Today is Good Friday, the day our Lord was crucified. Less than a week before Jesus had entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey as a conquering hero. He was praised as the long-awaited for Messiah, and yet on this day he was put to death as a blasphemer.

It always amazes me at how quickly the tables were turned on Jesus. The people had expected him to deliver them from the Roman empire, while the Pharisees and the Sadducees saw him as a threat to their power.

The Jewish people, once they realized he would not deliver them from Caesar, and coupled with the influence of the leaders who had been waiting for an opportunity like this, turned on Jesus. They were waiting for the nation of Israel to become a kingdom and did not understand that Jesus’ Kingdom was not of this world.¹

But it is the actions and the words of the chief priests in John 19:15 that always amazes me. Let’s set up the story:

Jesus was arrested and illegally tried by the Jewish High Priest, Caiaphas, the chief priests, and the elders. They condemned him to death but the Roman law forbade the Jews from administering corporal punishment, so they appealed to Pilate. Pilate could find no grounds for condemning Jesus so he sent him to Herod, but Herod basically told Pilate to deal with it himself.

Pilate was in a tough spot, he feared another Jewish insurrection because he was on shaky ground with Rome, so he tried to appease the Jews without condemning Jesus to death. He had Jesus beaten, flogged, ridiculed, and tortured but still it was not enough to appease the Jewish leaders.

Pilate tried another way out by offering to free one criminal, but the people, at the urging of the leaders, chose to have Barabbas released. This must have shocked Pilate, and he made one final plea to the Jewish leaders and this takes us to John 19:15:

¹⁵ They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” (ESV)

This was an astounding statement and the hypocrisy cannot be understated. The Jewish people had expected the Messiah to free them from Roman rule, and here we have the chief priests pledging allegiance to Caesar and choosing the Roman emperor over the Messiah they had been waiting for!

Jesus was offering them a Kingdom, but it was not the kingdom they were expecting, they wanted an earthly kingdom. So they rejected Jesus and pledged loyalty to the Roman empire they despised, and turned down the eternal Kingdom that was standing right in front of them.

I am drawn once again to the rich man in Mark 17:21,22 who was unwilling to give up his riches to follow Jesus, but in this case the chief priests were unwilling to give up their earthly power to follow Jesus.

The Jewish leadership thought that by killing Jesus they would secure their power, but in actuality they fulfilled scripture and unknowingly ended their power and sealed their fate because they we not condemning Jesus, they were condemning themselves.

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1. John 18:36 ↩︎