^{1 -3} So Pilate took Jesus and had him whipped. The soldiers, having braided a crown from thorns, set it on his head, threw a purple robe over him, and approached him with, "Hail, King of the Jews!" Then they greeted him with slaps in the face. ^{4 -5}Pilate went back out again and said to them, "I present him to you, but I want you to know that I do not find him guilty of any crime." Just then Jesus came out wearing the thorn crown and purple robe. Pilate announced, "Here he is: the Man." ⁶When the high priests and police saw him, they shouted in a frenzy, "Crucify! Crucify!" Pilate told them, "You take him. You crucify him. I find nothing wrong with him." ⁷The Jews answered, "We have a law, and by that law he must die because he claimed to be the Son of God." ^{8 -9}When Pilate heard this, he became even more scared. He went back into the palace and said to Jesus, "Where did you come from?" Jesus gave no answer. ¹⁰Pilate said, "You won't talk? Don't you know that I have the authority to pardon you, and the authority to—crucify you?" ¹¹Jesus said, "You haven't a shred of authority over me except what has been given you from heaven. That's why the one who betrayed me to you has committed a far greater fault." ¹²At this, Pilate tried his best to pardon him, but the Jews shouted him down: "If you pardon this man, you're no friend of Caesar's. Anyone setting himself up as 'king' defies Caesar." ^{13 -14}When Pilate heard those words, he led Jesus outside. He sat down at the judgment seat in the area designated Stone Court (in Hebrew, Gabbatha). It was the preparation day for Passover. The hour was noon. Pilate said to the Jews, "Here is your king." ¹⁵They shouted back, "Kill him! Kill him! Crucify him!" Pilate said, "I am to crucify your king?" The high priests answered, "We have no king except Caesar." ^{16 -19}Pilate caved in to their demand. He turned him over to be crucified.

John 19

i've spent a couple of days mulling over this passage. something stood out to me this morning. before, i was thinking about how Jesus said, "You haven't a shred of authority over me except what has been given you from heaven. That's why the one who betrayed me to you has committed a far greater fault." i looked this part up on commentaries and found that what Jesus meant was that pilate was not as guilty as the caiaphas, the chief priest who turned Jesus over to him. caiaphas was granted power and authority from heaven in the temple because he was supposedly working for God, while pilate was just working for the government. because caiaphas knew who God was and still handed over God's Son to be crucified, caiaphas had committed a greater fault than pilate. this means that those who turn their backs on Jesus after hearing His story are at greater fault than those who have never heard His name and God recognizes and acknowledges that. but, the main thing i got this morning was actually about pilate. pilate tells Jesus that he has the power and authority to free Him or crucify Him and Jesus replies that pilate has no power. now, when you're the roman governor and you have this badly beaten jewish man standing in front of you with hundreds of jewish priests screaming to have him crucified and you ask him a question that could potentially free him, you'd think he'd answer something humbling and pleading mercy! but this bruised and bleeding man answers with saying that you have absolutely no power over him! now i don't know about you, but if i was in a position of power and someone talked to me like that, i would have just let the people have their way with this person! but what does pilate do? we read, "At this, Pilate tried his best to pardon him..." pilate still tries to set Jesus free! and not only after Jesus tells him that pilate has no authority over him, but Jesus tells him that if he were to crucify Him, caiaphas was still more guilty than pilate. and if we heard this, knowing that we still wouldn't be considered worse than the person who turned Jesus over, we would turn Jesus over knowing that Jesus acknowledged that we weren't as guilty. pilate looked past these two things and still tried to pardon Jesus! to me, that's just crazy! either pilate was a truly righteous man, or there was something about Jesus that compelled pilate to keep on trying to free Him. i'd like to believe in the latter, that Jesus was so compelling, so fierce, so passionate that pilate knew this from spending those few brief moments with Jesus and he couldn't help but try to defend this man.