Slices
Prepare
We’ll be reading about a noisy crowd in a minute. Quieten your mind so you can hear the still, small voice of the Spirit.
Bible passage
Jesus before Pilate
15 Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, made their plans. So they bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.
2 ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ asked Pilate.
‘You have said so,’ Jesus replied.
3 The chief priests accused him of many things. 4 So again Pilate asked him, ‘Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.’
5 But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.
6 Now it was the custom at the festival to release a prisoner whom the people requested. 7 A man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder in the uprising. 8 The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did.
9 ‘Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?’ asked Pilate, 10 knowing it was out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. 11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to get Pilate to release Barabbas instead.
12 ‘What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?’ Pilate asked them.
13 ‘Crucify him!’ they shouted.
14 ‘Why? What crime has he committed?’ asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, ‘Crucify him!’
15 Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
Explore
Who would you say holds the power in the passage we’ve just read? Pilate issues the command to release Barabbas and flog and then crucify Jesus, but the decision seems to have been made by the chief priests and the crowd. Is that where the power lies?
In Mark’s account, Jesus is a still, silent centre at the eye of the storm. But make no mistake, these events are entirely under his authority. The one sinless human ever to walk the earth is condemned to die a criminal because he willingly chose to lay down his life for all the rest of us humans who are unable to save ourselves. Though he was ‘bound’, ‘led away’ and ‘handed over’ (vs 1,15), seemingly at the whim of a braying mob, the Messiah was about to crush evil and death for ever. He had never been more powerful.
Being a Christian in today’s world can be costly, even in so-called tolerant societies. We don’t have the crowd behind us. How can we be like Jesus, standing firm in faith, perhaps vulnerable in certain regards but full of the power of the living God?
Respond
Pray: ‘Lord Jesus, you gave yourself up, a lamb to the slaughter, when all the while you were the one who made and sustains the universe. Help me stand strong under the pressures to conform, compromise or crumble. Amen.’
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Judges 11,12; Psalms 42,43
Pray for Scripture Union
Pray that Kathy Brooks will know God’s guidance and wisdom as she leads the Fundraising team, looking to share our needs with supporters with integrity and in ways that encourage them to share in the ministry of SU.
