By his easy attitude, which surprised us all, Pilate put off the confrontation which formed my whole design.
Not once had Jesus glanced my way, but now his eyes swept the pavement and rested on me.
“I came not for any confrontation with Rome, but for another Armageddon.”
This riddle deepens,” said Pilate. “So if you confront not Rome, whom do you confront? If only the Temple, then this becomes a matter just for them.”
Jesus still stood passively, his head slightly bowed.
“What is this confrontation you speak of?” Pilate repeated.
“It is between good and evil.”
I took heart, for what could this mean but freedom versus tyranny?
Pilate’s small eyes suddenly filled with malice. “And I suppose you are the good and we the evil?”
“I speak of the good and evil within each of us. We have jurisdiction only over ourselves. And so I bring the Father’s blessing for any who will reflect the good in them, and reject the evil, which grows out of lack of faith.”
“How do we know what is good and what evil, unless it is good or bad for us? Tell me that, Jesus.” For the first time, he called him by name, as though elevating him from the nondescript ranks of the faceless accused.
“To this end I was born,” said Jesus, “that I should bear witness unto the truth.”
I remember how Pilate had jeered at the truth.
“What is the truth?”
“The truth,” said Jesus, “is God.”
Pilate chomped on his teeth. “We always get back to that, don’t we? The truth is God, and God is the truth. And so what does that prove?”
“In love, we find the truth. There is no greater love, nor truth, than in a man laying down his life for his friend.”
“You call Caiaphas and Annas and Judas your friends? You must surely be mad. And how speak you of laying down your life? You do not die unless Rome decides you die. The Sanhedrin has no power of life and death except where Rome gives it.”
“My end was decided long before by a higher power. For this also was I born.”
“We all die sooner or later,” said Pilate. “Why should your death be different from others? Know you not in less than fifty years everyone in this assemblage will be dead, and the world will be no different for their living or dying.”
He stood undecided, not trusting Jesus, but neither wanting to give the High Priests and their adherents what they wanted. I could see the thought running through his head: If only this man would show some defiance, then I could quickly dispatch him. He pointed to the Praetorium, where pious Jews dared not go.
“I would speak to him away from the crowd,” he said.
The priests looked at each other uneasily, as with a nod he beckoned me to follow.
In the hall, Jesus and I stood side by side, but he stared ahead, as if I were not there.
Pilate looked me up and down until I felt naked before him.
“Tell me, Judas Iscariot, why you have betrayed this innocent man?”
I gave up all thought of dissembling. “I only wanted him to declare himself,” I cried, “that is all I ever wanted.”
His expression was stem and forbidding. “Declare himself to what purpose?”
“To that purpose for which he came.”
“Which was what?” He cuffed me across the face. “Don’t play at cross purposes with me or it will be you on the cross.”
I turned to Jesus, but he still stood immobile, as if he were alone.
“I would gladly die for him,” I cried.
“You may get your wish,” said Pilate grimly.
It was not too late for him to prove himself.
“All Israel knows why the Messiah came.”
“All but he, is that it?” He turned his piercing eyes onto Jesus. “What say you to all this claptrap?” He had flung himself into a judgment seat, and was reflecting darkly, when one of his guards came up to him and handed him a scrap of parchment. He read it aloud in Latin, as it was written, for it came from his wife, Claudia Procula. Jesus had no trouble with this language, or with any other, for that matter.
“Have nothing to do with that just man. For I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.”
He sat like a man bedeviled.
“What say you to that, Jesus of Nazareth?”
Jesus’ face grew radiant with emotion.
“For this day she shall find a place in heaven, though she be a Gentile, for the concern she showed the Son of Man on his Judgment Day. But the Son of Man came not to be ministered to, but to minister, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Pilate pushed his missile-shaped head next to Jesus’ face. “I do not understand you. I have been a Roman soldier for thirty years and have fought with many brave men, and yet you are the first man I have met with no fear of death.”
“I accept his will and go to his house.”
Pilate gave me a perplexed glance.
“Let us see what kind of King he is.” He ordered the guards forward with a flip of the wrist.
“This man, they say, is the King of the Jews. Will you attire him for the occasion?”
The guards looked at him narrowly, then deciding he meant it, burst into laughter.
They pulled off Jesus’ plain robe of linen and put a purple robe on him, while he stood unprotesting, a resigned look on his face. Then they quickly made a crude crown of thorns and put it on his head.
Falling over one another in their jubilation, they began to salute him: “Hail to the King of the Jews.”
Then, as Pilate watched impassively, they struck him on the head with a reed as if they were dubbing him King and bowed their knees to the floor in mock worship of him. Some then spit on him, singing out joyfully: “See how we anoint the Anointed of God.”
I could stand it no longer, and rushed forward to put myself between him and his tormentors.
They raised their spears and would have pierced me, but Pilate cried: “That is enough.”
He turned to Jesus curiously, seeing the blood trickle from his mouth where a soldier had struck him.
“You see how it will go with you if you do not tell me the truth about yourself?”
“Only the truth recognizes the truth.”
“I know not what to do with you,” Pilate sighed. “A Jew’s life means nothing to a Roman, no more than a Greek’s or a German’s, even less when I think of the provocation I bear, but still I am not satisfied that you mean Rome trouble. If so”—he drew his hand across his throat—“I would make short work of you.”
He had been cruelly mocked, beaten, and soon he was to be scourged, and still he did not call on the God power that he vaunted to the skies.
“Jesus,” I pleaded in a voice strange to me, “summon those legions of the Lord and smite the Philistines.”
Pilate gazed at Jesus curiously. “Call on this Lord of yours and let him strike me dead for the way you have been treated here this day.”
Jesus looked at him with tranquil eyes. “You are as near death as I, or any other, for that matter. For your days are numbered as well.”
Pilate seemed startled for a moment. “You play some game with me. Think not I am one of your craven Jews who is open to the powers of a Jewish prophet’s suggestion. How can you prophesy for one who holds the power of life and death over you?”
There was a trace of a smile on Jesus’ lips. “Because I speak for him who holds the power of life and death over you and all men. Still, he who hears my word possesses eternal life, though he has passed from death to life.”
“From death to life, what foolishness is this?”
“For that reason, I have come, and for that reason, I go, and none cause my death, only the manner of it, and for this they may repent, if it be given to them to do so.”
“You are a curious one,” said Pilate. “Though I put you on the cross you will not hate me for it?”
“You Mill hate yourself in time
. Your kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces, and these pieces shall then join together, until the final judgment.”
Pilate looked thoughtful. “Under Roman law the questions are put three times, to give the accused time to reflect on his answers, if need be. I have asked before, and I ask again, why do you seek to die? Why?”
Jesus sighed. “I die so that I may be reborn. All Israel should know that, but, alas, they have listened to me no more than to the other prophets, or to the Father himself. But a time will come when they shall listen, with others, for the world will have no choice, other than destruction.”
Pilate shook his head. “You are a dilemma that I would keep alive to know more about, and to please my wife. But I do see some danger in you to the public peace, and to the government. For you cast a strange spell over Romans as well as Jews, and I trust it not.”
He scowled fiercely.
“What would you say if I let you go?”
Jesus gazed at him evenly.
“You have no intention of letting me go.”
Pilate’s eyebrows tilted sharply.
“How do you know that?”
“I know what must happen to the Son of Man.”
The confrontation was going directly contrary to what I had conceived.
“You speak,” said Pilate, “as if you were already not here.”
Jesus regarded him dispassionately. “Even thinking me innocent you will not let me go.”
“I can do what I like with you,” said Pilate brusquely. His eyes became thoughtful. “But in Claudia Procula, the centurion Cornelius, and certain of the soldiers whom I have heard speak of you, I see a hazard to Rome. Tell me that you will stop your preaching and inciting men to dangerous thoughts.”
Christ shook his head slowly, and there was a smile almost of compassion in his eyes.
“My Father’s work will one day prevail.”
Pilate frowned. “You give me little choice.”
He turned to me. “You stand proof that I gave him his chance, and he took it not.”
“I only give evidence for him,” I said. “Why did you have your soldiers mock him if you would help him?”
“I test him as you do, but still”—he shrugged—“I can do no different than I do. I owe Rome too much.” He turned to Christ.
“We have done all we can here. I give you back now to the High Priests, and see what they do with you.”
He dearly loved to tease his Jews, as he styled them. For he again brought Jesus outside and mocked the multitude once more. “You have brought this man to me as one that perverts the people, but I have examined him and find no fault in him touching those things about which you have accused him.” He paused. “He is somewhat intractably not appreciating the authority of Rome, but for that I would scourge him and let him go. I myself find no fault in him worthy of death.”
The hypocrite, I thought, playing with the crowd over a man’s life, which he seemed to hold out, and yet his decision was sure, prompted by his own regard for his standing in Rome.
The crowd played his game, for they too were well schooled.
“No, no,” they cried, “crucify him, crucify him. He has sinned against God.”
“Why don’t you take him and crucify him?” Pilate said. “Since it is your laws he broke, and not Rome’s.”
There was a malevolent gleam in his eye, and I knew again he was toying with them. His wife’s warning had given him pause, but soldiers of Rome paid no heed to idle dreams, though he might appear to humor her.
“We have a law,” said Caiaphas, “and by our law he ought to die.”
“Then stone or strangle him by your own law, and leave Roman law to Romans.”
Annas spoke up.
“Of old, it has been said that he who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall be put to death, and all the congregation shall stone him.”
Pilate assumed his familiar posture, his hands on his hips and a sneer on his lips.
“You have your congregation with you. They will stone him gladly at your behest. Why trouble Rome?”
“Because it would be illegal.”
Pilate chuckled mirthlessly. “So you want it legal, do you? And whom do you fool?”
Annas regarded him sternly.
“He is a threat to your position here.”
Pilate’s eyes became narrow slits. “Speak not to me of my position, old man, but remember yours, or I shall.”
He turned now to Jesus, and though his mind was clearly made up, he still seemed torn by a strange desire to justify himself in Christ’s eyes.
“Tell me who you are and for what you were sent. For I have the authority to crucify you or to release you, as I will.”
Jesus answered him. “You have no power at all against me except what you receive from above. It is he who delivered me unto you that has the greater sin.” He meant Caiaphas, that I could tell by his glance.
Pilate laughed in his coarse way. “That is true enough. Well, I have a mind not to give them what they want, for they would use me, playing on my fear of insurrection, and think I know it not.”
Annas held his ground. “If you let this man go, you are not Caesar’s friend. For whoever makes himself a King stands opposed to Caesar.”
Pilate’s face turned the color of scarlet. “No Jew tells the Proconsul of Rome how to serve his Emperor.”
Seeing the delay, but not knowing its cause, the crowd now took up the chant: “Away with him, crucify him, crucify him.”
He gave them his mocking look. “Shall I crucify your King? Look how majestic he is in his robes and crown.”
Annas and Caiaphas completely abased themselves. “We have no king but Caesar,” they cried.
Pilate looked at them with scorn. “If it takes this man’s death to prove your loyalty to Rome, then it is all done in a good cause.”
He hesitated, then said in a sardonic voice: “Before I pass judgment—you have a custom that I should release one political prisoner unto you at the Passover. Would you therefore have me release unto you this King of the Jews? For verily he looks like a King.” Knowing the crowd, he already knew the answer.
“No, no,” the multitude cried at a look from the High Priests, “give us bar-Abbas.”
Pilate’s face filled with disgust. “Bar-Abbas, that brigand? You choose him over this gentle man? Very well, I will give you bar-Abbas, and you shall remember his name whenever this day is remembered.”
“Bar-Abbas, bar-Abbas,” they cried, as though acclaiming a hero.
“His blood be on your heads, not mine,” shouted Pilate.
Then the multitude, all friends of the priests, shouted, as was the custom in Israel at an execution:
“Then his blood be on us, and on our children.”
“It is your blood, not mine,” cried Pilate again. He sent for a basin of water, and plunged his hands into it. “I wash my hands of the innocent blood of this just man.”
He then wrote out a title, in large letters, on a crossbar which was given to him.
“This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
Caiaphas regarded the inscription angrily.
“Write not the King of the Jews, but that he said he was the King of the Jews.”
Pilate looked at him wrathfully. “I have written what I have written.”
I saw now what he had done. For in putting this epitaph on Christ, he had justified his own crucifixion of him while putting the blame on the Jews.
“You hated him,” I cried as we stood apart, “and knew all along which way it would go. Bar-Abbas was but a sham. Why?”
In his rage, I thought he would run me through with his sword.
“Why, why, for the same reason you betrayed him, fool. Because I feared him. What we cannot control we must destroy.”
“But I loved him.”
“Love, what do you know of love? If you loved him, you would have wanted what he wanted.”
How could this Roman ju
dge what he stood for?
“If he were indeed the King of the Jews, you could have done him no harm.”
A gleam came into the fierce eyes. “But he was the King of the Jews, and you knew him not.”
He muttered under his breath.
“He boded trouble for Rome. My own centurion came to me and pleaded for his life, my wife urged me to spare him. He too much affected people. In no time at all he would be overturning tables in Rome. I know not how, but all I know is that it is true. In that solitary man there is a dozen Emperors. Now, begone, and live with what you have done, as I must as well.”
As he turned away, with a last look over his shoulder at the lonely figure being led down the dusty road, I heard the blare of the trumpets from the Temple signaling the noon hour before the Passover, when the priests began to slay the paschal lamb for the sacrifice to God. And I remembered, as if it were ages before, the Baptist pointing to that lone man coming over the hill. “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”
Chapter Eighteen
THE CROSSING
THOUGH MIDAFTERNOON, the skies had darkened and the sun, shining brightly moments before, had disappeared in banks of clouds. An uneasy hush lay in the air. The chattering of the birds had ceased, and even the vulture circling overhead had vanished.
The figures dangling on each side of Jesus had been branded as thieves. But they were actually political prisoners, ironically dying next to the man they had betrayed. On one side was the renegade disciple Dysmas, and on the other, Cestus, likewise one of the seventy, but who now berated Jesus.
“Son of God, free yourself,” he cried.
Jesus appeared not to hear. Beads of sweat trickled down his face and lost themselves in his beard. His blue eyes, once so full of tenderness, were now glazed with pain. Still I could not believe, even watching his strength visibly wane, that he could not free himself whenever he chose. As a drowning man recalls the high points of his life, I remembered his telling me when I doubted him: “Fear not, Judah, raise the stone and there you will find me, cleave the rock and there I will be.”
Believing the Prophets, we had believed that through him our enemies would be destroyed and Israel would enthrone the one true God on the day of final judgment.
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