City Life Starter

Written by Blesson Selvanesan

The Word

⁶ When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.” ⁷ The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.” (ESV)

Interpretation

Chief priest and his inner circle became jealous of Jesus and plotted a way to eliminate him. However, they could not find any thing to accuse Jesus with. Jesus was not only blameless but also sinless. He challenged the Pharisees to point out if he had any sins. They could not find any.

Nevertheless, they wanted to pursue Jesus and finally got him arrested. They took him to the Roman Governor Pilate. After close examination, he declared that He could not find any fault in Jesus. He came out and told the chief priest and the mob that had surrounded, ‘…I find no guilt in him’. Even after knowing that Jesus was without guilt, he did not let Him go. Instead, he gave him back to the mob and said, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.”

The Jews shouted, crucify him, crucify him! They brought in trumped up charges against him. It fascinates me to see, how can a judge pronounce innocence and hand over the under trial to be executed? This is precisely what happened here. Further, they said that Jesus called himself the Son of God. For a logical person, there are two options, either Jesus is mad, or He is telling the truth. All evidence says that He is totally sane. Interestingly enough, they killed Jesus for telling the truth about who He was.

Application

The situation tells us clearly that human justice, as flawed as it may be, was denied to Jesus. What fell upon him was the divine justice of every one’s sin. Sometimes in life, we may go through impossible situations like this leading to a total collapse of commonsense and Justice. Fear not, Truth will resurrect and the whole world will know the truth! Divine justice will prevail even if the worldly justice fails.

Prayer

Heavenly father, help me to be patient. Help me to learn from the life of Jesus. Help us to bear the pains for your sake and help us to be people of integrity and truth. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.