"Are you the King?"
Mark 15:1,2
And early in the morning the chief priests with the elders and scribes and the whole Sanhedrin, immediately held council; and binding Jesus, led Him away and delivered Him to Pilate. And Pilate questioned Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” And He answered him and said, “You yourself say it.”
The Roman military governor (prefect) Pontius Pilate’s only interest in Jesus of Nazareth was as a potential threat to the fragile civil-political order of the troubled Judean province. Pilate was likely a career soldier who chafed at dealing with these kinds of trivial complaints from the ruling priestly order. But Mark records the chief priest’s anger with Jesus after His symbolic disruption of the money exchange and buying and selling of sacrificial animals in the Temple courtyard. “They began seeking ways to destroy Him because they were afraid of Him…” (Mark 11:18).
Pilate was only willing to meet with the religious leaders “early in the morning” because the Jewish leaders charged with maintaining the peace were worried about this Rabbi’s influence. What worried them, worried him. The potential danger was particularly acute during the Passover when the city swelled with as many as 100,000 additional pilgrims, many of whom camped outside the city walls for the week-long festival of Unleavened Bread. He could not afford to have the Chief Priests unhappy nor to have unrest while the deliverance from captivity in Egypt was being celebrated and remembered.
All four gospel writers record the same fundamental question from Pilate: “Are you the King of the Jews?” (Matthew 27:11-14, Luke 23:2,3, John 18:29-38). And in all four gospels Jesus answers in the affirmative, with John providing additional dialogue, “You say correctly that I am king. For this I have been born and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice” (John 18:37).
“Who is Jesus to you?”
We have considered these words before. It is among the most important questions anyone will ever answer. For those of us who call Jesus Lord and King, we must follow the declaration with a probing analysis of the kinds of things we are devoted to following instead of Him. For those who haven’t realized that truth yet, they will. “Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess… that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:1011).
Pilate was unconvinced. “I find no guilt in Him” (John 19:6). If Pilate thought Jesus was the threat that the Chief Priests alleged, the Governor would not have offered the people a choice to release Jesus or a notorious insurrectionist Barabbas (Mark 15:11). Instead, the mob clamored for Jesus’ death.
The crowds are clamoring still. And the question of His kingship remains.
Pilate failed to see Him as king.
Would those in the crowd see that we are any different?
