NOTES for Luk 23:1-34
Still, did the authorities, religious and secular, understand even a little who they were dealing with when it came to Jesus? Sometimes one cannot help thinking that if they did not know exactly, then at least they had some vague sense of something. If He was a prophet, He was an unusual, strange prophet; if a teacher, then some completely "nontraditional" one. Herod wants miracles from Him, but he has no intention of making a decision about His further fate and does not want to take on the responsibility that the procurator is trying to shift onto him. So he sends the prisoner back. Pilate has no need of an extra headache at all. Deep down he understands that whatever decision he makes, everything will turn out badly and to his disadvantage. And fear, some half-conscious fear, is felt in his heart all the time. It would be better, of course, to release Him under some plausible pretext. The feast is conveniently at hand; this would be the moment to free Him and slow the case down... Ah, the people do not want that? Well, all the better: let us meet the people halfway; after all, He declared Himself their King... That is how earthly power thrashed about before the face of the One who brought the Kingdom into the world. He gets in the way; it would be good to get rid of Him, but best of all would be if He somehow disappeared on His own, as if He had never existed. Then everything would again become, if not good, at least normal, as before. As for execution, execution is not difficult, of course; He is not the first and not the last. But somewhere almost on the edge of consciousness there glimmers an understanding that execution is not a way out, that something will happen, that the matter will not simply end like this, however much one guards the tomb. And still, there seems to be no way out. Execute, do not pardon. The comma has been placed.