What Will You Do With Jesus?
What Will You Do With Jesus? - Audio/Visual
Pilate responded, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” They shouted back, “Crucify him!” “Why?” Pilate demanded. “What crime has he committed?” But the mob roared even louder, “Crucify him!” Pilate saw that he wasn’t getting anywhere and that a riot was developing. So, he sent for a bowl of water and washed his hands before the crowd saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. The responsibility is yours!” And all the people yelled back, “We will take responsibility for his death — we and our children!” So, Pilate released Barabbas[1] to them. He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified. (Matt. 27:22-26)
Journalistic opinions notwithstanding, the most famous trial in history is about to begin. The judge is short and aristocratic with darting eyes and expensive clothes. But he’s apprehensive – nervous about being thrust into an exigent circumstance that he simply cannot avoid. Two soldiers lead him down the stone stairs of the Antonia Fortress into the wide courtyard ahead. Shafts of morning sunlight stretch across the stone floor. As he enters, Syrian soldiers dressed in short togas yank themselves and their spears bolt upright and stare straight ahead. The floor on which they stand is a mosaic of broad, brown, smooth rocks on which are carved the games soldiers play while awaiting sentencing of the prisoner. But in the presence of the procurator, no one’s playing any games.
A regal chair is placed on a landing five steps up from the floor. The magistrate ascends and takes his seat. The accused is brought into the courtyard and placed below him. A covey of robed religious leaders follows, walking over to one side of the area where they stand. Pilate looks at the lone figure. “Doesn’t look like a Christ,” he mutters. Feet swollen and muddy. Hands tanned. Knuckles lumpy. Looks more like a construction worker than a teacher. Looks even less like a troublemaker. One eye is black and swollen shut. The other looks at the floor. His lower lip is split and scabbed. His hair is blood-matted to his forehead. Arms and thighs are streaked with crimson. “Should we remove his garment?” a soldier asks. “No. that’s not necessary.” It’s obvious what the beating has accomplished.
“Are you the king of the Jews?” And for the first time, Jesus lifts his eyes. He doesn’t raise his head, but he lifts his eyes. He peers at the procurator from beneath his brow and says, “Those are your words.” The tone of Jesus’ voice surprises Pilate. But before he can respond, the Jewish leaders mock the prisoner from the gallery of the ersatz courtroom. “See, he has no respect.” “He stirs up the people!” “He claims to be king!” But Pilate doesn’t hear them as he mulls over Jesus’ response, “Those are your words.” No defense. No explanation. No panic. No argument.
Pilate looks at the Jewish leaders huddled in the corner across the court. Their insistence angers him. The lashes aren’t enough. The mockery is inadequate. “Jealous,” he wants to say to their faces, but doesn’t. “Jealous buzzards, the whole obstinate lot of you. Killing your own prophets,” he mumbles to himself. Pilate wants to let Jesus go. Just give me a reason, he thinks, almost aloud, and I’ll set you free.
His thoughts are interrupted by a tap on the shoulder. A messenger leans in and whispers. Strange. Pilate’s wife has sent word to her husband to refrain from getting involved in the case. Something about a dream she had. Pilate walks back to his chair, then sits and stares at Jesus. “Even the gods are on your side,” he mutters to no one in particular. He’s sat in this chair before, of course. It’s a cruel seat: cobalt blue with thick, ornate legs – the judgment seat. By sitting on it Pilate transforms any room, courtyard or street into his courtroom. It’s from this place he renders his verdicts.
But how many times has he sat here, and how many stories and excuses has he heard? How many pleas has he received? How many wide eyes have stared at him, pleading for mercy, begging for an acquittal? But the eyes of this particular accused are calm and silent. They don’t scream. They don’t dart. Pilate searches them for anxiety, for anger, for anything. But he finds none. What he finds makes him uncomfortable. “He’s not angry with me. He’s not anxious or afraid . . . he seems to understand.”
Pilate’s right, of course. Jesus isn’t afraid, and he’s not angry. He’s not on the verge of panic because he’s not surprised. Jesus knows his hour, and the hour has come. And Pilate’s appropriately curious, too. If Jesus is a leader, where are his followers? If he’s the Messiah, what does he intend to do? If he’s a teacher, why are the religious leaders so angry? Pilate’s also correct to question, “What should I do with Jesus, the one called Christ?“ because these are grave circumstances that require an answer.
Perhaps you, like Pilate, are curious about this man called Jesus. Maybe you, like Pilate, are puzzled by his claims, and stirred by his passions. You’ve heard all the stories before – God descending from the stars, cocooning in flesh and placing a stake of truth in the globe. And you, like Pilate, have heard all the others speak, but now you want him to speak because what do you do with a man who claims to be God but hates religion? What do you do with a man who calls himself the Savior, but condemns entire religious systems? What do you do with a man who knows the place and time of his death, but goes there anyway? Pilate’s question is your question. “What will I do with this man, Jesus?” It’s a question which cannot be ignored, and whose answer cannot be postponed.
You have two choices. You can reject him. That’s certainly an option. You can, as many have, decide that the idea of God becoming a carpenter is just too bizarre and simply walk away. Or you can accept him. You can journey with him. You can listen for his voice among the hundreds of voices vying for your attention every day and follow him. Pilate could have. He heard many voices that day — he could have heard Christ’s. Had Pilate chosen to respond to this bruised Messiah his story would have been vastly different. But Pilate vacillates; he’s a puppy hearing the voice of two masters. He steps toward one voice, stops, then steps toward the other.
Four times he tries to free Jesus, and four times he’s persuaded otherwise. He tries to give Jesus to the people – but they want Barabbas. He sends Jesus to the whipping post – but they want him sent to Golgotha. He states that he finds nothing against the man – but they accuse Pilate of violating the law. Pilate, afraid of who Jesus might be, tries one final time to release him – but the Jews accuse him of betraying Caesar. So many voices were calling for Pilate’s attention that day. The voice of compromise. The voice of expedience. The voice of politics. The voice of conscience. And the soft, firm voice of Christ, “The only power you have over me is the power given to you by God.” (John 19:11)
Jesus’ voice is distinct. Unique. He doesn’t cajole or plead. He just speaks the truth. But Pilate thought he could avoid having to make a choice because the truth was inconvenient. So, he washed his hands of Jesus. He climbed up onto the fence and sat down. But in doing so, Pilate made his choice. Rather than asking for God’s grace, he avoided malevolence. Rather than inviting Jesus to stay, he sent him away. Rather than hearing Christ’s voice, he heard the voice of the people. Tradition has it that Pilate’s wife became a believer not long after these events. Legend has it that Pilate’s eternal home is a mountain lake where he surfaces daily, plunging his hands into the water seeking forgiveness. Forever trying to wash away his guilt – not for the evil that he’d done, but for the truth he tried to avoid.
“So, what should I do with Jesus?” Pilate asked it first, but we’ve all asked it since. It’s a fair question; even a necessary question. What do you do with such a man? He called himself God but wore the clothes of a man. He called himself the Messiah, but never commanded an army. He was regarded as king, but his only crown was twisted thorns. People revered him as regal, yet his only robe was stitched with mockery. Small wonder Pilate was puzzled because how do you explain such a man?
One way may be to take a walk. His walk. Jesus’ final walk. Follow his steps and stand in his shadow. From Jericho to Jerusalem; from the temple to the garden; from the garden to the trial; from Pilate’s palace to Golgotha’s cross. Watch him walk — angrily to the temple, wearily into Gethsemane, painfully up the Via Dolorosa and powerfully out of the vacated tomb. As you witness his walk, reflect on your own because all of us have our own walk to Jerusalem. Our own path through hollow religion; our own journey down the narrow path of rejection. And each of us, like Pilate, must cast a verdict.
Pilate heard the voice of the people and left Jesus to walk the road alone. Will you? If you’re his, I hope that permanently planted in your soul is the moment the Father stirred you in the darkness and led you down the path to freedom. It’s a memory like no other. Because when he sets you free, you’re free indeed. That’s how it happened to me – in a Bible class in a small L.A. suburb.
Thinking back on it, I don’t know what was more remarkable at the time – that a teacher was trying to teach the book of Romans to a bunch of rambunctious teenagers, or that I actually remember what he said. The classroom was mid-sized, one of a half-dozen or so in an average-sized church. My desk had carvings on it and gum underneath. Ten or so others were in the room where we all sat in the back, much too sophisticated to appear the least bit interested in what the teacher had to say.
The teacher was an earnest man. I can still see his flattop – ex-Marine. His skinny tie stopped midway down his stomach. He had reddish hair and an orange complexion, a soft voice and a kind smile. Though he was hopelessly out of touch with 70’s teenagers, he didn’t know it. His notes were stacked on a table underneath a heavy black Bible. He spoke with genuine passion. He wasn’t a dramatic man, or even a big man for that matter. But that day he was a fervent man. His text was Romans chapter six. The blackboard was littered with long words and diagrams. But somewhere in the process of describing how Jesus went into the tomb and came back out, it happened. I didn’t see a moral code. I didn’t see a church. I didn’t see the Ten Commandments, or hellish demons. I saw my Father enter my teenage life, awaken me from my stupor, and gently guide me — no, carry me — to freedom. (Remember, I was a teenager and incapable of being “gently guided” since I knew everything then; I’ve forgotten a lot since.)
I said nothing to my teacher. I said nothing to my friends. I’m not even sure I said anything to God because I didn’t know what to say; I didn’t know what to do. But for all I didn’t know, surprisingly, there was one fact of which I was absolutely certain: I wanted to be with him. I told my parents that I was ready to give my life to Jesus. Not completely convinced, my parents asked me what I knew. I told them Jesus was in heaven and that I wanted to be with him. And for my folks, that was enough.
To this day I wonder if my love has ever been as pure as it was that first hour. I long for the certainty of my newborn faith. Had you told me that Jesus was in hell, I would have agreed to go. Public confession and baptism came naturally for me because when your Father comes to deliver you from bondage, you don’t ask questions; you just obey. You take his hand. You walk the path. You leave the bondage behind. And you never forget.
If you’re his, I hope you’ll never forget those first steps of your walk, or Jesus’ final steps from Jericho to Jerusalem – it was that walk that promised you freedom. Or his final walk through the temple of Jerusalem – it was on that walk that he denounced hollow religion. Or his final walk to the Mount of Olives – it was there that he promised to return and take you home. Or his final walk from Pilate’s palace to Golgotha’s cross – bare, bloody feet struggling up a stony narrow path. But just as vivid as the pain of the beam across his raw back was his vision of you and him walking together. He could see the hour he would come into your life, into your dark place to stir you out of your stupor and guide you to freedom. And your hour has now come because even if your path has taken you in a different direction, curiously, your walk has somehow brought you here.
So, what will you do with Jesus? C.S. Lewis, in his book, Mere Christianity, had this to say about that very question: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
And although the question still lingers, the walk isn’t over. The journey’s incomplete. There’s one more walk to take. “I will come back,” he promised. And to prove it he ripped the temple curtain in two and rolled away the stone that sealed his grave’s entrance so that he could. Jesus is coming back to claim his own. Will he be coming back for you? That, of course, will depend upon your answer to the question since your eternity hangs on its reply.
Happy Easter,
Randy
[1] Some ancient manuscripts of Matthew 27:16–17 have the full name of Barabbas as "Jesus bar-Abbas" which, when translated, would read: “Jesus, son of the father.”
