Do you know what it is like to be pressured, threatened, and manipulated to do something you don’t want to do? Ever had 7 people around a table pressuring you? What about a crowd of say, 100… 300… or 1,000? It’s been proven that just 2 people interrogating an innocent person can extract a murder confession from them. With enough pressure and time, you will brake. Everyone has a breaking point.
So it’s your call. You make the decision. You know the right thing to do, but hundreds of people are against you. They are yelling, screaming, and threatening you to go against your better judgment. You decision either costs an innocent man his life OR you lose yours. This isn’t America, it is Jerusalem… 33 AD. Your name is Pilate.
Pilate was a man of power, morally confused, and the slave of opinion polls. He knew the right thing to do regarding Jesus… and had been warned by his wife… but rationalized his way out of a jam, or so he thought. The pressure got to him. He caved in to a crowd’s demands to let a criminal go (Barabbas) and sentence an innocent man (Jesus) to death. Yet all the power Pilate had was given to him by God… not Rome.
Think. Often we choose between right and wrong. Best versus better. Black and white. Many times (Including in churches) people make decisions based on what their friends, co-workers, neighbors, a congregation, or people they trust expect. Think! There was a reason Hitler used mass gatherings to manipulate the German people. It’s call a “Mob mentality.” If you’ve ever been in one, you know what I mean.
Guess what? If YOU had been Pilate, YOU would have done exactly what he did! If you had been part of the crowd in front of Pilate, YOU would have screamed for Jesus to be crucified. And so would I. I write that because all the events in Jerusalem took place that day because God determined what everyone would do by their own choices.
More tomorrow, God willing.