Showing posts with label Pilate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pilate. Show all posts

24 HOURS-Week 3: Pictures

Posted by Randy | Labels: , , , , , , , , , | Posted On Saturday, March 20, 2010 at 7:05 PM

In Week 3 of our series, "24 HOURS That Changed the World," the settings and key players (besides Jesus) are the home of the high priest, Caiaphas, the Fortress of Antonia and Pilate, the Roman governor, and Herod and his palace. All these locations are in Jerusalem. My first post from Week 1 of this series includes a map of this area, with these locations marked.

We have no pictures of Caiaphas' house, but we know it had to be large to provide a meeting place for all seventy-one members of the Sanhedrin on the night Jesus was tried. Most likely, it was an opulent place befitting the high priest of the Jewish faith. We do, however, have a couple of pictures of a cell that Jesus was probably kept in at times during the night and his trial.



It is also believed that there was no opening at the floor level of this cell, so Jesus was lowered through a hole in the ceiling, as seen below.



After spending most of the night in the home and prison cell of Caiaphas, Jesus was taken to Pilate, the Roman governor. Pilate usually lived in Caesarea, a Roman-built city on the Mediterranean coast. However, for special religious feasts, such as the Feast of the Passover, Pilate would often come to Jerusalem, usually staying at the Fortress of Antonia, built on the southwest corner of the Temple Mount. (The fortress, built by Herod the Great, served as the base for a legion of Roman troops.) The Feast of the Passover, in particular, stirred up feelings of Jewish nationalism as this feast remembered God leading the Israelites out of Egypt to freedom. It was also a time when as many as two-three million Jews were in the immediate area of Jerusalem for this feast, raising tensions even more. Below is a 1/50th scale model of what the fortress was believed to have looked like in the time of Jesus.



The Gospel of Luke tells us that Pilate, on discovering Jesus was from the region of Galilee, sent Jesus to Herod Antipas, who maintained a palace in Jerusalem, just northwest of the Temple Mount. Herod had been hoping to meet Jesus and see him perform a miracle. When Jesus refused to cooperate or respond, Herod and his court ridiculed Jesus and then sent him back to Pilate. Pictured below is a 1/50th scale model of what Herod's palace was believed to look like at the time he met Jesus.


24 HOURS-Week 3: Jesus the Suffering Servant

Posted by Randy | Labels: , , , , , | Posted On at 6:56 PM

“Pilate asked Jesus, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ Jesus replied, ‘You have said it.’” (Mark 15:2 NLT2)
Jesus’ response here is simply a restating of what Pilate has said. He’s not denying, but he’s not vigorously affirming it, leaving Pilate with little to go on, so the religious leaders pile on more claims.

“Then the leading priests kept accusing him of many crimes, and Pilate asked him, ‘Aren’t you going to answer them? What about all these charges they are bringing against you?’ But Jesus said nothing, much to Pilate’s surprise.” (Mark 15:3-5 NLT2)

You get the sense that Pilate really doesn’t buy what the religious authorities are selling, but Jesus isn’t helping him out. In fact, Jesus knows this is now all part of God’s plan, and though he had prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane asking God to free him from this path, he knows this is why he is here and he is ready to fulfill God’s plan.

He very likely was living out the biblical role of Suffering Servant that Isaiah prophesied about seven hundred years earlier. The Suffering Servant songs of Isaiah spoke of one who through their suffering would bring liberation and freedom.

“All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all. He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.” (Isaiah 53:6-7 NLT2)

Jesus would not defend himself. He was silent before his accusers. Jesus knew his mission – to be the Lamb of God, the sacrificial lamb that takes away the sins of the world. Christ followers believe Jesus’ death on the cross redeems us from sin. He wasn’t simply a great teacher or a good man – he was the Savior of the world.

“Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.” (Isaiah 53:4-5 NLT2)

Not all of those things have occurred yet in these last 24 hours of Jesus’ life, but they will...

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