Who murdered Jesus?
John 19:1-16, Part 2
In the second part of this sermon on John 19, the account of Jesus's death is analyzed from the perspective of a court case. The question of who is in control during this pivotal event and throughout all history is worth considering. What does that mean for how we live our lives?
Watch part one here
Notes:
Questions:
Was Jesus the victim of the free will actions of evil men? Or, was he the victim of God’s sovereign plan and direction? Who is in control in this world? Free willed people? If so, how can we trust God? Or, is the sovereign God directing all things? If so, how can we be held responsible by God for what we do? What meaning do our lives have?
Who murdered Jesus? Consider John 19:1-16 to be a “police report” of what happened. Based on this account, who do you think is guilty of the crime of murdering Jesus? Who is responsible for his death?
Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!”
And they slapped him in the face.
Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.” When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”
As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted,
“Crucify! Crucify!”
But Pilate answered, “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.”
The Jewish leaders insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”
When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, and he went back inside the palace. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?”
Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”
From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.”
When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon.
“Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews.
But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”
“Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked.
“We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.
Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.
John 19:1-16
The three “suspects” to consider are (1) the Jewish leaders, (2) Pilate, and (3) we even need to consider what role Jesus played in his death.
The Jewish leaders
They did not literally kill Jesus, though it is clear they orchestrated his killing. They had tried to stone Jesus on at least one occasion during his public ministry but he escaped them. Why didn’t they carry out their own death sentence at this time? In their minds they would be absolved of guilt if they got Pilate to do their dirty work. They were no better than a crime syndicate who hires a hit man to do their killing.
What was their motive? According to the text, they said they were doing God’s work. According to their law Jesus must die for his blasphemy, for claiming to be God, the Son of God.
Pilate
Pilate said he found no basis for the death penalty for Jesus based on the Jewish leaders’ charges. He tried to act as if this was nothing more than a minor piece of business for him—an irritation he was having to endure. But we know that it was a personal matter for him too. He had doubts and fears about crucifying Jesus. He was guilty of sin—the one who handed Jesus over to him was guilty of a greater sin—but he would be guilty of sin. Pilate did the wrong thing by not doing the right thing.
Jesus
How much is Jesus to blame for his own death? Several times during the training of his disciples Jesus had told them that because he was the Son of Man (the Messiah) he would be rejected, condemned and crucified. “…the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life” (Luke 9:22; see Jn 3:13; 8:28; 12:32). Throughout his public ministry Jesus frequently intentionally did things to provoke the Jewish leadership. Jesus had escaped previous attempts to kill him (John 8:59; 10:31; Luke 4:29). Why didn’t he escape this time? He claimed he could have escaped if he wanted to (Matthew 26:53). Instead, he cooperated with and even facilitated his arrest and condemnation. Did he have a “death wish”?
What do you think? Who murdered Jesus?