Then the soldiers took Jesus and stripped him of his own clothes, and put a purple robe upon him; and platted a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and bowed the knee before him in shameful mockery, and cried—“Hail! king of the Jews!” Then they smote him with the palms of their hands, and with the reed, and showed their utmost contempt by spitting on him. Then Pilate had him brought forth before the Jews, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe, and pointing to him in scorn, said—“Behold the man! Behold your king!”
“And he delivered him to be crucified.” St. Matt. xxvii: 11-30; St. Mark xv: 1-20; St. Luke xxiii: 1-25; St. John xviii: 13-24, 28-40; xix: 1-16.
Such is the history of our Saviour’s trial.
And now, we may go on to speak of five lessons taught us by this history.
The first lesson is about—the weak ruler.
We refer, of course, here to Pontius Pilate. We know very little about him beyond what we learn from the gospels. He belonged to a highly honorable Roman family. He had been the governor of Judea for several years. He was not a very cruel or oppressive ruler, although he sometimes did hasty and unjust things. Our Saviour referred to one of these when he spoke of—“the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” We know none of the particulars of this event. But, from reading the history of our Lord’s trial we can see, very well, what sort of a man Pilate was. He was a weak man. I do not mean weak in body, but weak in character. He could see what was right, and was willing to do it, if it could be done without injury to himself.
When Jesus was brought before him as a prisoner, he soon saw that he was an innocent man, and that it would be wrong to put him to death. But, at the same time, he saw that unless he did put him to death, he would give great offence to the Jews. And if he offended them, he was afraid they would complain of him to the emperor, and he would lose his office. And so his fear led him to condemn an innocent man to death, although he knew it was wrong to do so. He tried to get rid of the guilt connected with this act by washing his hands before the Jews, and saying “I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.” But this was very foolish. Why, all the waters in the ocean could not wash away the stain of the Saviour’s blood from the hands of Pilate. He knew that the right thing for him to do was to let Jesus go: but he was afraid to do it. This shows what a weak man he was.
And the wrong that he did on this occasion did not save him from the dangers that he dreaded. The Jews did accuse him to the emperor for some other things. He lost his office in disgrace. And of what happened to him after losing his office, different accounts are given. One of the stories about him is that he retired into Switzerland and spent the rest of his days on a mountain, near the city of Lucerne. This mountain is named Pilatus after him. The story says that he lived a very unhappy life there, and that he finally drowned himself in a lake on the top of that mountain. But the things for us to remember about Pilate are that he was a weak man; that he committed a dreadful sin when he condemned Jesus to death; and that the punishment of his sin which followed him in this life was the loss of his office, and the deep disgrace which it has fastened on his name. Wherever the two great creeds of the church are repeated, all over the earth, we hear it publicly proclaimed that Jesus—“suffered under Pontius Pilate.”
We see plainly illustrated in Pilate’s case the punishment that followed from his weakness in not doing what he knew to be right. If we have the courage to refuse to do what is wrong, we shall always be rewarded for it.
“Brave Charlie.” Two little boys were walking along a village street one day, when they stopped before the garden connected with a gentleman’s house and gazed with admiration on the many beautiful flowers that were growing there. Presently the smaller of the two boys exclaimed, “Oh, how I wish I had one or two of those beautiful roses, to take home to my sick sister. Every day she says she wishes she could see some flowers again.”