John Chapter 18

vs 31

Pilate, smartly, did not want to get involved in petty Israeli politics. If they want to play their silly games and punish one of their own, then let them do it themselves.

The Jews complain, though, because they don't have the right to kill anyone. Did that ever stop them? No. They would have stoned people all day long.

vs 32

Jesus had to die all up in the air like, and stoning generally did not have that effect. What was the reason? Apparently anyone who hangs on a tree is cursed, according to the OT. Stoning would have not been shaming enough, it seems.

But more than that - if Jesus had only been killed by the Jews, then the gentlies would not also have been complicit. Peter makes it fairly clear in Acts that this is so.

vs 33

So now Jesus is inside a gentile home (which obviously means its not unclean to be there, because otherwise Jesus wouldn't be perfect, would he?). Pilate asks Jesus fairly directly about his kingship. After all, that seems to be what the Jews want him killed for. But they haven't really told Pilate. So Pilate may well recognise Jesus, and have even heard him, or at least heard of him.

vs 34

Jesus wants to know if that is what Pilate thinks for himself, or merely if that is what he has heard. So Jesus is dragging Pilate right into this whole cafuffle.

vs 35

And Pilate doesn't want to be there. He doesn't want a bar of it. You could easily read his first response as "Do I look like I care?" He's no Jew, and he probably only really cares about internal Jewish politics as much as it means he needs to stop revolts and so on. He doesn't make much of a king if his own people hand him over. So what has he actually done? What crime has he committed? You never know - as a governor, Pilate might have been willing to deal with Jesus as royalty. Highups always like hob-nobbing with other highups. Of course, there is already a king of the Jews, Herod the tetrarch I believe, but he's not local.

vs 36

Jesus states plainly about his kingdom, and talks about his arrest as if it were really neither here nor there. Now Pilate is a Roman, not a Jew, but even so Jesus speaks of his kingdom as belonging to another world, another place.

vs 37

Pilate is happy, because at least he has gotten Jesus to admit that he's a king. And Jesus is a king, and admits it. But not a king in the worldly, political sense. He's the king of truth. His whole purpose is to point to the truth and testify to it. And he more or less states that those who are in his kingdom are because they are on the side of truth.

vs 38-39

Pilate returns with a fairly philosophical question. If he'd asked "What is the truth?" then it might have been a different matter. But I think he is brushing Jesus off. He doesn't want to get involved in this conversation. It is getting too confronting. In fact, the sooner he can get this strange guy out of his palace the better. So he goes and tells the Jews that he can't find any legal reason to kill this guy, and how about he releases him from custody becuase, hey, it's Passover, and Pilate's a hero.

vs 40

By this time, somewhat of a crowd seems to have gathered. Apparently it isn't too difficult to create crowds like this in the Middle East - you just call your relatives and tell them to come hang out in front of the governor's palace, and then you call in some favours, and other people just hang around to see what's happening. Then the Pharisees give them a guilt trip about serving God by chanting to get some guy killed, and it all happens fairly quickly.

Now, as Pilate, you would begin to worry about now. You've got someone who you don't think is guilty, but the people you are administering want him dead. You've had a couple of riots before. They have been bloody. Now, they are chanting that they want a known rebel released. I mean, what would you do in his position?