John 19:15 But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!” “Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked. “We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.
Sometimes the words we speak can leave a bitter taste in our mouths. The words carry a message that is filled with truth, but truth that we have a hard time stating out loud. So when we do speak the truth, we have to force ourselves to speak.
Siblings often have difficulty saying, “I was wrong. Forgive me.” If you have had children, you can remember those moments. When they were younger you had to force them to face each other and speak the words. But as they grew, they knew the words must be spoken or they wouldn’t get through the moment.
And then one day, they come to one of those moments and they actually mean the words. They have mature enough, been on the receiving end of hurt so that they know pain and offer a genuine apology. That is a day when parents rejoice. A lesson learned, at least for the moment.
The religious leaders in Jesus’ day were very anti-Rome. They didn’t like being an occupied people. They wanted their freedom. They wanted the oppressive taxes to cease. They wanted the reigns of power. They wanted to be in charge.
But they also saw Jesus as a threat to those very things. If Jesus’ claims were true, if His following continued to increase, they they would lose power from within, not from Rome. They had to squelch rebellion so that the Romans would not come and remove them for the seat of conditional power.
So as they are pushing Pilate to do what they themselves aren’t authorized to do, part of the limitation on subjugated peoples, they are forced to speak words that they don’t believe. They get trapped by their own push for conviction in the face of no evidence.
Pilate questions Jesus and three separate times he comes back to these leaders and tells them that he has found “no basis” for the charges or for executing Jesus. Three times!
Finally Pilate has them cornered. Since they are insisting that Pilate make this illegal move, crucifying an innocent man, Pilate extracts a confession that is poison to the religious leaders. They have backed Pilate into a corner with their own words. They have said Jesus claimed to be a king, and in the Roman territories, there is only one king, the Roman one.
And then Pilate has them. “Shall I crucify your king?” The religious leaders now know they are trapped by their words. They must speak the unspeakable. They must declare before Pilate that Caesar is king. And so the words come out of their mouths.
They are humiliated, all for the death of Jesus. A grand bargain, Jesus is unjustly killed and they admit that they aren’t in power. All their pretenses are washed away. Caesar is in charge, and they have publicly acknowledged it.
No backing down now. The charges above Jesus head on the cross state that Jesus is king of the Jews. Pilate gets in the last and final word. Checkmate!
Are there words you wish you could take back, because when you said them, you altered the trajectory of your life?
The Arnold Journey 