. The feet would be dangling, and the skin on the back and buttocks completely taut. One or two scourge-bearers (lictors) would then deliver blows, skillfully laying the lashes diagonally across the back and buttocks with extreme force. The skin would literally be torn away, and often muscles were deeply lacerated. It was not uncommon for the scourge-wounds to penetrate deep into the kidneys or lacerate arteries, causing wounds that in themselves proved fatal. Some victims died from extreme shock during the flogging.
The apostle John records how after Jesus’ scourging and the mockery that accompanied it, Pilate once more vainly tried to seek Jesus’ release. Pilate brought Jesus again before the crowd, dressed in a robe fashioned from a soldier’s tunic, crowned with a crown of thorns, and triumphantly presented Him to the people, probably hoping they would be satisfied that Jesus had suffered enough: “And Pilate said to them, ‘Behold the Man!’ ” (John 19:5).
But they were not satisfied. “Therefore, when the chief priests and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, ‘Crucify Him, crucify Him!’ ” (v. 6).
Pilate, still astonished at the crowd’s insatiable thirst for Jesus’ blood, said to them, “You take Him and crucify Him, for I find no fault in Him” (v. 6). Still vainly trying to wash his hands of the matter, he repeated his earlier verdict, declaring Jesus’ innocence once more.
But the crowd would have none of it. “The Jews answered him, ‘We have a law, and according to our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God.’ Therefore, when Pilate heard that saying, he was the more afraid, and went again into the Praetorium, and said to Jesus, ‘Where are You from?’ ” (vv. 7–9). They were demanding that Pilate follow through with a crucifixion at the hands of Roman authorities. Their mention of His claim to be the Son of God seems to have severely rattled Pilate. His question to Jesus (“Where are you from?”) was obviously spoken with a mixture of wonder, amazement, and fear.
“But Jesus gave him no answer” (v. 9).
“Then Pilate said to Him, ‘Are You not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and power to release You?’ Jesus answered, ‘You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin’ ” (vv. 10–11).
Pilate was by now beginning to see the enormity of his wrong-doing from Jesus’ perspective. Perhaps it was merely a superstitious fear on Pilate’s part, but he was clearly shaken by Jesus’ claim of deity (for Pilate would have correctly understood the implications of the expression “Son of God”). And he wanted no part of the guilt he knew he would bear if such a claim were true, because he had already wrongfully abused Jesus merely by having Him flogged. And even though Pilate was not a believer in the Hebrew God, his Roman polytheistic world-view was laden with superstition about offending the gods and the heavy price one could pay for such an offense.
Furthermore, it must have sent a cold shiver down Pilate’s spine when Jesus told him, with quiet composure and a calm, unflappable authority, “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above.” That seems to be why “From then on Pilate sought to release Him” (v. 12).
“But the Jews cried out, saying, ‘If you let this Man go, you are not Caesar’s friend. Whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar’ ” (v. 12). This was their trump card against Pilate, and it was a plain statement of the consistent line of argument they had been pressing on him from the beginning. This is why they had so much leverage against him: they knew he was concerned about what Caesar would think, and he was especially afraid of what all this could ultimately mean for his career. But the crowd’s threat against Pilate was full of irony, since not one of them wanted to be thought of as “Caesar’s friend.” Still, it was an effective, though not very subtle, threat.
“When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus out and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha” (John 19:13). The Pavement was a stone-paved area adjacent to the Antonio Fortress, where military court was sometimes held and prisoners were detained. The paving stones are there to this day, and some of them still bear marks where Roman soldiers played games like tic-tac-toe while guarding prisoners during hearings. Since the Jewish leaders would not enter Pilate’s judgment hall in the Praetorium, Pilate had Jesus taken to Gabbatha for His final judgment. There was a judgment seat there where Pilate could render his final official orders.
John writes,
Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, and about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” But they cried out, “Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar!” Then he delivered Him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led Him away. (John 19:14–16)
The sixth hour, by Roman calculation, would be 6:00 a.m., so it was still an extremely early hour. The crowd persisted in their cries for Jesus’ crucifixion. Pilate had finally been forced into precisely the circumstances he so desperately wanted to avoid. But he now felt he had no choice, and so he gave the order for Jesus to be crucified. He bartered away his eternal soul for temporary job security.
Rome was thus in full complicity with the Sanhedrin’s murderous scheme. Pilate, the highest ruler in the region, had been utterly unable to derail the crucifixion. There was no stopping it now.
Jesus would die...He would be crucified...He would be murdered
The investigation and adventure continues.....
