LENT 2024: DAY 29 - Monday March 18

 

“It may have been at this moment that Claudia, the wife of Pilate, sent her message to her husband.

 

To send a message to a judge while he was in court was a punishable offense, and only the awfulness of the deed she saw about to be done could have moved Claudia to it. “And even as he sat on the judgement seat, his wife had sent him a message, ‘Do not meddle with this innocent man; I dreamed today that I suffered much on his account.” (Matthew 27:19) While the women of Israel were silent, this heathen woman bore witness to the innocence of Jesus, and asked her husband to deal with Him in a righteous way… Whatever was the dream, the intuitive woman was right, the practical man, wrong.

 

Pilate, finding the Prisoner still silent, was full of wrath, for he was accustomed to seeing the accused crawling in dread before him. “’What’, said Pilate, ‘hast Thou no word for me? Dost Thou not now that I have power to crucify Thee and pwer to release Thee?’” (John 19:10) Pilate spoke of his power to release or to condemn. But if the Prisoner before him were innocent, Pilate had no power to crucify; if he were guilty, he had not power to release. The judge is judged, Our Blessed Lord spoke at once, reminding Pilate that any judicial authority which he had came not from Caesar but from God. Pilate had boasted of the arbitrariness of his power, but Christ referred him to a power that is delegated to men. “Thou wouldst not have any power over Me at all, if it had not been given thee from above.” (John 19:11) The power that Pilate boasted was “given”. Whether a governor, king or ruler knows it or not, all earthly authority is derived from on high. “By Me kings reign”, said the Book of Proverbs.

 

This bold rebuke of Pilate, reminding him of his dependence upon God… stirred his efforts more than ever toward “releasing Him”. Pilate went outside to meet the mob and reaffirm the innocence of the Prisoner. But the mob had their clever answer ready: “Thou art no friend of Caesar, if thou dost release Him; the man Who pretends to be a King is Caesar’s rival.” (John 19:12) … It was very strange that the mob who despised Caesar for his massacres, for all the harm that he had done them, and for his prostitution of the temple, now proclaimed that they had no king but Caesar. By proclaiming Caesar as their king, they renounced the idea of a Messias and made themselves vassals of the Empire, thus preparing for the Roman armies that swallowed up Jerusalem within a generation. The terrors of Tiberius seemd more real to Pilate than the denying of justice to Christ. But in the end, those who fear men rather than God lose that which they hoped men would preserve for them.

 

When Pilate heard the threat to inform Caesar of his partiality to a man whom they accused of being an enemy of Caesar, Pilate sat down in his judgement seat. Pointing to the Prisoner robed in dried blood, crowned with throns and a scarlet cloak, he said to the people: “’See, here is your King.’ But they cried out, ‘Away with Him; away with Him, crucify Him.’” (John 19:14-15) Pilate asked: “What, shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered: “We have no King, except Caesar.” (John 19:15)

 

And the king took them at their word!... “Thereupon Pilate gave Jesus up into their hands, to be crucified.” (John 19:16)

 

The guilt for the Crucifixion is not to be fixed upon any one nation, race, people, or individual. Sin was the cause of the Crucifixion, and all mankind had inherited the infection of sin. Jew and Gentile shared in the guilt, but what is more important is that the Heavenly Father also delivered Him to death, and both Jew and Gentile share in the fruits of Redemption: “He did not even spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all.” (Romans 8:32) Pilate then: “Sent for water and washed his hands in full sight of the multitude, saying as he did so, ‘I have no part in the death of this Innocent Man; it concerns you only.” (Matthew 27:24) … Though the cowardly Governor washed away symbolically the responsibility for his perversion of justice, history has rund with the cry: “Suffered under Pontius Pilate.” … Now when Pilate declared himself innocent of His Blood, the people cried out: “His Blood be upon us, and our children.” (Matthew 27:25) That Blood could be upon them for destruction, but it was still redeeming Blood. Though they attached a curse to themselves, the One Whom they crucified had not ratified their sentence.

 

But at that moment when He was given over by earth, after He had been given over by heaven, to be crucified, there followed another mocking: “Stripping Him of the scarlet cloak, they put His own garments on Him… And… they led Him away to be crucified.” (Mark 15:20) He was led out of the city, which was the custom in all executions. Leviticus had ordered that blasphemers be put to death outside the city… The Epistle to the Hebrews described this symbolism: “When the high priest takes the blood of beasts with him into the sanctuary, as an offering for sin, the bodies of those beats have to be burned, away from the camp; and thus it was that Jesus, when He would sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered beyond the city gate.” (Hebrews 13:11-12)

 

“So Jesus went out, carrying His own cross, to the place named after a skull; its Hebrew name is Golgatha.” (John 19:17)

 

 

(Chapter 47, pgs. 762 – 775)

+ QUOTES FOR LIFE