The Everyday Prayer

Re:Verse passage – John 19:1-5 (day one)  Pilate came out again and said to them, “Behold, I am bringing Him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in Him.” vs. 4

This isn’t leadership; this is cowardice. We must ask ourselves, however, how often we make similar choices. Making someone else make the call when you know the right thing to do doesn’t get you off the hook. There is never a wrong time to do the right thing, but there are many times when doing the right thing will force us into a difficult position. Pilate was unwilling to put himself in that kind of political maelstrom, and if we are honest his decision is one we make time and time again. Faced with a choice to be ridiculed and hated is never easy, and each situation has nuance, but I would posit that more often than not we choose a path that causes us the least amount of friction. Perhaps we can re-examine Pilate’s choices and prayerfully consider which path to take the next time we are confronted with a choice.

Re:Verse passage – John 18:33-40 (day seven) 

“I find no guilt in Him. But…” vs 38-39

Why the need for the “But” Pilate? If you found no guilt in Him, then why didn’t you let Him go free?  If you thought He was innocent, then why did you offer Barabbas? If He was no threat to your kingdom, then why did you give the people the one person who did try to overthrow your kingdom? Why were you a coward Pilate?

I guess you wanted the easy way out. You thought you could bring Him before the crowd and they would surely choose a king over a criminal. You wanted to do the right thing and not have to suffer the consequences, so you took the cowards way out and continued to cower all the way to the cross. All this because you thought it would cost you power. You knew Jesus was innocent. Why didn’t you stop it?

Leaders do not cower. Leaders do not look for the easy way out. Leaders do the right thing… even if it costs them everything!

Re:Verse passage – John 18:33-40 (day six)

His accusers didn’t go inside because it would defile them, and they wouldn’t be allowed to celebrate the Passover. ²⁹ So Pilate, the governor, went out to them…John 18:28b-29a

The Apostle John captures significant drama for us in this narrative. The religious leaders, worried about being defiled, especially in light of the Passover festivities, where unwilling to risk missing out by entering Pilate’s courtyard. This forced Pilate to go out to them several times in the process of questioning Jesus and rendering a verdict. Between chapters 18 and 19 Pilate alternates at least six times between Jesus and the religious leaders.

John is intent on capturing more than drama, but aims to illustrate that Jesus is a whole world problem. He more than a Jewish problem, or a gentile problem; the whole world is intertwined in its culpability. Furthermore, the whole world must respond to the Truth; it has no choice.

Re:Verse passage – John 18:33-40 (day five)

“Jesus answered, ‘Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?’” John 18:34

During this exchange between Jesus and Pilate, you can sense the indifference with which Pilate asks Jesus his questions. Pilate simply wanted to know if an insurrection was brewing and if he should be concerned about anything. Jesus knew that. The answers that Jesus gave drew Pilate in and gives us a clearer picture of the heart of Pilate. Jesus wanted to know what Pilate really thought. Pilate’s answers to Jesus’ questions reveal how little he was thinking of Jesus and how much he was thinking of the wrong things.

Jesus asked a similar question to His disciples in Matthew 16:13-20, and got a vastly different answer. Peter’s heart for the truth was revealed at that moment and helps us further understand what Jesus was talking about when He told Pilate that “everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” At some point, we are all asked that question. Who do you say Jesus is? Do you only know what the world says or know Him secondhandedly? Who do you say, of your own accord, who Jesus is?

Re:Verse passage – John 18:33-40 (day four)

I love that we are reading this portion of Scripture in the middle of Advent. This isn’t the kind of passage we typically read this time of year, but I think it makes the waiting, the yearning, the expectancy of Advent even more rich. In the very hours before Jesus’ death, he makes a statement about his birth. He brings us back to the nativity.

He says “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”

Charles Spurgeon says of this passage: “Truth never exerts as much power as when it is embodied. Christ both spoke the truth and was the truth. Truth embodied in flesh and blood has the power over flesh and blood. This is why he was born.”

If we’re going to truly celebrate his birth, we have to remember why he came – he came that we might know truth. He came so that this beautiful, powerful, flesh-and-blood truth might rule in the hearts of his people. When we yearn and wait for Christ in this season, we are yearning and waiting for truth itself. And by the grace of God, we have received it in full.

Re:Verse passage – John 18:33-40 (day three)

“My kingdom is not of this world.”

“Heaven good, earth bad” might seem like an implication present in this passage. But when Jesus speaks of the world here, what does he have in mind? The marvelous creation we read of in Genesis? The seas teaming with life? The dry land? The vegetation? Animals? Human beings? Has he at long last now, here before Pilate, given up on this place where we are born and where we live? Or does he mean the system of striving for power over one another, the system that has unleashed unbearable and unfathomable suffering – from warring families to warring nations, from depression to deforestation, from cancer to concentration camps? Pilate was a man of the system. Jesus stood before him as a man of the good. Pilate forced. Jesus loved. The system cannot stand against such a kingdom.

Re:Verse passage – John 18:15-18, 25-27 (day seven)

Then the slave-girl who kept the door said to Peter, “You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?” vs 15

His plan was good on paper. Blend in. Don’t get caught. What Peter didn’t realize was that his association with Jesus was already known. People were watching Jesus and this group of ragtag disciples. It is likely that Peter was a polarizing member of this group making him easily recognizable, but something also stands out to me that is written about Peter days later.

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John […]  they recognized that they had been with Jesus. Acts 4:15 ESV

When you have been with Jesus, people can tell. Even in the midst of denying Christ, people could not deny that Peter had been with Christ. People are watching you too. Some are waiting for you to fail so that they can leave it all behind. Others are waiting for you to bring them along and show them the way. If we cannot deny that we have been with Christ, then what message are our actions showing about His impact on our lives?