What Do I Want More Than Jesus? Series

- Paint a picture of all the conflicting priorities we try to hold onto simultaneously: money, family, relationships, morality, power, religion, etc.

THE BIG QUESTION FOR THIS MORNING: What’s the last thing in your hands?

- When we think of all those things, there are situations where we have to drop one for the other.

a. A romance is dropped because of a prime job opportunity in another city.

b. Family is dropped because of a chance to go hang out with friends.

c. Morality is dropped because it might end a romantic relationship.

THE ANSWER FOR PILATE: The last thing in his hands is his power.

- John 19:1-16.

- The thing that Pilate treasures more than anything else is his political power. This passage is an interesting unfolding of Pilate trying to find a way to do what’s right while also holding onto his power. Of course, in the end, it’s his power that he won’t lay down, but it takes him a minute to get there.

- Let’s unpack the progression:

a. Pilate believes Jesus is innocent.

- John 18:38.

- This is an important baseline. Pilate states that he does not think Jesus deserves to die.

b. The crowd rebels, so Pilate flogs Jesus, probably in an attempt to create sympathy for Jesus.

- John 19:1, 4-5.

- We can’t be certain but the most logical motive for Pilate having Jesus flogged is to create sympathy. Pilate is unhappy the crowd wants to Jesus to die, so he has Him flogged, thus making Him look like someone deserving the crowd’s sympathy. In v. 4, Pilate again states that he believes Jesus is innocent and then in v. 5 says, “Here is the man.” That likely means, “Is this the person you’re so upset about? Look how unthreatening He looks.”

c. The crowd rebels again, so Pilate tells them to do the dirty work themselves.

- John 19:6-8.

- His attempt to gain sympathy from the crowd fails, so he goes another step down the line: he tells them he won’t stop them from killing Jesus but that he’s not going to do it. Notice that he again says that he thinks Jesus is innocent, but nonetheless he won’t stop them from murder.

d. The crowd informs Pilate that Jesus claims to be the “Son of God”; this freaks Pilate out.

- John 19:7-11.

- Pilate has an unexpectedly strong reaction to the crowd telling him that Jesus claims to be the Son of God. Why does Pilate react like that? The most likely reason is not that he understood the Old Testament and suddenly realized that Jesus was God Incarnate, in accordance with the prophecies. No, the most likely reason is that Pilate believed the Greco-Roman mythology that sometimes the gods took on human form. If you believed that, you obviously wouldn’t want to be the person who condemned a god in human form to death when he revealed his godhood.

- This is why Pilate asks Jesus where He comes from. He’s wondering if it’s not earth.

- Important for our purposes here: notice in v. 12 how the urgency of Pilate’s actions takes a step up. The need to save Jesus is increasing. It’s going to be harder from here on for Pilate to agree to execute Jesus.

e. Now we come to the climax of the scene: Pilate’s power is directly threatened.

- John 19:12-16.

- To use the question we started with: what is the last thing in your hands?

- Here Pilate essentially has two things left in his hands and he’s going to have to drop one of them. The two things are: doing what’s right and preserving his power.

- Doing what’s right involves standing up to the crowd and refusing to crucify Jesus on moral principle. Pilate continues to believe that Jesus has done no wrong. It’s immoral to kill an innocent man.

- Preserving his power starts with the threat the crowd makes. They know that Pilate has had a serious of problems in his rule. They know that if they tell Pilate’s boss that he let go a man claiming to be a king that it will likely mean the end of Pilate’s rule. They say exactly that in v. 12. Pilate understands they threat they are making.

- Notice in v. 15 how he goes further: do you (still) want me to crucify your king? He’s still rebelling a little by calling Jesus a king. It’s just for show, though, because they exploit his weakness by again saying they have no king but Caesar.

- To frame it using the question we started with: Pilate has two things in his hands. We go through several rounds here (as detailed above) with Pilate working hard to hold onto both of them. He wants to do the right thing and he wants to hold onto his power.