Today's Daily Lesson comes from Acts chapter 26 verses 30 through 32:
30 Then the king got up, and with him the governor and Bernice and those who had been seated with them; 31and as they were leaving, they said to one another, ‘This man is doing nothing to deserve death or imprisonment.’ 32Agrippa said to Festus, ‘This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to the emperor.’
William Sloane Coffin once asked whether it was really any worse to have blood on one's hands than it is to have them washed with the water of Pontius Pilate.
Today's Lesson makes something of the same point.
Herod Agrippa and Festus have a political problem on their hands. They've interrogated Paul. They've found no crime that he has done. What is more, they actually seem to sort of like him -- as much as they like anyone.
But when it comes down to it, the people wanted Paul's head. And so though they could find no crime within him, they suggest it is beyond the power of their own authority to do anything to free him.
Instead, they choose to send Paul to Rome, where anyone could tell you he'll be treated cruelly. But they pretend to convince themselves he may be treated justly. It is a convenient self-deception.
They wash their hands in Pilate's water.
I think of where we are today with mask mandates in America. All the elected school board officials, country governors, mayors, etc. plea that they don't have the power to decide anything. The power belongs to the governor, they say.
So at the end of the day, they don't have to be guilty; they can just be not responsible instead.
It's a convenient fact; but it is not the truth.
But then, as Pilate said, "What is truth?"
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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