Matthew 27: 24-25
When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!” All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children!”
Pilate was quick to “wash his hands” of that mess. He understood that Jesus had not really done anything wrong in the eyes of Rome and that the dispute was a “Jewish thing”…yet he chose to go along with the crowd. His self-interest ruled the day despite the truth of the situation.
James 4:17 says, that “anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.” How often have we all been guilty of this one? We should say something but fear the backlash. We should stop participating but we allow peer pressure to keep its hold on us. We should go to them or pray for them or serve them or forgive them…but we make a choice NOT to do so. We offer up a convenient excuse in an attempt to “wash our hands” of it, but that sin remains on our account.
Pilate may have washed his hands of that crime in the minds of the people, but it didn’t work in the Throne Room of God. Like Pilate, our convenient excuses for inaction are never effective in cleansing us from that sin; only the blood of Christ can fix that. Rather than taking advantage of His blood as we “wash our hands” over and over again, why don’t we take advantage of the Power that His blood has provided us and start to DO what we know is right?
Pilate was a coward who tried to wash his hands of it...let us be courageous followers of Christ who have no need to.
