What is the most powerful voice in your mind, the crowd, or your conscience? This is a very important question because many times we are not aware of that, and because of that we can be making our decisions just to please the crowd and not according to which we know is the right thing to do.
Pilate was an empire official to whom was given the great responsibility of making the greatest decision ever in the Roman Empire. I t was not about which territory they have to conquer or which war they have to fight, but instead he had the great opportunity of Judging The Lord Jesus Christ. The saddest part of this story was that Pilate was a crowd pleaser, and because of that, he put over them a responsibility that only he was able to do.
The Bible says that he knew that Jesus was an innocent man, but “Pilate wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified” (15:15). In doing so, he became the supreme example of those who are no able to take responsibility over their actions, but instead “They wash their hands” and hand over the responsibilities.
Pilate was able to “wash his hands” but what about his conscience? We can excuse ourselves about our responsibilities, but can we excuse our consciences?
Chapter 16 is the great reminder that even though Jesus was silenced for a period of time, after his resurrection nobody else will be able to stop his powerful message. This chapter also is a great contrast between the hands’s washing of Pilate to excuse himself about Jesus, and the washing of the baptism to commit ourselves to Jesus and his plan for us to proclaim the Gospel to the entire world.
Will we excuse ourselves or will we commit ourselves?