When we move on to Luke, and as we consider that which clinched the argument for Daniel’s foes (“Recall, O king…), we find the chief priests and elders making a more explicit reference to Jesus’ challenge to the power of the king. Remember, Luke reports Jesus’ foes saying that Jesus was forbidding the people to pay the tribute tax to Caesar and claiming kingship for Himself (Luke 23:1-2), which carries an implicit claim that Caesar’s rule is irrelevant. To this they added that “He incites the people by teaching throughout all Judea” (23:5a). This “inciting” of the people, in the ears of the Roman governor, would have caused him to make an inference in the area of “revolution,” which, knowing the history and expectations of these people over which he ruled, would have been quite troubling. It was at this point that Pilate sends Jesus to Herod, who returns Jesus to Pilate, with Pilate desirous of securing Jesus’ release after a flogging. The people, however, reject Pilate’s proposal. Pilate, undaunted, “addressed them once again because he wanted to release Jesus” (23:20).
At this, the shouts of the crowd begin to include an insistence to “Crucify, crucify Him!” (23:21b) Pilate reasons that crucifixion, that horrible and ignominious death that is reserved for recalcitrant slaves and openly rebellious subjects, was not something that was deserved by this Jesus, who, apart from affirming that He was the king of the Jews (with no obvious evidence to support this claim), had not entered into actions that would make it incumbent upon Pilate to pass such a sentence. So Pilate, in an exasperated plea that must be somewhat reminiscent of King Darius, says, “Why? What wrong has He done? I have found Him guilty of no crime deserving death. I will therefore flog Him and release Him” (23:22). As it was for Jesus, so it was for Daniel. Darius clearly had no desire to see Daniel suffer such a horrific punishment---being put to death in the den of lions, and Pilate had no desire to see this come upon Jesus either. He wanted this to be clear to all, so returning briefly to Matthew, as he saw that “a riot was starting, he took some water, washed his hands before the crowd and said, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood. You take care of it yourselves!’” (27:24b)
Moving on, again, to the Gospel of John, the picture here painted is even more fascinatingly interesting than that which we find in the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). As we saw with Daniel, and as we saw a bit more explicitly with Luke, we find an even more poignant reference to kingly power here in John. After reading here about Pilate’s attempts to release Jesus, we hear the Jewish leaders shouting, “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar! Everyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar!” (19:12b) This represents quite an interesting turn of events. It is unlikely that Pilate has ever heard such words escape the lips of a leader of the Jews, and most especially not as a means to justify the putting to death of one of their own people.
Surely, by this point, Pilate had gathered more information about Jesus. He would have learned that He had been a teacher and a healer and a worker of miracles. He may have even now been aware of the raising of Lazarus and the crowds that had gathered to see Him (and Lazarus) when He had entered Jerusalem riding the back of a donkey, to approving shouts of acclimation from the assembled masses. Learning these things, Pilate would have to wonder to where those crowds had disappeared, as he hears the fellow countrymen of the accused---this one who had done such marvelous things for so many people---now pressing loyalty to Caesar and to his rule as grounds for death by crucifixion. Pilate would have to be perplexed by this appeal to Rome’s rule, especially when the initial shouts of “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” (19:6), were accompanied by an appeal to a different basis for execution, when they said, “We have a law, and according to our law He ought to die, because He claimed to be the Son of God!” (19:7) When the appeal to their own law was ineffective, they changed course and appealed to Pilate’s desire to have security in his position (“friend of Caesar”), adding an appeal to Roman law and that which was required for those who attempt to usurp Caesar’s absolute power.
This would not be lost on Pilate, and seeing that he could do nothing to change the minds of these people, and that he would be unable to secure Jesus’ release (which was odd, a Roman governor attempting to free a wonder-working Jewish holy man, but unable to do so because releasing Him to His own people would start a riot, thereby jeopardizing his own position within Rome’s power structure, as he would be seen as incapable of ruling this small province), Pilate seized on this opportunity to bring these leaders of the people in line and humiliate them because of what they were doing, and with their very own words. After hearing them speak of being a friend of Caesar and about opposition to Caesar, Pilate set the prisoner before the people and said “Look, here is your king!” (19:14b) To this assertion, the ultimate reply made by the Jewish leaders was “We have no king but Caesar!” (19:15b). An amazing turn of events indeed.
The cry of these people, for years on end---as they looked for a king in the line of David who would usher in the glorious kingdom of God, free Israel from its oppressors, and end the long night of subjection to one foreign ruler after another---had been “No king but God!” Lives had been lain down for this claim. Men and women and children had been brutally and mercilessly tortured because of this claim. Now, the very one that claimed to be their king, and to be the one for which they had been waiting, as their God had finally entered into history, once again, to act on behalf of His people and to establish His kingdom, and embodied the claim of “No king but God!” was going to be sent to a brutal torture and a merciless cross, in the echo of his people’s claim that they had “no king except Caesar!”
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