Pilate Washed His Hands?ñ.Will I? March 15, 2006
Matthew 27: 11-14, 24-26 Pastor Mark Nieting

It is interesting to note that besides our Lord Jesus, there are only two other people mentioned in the Creeds of the Church, one famous and one infamous. One we honor?ñ.albeit sometimes too much?ñ the Virgin Mary and the other we don??t, for the Creed says, ?¨He suffered under Pontius Pilate.?Æ

Let??s start with what we know about Pilate. His official title was ?¨governor of the imperial province of Syria,?Æ a position he held from AD 26 to 36. He was appointed by the Roman Emperor Tiberias Caesar to maintain Roman rule over Judea, Samaria, Galilee and north into Syria (today??s Lebanon). As political appointments go, it would be like being appointed today??s American Ambassador to Venezuela or Iran, because the Jews were known for causing all sorts of trouble. It wasn??t exactly a political plum?ñ.it was more like a political prune!

Pilate??s term as governor wasn??t made any easier because he made a number of political blunders when he first got there. The first thing he did when he took office was to have the imperial Roman symbol, the Roman eagle, mounted on the top of the wall of the temple in Jerusalem?ñ.not exactly a slick move. It caused such rioting that within a week Pilate had it taken down. Later he proposed building a 25 mile aqueduct to bring fresh water from the mountains down to Jerusalem?ña noble cause. But he tried to take the funds for doing it from the temple treasury, again causing a bloody riot. These two stories are just two of many. They show that between Pilate and the Jews there was a mutual hatred. The Jews hated him for the stuff he did and he hated the Jews for their bickering, their rioting and their uncompromising nationalistic spirit. A brilliant political mind he wasn??t!

All this stuff came to a head in the final hours of Jesus?? life: his arrest, his trial and his crucifixion. Normally Pilate??s headquarters were on the cool and breezy seacoast near Caesarea?ñ.away from the heat of the desert and from the heat of the Jews, but when the Jews celebrated their religious festivals, Pilate moved to the palace in Jerusalem to keep his heavy hand over the possibility of anti-Roman activity.

And so, Passover week AD 29 ran true to form. It was probably about 5 AM on Friday morning when Pilate was awakened by a noisy delegation from the Jewish leadership. Mark says it this way, ?¨Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin (70 members here) reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate.?Æ What a way to interrupt a pleasant night??s sleep, right?


So Pilate got up, splashed some water on his face, got dressed and went out to ask why they had dragged this man before him in the middle of the night and all he gets is a sarcastic reply. ?¨If this man were not a criminal, we wouldn??t have handed him over to you!?Æ Pilate answered them by telling them to take him and judge him yourselves! Then the Jews shot back with, ?¨But we can??t execute anyone and he deserves to die because he calls himself a king and opposes payment of taxes to Caesar!?Æ 

That did it! Pilate didn??t want to have ANYthing to do with this case. He found out they had been up all night PREjudging their prisoner. He also knew that the only thing they wanted from him was a rubber stamp on their verdict. He hated their hypocrisy, because he knew that ALL the Jews hated paying taxes to Caesar, but the charge?ñ?ñ?ñthe charge was treason?ñ?ñ?ñ.and IF he refused to hear the case, then, in the Jews?? own words, he would be no friend of Caesars. And if Caesar heard about it, Pilate knew his own head would be on the block.

So Pilate questioned Jesus, ?¨Are you the king of the Jews??Æ ?¨Yes, it is as you say,?Æ replied Jesus. (Mt 27:11) It was Jesus way of saying, if He were Norweigan, ?¨Yah, you betcha, don??tcha know!?Æ Pilate heard Jesus say that He was the King of Kings, Lord of lords and the very Son of God Himself! Pilate also knew that the trial was a joke, so he did everything he could to make it go away.

He tried to send the case to Herod, but all Herod wanted was to see Jesus walk across his swimming pool, and when Jesus wouldn??t entertain him with miracles, Herod sent him back to Pilate. Then Pilate gave them the option to execute Barabbas, a notorious criminal also named Jesus. They chose to have Barabbas released. Next Pilate tried to appeal to their sense of compassion: let??s just have him whipped and beaten and then we??ll see?ñ.said Pilate. Frequently people DIED from the whipping Jesus took?ñand when Pilate paraded the bloody Jesus, head topped with a crown of thorns, he was hoping the people would say, ?¨Enough!!?Æ Instead they screamed louder: ?¨His blood be on us and our children. Crucify him!?Æ

So Pilate, against the wishes of his wife who had a dream about it, washed his hands and ?¨handed him over to be crucified.?Æ Sad?ñ..isn??t it?ñ.that Pilate isn??t remembered for anything GOOD he might have done as governor. Instead, his name has been fixed forever in history by the words of the creed. 

What kind of person, what kind of man is this who KNEW Jesus was the innocent Son of God and yet did nothing to save Him? Lots of people, even a spurious document from around the third century called the ACTS of PILATE, tried to justify Pilate??s actions. But in the end, I think we have to realize that Pilate was a pragmatist. All that concerns people like Pilate are what works best in a given situation. Today we might call him a ?¨situational ethicist.?Æ 

And Pilate, being an ambitious politician (and what politician isn??t) was concerned about keeping peace at all costs so he could stay in line for the next promotion Rome would hand down. In that game you can??t stick to what ?´s right and what??s wrong, it??s only what is expedient. So caught in that trap, Pilate ends up a weak, cowardly and compromising man, ready to sell his own soul, and that of Jesus, for the good of his career.

The tragedy (for Pilate, anyway) is that it didn??t work anyway. A few years later, the emperor recalled him to Rome and banished him to Gaul (Spain) where, according to the historian Eusebius, Pilate??s failures and his guilt caught up with him and he committed suicide.

We know history hasn??t been kind to old Pilate, but let??s take a 2000 year leap forward in history. Isn??t the spirit of Pilate still alive ?ñalthough not well?ñtoday? Don??t we have our share of pragmatic politicians who would rather operated in the shades of gray than choose between black and white? And even more to the point, who of US can claim that he or she has never comprised our principles for the sake of ?¨expediency??Æ I finished prepping my taxes for our CPA last night, getting ready to render my tribute to Caesar. We all know the temptations that came come from exaggerated deductions and hidden incomes. Beating the government in tax time has become a game in our culture! And how many of us have given up on the Lord??s ways and will for the sake of a moment of pleasure or money?

If we want to talk principles, then we have to talk about fairness and honesty and integrity?ñ..all the way across the board. Or remember what Jesus said to the rich young man who claimed he kept all the commandments, ?¨Sell all you have, give it to the poor and follow me!?Æ NONE OF US IS INNOCENT!

If Pilate had believed that Jesus was laying down his life for the sins of everyone, even Pilate, Pilate??s tragic end could have been avoided. Let that be the lesson we learn from Pilate tonight. We DO know about all our wavering and our weakness. We do know about our compromising and our calculating. We do know our sins, and they are always before us. 

And they are covered by the blood of Jesus. KNOWING that our own ?¨Acts of Pilate?Æ are forgiven by the death that Pilate decreed, we rejoice in, and find strength through, what Jesus did to win our forgiveness.

Amen.