Today's Daily Lesson comes from Mark chapter 15 verses 1 and 2:
As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. 2Pilate asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ He answered him, ‘You say so.’
Jesus was probably thought to be playing coy with Pilate, but his answer to the question, "Are you the King of the Jews?" was truthful.
Jesus did not deny his Kingship. He did not deny that he was of royal anointing and authority; yet he knew Pilate could not understand what kind of King he was. For in Pilate's mind a king could only be someone who lords his leadership over his people and conscripts their sons into his army. But it was not so with Jesus.
So, Jesus turned the question, "Are you the king of the Jews?" back on Pilate.
"You say so," he said.
Pilate said that Jesus was the king. And that was the charge he placed over Jesus' head on the cross. "King of the Jews."
Pilate knew that much; but what it meant he could not conceive. Jesus was innocent of the charges, he knew that much. "But all kings are guilty of something," he told himself. So his conscience was assuaged.
Jesus knew that it would be. And that is why in his own defense he said not a mumbling word.
And in his silence Jesus spared Pilate even further guilt -- another sign of a king not of this world.
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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