Sympathy For The Devil... or Pilate

When Jesus and Pilate meet, it is one of the most epic moments in history. As it turns out, it’s not the trial of Jesus in the court of the Roman governor; it’s the trial of the Roman Empire itself (and all systems of violent power) in the court of God. But the enduring scandal of the cross is this: Though we believe in Jesus, we also have sympathy for Pilate’s ideas about how to run the world. As Miroslav Volf has said, “Pilate deserves our sympathies, not because he was a good, though tragically mistaken man, but because we are not much better. We may believe in Jesus, but we do not believe in his ideas, at least not his ideas about violence, truth, and justice.”