Final Trial: Before Pilate

July 7, 2025 | Read and Think About Luke 23:13-25

Pilate is seated in a place of prominence. The chief priests, the rulers, and the crowd are gathered before him. So many eyes are upon him.

Pilate seems to be listening to those on either side of him, but he is not really paying attention. The religious leaders who brought Jesus before him are repeating the accusations - he causes civil unrest, he speaks against taxes, he calls himself a king. Pilate had hoped Herod would deal with this situation, but now it is being forced back to him. Now he is sitting there with a vacant stare, thinking of his next move.

Doesn't it seem unusual that the Roman governor would feel like his subjects were forcing his hand? But these leaders were very shrewd. They realized Pilate's pressure point would be anything that makes him look disloyal the emperor. Avoiding this kind of look was a big part of Pilate's own strategy that day, I believe.

Pilate knew Jesus had committed no crime. He says this in verses 14-15 of this passage. But he has to do something. So Pilate announces, "I will punish him and release him."

Pilate didn't care about Jesus. He knew the leaders' actions were not right. But he just wanted to be done with it. This step of punish and release would frame the message if Rome ever got wind of these events: Pilate was tough on people who challenged the emperor.

But this, his third attempt to resolve the situation short of execution, did not work either. The leaders and the crowd, "with one voice" as verse 18 tells us, called for execution.

Still, Pilate made a fourth attempt. He would leave it to the vote of the crowd (jury). As was customary for each yearly Passover feast, he would allow the crowd to choose a prisoner to be set free. And he would stack the deck. On one hand, you have Jesus, in whom Pilate has found no basis for the charges. On the other, you have Barabbas, a notorious criminal, a real insurrectionist and a murderer. How could they ever choose Barabbas over Jesus, thought Pilate.

But the crowd simply shouted all the louder, "we choose Barabbas, release Barabbas!"

Once again, Pilate speaks to the crowd, attempting to set Jesus free. He tells them, I will have him punished and then release him. Again, a punishment short of executing Jesus, followed by releasing him.

However, in verses 24-25, Luke tells us Pilate decided to grant the demand of the leaders and crowd, who with loud shouts demanded that he be crucified.

John in his gospel tells us the leaders had kept shouting at Pilate, "if you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar; anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar." (John 19:12.)

And Pilate succumbed to this pressure.

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As I looked at my iPhone, I thought about the 100+ year old painting I had searched for and pulled up, titled "Jesus brought before Pilate" by William Brassey Hole. You have Pilate, the politician and judge of this case. I also notice the centurion behind and to the left of Pilate. He is standing there, with his arms folded. He is aloof to the trial's outcome. He views himself as a hammer waiting to be swung, an instrument of the government ready to obey orders. He has no regard for the prisoners, including Jesus. To him, they are less than. Interestingly, the painting I looked at has a person with a pen and writing pages sitting to Pilate's left. He is a recorder of the trial. How representative of the weight carried by a historical moment that the painter in his interpretation of the events decided to include this man. But this moment transcends history, and the consequences of this moment stretch through eternity.

You also have Jesus standing. He is off way to the side, hands tied. He knows what will happen. He has not changed from when he prayed hours before, "Thy will be done!" He is allowing it. The die is cast, and He is doing nothing to change it.

Who among his followers ever could have imagined this was Good News? Or that the terrible crucifixion of their Lord, our Lord, would be one of the key pieces to the Good News they would share in months and years to come? Or that people like us, ordinary people in all parts of the world, would get to share this Good News of salvation 2000 years later, for that is our calling and our joy.

As we will see in the next few readings over the coming days, all these pieces were part of God's amazing plan - his tapestry - that He continues creating.

Trial Before Herod

July 5, 2025 | Read and Think About Luke 23:6-11

Pilate had just played a second card he thought he had up his sleeve – have Herod deal with Jesus.

Pilate was the governor appointed by Rome.  Herod had some power, but he also answered to Pilate. 

This is the same Herod that had John the Baptist executed as we read in Matthew 14.  Like Pilate, Herod was pushed into ordering an execution by the pressure of a crowd – the people at his birthday banquet. 

There now is a different kind of pressure mounting on Pilate, but for a moment he hopes that Herod’s presence in Jerusalem would get him out of the situation the religious leaders had imposed on him. Make no mistake, they were playing Pilate, too, and ultimately would figure out how to force his hand.

But turning to the trial before Herod, while he had heard much about Jesus, Herod had never seen Him. He was interested to meet Jesus. Not because of His grace, His teachings, or His wisdom.  Herod wanted to see Jesus perform a miracle.

There would be no miracle.  There was only a very short trial.  The religious leaders accused Jesus before Herod, but Jesus did not answer Herod’s many questions.  This was now the 4^th trial of the day. 

Herod found no crime committed by Jesus.  But just like Pilate would show extreme disdain and dislike for Jesus, so Herod and his men mocked and ridiculed Jesus, before sending Him back to Pilate.  Going before Pilate again would become the fifth and final trial before Jesus was crucified. 

Transferring the case

July 4, 2025 | Read and Think About Luke 23.1-7

These trials Jesus underwent were more than what observers saw on the surface. This is a time when God released control and allowed a chain of human events to determine how His very plan of salvation was being worked out.

In the first Holy-Spirit inspired sermon after Jesus ascended to Heaven, Peter spoke to the crowd, the same crowd, in Acts 2 about “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, [whom] you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”  God, in his infinite foreknowledge, was allowing all of these oddly shaped pieces to fit together and establish the sacrifice of His Son, the Lamb of God.

It was a chain of events by which Jesus’ blood would be poured out to cleanse you and to cleanse me, that our sins might be washed away, and we might be saved.  This is the Good News, the Gospel.

We saw already that the chief priests had formed a plot, and it was now in full flower.  The previous post showed us they had condemned Jesus to death, yet had no power to execute Him.

They had to transfer the case to Pilate, the Roman governor over Judea (southern Israel). Pilate had the power to execute Jesus.

But there was one problem:  the Jewish ruling council had found Jesus guilty of a capital crime, blasphemy (severe reproach to God’s name and character, by saying He was the Son of God). But that was only under the Jewish law.  This conviction would carry no weight in the Roman system.

Now we return to the account in chapter 23 of the gospel of Luke.  He recorded the events of the three Gentile trials from the perspective of a later, non-Jewish convert to Christianity, having done a thorough investigation into the matter.

The first striking thing we see in today’s short passage is the religious leaders making up different charges.  Blasphemy is now out of the picture. It is replaced by a claim of subverting the government. They attempted to support the claim with a false statement that Jesus opposed payment of taxes to Caesar. They also acknowledged Jesus’ claim as the Christ (Messiah), a king, suggesting this was like rebellion.

Pilate then asked Jesus, “are you the king of the Jews?”  Jesus replied, “yes, it is as you say.”  To say otherwise would have been untruthful.

Pilate seems to be scratching his head at this moment.  This is not subversion.  Pilate came to his decision. By this time, he was speaking to the chief priest and the crowd, and he announced:

“I find no basis for a charge against this man.”

This would be Pilate‘s first attempt to either release Jesus or simply not deal with this case. That should have been the end of it, in his mind.  Amazingly, Pilate would try five different ways to avoid sending Jesus to the cross.

However, this first attempt did not work, because they insisted he reconsider, and argued that Jesus’ teaching stirs up the people all over Judea.

But getting people stirred up (whatever that means) also would not be considered subversion. Still, Pilate had heard enough to be concerned. He did not want a riot under his watch. His superiors in Rome would not be happy. So instead of confirming his decision, Pilate thought he could make it someone else‘s problem.  We see that punting on a controversial issue goes back at least 2000 years.

Ahh, said Pilate. So you are telling me Jesus is from Galilee (north Israel). Herod held the authority over the Galilee jurisdiction. Herod was in town at the moment.   The Galilean will be Herod‘s problem, thought Pilate.

So Pilate sent Jesus to be tried before Herod. This was Pilate‘s second attempt to uncouple himself from this local trouble brought to him by the religious leaders. But as later passages show, the pressure on Pilate was only beginning to mount.