DRAMA—SERIES A—THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER
Bible reference: 1 Peter 1:18,19
PONTIUS PILATE SPEAKS
(Pilate enters in biblical costume)
My name is one you all recognise. In millions of churches around your planet it is repeated. You recall my part in the history of the world as you confess that Jesus was ‘crucified under Pontius Pilate’.
In a way it's quite an amazing success story—that a small-time Roman official like me is remembered and immortalised in this way. Without a doubt I rose to a status far above my importance in the Roman empire.
All because fate placed me in the judgment seat on the day when Jesus came to trial.
Yet I’m not famous, but infamous.
You don’t say to your children, ‘I hope one day you'll be as wise, as just, and as courageous as Pontius Pilate.’
Hardly.
My judgment doesn’t meet with your approval. You look down on my decision from your lofty 20th century perch and despise the course I chose.
I know what you say, ‘Pontius Pilate was a spineless wimp. When the going got tough, he got out. He sacrificed the truth in the interests of his own safety and security and condemned an innocent man to death.’
I am surprised that you judge me so harshly.
It’s true that Jesus was innocent of the charge. I cannot deny it. But in the end that wasn’t the issue. I took a pragmatic stand. I chose not what was right but what worked.
Surely you of all people must understand. Your century has made my pragmatism an art-form. ‘The end justifies the means’ has become a world philosophy.
When the crowd yelled, ‘If you let this man go you are no friend of Caesar’, the die was cast. It was me or him, and I chose for myself. I staked my life against his, I gave him up to save my own position.
Hindsight has found me wrong. History judges that his blood is still on my hands, but before you pick up stones to throw at me, I suggest you check your own hands. Are they free of innocent blood?
Surely you of the 20th century have also given in to the crowd. And given in for less than me. For a moment of sin, an hour of passion, a bit of money or comfort.
You too have given up the innocent for your own pragmatic reasons.
Condemned the homeless to the streets for your own comfort.
Condemned the hungry to death to sit before a full table.
Sacrificed the truth for the quick and painless solution.
Given up morality to the worship of profit.
Disposed of innocent lives lest their birth make life difficult.
If the blood of Jesus still stains my hands, it surely stains yours too.
In this we are together. Here we face the same problem.
How are we freed from the stain of innocent blood? Where will we wash our hands clean from our many sins?
We may wash our hands over and over again, but still the tell-tale stain clings to us.
The mark of sin is upon us and all the water in the world cannot make us clean. For sin is marked upon the soul and stains from the inside.
I washed my hands in water, seeking to leave behind the responsibility I had for that life, as if the touch of that water could wash me clean.
It couldn’t.
To this day my soul is marked with sin. Indelibly stained with the blood of that innocent man.
Yet, let me say this: it needn’t be so.
Ironically it was the crowd that gave the clue, though they did not know it. When I washed my hands and tried to claim innocence they said, ‘Let his blood be upon us and upon our children.’
How prophetic that statement was.
The crowd was willing to accept guilt, but even as they did so they opened the door to forgiveness.
For it is that blood of Jesus that can set free from sin.
The innocent blood that stains can also clean.
Let me quote to you from your own book, from the writings of Peter.
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (Peter 1:18, 19)
It’s the blood of this man Jesus that can clean the stain of sin. It’s his blood, the blood of his suffering and death, that can alone set people free.
If only the crowd had understood their own prophecy when they called down the blood of Christ on their heads and the heads of their children.
If only I’d known the healing power of Christ's blood (Looks at his hands) as I sought to wash it from my hands. (Looks at audience)
We didn’t know, we didn’t understand. We carried the stain of our sin to our graves though the cleanser was within our reach.
© 1997 Mike Fulwood
Permission is given for the owner of this disk to make sufficient copies of this script for their group or congregation, for rehearsal and performance purposes only.
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