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.

John 19:4 – 9

The scene is full of contradictions.  Here we see Pilate, the Roman ruler insisting that Jesus has broken no law so was being unlawfully treated, terribly so.  The Jewish leaders wanted Jesus killed.  Is this true?  The Romans wanted him freed, the Jews wanted him killed?  This sounds backwards – Pilate, the Roman ruler, saw no fault in Jesus and hoped to have him set free.  Beside him were the leaders of the Jews who hated Jesus and wanted him killed!  Jesus was a Jew!   They disowned their own.

I see this scene played out, even today.  The “religious people” line up behind what they want to be true, whether it is or not!  Now and again the secular society sees things more clearly than they.

The Jews had their laws, religious ones. They told Pilate that their religious law is above the Roman law.  The Romans must follow the Jewish law!  Pilate was in the center of it all.

Pilate backed off and let the Jews do the judging, which they did heartlessly.  Pilate saw no reason for Jesus’ death.  The Jewish rulers did, according to their own law.  Jesus must die!  Pilate’s hand was tied.  He allowed the Jews to do with Jesus what they wanted, death on a cross.  The Romans would not commit a person to death without a trial.  All that was waived as Jesus fell into the hands of horror, those of his own fellow Israelites.