Rector’s Reflections
Tuesday 26th March 2024
Why was Jesus Crucified?
In yesterday’s reflections, we considered the straightforward answer to this question: Jesus was crucified because the relevant Roman official, Pontius Pilate, ordered him to be crucified. Pontius Pilate had other choices available to him, but he took the view that crucifixion was the best option in the circumstances. Why was this?
All four gospel accounts agree that the key issue revolved around Jesus’ claim to be a king. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Pilate asks Jesus directly: “Are you the King of the Jews?”. In John’s account, Pilate does not ask this question explicitly, but instead Jesus and Pilate have a conversation about the nature of political authority. When Jesus was crucified, all four gospels agree that the inscription over his head included the words: “the King of the Jews”. The words of the inscription constituted the charge against Jesus, and both Mathhew and Mark specifically refer to them as the “charge against” Jesus.
But what did it mean to claim that Jesus was “the King of the Jews”? In theory, it could have been merely a claim to spiritual or religious authority, without any political implications to it. However, it could easily be considered to be a claim to political leadership, and some patriotic Jews might see Jesus as the leader of a popular uprising against the Roman occupation. If Jesus saw himself as the promised Messiah, there were those who imagined that the Messiah would be an earthly King who would defeat God’s enemies by earthly and heavenly means.
In any event, Pilate would naturally see Jesus as a threat to the Roman occupation. In Luke’s gospel, some of Jesus’ opponents are recorded as telling Pilate that Jesus was forbidding them to pay taxes to the emperor, and that he was someone who “stirs up the people”. In John’s gospel, we hear of people telling Pilate that if he were to release Jesus, he would be “no friend of the emperor. [For] everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor”.
And so Pilate was faced with a question of risk management. On the one hand, he could simply have let Jesus go. But the risk of this was that it might encourage some military uprising among the people. And if the accusations were true, that Jesus was indeed encouraging people to withhold their taxes, it might also lead to a significant and embarrassing reduction in tax income. And Pilate might also have thought about the risk to his own political reputation. What if people spread the rumour that Pilate was “no friend of the emperor”, and this rumour found its way to Rome? Would this bring about the end of Pilate’s career? Might he be sent home in disgrace?
In the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Pilate considered that the safest course would be to order Jesus’ crucifixion. He may well have regarded him as innocent of any crime. But he was dangerous, and a threat to the empire.
So Pilate ordered Jesus to be crucified. But why was Jesus brought before Pilate in the first place? Why were there others who also saw him as a threat? We shall look at this in the days ahead.