JESUS BEFORE PILATE AND HIS DEATH SENTENCE

  JOHN 19:28-40   Early in the morning Jesus was taken from Caiaphas’ house to the governor’s palace. The Jewish authorities did not go inside that palace, for they wanted to keep themselves ritually clean, in order to be able to eat the Passover meal. So Pilate went outside to them and asked, “What do you accuse this man of?”

Their answer was, “We would not have brought him to you if he had not committed a crime.” Pilate said to them, “Then you yourselves him away and try him according to your own law.” They replied “We are not allowed to put anyone to death. (This happened in order to make the words of Jesus come true, the words he used when he indicated the kind of death he would die).

 Pilate went back into the palace and called Jesus. “Are you the King of the Jews?” he asked him. Jesus answered, “Does this question come from you or have others told you about me?” Pilate replied, “Do you think I am a Jew? It was your own people and the chief priests who handed you over to me what have you done?”

 Jesus said, “My kingdom does not belong to this world; if my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish authorities. No, my kingdom does not belong here!”

 So Pilate asked him, “Are you a king, then?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. I was born and

came into the world for this one purpose, to speak about the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth listens to me.” “And what is the truth?” Pilate asked.

Then Pilate went back outside to the people and said to them, “I cannot fine any reason to condemn him. But according to the custom you have, I always set free a prisoner for you during the Passover. Do you want me to set free for you the King of the Jews?”

 They answered him with a shout, “No, not him! We want Barabbas!” (Barabbas was a bandit).