Mark 15:1-5
Pilate Was Amazed at His Silence
1Early in the morning, the chief priests, elders, scribes, and the whole Sanhedrin devised a plan. They bound Jesus, led Him away, and handed Him over to Pilate.
2So Pilate questioned Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” “You have said so,” Jesus replied.
3And the chief priests began to accuse Him of many things.
4Then Pilate questioned Him again, “Have You no answer? Look how many charges they are bringing against You!”
5But to Pilate’s amazement, Jesus made no further reply.
Berean Standard Bible
Morning comes, and the council meets again to make the night's work official. They tie him up, lead him away and hand him over to the Roman governor.
That handover is the reason there has to be a second hearing at all. The council could pass a sentence but could not carry one out, since only Rome could put a man to death. So the charge had to be turned into something a Roman court would take seriously, and Rome had no interest whatever in blasphemy.
The accusation therefore changes on the way. In the night hearing the question was whether he was the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One, which is a question about God. By morning it has become a different question altogether.
So Pilate questioned Him, "Are You the King of the Jews?" "You have said so," Jesus replied.
A man setting himself up as a king inside a Roman province is a problem Rome will act on, and a man claiming to be the Christ is not, which is why kingship is the word that gets carried into the Roman court. Same prisoner. New charge, cut to fit the court it was being sent to.
His answer is not the one he gave the high priest either. There he said I am, plainly, and it convicted him where he stood. Here he gives Pilate a sentence that neither claims the title nor refuses it, and hands the words back to the man who chose them.
The chief priests start piling on accusations, and Pilate tries once more.
Have You no answer? Look how many charges they are bringing against You!
Jesus says nothing, and Mark tells us the governor was astonished by it. Consider what that man had already seen. He ran a province by execution, and prisoners came in front of him arguing, begging, bargaining and lying. Out of everything he could have set down about Pilate that morning, Mark keeps his surprise, and what surprised him was a prisoner who would not use his own mouth to save himself.
There is a line in Isaiah about a servant who was oppressed and afflicted and did not open his mouth, led like a lamb to the slaughter, quiet as a sheep in front of the shearers. He is not silent here because he has run out of things to say. He had spent the week in the temple courts answering everyone who came at him, and he had answered them well. He is silent because nothing is happening in that room that he wants stopped.
How We Know
Pontius Pilate is attested outside the New Testament by an object with his name cut into it. A limestone block found at Caesarea Maritima in 1961, reused in a theater, carries a dedication naming Pilate and his office in Judea. It is now in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
That corroborates the man, his post and his province.
It does not corroborate this hearing. Mark's account of the exchange, including Pilate's amazement in verse 5, rests on the Gospel itself, and Mark does not say who reported it to him.
- The Pilate inscription, found at Caesarea Maritima in 1961, Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
Questions
1 When somebody says something unfair about you, what do you do first? What would it cost you to let it stand?
AnswerMost of us answer back, and fast. Letting it stand feels like agreeing with it, which is exactly what makes it hard, and it is what Jesus does here in front of a man who can have him killed.
2 Why does the case have to go to Pilate at all?
AnswerBecause the council could pass a sentence but could not carry it out. Only Rome could execute a man, so the charge had to be turned into something a Roman court would act on.
3 The question he gets asked changes between the night hearing and the morning one. How?
AnswerAt night he was asked whether he was the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One, which is a question about God. Pilate asks whether he is King of the Jews, which is a question about Rome. A man claiming a throne inside a Roman province is a problem the governor has to deal with.
4 What surprised Pilate?
AnswerThe silence. He ran a province by execution and was used to prisoners who argued or begged or bargained. Mark could have recorded anything about that morning, and what he records is the governor's astonishment.
What This Means for Us
He did not defend himself, and he could have. He had answered questions in public all week and was better at it than anybody in the building, taking apart the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians and the scribes one after another. In front of Pilate he had nothing to say, and it was not weakness and it was not giving up. He was declining to stop something he had come to do.
There is something uncomfortable in that for us. We spend a great deal of energy defending ourselves, explaining, correcting, making sure the record shows we were right. Some of that is necessary and much of it is not.
Prayer
Father, your Son stood in front of a man who could kill him and did not argue. Thank you that he did not talk his way out of it. Teach us when to speak and when to stop, and keep us from needing the last word. Amen.