It’s not that Pilate was not in the habit of condemning troublesome men.  He needed a justifiable pretext, though.  There was Roman law to consider, after all: a charge, evidence, testimony, cross examination.  What’s the crime?  What is the crime worthy of the death sentence, and not just the sentence of death but the very public, very humiliating, message-sending death on a cross.  This is what we do to criminals such as this!  Pilate “went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, ‘I find no basis for a charge against him’” (18:38).  But he doesn’t want to leave it there.  Pilate is the Roman authority; he is also a politician.  His task is to keep the peace—keep things quiet; keep the tax revenue flowing.  If Pilate couldn’t, the emperor had several in waiting who assured him they certainly could.  Pilate has to think, quickly.

“But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover” (18:39).  That release is their custom, not his.  They expect it from him at the Passover, part of the way Rome shows its willingness to be mild and benevolent to her unruly Judean subjects.  A pardon, a Passover pardon, freedom.  Pilate reminds them of the custom by way of saying he is trying to indulge them, satisfy them—let’s work together, here, people!  Pilate is willing to release for them the one they want.  God is willing to set many free.  It’s the Passover.

“Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?” (18:39).  I think Pilate isn’t very concerned about whatever supposed claim Jesus may have supposedly made about being the king of the Jews.  Rome had many more important, serious matters with which to be concerned in that part of the empire.  Still, what level of support was there, among the people, for this “king”?  Did they want him?  Pilate understood the officials didn’t.  He could see plainly they wanted him dead.  Politician that he was, Pilate knew that meant something.  Politician that he was, he knew the best way to keep the opposition weak was to keep it divided.

Whether Jesus was really a king or not was not of much concern to Pilate.  If Jesus was a king, he was the poorest, most miserable king Pilate had ever encountered.  Not very impressive.  Not so majestic.  Nothing to be feared.  The king nobody wanted.  “They shouted back, ‘No, not him!  Give us Barabbas!’  Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising” (18:40).  So, they would rather have a rebel and murderer than this pathetic king.  Of course.  Barabbas had shown what he was willing to do to be rid of the Romans: kill, terrorize, go on the attack.  What was Jesus willing to do?

What would satisfy these people, short of killing Jesus?  “Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged” (19:1).  Just for good measure.  To make clear that there is a penalty for being a troublemaker, a disturber of the peace.  We’re quite squeamish when it comes to corporal punishment.  It was the norm for most of human history.  In some parts of the world, convicted criminals are still flogged, can you imagine?  He isn’t just flogged, of course.  “The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head.  They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ And they slapped him in the face” (19:2-3).  They relished that.  Soldiers far from home, in hostile territory, where they were never in doubt that they were loathed, even as they were under orders to be restrained and respectful—rules of engagement . . . but not inside their fort.  King, huh?  Some king.  What makes you better’n me?  Pow!  Catharsis, the ancient Greeks called it.  Have you ever deliberately broken something, thrown it, smashed it, just to release the tension?

“Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, ‘Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him’” (19:4).  You’ll also notice, please, that we’ve beaten him, bloodied him, humiliated him.  Can we satisfy your wrath with something less than killing the man?  So obsessed with killing.  “When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the man!’” (19:5).  Take a look!  See for yourselves.  Here’s what we do to troublemakers.  Isn’t this enough?  Aren’t you satisfied, now?  How do you maintain authority when the cards aren’t in your hands?  How do you at least save face?

“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’” (19:6).  Telling them they appear to be hellbent on killing an innocent man has no effect upon them.  Maybe Pilate is also signaling them, knowing the priests at least would understand: “I find no basis for a charge.”  Give me something, people.  You want him dead.  Fine.  I like troublemakers and disturbers of the peace no better than you.  Help me help you; give me something in order to maintain the appearance of integrity, of justice served.

“The Jewish leaders insisted, ‘We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God’” (19:7).  Pilate was not the least concerned about Jewish religious law, except to the extent that it interfered with carrying out his orders from Rome.  Son of God.  But that registered with Pilate.  That was something he might work with.  The priests were beside themselves because of the man’s blasphemy, insulting God like that.  Blasphemy—that’s a word we’ve heard but aren’t really sure what it means.  Some sort of speaking against religion, or against God?  Something that offends people’s faith.  What could that be in our day, I wonder.  Son of God.  It would be blasphemy, if it wasn’t true.  It’s not blasphemy if it is true.  But how could it be true?!  Him?  No, never!  I think the priests were fine with whatever hope in a Messiah, so long as he didn’t show up on their watch.

Son of God.  Divine authority.  Divine commission.  “When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid” (19:8).  Pilate doesn’t come off so well, in Luke’s telling, not that Pilate ought to come out smelling like a rose, but consider the situation.  Rome wanted results.  How to get results?  Rome was more than unpopular in Judea—there’d be a full revolt forty years later.  That didn’t go so well for the Jews, the Temple, or Jerusalem.  Keep the peace.  Keep the revenue coming.  If you can’t handle it, what sort of governor are you?  If you can’t handle it, there are several men already lined up, more than ready to step in and show the emperor that they can.  The angry shouts, the public demonstration.  Pilate’s authority at stake.  It was all getting out of control, too much, too fast, rapidly restricting whatever negotiating room Pilate may have had.  No room to maneuver.  How would you, with six hundred troops, put down a riot, or a general insurrection, in a city with hundreds of thousands of people?

“[H]e went back inside the palace. ‘Where do you come from?’ he asked Jesus” (19:9).  Play for time, time to think.  I’ve got to make you somebody else’s problem, send you away.  Beloved, Jesus can be terribly inconvenient.  I’m bold to say that we’ve all been eager to pack Jesus off elsewhere on at least one occasion or two.  It’s a problem when Jesus becomes a problem for us.

Pilate wants to be rid of Jesus, sure, but not by killing Jesus.  Pilate was no stranger to giving the death order, but it was always for a reason, when Pilate himself felt some conviction, some certainty of the offense and guilt of those he was condemning, condemning for the sake of order, law and order, condemning to death for the sake of maintaining the peace, displaying the obvious superiority of Rome and Roman ways.  The chief priests and their officials, however, were putting Pilate in an impossible situation, check mate.  Pilate’s concern was not for the guilt or innocence of this nobody from nowhere.  Pilate’s concern was to project the power and authority of Rome among a people who hated both.  “[T]he Jewish leaders kept shouting, ‘If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar.  Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar’” (19:12).  There it was, finally: what Pilate had needed, given to him.  None may oppose Caesar with impunity.  “When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement” (19:13).  They had given him his rationale.  He could condemn in good conscience.  The poor wretch’s death would still really be the responsibility of the Jews, of course.  Pilate knew in his heart that he wasn’t responsible for the man’s blood.

Pilate looked around, looked up: a mild, sunny day—it would have been so pleasant, if not for all this mess, this endless mess.  “It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon” (19:14).  One last gesture, let them give something to Rome in exchange for what Rome would give them.  “‘Here is your king,’ Pilate said to the Jews.  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” (19:14-15).  That’s not our king.  He commands no loyalty from us, no devotion or service, no love or gratitude.  Destroy him!  Get him out of our lives once for all!  We have the will but not the power.  You have the power, if not the will.  Say the word, and we’ll handle the rest of it.

The priests, the chief priests, testified before all the gathered crowd, Jew and Gentile, for all to hear, for they themselves to hear: they had no king but Caesar.  In the heat of the moment, passions running high, the sense of outrage uppermost, the sense that their goal of getting Jesus out of their lives becoming stronger, more certain, I think it highly unlikely that any of those chief priests would have paused just there, remembering their own history a thousand years before: “all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah.  They said to him, ‘You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.’  And the Lord told him: ‘Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king” (1 Samuel 8:4-5, 7).  Pilate spoke the word; Jesus was remanded for crucifixion.