Places of the Passion: Pilate's Judgment Hall

The Fifth Sunday in Lent

April 3, 2022

Matthew 27:11-26

“Places of the Passion: Pilate’s Judgment Hall”

There have been many famous trials over the years that remain our collective consciousness. Nearly one hundred years ago in 1925, it was the Scopes Monkey Trial that concerned the teaching of evolution in schools. Following World War II, it was the Nuremburg Trials to bring Nazi leaders to justice. Of course, there are many other high-profile trials that have captured the attention of the public: O.J. Simpson in 1995; Timothy McVeigh in 1997 for the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 that killed 168 people; and within the last year, the murder trials of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. We tend to remember these high-profile trials, and perhaps followed them ourselves. Today we have a front row seat at another trial, that of Jesus who stands before Pontius Pilate in his judgement hall. Today our Lenten journey in following Jesus to all the places of his Passion takes us into Pilate’s judgement hall, and this becomes the focus for today’s message. May the Lord’s rich and abundant blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of his Word for Jesus’ sake.

Guilty or innocent? That’s what it comes down to in the courtroom. Every trial hinges on the verdict that will be declared. That is a terrible power over which judges preside, and this is what Pontius Pilate now faces as Jesus is brought before him. It was barely sixty years ago in 1961, that “the first archaeological evidence for the existence of Pontius Pilate” was discovered while excavating an ancient theater at Caesarea, “the Mediterranean port that served as the Roman capital of Palestine.” The 2x3 foot stone bore an inscription: “Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea, has presented the Tiberieum to the Caesareans.” It is believed that this was some kind of public building in honor of the Roman emperor Tiberius (First Easter: The True and Unfamiliar Story, by Paul L. Maier. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1973; p. 55). This extra-Biblical, archaeological evidence validated the truth that Pontius Pilate was a real-life person, as mentioned in the account of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection. He “ruled as prefect of Judea from 26 to 36 A.D., the second longest tenure of any first-century Roman governor in Palestine” (Ibid, p. 58). There was no love lost between Pilate and his subjects whom he governed. He was known for ruthless brutality, but now becomes a pawn of the religious leaders who use him to get rid of Jesus once and for all – or so they thought. In the Roman province of Judea, Pontius Pilate alone had the power of imperium, the Roman term for the person who decided formal death penalty cases.

As today’s Gospel lesson makes clear, Pilate understood rather quickly that Jesus was innocent, a truth underscored by the other Gospel writers as well (Mark 15:1-15; Luke 23:1-25; John 18:28-19:16). Added to this is Matthew’s account of Pilate’s wife, who suffered in a dream over Jesus that very day. She knew him to be righteous and urged her husband to let him go. But as we well know, those who are innocent are not always set free, and those who are guilty are not always punished. Jesus, the innocent Lamb of God, fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy: “like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7b). Jesus did not reply to Pilate’s questions, but kept silent, causing Pilate to be amazed. The crowd that was assembled outside Pilate’s judgment hall, the praetorium, the headquarters of the Roman military governor, was getting unruly. They wanted what they wanted, which was the death of Jesus. This is not the same crowd that shouted “Hosanna to the Son of David!” (Matthew 21:1-11) on that first Palm Sunday. That crowd was from Galilee and were unaware of what was happening there at Pilate’s judgment hall. This crowd assembled here was made of Judeans, local people who followed the immoral guidance of the religious leaders and did their bidding.

Pilate offered an alternative in what is sometimes called the “Easter amnesty.” As recorded in today’s Gospel lesson, during the Passover, Pilate had a custom to release a prisoner at the festival and asked if it should be Barabbas or Jesus, thinking they would ask for Jesus. Barabbas was an insurrectionist (Luke 23:19); that is, he was part of that radical group that sought to overthrow Roman rule by force, including murder. Clearly, Barabbas was guilty, but he is the one the crowd shouts to be released. Pilate’s attempt to get Jesus off death row comes to nothing. The crowd is getting ugly and bays for blood – Jesus’ blood. A riot is in the making, and so Pilate does the expedient thing: he gives in to the crowd. And how easy it is for us to do the same. In our own lives, when the pressure is on and people are urging us to do the expedient thing, do we also cave in and compromise what we know to be just and true? Pilate symbolically washes his hands to declare his innocence to the crowd, while they declare: “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:25). Those are weighty and terrible words. Did the people who first said these words realize what they were saying? They meant it as accepting responsibility for the death of Jesus! But in faith, we also cry out: “His blood be on us and on our children!” The cleansing blood of Jesus that declares us not guilty; that sets us free from sin and death and hell – this is the blood that covers all our iniquity, all our transgressions, all our unrighteousness. The blood of Jesus is what we take refuge in, as Paul the apostle writes: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13). Do you see the great exchange that has taken place here? A murderer is set free and the sinless Son of God is declared guilty and sentenced to death on the cross. And because Jesus was condemned to die, we have been set free to live – no longer for ourselves, for selfish purposes, but as Paul writes: “He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:15).

Don’t you wonder what happened to Barabbas after he was set free? Where did he go? What did he do? Did he revert back to his old ways, or did he go with the crowd to Pilate’s judgment hall to see for himself what all of this was about? While he was set free, another man – the Son of Man – was sentenced to death. What kind of impact did this have on him? We don’t know what became of Barabbas, but the truth is that we also have been set free; declared not guilty through faith in the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from all our sins (1 John 1:7). What kind of impact does this have on us? Where will we go? What will we do? Will we revert back to our old ways, or will we follow what the dismissal at the close of worship bids us do? “Go in peace. Serve the Lord.” The outcome of history’s most famous trial means that the Savior’s liberating power sets us free from the condemnation of sin; sets us free from the power of our past; sets us free from worry about our future. No one can take this freedom from us. No law can stop it. And no power on earth or in hell can destroy it. As Jesus has told us: “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).

May our use of this blood-bought freedom in Jesus glorify and honor him, and be a blessing to our neighbor. Amen.