In April 2014, I posted a poem that had come to me some years ago. I re-posted it in March last year. This is the postscript.
A postscript on Pilate
I feel dissatisfied and annoyed with myself for the postscript I added to my last post, and yet I wanted to add something. It did, however, set me thinking again about that scenario. Why was it that Jesus didn't speak to Herod and why did he speak to Pilate?
I'm sure, in the first case, it was because he knew it would have been a complete waste of time. There would have been nothing he could have said to Herod that would have had any effect on his closed mind.
It is, perhaps, more intriguing to consider why he spoke to Pilate and why he answered his questions. It must have been because he saw in him something real - something that could be reached and Jesus would never fail to respond to that in any human being.
We know that it had no outcome on the final fate of Jesus but I wonder how it affected Pilate in his life thereafter. His wife had tried to to warn him against condemning Jesus but he was trapped by his own weakness and all the water in the world could never wash away that guilt from his hands.
Maybe the interplay between them, Jesus, the victim, apparently powerless, yet wholly innocent, strong, dignified, unafraid; Pilate, seemingly powerful and yet powerless to follow his conscience and free Jesus, was enough to eventually produce a redemptive change in his life.
One thing we can say is that , as I once heard someone comment, Pilate is the only other human being, apart from Mary, the mother of Jesus, to be mentioned in the Christian Creed because, by his actions, he became an instrument in the Redemption of all Humanity.
I'm sure, in the first case, it was because he knew it would have been a complete waste of time. There would have been nothing he could have said to Herod that would have had any effect on his closed mind.
It is, perhaps, more intriguing to consider why he spoke to Pilate and why he answered his questions. It must have been because he saw in him something real - something that could be reached and Jesus would never fail to respond to that in any human being.
We know that it had no outcome on the final fate of Jesus but I wonder how it affected Pilate in his life thereafter. His wife had tried to to warn him against condemning Jesus but he was trapped by his own weakness and all the water in the world could never wash away that guilt from his hands.
Maybe the interplay between them, Jesus, the victim, apparently powerless, yet wholly innocent, strong, dignified, unafraid; Pilate, seemingly powerful and yet powerless to follow his conscience and free Jesus, was enough to eventually produce a redemptive change in his life.
One thing we can say is that , as I once heard someone comment, Pilate is the only other human being, apart from Mary, the mother of Jesus, to be mentioned in the Christian Creed because, by his actions, he became an instrument in the Redemption of all Humanity.