39. Pilate

Explore

There comes a point in our lives, as it did for Peter, Pilate and others where we are asked a question from Jesus: Who do you say I am? Pilate had his moments yet something stopped him from making the right choice. Beechy in the chapter says this about Pilate’s decision being rooted in his own popularity and survival before justice and truth.  This is important! 

Idea 1: Popularity Have you been in the room when it becomes clear really quickly that to voice any shred of faith at this point will result in you becoming very unpopular? I have. Not wanting to get drunk, look at the porn video as it comes around on the phone, not get stuck in with the cruel jokes. This can be seen and experienced in so many ways, even not speaking out when you know you need to, to make a move and stand but instead, to preserve some semblance of popularity with our peers we fall silent. Why?

Fear. To be standing alone, head above a parapet, is a painfully lonely place, we naturally don’t seek it.  

Have you been in these situations before? What happened? 

Idea 2: Survival We have an innate sense of survival in situations like this. I don’t know if you remember some years ago a few situations in the USA reporting youths being murdered by their gun-rampaging fellow students because they refused to deny Jesus in their lives. I remember hearing this stuff and feeling wounded in my heart, would I have made that stand? I so easily feel backed into a corner and desperate to survive these hostile environments and situations, but the more this feeling went on the more I wanted rid of it. 

What does your ‘Christian survival mode’ look like? 

Idea 3: Justice and truth For Pilate his sense of preserving popularity and survival meant he turned his heart against justice and truth. Can you imagine this moment before Jesus, handing him over with no charges of merit to be brutally flogged and beaten and nailed to a cross in utter humiliation? 

Sounds like a long way away from our lives and comparative situations, but is there a loss of justice and truth when we prioritise our own popularity and survival over the call on us to boldly share Jesus?

I want to leave this for you to explore, drill into it!

Do you do this in your own life? Seek to go unnoticed and keep your head down? Looking the other way and finding the biggest pile of sand to stick your head in?

Or are you out there, risking it all and fighting to keep your heart loaded with integrity as you share the relevance of Jesus in your actions and words?

Action

Explore this stuff.  If it is a struggle and an area that needs work commit to change together, monitor the change and pray it over regularly.