The Passion of Jesus and Its Hidden Meaning: A Scriptural commentary on the Passion by Fr. James Groenings

Author:Fr. James Groenings [Groenings, Fr. James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TAN Books
Published: 2015-06-15T05:00:00+00:00

II.

His solemn declaration of his own innocence, and

III.

The sentencing to death of the Redeemer.

I.

Pilate, indeed, did not fail to make attempts to liberate Christ, but they were without result. Neither his eloquence in repeatedly defending the innocence of Christ, nor the shrewd scheme of opposing Jesus to Barabbas, nor the resort to scourging, nor the Ecce Homo had availed anything. Now he took a last refuge in sneers and ridicule. The Jews had said, "If thou release this man, thou art not Cæsar's friend. For whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Cæsar." Pilate had somewhat recovered from the terror which these words had injected into him and slyly pretended not to have understood anything of their threats. He now railed at the foolishness of the Jews in considering as their king such a piteously mangled being. "Behold your king," said he, "He, indeed, looks like a king!" Carried away by anger at this insult, not the high-priests alone, but all present cried together, "Away with him, away with him, crucify him." The whole world indeed was shouting for Jesus, the Redeemer. The whole world forced into His grasp the emblem of Salvation, the Holy Cross. The Saviour could not resist, He must needs carry it.

Then Pilate said to the Jews in a more serious tone, "Shall I crucify your king? Are ye not ashamed to demand of me the crucifixion of your king? Is it not an unnatural and monstrous demand? Is it not the mark of a degraded and unprincipled people?" But the chief-priests answered, "We have no king, but Cæsar." Now, ye chief-priests and scribes, if ye have no more a king, if the scepter hath in truth departed from Juda, then He Who stands before you is truly the Messias. From the crown of His head to the sole of His foot, He appears exactly as the prophets have described the Messias. But they say, "Cæsar is our king." These words imply the formal rejection of the Old Covenant. For the old testamentary pact between God and the Israelites was that He would be their king and they should be His people. He had confirmed and consecrated this pact with innumerable, astounding miracles for the welfare of His people; He had blessed it with torrents of benefits. He had, indeed, often had reason to complain of infidelity and breach of the solemn covenant on the part of His people, as we find recorded in the touching elegies of the prophets.1 And therefore He even had, for some time previous to this, retired from the direct government of His people as He had exercised it through Moses and through the almost uninterrupted succession of the prophets, the custodians of the Divine compact. But until now the legal status of His Kingly Power had never been denied. Now, however, the degenerate priesthood called upon God to depart, declared theocracy abolished, betrayed the hallowed constitution into the hands of the civil power, allowed an imperial official to sit in judgment over the King-Messias and violently demanded His death.

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