I’m within the apparently small category of men unconcerned with the Roman Empire. I could probably describe key events within the reigns of three to 5 of its rulers, but not rather more. And in relation to recalling this sort of detail, I think I’m not alone. All but a handful of those ancient leaders have vanished from the general public imagination. They struggled, fought, murdered, and schemed their option to supremacy only to be forgotten.
The same is true of American presidents, despite their greater proximity. I do know the exceptionally good and bad, but others who held the very best office within the land don’t register. Such are the vicissitudes of history. In our vanity, we humans need to etch our names within the record—just for the following generation to reach well stocked with erasers.
But Pontius Pilate, the first-century governor of the Roman province of Judea, did reach being memorable. At Easter, unruly young boys will sure into churches decked in homemade Roman military garb playing the role of Pilate. He’s a central character within the dramatic reenactments of each Holy Week.
He is mentioned within the Nicene Creed, a central confession of our faith. The name Pontius Pilate has been recited countless times, Sunday after Sunday over the past millennia and half since that creed’s ratification, giving him one of the crucial recognizable names on this planet. The creed refers to his role within the death of Jesus with characteristic brevity: “he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.” The words have been said by billions, but who was this provincial governor, and what does he need to teach us concerning the perils of significance?
Pilate was from the upper crust of Roman society. He’d been given governorship of Judea, an unstable region vulnerable to rebellion and rise up. He likely saw his time there as a steppingstone to something grander, comparable to oversight of a more appealing a part of the empire.
In this, Pilate was like many careerists who’ve been in a single place on the option to elsewhere. Ambition is common to humanity. Many of us have a goal of constructing a résumé and at last attending to whatever position we consider is essential to make a reputation for ourselves. We have an innate desire to do something special, to be memorable.
It is on this context that Pilate meets Jesus. In Matthew’s gospel, by the point Jesus arrives at Pilate’s step, he has already been arrested and questioned by the Sanhedrin (Matt. 26:57–68). It is Friday morning, and Pilate initially poses one direct query to Jesus: “Are you the king of the Jews?” (Matt. 27:11). For the Jewish people, this was a theological query related to the achievement of messianic prophecy and the hope of God’s rescue. For Pilate, it was none of those things. For Pilate, the difficulty was whether Jesus claimed a kingship that may threaten the Pax Romana.
Christians remember Jesus’ pending death by the hands of Pilate as a part of the gospel story, but for Pilate, the query was largely political and private: Would it’s higher for Pilate’s profession aspirations within the empire if Jesus were to die? Despite his apparent realization that Jesus is innocent of the political charges against him (Luke 23:13–16), Pilate ultimately answers within the affirmative and sentences Jesus to death.
In this, Pilate represents all of the moral compromises we make to attain what society tells us we should always desire. In the US, throughout our republic, there’s widespread consensus that leaders in each major parties have so often made this sort of compromise that the one guideline in our politics is the acquisition of more power.
This suspicion has spread beyond government to incorporate the media, banks, and even religious institutions—to the purpose that we may wonder if it’s value struggling against this pervasive corruption in any respect. The church itself is corrupt, we might imagine. Love doesn’t last. Our employers only need to reap the benefits of us. Politicians don’t have our interests in mind. Why not despair?
If so lots of our leaders and institutions are out for themselves, why not create our own fiefdoms by any means essential? We see it throughout us: Our school board meetings, church gatherings, and interpersonal and online interactions will be just as toxic as our national discourse. Must we grow to be cruel to survive these dark times we inhabit? Did Pilate get it right?
There’s a danger in thus adopting the moral posture of the empire to get ahead. It’s possible to reach on the job of our dreams and regret the form of person we became to get there. There is a reason Jesus asked what it profits a person to realize the entire world and lose his soul (Mark 8:36).
By the time he hands down the ultimate sentence, the gospels don’t depict Pilate as having pangs of conscience over condemning Jesus to death. Perhaps such things had ceased to trouble him, for the danger of ethical compromise is that the more we do it, the better it becomes.
Pilate is remembered because the paradigmatic example of ethical compromise and its corruption of the human heart. It seems that when he got here into the presence of somebody truly good and delightful—the very son of God—he failed to acknowledge it. He viewed Jesus as an obstacle to ambition to be overcome.
This is a warning to us all. When true goodness stands before us, even whether it is beaten and bloody, can we still see it for what it’s?
I worry that, because the church, now we have ceased to see Jesus and his way pretty much as good news. I don’t discuss with wanting to receive the saving advantages of his death and resurrection, but whether his life and way of being still capture our imagination. Does Jesus’ call to take care of the least of those (Matt. 25:40) and pursue personal holiness (Matt. 5–7) still have a hold on our hearts? Does the cross as power in weakness (1 Cor. 1:18) still inform how we engage the world? Or do we would like power to bend the wills of men and ladies?
Pilate was improper—he wanted the improper things, and, if we’re honest, so can we. The central query of human existence shouldn’t be, How do I acquire significance in order to be remembered? The query is, Can I recognize and follow the Way of truth and goodness after I encounter it?
After Jesus was crucified, he rose again. This is the message of Easter. Pilate’s dismissal of beauty was overruled, his error becoming a footnote in redemptive history.
Nonetheless, the resurrection is about greater than proving Pilate improper. The resurrection confirms the things Jesus said about himself—that he’s the Son of God. It vindicates and solidifies Jesus’ whole life as miracle and offers a special way of being human, a way not defined by the pursuit of power and significance on the expense of character.
Love for God and neighbor, concern for the oppressed, and sacrifice for others aren’t folly. Holiness continues to be right. Maybe because of this the creed has the audacity to say Pilate’s name: to remind us that there are more necessary things than being remembered for our power.
Esau McCaulley is an associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and the creator of How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival within the American South and the forthcoming children’s book Andy Johnson and the March for Justice. He is currently on sabbatical at Yarnton Manor and Wycliffe Hall in Oxford.
