Thought for the day – Sunday 10th May 2020

Pontius Pilate

The message had angered Pilate when it first arrived, instructing him to return to Rome, in some ways he was resigned to the idea as he prepared to leave Judea, his term as fifth governor of the Roman province of Judea hadn’t been easy for him, he’d been appointed here after the Emperor Tiberius had retired, his predecessors hadn’t lasted long in this role, the Jews wanted to have their own way, they claimed that this was a holy city and as such fell under their rule, they just didn’t seem able to get it into their heads that Jerusalem was under Roman rule now, not under the rule of some unseen god. He should have been responsible to the governor of Syria, but during the early part of his reign in Judea that role had remained vacant meaning that he had been all powerful, he could pretty well do as he pleased.  He lived in Caesarea which was about a day’s horse ride away from Jerusalem, so he visited the city either at feast times or as the need arose.  He was the most authoritative leader in the area, and it was his responsibility to appoint the high priest and to administer justice.  He’d upset the Jewish people by replacing imperial standards with images of Caesar, there was an uprising and he called his men to arms, but the Jews refused to fight, which caused him to back down, which he found hugely embarrassing and infuriating.

That was the problem with these Jews, they just refused to fight back, he didn’t understand it, power and strength were his watchword, large armies of men equipped and ready to kill, rule by force, that was his motto, and he had the power of that force at his fingertips the fighting machine ready to go to war at the drop of a hat and he would order them if required, the Jews appeared to not want to engage in this kind of military battle so his work in Judea had been very difficult and he was maybe glad to be turning his back on the place. As he rode his mount on the first stage of his long journey back to Rome, he sincerely hoped that his next commission would be better and more fulling than this one had been.  His time in Judea had not been a complete waste, he’d learned valuable lessons that would better equip him for the future.

He couldn’t forget his darkest hour in Judea as he rode with his companions, the day when the High Priest had brought the man Jesus of Nazareth to him.  They seemed pretty certain that he’d done something wrong, they made all sorts of claims, maybe with the benefit of hindsight he should have sent them away, told them to come back with hard evidence, but the last thing he wanted was an uprising form the Jews at a time when Jerusalem was packed with pilgrims here for the Passover.  Instead, he’d decided to hand Jesus over to his men to beat the truth out of him and they were merciless, even with Jesus standing bruised and bleeding in front of him, he offered no defence, Pilate knew that if this man was guilty a beating like that would have resulted in a confession.  He tried another ploy, trade off this man Jesus for Barabbas, an evil man that they people had been longing to see crucified, surely that would cause them to see sense.

As he stood before the crowd that day and offered the trade, he knew that the people would chose to save the preacher man, one of his mentors years before had told him that crowds were unpredictable and that was true today, they only chose to free Barabbas, unbelievable! He knew they were wrong, but what could he do? He was a powerful and authoritative man, but he was powerless, he was being backed into a corner, he washed his hands of the whole situation, they could do whatever they wanted, kill the man if that was their choice, it had nothing to do with him. He didn’t feel that way as he rode along today, he was a man of high morals, normally he would kill a man without a second thought if he deserved it, but this preacher man had done nothing wrong, he felt burdened with guilt now, he had let a guilty man go free and condemned an innocent man to death, he couldn’t lay the blame at anybody else’s door, he was to blame.  Maybe he needed some time in Rome, there were people in Judea saying that this man was the long awaited Messiah, if that were true, then he, Pilate could have saved him, great man that he was, he didn’t feel that great today.