High politics does not notice the little person; it has always been this way, and this has long been known. In the fallen world the Messiah's path could only be the path of a little person. This is understandable: He Himself said...
High politics does not notice the little person; it has always been this way, and this has long been known. In the fallen world the Messiah's path could only be the path of a little person. This is understandable: He Himself said that His Kingdom is "not of this world." And if so, then for the fallen world He is nobody, and His Kingdom is nothing. So they deal with Him accordingly: not as some great nobody, but as the most ordinary nobody. In the way any little person in that time and place would have been treated.
And in any other time and place as well: different in form, perhaps, but the same in essence. Jesus' arrest, the sentence of the Sanhedrin, the confirmation of the sentence by Pilate as Rome's representative, the shameful execution itself; all this was ordinary and typical. In those days in Judea, something like this could have happened to anyone under similar circumstances. Pilate has nothing personal against Jesus; in some sense he even finds Him sympathetic. But for a high-ranking official there are, of course, things more important than personal sympathies and antipathies.
He understands that Jesus is guilty of nothing. But what difference does that make when the interests involved are, if not Rome's, then at least those of Pontius Pilate's own career? Quarrel with the temple elite, go against the crowd stirred up by them? For what? In the name of justice? Pilate, apparently, was a skeptic and cynic, like most of Roman high society in those days. Judging from everything, he did not believe in higher justice, just as he did not believe in truth; both were relative for him.
If it had been safe, he could have displayed showy nobility and principle; perhaps he even knew how to be kind and generous, so long as neither burdened him much or threatened him in any way. Here, however, there was a threat: the high priest and his circle could have had their own connections in Rome, and who knows how they would view a procurator there who indulged dangerous preachers. It was better to be cautious, and who cares about the fate of some wandering teacher? So the path to the cross passes through the hatred of some and the indifference of others.
15
15:1 Mat 27:1-2; Luk 22:66; Luk 23:1; Joh 18:28.
15:3 Mat 27:12.
15:7 Insurrection - A crime which the Roman governors, and Pilate in particular, were more especially concerned and careful to punish.
15:9 Will ye that I release to you the king of the Jews - Which does this wretched man discover most? Want of justice, or courage, or common sense? The poor coward sacrifices justice to popular clamour, and enrages those whom he seeks to appease, by so unseasonably repeating that title, The king of the Jews, which he could not but know was so highly offensive to them.