MARK 15 (PART) 1
Read Mark 15:1-15
The Jewish religious council then handed Jesus over to the leader of the Roman occupying forces, Pontius Pilate. They had to do this because they no authority to kill Jesus, which was their objective. Under Roman law it was only the Roman magistrates who had the ability to pass the death sentence. The Jewish authorities also had another problem. They had found him guilty of blasphemy, which as far as they were concerned, carried the death penalty. But the Romans couldn’t care less about alleged blasphemy in a religion that they didn’t follow. So the Jewish leaders had to come up with another accusation that would interest Pontius Pilate. What they came up with was that Jesus claimed to be King of the Jews. Now, that would interest the Romans because under Roman law the king of all occupied territories and their subjects was Caesar. So anyone claiming to be King of the Jews was committing treason because they were claiming to take the place of Caesar.
Pilate went straight to the point and asked Jesus, “Are you king of the Jews?” (v2). Jesus made no answer, and at this point we remember Isaiah’s prophecy about the Messiah to come, the suffering servant: ‘He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter’ (Isaiah 53:7). Pilate found no reason to charge Jesus with anything, but the Jewish leaders had whipped the crowd up into a frenzy and demanded that Jesus be crucified. So, faced with the unruly crowd demanding that Jesus be killed and a known revolutionary (much more to their liking as an avowed and active opponent of the Romans) be released, and with the possibility, though not actually proven, that Jesus claimed to be king of the Jews, Pilate took the line of least resistance and handed Jesus back to the Jewish people so that they could execute him.
We see a lot of people motivated by self-interest here. The Jewish authorities had been jealous of Jesus’ popularity and influence for some time and they were determined to get him out of the way once and for all. The crowds recognised Jesus as ‘saviour’ but mistook what that meant. They did not see him as a spiritual figure in whom they could get eternal life; they saw him as a temporal saviour who would rid them of the hated occupying Roman forces. And Pilate not only wanted a quiet life away from these demanding Jewish leaders and clamouring, excitable crowds; there was also the threat that could be reported to Caesar for allowing this man Jesus to claim to be the King of the Jews, therefore committing a treasonable offence.
Human nature is to look after one’s own interests above all else and is exactly what Jesus had been preaching against in his earthly ministry. Much of his teaching addressed this issue; the parable of the Good Samaritan, for example. And the apostle Paul summed it up when he said, encouraging us all to be like Jesus, ‘Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others’ (Philippians 2:4).