As dawn turned into Friday, our captor, this Jesus of Nazareth -- a tiny town to the Northeast of our city -- cleared the strange court of the Jewish Council, where even one of the Temple guards struck the man, and was headed to the only one who could possibly carry out the charge they had given him, death.
He was headed to Pilate, our governor. This part was just as strange as the night had been.
My fellow soldiers and I were dead tired, but we carried on, having seen some interesting usages of law in the council. Now we believed Pilate would try this, this Jesus with proper Roman law instead of the mishmash of superstition these Jews used.
Right away it turned odd. The accusers of this man refused to enter our governor's quarters despite their obvious intention to have this man killed. There would be no accusations spawned by the mob of council members.
Pilate, in a moment of goodness I thought since he certainly didn't have to, went to the Jews and asked, "what is your charge against this man?"
They cried, as one, "We wouldn't have handed him over to you if he weren't a criminal."
My men laughed at that. That was no answer.
Pilate, apparently unhappy with being pulled out of his bed at such an hour, said, "Take him away and judge him by your own laws."
The Jews, grumbling as if they had been attacked, yelled, "Only the Romans are permitted to execute someone." Which was correct as I have previously stated.
Pilate had us drag the man inside his personal chambers. We stood guard, those of us in the upper guard, to the most incredible of conversations.
Pilate poured himself an early wine. He looked the man over. The man's robe was dirty and covered in muck as he had been literally dragged most of the night. His face was bruised and covered in drying blood from punches that had come from various sources during the night. His hair was stringy and matted and his back was bent a bit. But his eyes were, how can I say it, you could see a strangeness of purpose in his eyes.
Pilate looked at him, chalice in hand, and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"
Pilate had heard the accusations before this. He knew of this man's history and ministry, we learned later.
"Is this your question or did others tell you about me," the man asked. We were astounded. This man had been struck repeatedly, dragged through streets that were covered in the god's only know what and yet he was standing here questioning our governor. We started to moved against him and Pilate with a wave of his hand stopped us.
Pilate looked him over again, thoughtfully, intrigued. "Am I a Jew? You own people and their leading priests brought you here? Why? What have you done?"
Jesus looked our governor right in the eye, which none of my own men would do, I'll tell you. He looked at him and answered, "I am not an earthly king. If I were, my followers would have fought when I was arrested by the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world."
We were silent, but we looked at each other. What other world is there? Is he talking about the gods? What is he saying. Never spoke a man like this before, never, Certainly not to a Roman governor who held his very life in his hands.
Pilate looked at him as if he had not replied. Pilate was a cool one, I'll tell you.
"You are a king, then?"
"You say that I am a king, and you are right, I was born for that purpose. And I came to bring truth to the world. All who love the truth recognize what I say is true."
Pilate stood there long minutes, silently. Thinking over what this man had said.
He finally spoke, and I'll tell you this, our governor, a thoroughly rough and generally unsympathetic individual who had sent many men to their death, mostly on the crosses we line the streets outside of the city with, asked with general interest, "What is truth?"
Jesus did not answer. Oh I wish he had.
The two men stood looking at each other, passing something between them in silence.
Pilate spoke: this man has done nothing. He is not guilty of any crime." He went out to those people, whose crowd had grown as Pilate had met with Jesus, and said, "but you have a custom of asking me to release someone from prison each year at Passover. So if you want me to , I'll release the King of the Jews."
But they shouted back, "No! Not this man, but Barabbas!"
We were amazed. Barabbas was, well, a multiple killer of men. He was a rebel whom had been sought for quite a while before being captured by our battalion of men. These people couldn't be serious.
Pilate was clearly surprised by this. He thought long and hard about what to do. He had clearly thought this was his out, so to speak. But now... then he thought, maybe I can get out of this yet, at least I suspect that was on his mind. We were told to take Jesus to Herod Antipas, the pseudo-ruler of Galilee who was in Jerusalem for Passover.
Of all that happened in that 24-hour period, that was the most farcial.
Herod, whom I had never seen but had heard of as a bit of a joke, was delighted at the opportunity to see Jesus, because he had heard about him and had been hoping for a long time to see him perform a miracle. He asked Jesus question after question, but Jesus refused to answer. Meanwhile, the leading priests and the teachers of religious law stood there shouting their accusations. Then Herod and his soldiers began mocking and ridiculing Jesus. Finally, he sent him back to Pilate. Herod and Pilate, who had been enemies before, became friends that day.
Back at Pilate's palace, we took him, with both he and my guards getting wearier by the minute. Then Pilate called together the leading priests and other religious leaders, along with the people, and he announced his verdict. “You brought this man to me, accusing him of leading a revolt. I have examined him thoroughly on this point in your presence and find him innocent. Herod came to the same conclusion and sent him back to us. Nothing this man has done calls for the death penalty. So I will have him flogged, and then I will release him.”
Then a mighty roar rose from the crowd, and with one voice they shouted, “Kill him, and release Barabbas to us!” Pilate argued with them, because he wanted to release Jesus. But they kept shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
For the third time he demanded, “Why? What crime has he committed? I have found no reason to sentence him to death. So I will have him flogged, and then I will release him.”
Tired of the matter and clearly angry that the crowd would argue, he had us take Jesus out to a place where we were told to flog him with a lead-tipped whip that we use on the most hardened of criminals. Most don't live through this, which again would be an out for our governor. If this man died while being flogged, well, so be it.
I watched till I couldn't. I've seen many brutal things in our time in Palestine, but this, oh, this was so harsh for a man that I had seen do nothing, not even protest as we dragged him. The skin of his back was ripped and torn repeatedly. But he held silent even as his blood filled the street around him.
My soldiers, my friends, made a crown of thorns that we ripped from a bush near the place of flogging and put it on his head, which brought agonizing looks from his face but still no sound. No protest. No screams of agony as I would have. They grabbed some purple cloth from a woman in the street and put it on him. The spit on him, their slobber running down his face and his chest. The called out, "Hail, King of the Jews." Remember, this man was declared innocent by our governor. I should have stopped this, but it had gone too far.
We dragged him once again to the steps of the governor's palace and Pilate came out. He was unhappy with the way Jesus looked. Maybe we has gone a bit too far. Pilate screamed, "Here is the man."
When they saw him, the leading priests and Temple guards began shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
“Take him yourselves and crucify him,” Pilate said. “I find him not guilty.”
The Jewish leaders replied, “By our law he ought to die because he called himself the Son of God.”
When Pilate heard this, he was more frightened than ever. He took Jesus back into the headquarters again and asked him, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave no answer. “Why don’t you talk to me?” Pilate demanded. “Don’t you realize that I have the power to release you or crucify you?”
Then Jesus said, “You would have no power over me at all unless it were given to you from above. So the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”
Then Pilate tried to release him a final time, but the Jewish leaders shouted, “If you release this man, you are no ‘friend of Caesar.’ Anyone who declares himself a king is a rebel against Caesar.”
When they said this, Pilate brought Jesus out to them again. Then Pilate sat down on the judgment seat on the platform that is called the Stone Pavement (in Hebrew, Gabbatha). It was now about noon on the day of preparation for the Passover. And Pilate said to the people, rather wearily, “Look, here is your king!”
“Away with him,” they yelled. “Away with him! Crucify him!”
“What? Crucify your king?” Pilate asked.
“We have no king but Caesar,” the leading priests shouted back.
He sat there long moments, before finally deciding there was no more reason to fight this. He turned Jesus over to be crucified.
We took him down the steps toward Golgotha, a hill just outside the city gates.
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