Daily Devotion for Saturday 26th July 2025

St John 19: 1 – 11

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe.  They kept coming up to him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ and striking him on the face.  Pilate went out again and said to them, ‘Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.’  So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the man!’  When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.’  The Jews answered him, ‘We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.’

Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever.  He entered his headquarters[a] again and asked Jesus, ‘Where are you from?’ But Jesus gave him no answer.  Pilate therefore said to him, ‘Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?’  Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.’

Reflection

“At first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” A quote often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, and more recently incongruously appropriated by Nigel Farage.  As I read the extended account of Jesus’ trial before Pilate in John’s gospel we see this played out in truncated fashion. 

First Pilate does not want to be bothered with such trivial matters. This man was no threat to Rome and his alleged breaking of Jewish law no concern of his.  The soldiers mocked Jesus and the grandiose claims he stands accused of.  They dressed him in a crown and cloak whilst inflicting pain and humiliation.  When these tactics of ignoring Jesus, and then laughing at him, do not diminish him or his resolve, the physical attacks escalate to the threat of death from an increasingly exasperated and impotent Pilate.  Pilate is powerless against Jesus who stands his ground and does not legitimise Rome’s assumed power over him. 

Michelle Obama famously said, ‘when they go low, we go high’. When bullies aim low and punch down. When Empire ignores the disadvantaged, seeks to remove dignity from the sick and disabled, and demonises those with the least, like Jesus, we go high by not meekly accepting that this is simply the way the world is and not bowing to authority which punches down. 

If we look to Jesus’ example and go high then … who wins? 

Prayer

When the world ignores those in need, 
when the world mocks those with the least,
and when the world attacks the most vulnerable, 
may we look to Jesus, and like him, go high. 
Amen.