And the results seemed to land in the lap of a desperate Roman governor who wanted to keep on good terms with the Jews. This man was Pilate. And though, as Mike Andrus notes, "the Jews were granted a fair degree of liberty and self-government, and the Sanhedrin, composed of Jewish religious leaders, retained various judicial functions, ...death sentences could not be carried out without permission of the Roman governor." The Jews wanted Jesus dead. So they had to get civil government involved.
Enter Pilate. We know the story, don't we? Pilate gives in to the ultimate case of peer pressure, and he releases a criminal (as was the custom of the day) named Barabbas and condemns Jesus to death on the cross. But as I was reading this familiar story, I landed on a phrase in the HCSB translation that startled me a little. It was in Luke 23:24-25:
So Pilate decided to grant their demand and released the one they were asking for, who had been thrown into prison for rebellion and murder. But he handed Jesus over to their will.
Does the irony not strike you? Pilate thought he was washing his hands of responsibility and leaving it in the lap of the Jews. But what's craziest, is that he thought that Jesus' death now lay in the will of the Jews. How misguided Pilate was.
Immediately I thought of another instance where Pilate showed his ignorance at who God is. John 19:8-11 says,
[Pilate] entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.”
Pilate was so humanistic, so focused on the physical and the fleeting, he was blinded to Jesus' mission. Jesus, on the other hand, was cross-centred, God-centred. And He was this because of His unshakable trust in God's sovereign will.
Jesus knew His death lay no more in the hands of the Jews than His resurrection did. He could pray, "Not my will, but Yours be done" because He was eternally convinced that the Father is in control of everything, and is using everything for our good and His glory.
So sometimes God's sovereign will seems messy. Broken. Ugly, even. But it is always beautiful. For it's a reflection of a good and glorious King and Father who is caring for His children. And no matter what we think, nothing lies outside His will.
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