Roman ruler sitting in judgment of God’s Son—there is something pathetically humorous here. The psalmist saw this coming, “The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed…” (Psalm 2:2). God’s response? “He who sits in the heavens laughs, The Lord scoffs at them” (Psalm 2:4).

Little did Pilate know that standing before him was “the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42). Imagine the horror in his heart when he finds himself standing before the one for whom, “there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Heb 4:13).

Pilate’s wife knew Jesus to be innocent of any legal wrong doing, and had a nightmare about it. She warned her husband to divest himself of responsibility for Jesus. How much this played into Pilate’s action to let the Jews choose whom to release, we don’t know. But, the fact that the divine writer chose to include this detail leads us toward marital influence as affecting Pilate.

On the other hand, the religious authorities began lobbying the crowd to demand that Barabbas be freed, and Jesus put to death. How easily the people are persuaded! Whether this crowd involved some of the same people who celebrated Jesus’ triumphal entry on the donkey or not, we can’t be sure. One thing we do know is that Jesus’ closest disciples betrayed Him, denied Him and otherwise abandoned Him. Would it be any surprise, then, if the crowds easily moved from celebrating Him to asking for His execution? History definitely repeats itself among God’s people.

Think of Israel being freed from Egyptian bondage under the leadership of Moses, the miracle worker—only to turn against him when desert living brought hardship. They wanted to go back to Egypt! So too, in our passage, we can easily picture the crowd turning against the very One who healed their sick, gave sight to their blind, made their lame to walk, cast out their demons and gave them hope. “For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself” (Heb 12:3). The KJV translates the word “hostility” as “contradiction.” Indeed, what a contradiction that hostility was!