But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed. – Mark 15:5

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 26, 2017): Mark 15

Will Rogers was onto something when he said: “Never miss a good chance to shut up.” Many of us suffer from verbal diarrhea, spilling out way more than needs to be said. And often, what needs to be said is nothing.  A good friend is usually one who is willing to sit with you in silence. The requirement of silence in the face of the unknowable is one of the morals of the biblical story of Job. Job’s companions would have been much better friends if they had not felt the need to fill the silence with their explanations. If they had have just sat with Job, and mourned with Job, their presence could have been better tolerated. But often that is not our way. We must speak and fill the void with our words.

As Jesus is brought before Pilate, Pilate is put in an unusual position. Oh, many men had been brought into his presence in a similar state as this beaten Rabbi, but usually, they groveled for their lives. Often they made their excuses, or counter-accusations, or just simply begged for the mercy of the court.

But Jesus did not. Isaiah prophesied about this moment when he wrote – “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). A pastor I know has an excellent description of the trial of Jesus that emphasizes that Jesus was railroaded by this kangaroo court, but I am not sure that that is true. Consider the charges. Jesus thought that he was the Messiah (guilty). He thought that he was a prophet of God (guilty) and even worse that he was the Son of God (still guilty). He was accused of saying that he could destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days (finally something that is technically not true. Jesus actual claim was that if the Temple were destroyed, he would raise it again in three days [John 2:19] but he was talking about his body, and he did not say that he would destroy the temple, so the charge is misapplied.) But still, the charges of which Jesus was guilty were all that was necessary for a death sentence under Jewish law. The added political charge that Jesus declared that he was King of the Jews was just an excuse to get Rome on board with the execution, but that accusation was unnecessary for a Jewish application of the death penalty. Jesus, to save his life, was not willing to take anything back, and so he stayed silent.

And his silence was a problem for Pilate. With no defense offered by the accused, the law was entirely on the side of those making the accusation. But Roman judges often hesitated to find a man who had provided no defense, guilty. And that single fact might be one of the reasons why Pilate washed his hands of the whole affair. In the face of Jesus’s silence and lack of defense, he would rather that the decision rest somewhere else – in this case with the Jewish Sanhedrin and the people who clamored for his crucifixion. Pilate would not go down in history as the one who found an undefended Jewish Rabbi guilty of a crime if he could help it. The blame had to be placed somewhere else. And it was.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Luke 23