Pontius Pilate was the Roman procurator in Judea at the time Jesus was brought before Him to be tried. The Jewish leaders had accused Jesus of three crimes. They claimed He was guilty of misleading the nation, that he was opposed to paying Roman taxes, and that he claimed to be a king. All three charges were political charges – the kind that a Roman governor could handle. Pilate was primarily concerned about Jesus claiming to be a king, for this could have been a problem for Rome. He knew that if he dealt with this question properly, he could both please the Jews and impress the Roman Emperor at the same time.
“Are you the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked Jesus. And Jesus replied by saying, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place” (John 18:36). This convinced Pilate that Jesus was not a dangerous revolutionary. Thus, he said, “I find no fault with Him!” And he offered to let Jesus go free.
Since it was the Jewish custom to let one prisoner go free at this Jewish feast Pilate offered to crucify Barabbas rather than Jesus, for he was widely known to be both a robber (John 18:40) and a murderer (Mark 15:7). It was at this point the Jewish rulers said, “If you release this Man, you are not a friend of Caesar” (John 19:12). Pilate could not afford to antagonize Caesar. So, he yielded to the pressure, asked for a pan of water, and washed his hands of the entire affair. He knew what was right, but he refused to do anything about it.
Pilate did not want to see Jesus executed. But he refused to either face the facts or to make an honest decision. By sidestepping the issue he was approving the murder of Jesus. In His teaching Jesus had condemned neutrality in facing life’s issues. He also demonstrated that doing nothing is in itself a decision.
The priest and Levite in the Good Samaritan story illustrate this, and so does the man with one talent who hid it so he didn’t have to decide how to invest it. And in His great judgment parable Jesus condemned the good people who did nothing for the hungry, the naked, the sick, and the prisoners. We who are Christians adopt Pilate’s attitude every time we wash our hands as a way of ignoring what God’s will is for our lives.
We know that it is God’s will for us to attend worship regularly, but we allow other considerations to have greater priority. We know that God has commissioned us to bear witness of our faith to persons around us who need a Savior, but we let it slide. We are aware that the leadership positions in our church must be filled if it is to make a positive impact on our community. But we say things like: “I have too many other things to do to get personally involved” . . . . “Other people have more talent than I do” . . . . “Visiting those who are lost is what we pay our pastor to do.” In other words, we wash our hands and walk away.
Every time we follow the example of Pilate we betray our Lord who came to the earth and took upon Himself our penalty for sin, which is death, so that we might be redeemed. When we fail to let Christ be the Lord of our lives, we betray the One “who bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, by being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes we were healed” (I Peter 2:24). Jesus might have washed His hands and walked away from His mission of redeeming mankind. But He was Jesus Christ, and He could not – and would not – do that. He loves each and every single one of us that much.
For those of us who are Christians the point is this: until the worldwide pandemic caused by the coronavirus called Covid-19 is conquered, we should wash our hands regularly. But, when it comes to doing the things our Lord asks us to do in order to serve Him we should not wash our hands and walk away.
The Paper Pulpit 
Leave a Reply