Slide 2:
1 And as soon as it was morning the chief priests, with the elders and scribes, and the whole council held a consultation; and they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him to Pilate.
2 And Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And he answered him, “You have said so.”
3 And the chief priests accused him of many things. 4 And Pilate again asked him, “Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.”
5 But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate wondered.
Slide 3:
Mark makes Pilate look like a man wavering between making a good or evil decision influenced by Jesus and justice on one side and the Sanhedrin on the other.
Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor for the regions of Samaria and Judea from 26–36 AD.
Thus Jerusalem was in his area of control.
Pilate normally lived in Caesarea which is located on the Mediterranean Sea coast. He and his soldiers had travelled to Jerusalem because of the Passover.
Slide 4:
Large crowds of Jews from all over the world flocked to the city for the Passover celebration.
Pilate like the rest of the Roman world felt that if the Jews were to rebel against Roman rule the rebellion would begin in the Temple.
As a result Pilate and his soldiers went to Jerusalem and lived in the Praetorium during the Passover celebration.
The Praetorium was the palace that Herod the Great had built for himself.
Another interesting fact is that the Praetorium overlooked the Temple.
If a rebellion began Pilate’s soldiers would see it and suppress it within minutes.
Pilate was hated by the Jews for a number of reasons.
He was arrogant, “My way or the highway or worse.”
Slide 5:
He had stolen money from the Temple treasury to build an aqueduct.
He had his soldiers use pagan symbols as their insignias.
He took pride in insulting the Jewish leaders and their religion.
You might then ask yourself why they would bring Jesus to Pilate?
“Politics makes strange bedfellows.”
The Jewish leaders wanted Jesus crucified because they believed that such a death brought with it the curse of God. (see Deuteronomy 21:23).
If Jesus died such a death they hoped to persuade the people that Jesus was cursed and not the blessed or son of God.
If they were successful then Christianity would die out and their religious dominance would be restored.
Pilate was already in trouble with Rome and thus his political position was threatened.
Slide 6:
If Pilate gave into the demands of the Jewish leaders he would avoid a riot, avoid a rebellion, and avoid further criticism from Rome.
This is a classic example of a political leader going against his conscience in order to please others.
The Jewish leaders now fabricate a new accusation that Jesus is guilty of calling himself the “King of the Jews,” which was a political not a religious crime.
Slide 7:
The religious leaders were supposed to the lead people to God but instead because of fear, arrogance and pride they wanted a “final solution” to the Jesus problem, kill him.
In the Old Testament Zechariah 10:3 we read, “My anger is hot against the shepherds, and I will punish the leaders.”
In 70 AD the Temple which was the center of Jewish religious leadership was destroyed. In Isaiah 53:7 we read, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth (cf. Mk. 15:4-5)