From a legal standpoint, the trial of Jesus before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate was a judicial travesty. The decision Pilate handed down was not based on convincing evidence provided by reliable witnesses. Rather, the verdict was clearly forced by politics. The Governor was afraid the Jewish leaders would incite civil disobedience demanding Roman military intervention and that surely would mean the end of his career. There was nothing just about the entire process. Such an interpretation of the events of that Friday morning would be superficial, however.
When we view Christ’s trial before Pilate through the lens of the Gospels and the Apostle Paul’s letters we see that what happened in the Roman legal system was just the backdrop for something infinitely more important. Pilate, the Jewish leaders, the people in the crowd shouting, “Crucify, crucify,” were only bit players in a side show. The action which mattered was taking place in the spiritual world.
Justice was in the making. Since Adam and Eve first chose to go their own way in life without God, there was the plan for Jesus Christ to right that first wrong and all subsequent wrongs. The trial before Pilate, was in a sense, a tragic representation of what had been going on in the world since the first sin: human beings thinking they were in control of their destiny. While Pilate thought he was making the final decision concerning the fate of Jesus, and the Jewish leaders reveled in their belief that they were finally rid of the man who was such a threat to their power, it was God the Father who was using human spite to bring about the justice making death of his Son.
The cross is where God’s justice was accomplished, once and for all, and then welded to his perfect love for mankind. The trial was only the means the Father used to get Jesus to the cross.
Join us for one of our weekend worship services as we contemplate the massive truth of God turning human arrogance and defiance into an eternity changing event.
Saturday: 6:00 pm
Sunday: 10:00 am
Hawaii Lutheran Church (WELS)
- Community Lutheran Church
- Honolulu, HI
- Community Lutheran Church holds protestant chapel services in Honolulu, Hawaii near Pearl Harbor, HI. We are next to the USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hickam Air Force Base, and Fort Shafter Hawaii. Look for us directly behind the Salt Lake, Hawaii, Target.