We don’t think of the bible as
containing many morally gray stories; we like to think of it as a nice little
book of right and wrong without mixed messages.
However, the bible digs deeper than black and white morality, and shows
the complexity of the human condition with lapses of judgment from otherwise
godly men. It challenges us to reflect
on our own lives deeper as we see a reflection of our own faults in the men and
women chronicled in the pages. For
myself, it is Pontius Pilate who reflects a fault of my own, the desire to
abdicate responsibility and distance myself from strife.
Jesus
did not die solely because Judas betrayed him, because the Jews turned on him,
or because Pilate sentenced him to die.
It was a combination of those factors and to forget the role each did is
to ignore a different facet of human fault.
Judas represents conscious and premeditated betrayal. The Jews represent the danger of a mob
mentality; of letting anger and impulsive judgment sway your actions. Pilate represents something more insidious, he
represents inaction, doing the bare minimum.
The
older I get, the more I see how Pilate struggled with his situation. When Jesus went before the Sanhedrin they
seemed all too happy to find the smallest toehold to sentence Jesus to
death. Pilate is different, and the
common theme popping up in the various Gospels is that Pilot acknowledges Jesus
is innocent and should not be put to death.
While the matter is fairly quick in the Gospel according to Mark, in the
other three Gospels there is a recurring theme that Pilate is trying to give
Jesus an opportunity to live. The Gospel
of Matthew refers to a dream Pilate’s wife had, and the Gospel of John includes
some philosophical back and forth between Jesus and Pilate. Pilate even tries to have Jesus freed in
accordance to the tradition of freeing one prisoner, but the crowd insists on
freeing Barabbas and crucifying Jesus.
So is
Pilate really a bad guy? The bible does
not go into detail regarding what happened to Pilate, other than Luke 23:12
noting that Pilate and Herod became BFFs.
On one hand Pilate did not stand firm against the crowd and remain
adamant about the fact an innocent man shouldn’t be put to death. Keep in mind that a man of Pilate’s station
would have enjoyed a life of comfort in exchange for taking on responsibility
over his territory. On the other hand,
Pilate may have concluded that the angry mob would have just killed Jesus anyway
and he simply didn’t want to be torn limb from limb in the process. Pilate was a political figure, a Roman, and
not a religious figure or a Jew.
Maintaining the peace was an essential duty of his position. Perhaps Pilate’s fault is not in whether he
allowed Christ to be put to death, but rather in the gesture of washing his
hands, in abdicating any responsibility.
If
you’re like me, and you have been dubbed the “responsible one” in your family,
you can probably relate to the desire to stop being the responsible one. Being the responsible one (pardon the
language) sucks. For their duty, reliability,
and integrity, the “responsible one” is rewarded with exciting prospects such
as – more chores, more responsibility, and, everyone’s favorite, guilt trips.
In time, all you want is to be relieved of the burden of picking up after
everyone’s proverbial and literal messes.
The “responsible one” cares about the fate of those around them, and
unfortunately one of the few defenses the” responsible one” has is learning to
distance his or her self emotionally from the baggage other people bring to the
table.
On one
hand it isn’t healthy to live your life feeling responsible for the actions and
feelings of others; no one should live with that burden. Others must ultimately learn to make the
right choices, and make amends for their own errors. You don’t want to become an enabler by
shielding friends and family from the repercussions of their actions. Yet, we must be cautious about distancing
ourselves from others and washing our hands of them. Not only should we avoid turning our back on
others, but as we distance our hearts we run the risk of becoming dispassionate
and numb.
A long
time ago I was a very passionate person.
I thought very strongly on issues, argued fiercely for my beliefs, and
lived a life in a rollercoaster of emotion.
With strong feelings came all the deeper hurts for friendships faded to
obscurity, loved ones passing away, and romances gone asunder. Like scar tissue on the skin, the
metaphorical heart has its own scar tissue.
Over years I developed an emotional distance, and soon the feelings of
love and pain were dulled into faint sensations I hardly noticed anymore.
Then one day it occurred to me,
that while I was a stronger person than I was before, it was all the harder for
me to experience joy or happiness. I realized how many friendships I had
allowed to wither and fade away. The
apathy which had once protected me had become a very real problem in my
life. It has been my own personal
mission to work on achieving a healthy balance, to break down the walls without
taking on other people’s burdens as my own.
It is a long and difficult road ahead.
The
angry mob and Pontius Pilate represent two very different kinds of fault. The mob which cried out for the execution of
Jesus represents snap judgment run rampant, not tempered by reason or
compassion. Pilate represents distance
and abdication of responsibility. Pilate
is aware of the wrong in putting Christ to death, and vocalizes his
concerns. While a certain degree of
emotional distance is healthy and necessary, when we “wash our hands” of
someone we run the risk of emotional detachment.
As much
as we would like to wash our hands of other people’s problems, we cannot hold
the world at arm’s length. Apathy is as
much a roadblock to spiritual development as hatred. It is easy to notice the destructive path of
anger, but difficult to recognize the presence of apathy. Like Pilate each of us “washes our hands” of
people and situations in our lives.
However, when we turn our back on the world eventually we turn our back
on our own hearts.
