Who Is Really In Control

John 18:38-19:16

Last week I preached on Christ Jesus' trial with An'-nas and how He was taken from there to Caiaphas. Remember An'-nas had been high priest and now Caiaphas, his son-in-law was the high priest. John tells us very little about these two trials.

From Caiaphas, Jesus was taken to the Praetorium, the palace that Pilate used when he was in Jerusalem. Now Pilate was the Roman governor of all of Palestine and only came to Jerusalem for the different feast to curtail riots or anything else that might happen during the feast. The Jews leaders had Jesus at the Praetorium first thing the morning after His arrest. They knew what they wanted; Jesus dead; and they were not wasting any time in getting it done. Pilate could have cared less about these Jewish leaders and their petty politics and nothing about their religion, so he tried to turn this Jesus fellow back over to them. But the Jews would have none of that and insisted that Pilate crucify Jesus. After questioning Jesus Pilate declared His innocence, but again the Jews were not satisfied.

All the broken rules and laws, these trials were just for show, the Jews had already found Jesus guilty and they were going to have Him crucified no matter what. And yet through it all, God worked to provide the ultimate and only sacrifice for our salvation. The Jews and Pilate just thought they were in control.

John 18:38-19:16
38 "What is truth?" Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, "I find no basis for a charge against him. 39 But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release `the king of the Jews'?"

40 They shouted back, "No, not him! Give us Barabbas!" Now Barabbas had taken part in a rebellion.   
John 19
19:1 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3 and went up to him again and again, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And they struck him in the face.

4 Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews, "Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him." 5 When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, "Here is the man!"

6 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."

7 The Jews insisted, "We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God."

8 When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, 9 and he went back inside the palace. "Where do you come from?" he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10 "Do you refuse to speak to me?" Pilate said. "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?"

11 Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin."

12 From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar."

13 When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge's seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). 14 It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour.

"Here is your king," Pilate said to the Jews.

15 But they shouted, "Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!"

"Shall I crucify your king?" Pilate asked.

"We have no king but Caesar," the chief priests answered.

16 Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

This brings us up to our Scriptures this morning.

1. The Substitute (18:38-40)
Since Pilate did not finds fault in Jesus he went out to the Jews and made a proposal which he hoped would get him out of this mess. He appeals to a little-known custom that someone be released at the time of the Passover. This custom is undocumented in Palestinian sources so this custom was a Roman custom.

Roman law permitted two kinds of amnesty:
indulgentia – pardoning a condemned person 

abolitio – acquitting a person before judgment

Romans and Greeks seem to have granted amnesty at some other feast. And Romans occasionally acquitted prisoners in response to the cries of crowds. So doing his best to get out of a bad situation Pilate offered the Jews a choice. There was Barabbas, a robber, a revolutionary, a zealot. And then there was Jesus, the Man of peace.

When you think about it, you still have to choose between Jesus and Barabbas. You have to choose the way of God which is Christ Jesus. Or you have to choose the way of the world, the Barabbas way. And even for Christians this is a daily choice to be made.

The Jews chose the way of the world “all cried,” for the blood of the innocent Man, and Barabbas was released. You have to wonder if Pilate was surprised by their response. He had been so sure his offer would be a way out.

Today the results of your choice are reversed. This morning if you choose to follow Christ Jesus you will have life. If you choose Barabbas, the way of the world; in the end you will find death.

2. The Humiliation (19:1-4)
In typical Roman fashion Pilate now subjected Christ Jesus to the physical cruelty and sarcastic taunts of his soldiers.

Beatings were a regular punishment themselves, but flogging and scourging were much more severe and were part of a death sentence. While Pilate had not yet passed sentence he hoped that the blood would satisfy the Jews, but it was not to be so.

The scourging and the twisted crown of thorns, the purple robe and the shouts of ridicule were all a mockery of Christ Jesus’ kingship. Little did they know that what they did in jest rang of truth, Christ Jesus alone is worthy to be honored as the King of kings. Christ Jesus’ humiliation in Pilate’s court and later on the cross was His hour of glory. He was a King suffering for the salvation of His people. And those around Him missed it.

It is the same today, people mock and try to humiliate Christ Jesus, all the while missing who He is...God. Again you must choose, will you choose the prince of this world who reigns for awhile or will you choose Christ Jesus, King above kings whose reign is eternal?

3. The Man (19:5-7)
Then Jesus “came out,” the real King appearing before His subjects. Pilate referred to the bruised, bleeding Man scoffingly, “Behold the Man!” It as if Pilate was saying, “The man who, according to you, affects the government, and threatens to take away the empire from the Romans. Behold the man whom you have brought to me as an enemy of Caesar, and one who spreads sedition in the land! In him I find no guilt; and from him you have no occasion to fear any evil.”

It is said that in the Louvre in Paris there is a stirring, yet simple, painting of the face of Christ Jesus, the crown of thorns pressed down on His brow and the streaks of blood coursing down His cheeks—all so realistic. But it is the compassionate, pain-filled eyes that holds people's attention. The painting and the words Ecce Homo below, Latin for “Behold the Man!”, are strangely haunting. The suffering Lamb of God stands before us.

Then adding insult to injury, Pilate mockingly told the Jewish religious leaders to crucify Jesus themselves. Of course they had no authority or means to do so.

After all the charges brought against Christ Jesus the Jews finally settled on blasphemy. This charge is completely in line with why Christ Jesus' purpose as seen in this Gospel and it is the only correct charge on the list of charges. Pilate could care less about their religion, but when they said Jesus called Himself the “Son of God” that was different.

Pilate was afraid. He knew that some teachers were thought to possess divine wisdom or power. He also knew that the reputation of Jewish magicians for being among the best in antiquity. “King” was one thing, but “Son of God” sounded like something he couldn't explain or wrap his Roman mind around.

Here is the long and short of it, Christ Jesus never “made” Himself to be anything. You can be angry with Him like the Jewish religious leaders or you can be afraid of him like Pilate or you can except Him for who He is. He is the Son of God!

4. The One In Charge (19:9-11)
Pilate anxiously asked Jesus, “Where are You from?” Pilate did not mean, what country are you from? He already knew that; but it appeared he asked to know who the parents of Jesus were. What was his game, was Jesus really a demigod, which the Romans as pagans believed in. Not realizing what he was doing Pilate raised the central question of Christ Jesus’ whole ministry. Who is He and what is the source of His authority?

Christ Jesus gave no answer to this question, which Pilate found unsettling. Christ Jesus had already told him that His kingdom was not of this world; and that He came to establish a spiritual kingdom, not a temporal one.

There was a veiled threat in Pilate’s impatient response to Jesus’ silence. If Pilate had only known how limited his authority really was. Pilate's power came from a man, Christ Jesus' power comes from above. Anything Pilate did to Christ Jesus happened only because God had allowed it. But Pilate was ignorant to this fact.

The ones who knew better were the ones who had “delivered” Jesus to Pilate. These were the men who had talked about God and studied the prophecies of the Messiah’s coming. They presumed to be the spiritual leaders of Israel, because of this they had been judged guilty of the greater sin (v. 11).

In every encounter the question of Christ Jesus’ identity is the issue. Is he a good man, a wise man, a prophet, a conman, or is He really God. Any and all of these answers have eternal consequences, but only one leads to eternal life with God. Will you ask Christ Jesus (God/man) into your life to be your Lord and Saviour right now.

5. The Capitulation (19:12-16)
There was almost a kind of desperation in Pilate’s trying to release this Jesus fellow. At least six times in questioning of Jesus Pilate tried to let Him go. Yet He was being cornered at every turn by the insistent pressure of these Jews. They were aware of Pilate’s hunger for power, his desire to be identified with Caesar’s “in crowd,” even though the emperor may have barely known Pilate’s name. On top of that Sejanus; his political sponsor in Rome had fallen from power.

The Jews answered Pilate's latest attempt to let Jesus go by saying, “If you let this Man go, you are not Caesar’s friend. Whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar” (19:12). The charge against Jesus is once more changed to political insurrection. Which is punishable by death on the cross.

Pilate couldn't let this statement go unanswered or he would lose all face with Rome and with Sejanus gone he can't afford to that. Forced in to action Pilate sits down in his place of judgment "ga-bawh'." And at the sixth hour, late morning, when the sheep were being killed for the Passover on this day of Preparation, Pilate announced, “Behold your King!” Once more the Jews cried out for blood, Pilate very shrewdly made his seventh and last move. “Shall I crucify your King?” he asked, which forces the Jews to openly declare their allegiance. How tragic it is that they cried, “We have no king but Caesar!” (v. 15).

The Jews had not received Christ Jesus as He came offering Himself, teaching and healing, instead to protect their interests they “gave” Him to be crucify. In these last strange, dark happenings, God had prepared the way to reveal His greatest glory.

Conclusion: Wow! What a strange trial? Pilate, the Roman pagan; feared and wanted no part of Christ Jesus. The Religious leaders, who should have known; wanted Christ Jesus dead. And the whole time Christ Jesus was in control of the situation, things were going just as planned. Why would Christ Jesus put Himself through this injustice, humiliation, and pain? So that you could be saved from sin and death. He did it because He loves you!