Honesty & Integrity

...were not on Pilate's foremind.

Many incarcerated individuals have found solidarity with Jesus for a variety of reasons. In today’s passage, we see that there was really no conclusive due diligence for Jesus’ death conviction. Pilate, playing judge in the scenario, found nothing truly wrong with Jesus. Yet he caved to political pressure. Granted, he wanted no skirmish with the Jews. Not that he couldn’t handle them or a rebellion, but he wouldn’t want to mess of it all. Jewish rebellions had been squelched before, and likely even recently at this point. Pilate wanted nothing more of it and certainly wouldn’t want Caesar to hear of disturbances.

So rather than leave room for the possibility of such a disturbance, Pilate gave Jesus to what the religious leaders wanted. He told his soldiers to kill him by crucifixion.

How unjust is that? Can you imagine why many incarcerated individuals identify with it?

John 18:39-19:16

After Pilate said this, he returned to the Jewish leaders and said, “I find no grounds for any charge against him. You have a custom that I release one prisoner for you at Passover. Do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews?”

They shouted, “Not this man! Give us Barabbas!” (Barabbas was an outlaw.)

Then Pilate had Jesus taken and whipped. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and dressed him in a purple robe. Over and over they went up to him and said, “Greetings, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face.

Pilate came out of the palace again and said to the Jewish leaders, “Look! I’m bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no grounds for a charge against him.” When Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here’s the man.”

When the chief priests and their deputies saw him, they shouted out, “Crucify, crucify!”

Pilate told them, “You take him and crucify him. I don’t find any grounds for a charge against him.”

The Jewish leaders replied, “We have a Law, and according to this Law he ought to die because he made himself out to be God’s Son.”

When Pilate heard this word, he was even more afraid. He went back into the residence and spoke to Jesus, “Where are you from?” Jesus didn’t answer. So Pilate said, “You won’t speak to me? Don’t you know that I have authority to release you and also to crucify you?”

Jesus replied, “You would have no authority over me if it had not been given to you from above. That’s why the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.” From that moment on, Pilate wanted to release Jesus.

However, the Jewish leaders cried out, saying, “If you release this man, you aren’t a friend of the emperor! Anyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes the emperor!”

When Pilate heard these words, he led Jesus out and seated him on the judge’s bench at the place called Stone Pavement (in Aramaic, Gabbatha). It was about noon on the Preparation Day for the Passover. Pilate said to the Jewish leaders, “Here’s your king.”

The Jewish leaders cried out, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”

Pilate responded, “What? Do you want me to crucify your king?”

“We have no king except the emperor,” the chief priests answered. Then Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified.

The soldiers took Jesus prisoner.

Prayer

God,

While Jesus tells us that love sums up the law, it seems that honesty and integrity are pretty important in it all. How can I fully love if I am withholding the truth, one way or another?

With all that is decided, concluded, and acted upon based upon half-truths these days, I want to be a person of integrity. I understand this will most likely mean my influence is less. (As a side note, God, help me to care less about influence.) But may integrity and honesty permeate through to those who really need to see it and benefit from the knowledge of its existence, no matter how small.

I imagine that Jesus’ integrity throughout his trial and on the cross was particularly noticed by his mother and the other women. While the disciples caught up to it all later and the wider Church later still, it’s that first group of unnoticed people I am drawn to, God.

Help us be people of integrity for the people on the margins. If not to receive power in this world, to do what’s right despite it all.

By your spirit & in Christ,
Amen.