Mark 15:1-5-- Gossip

Early in the morning the chief priests with the elders and scribes and the whole Council, immediately held a consultation; and binding Jesus, they led Him away and delivered Him to Pilate. Pilate questioned him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" And he answered him, "It is as you say." The chief priests began to accuse him harshly. Then Pilate questioned him again, saying, "Do you not answer? See how many charges they bring against you!" But Jesus made no further answer; so Pilate was amazed.

Even as Jesus prophesied, the Jewish Sanhedrin attempted to surrender Jesus over to Pilate so that he would be crucified.  While it is possible that the Sanhedrin could have stoned Jesus to death for his blasphemy, it was illegal for them to do so under Roman law.  The Romans held the authority to execute for themselves.  Even so, the Sanhedrin would want Jesus to be completely shamed and cursed, and crucifixion was the best way to do this, for the law says, “Cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree.”(Deuteronomy 21:22-23). 

To Pilate, the Sanhedrin accused Jesus of claiming to be king, in opposition to Caesar.  While this is technically true, Jesus was also claiming that God would depose both the Sanhedrin and Caesar Himself, Without any human army,  this posed no real threat that the Romans would recognize, because they saw their God, Jupiter, to be far more powerful than the Jewish God, Yahweh.  But they didn’t mention his lack of force to Pilate, so he thought that they were accusing him of being a lestes, a brigand in opposition to Rome, attacking Roman soldiers.  

Jesus, however, said nothing to these accusations in defense of himself.  Jesus did this in fulfillment to the prophecy in Isaiah (53:7) that he would be silent before those who oppressed him.  Pilate was amazed at this, for he was used to people defending themselves and him determining the truth between accusation and defense.  Unfortunately, he has some outlandish accusations, and a silent defendant.  He could not determine justice as it stood.  If Jesus had defended himself, saying “I am not leading an army, but I am waiting on God to deliver his people,”  Pilate might have let Jesus go.  But Jesus was remaining silent so that God’s will could be done here.

There are times that we are in the place of Pilate.  Someone is accused before us, and we make a judgment, even though the accused isn't defending themselves.  For the case of Pilate, we can see that he is wrong.  Jesus was mostly innocent of the accusations, and even those he is guilty of (claiming to be king), it makes no difference to the Romans unless God acts in power.

But while we might rightly say that Pilate was wrong, yet we will listen to gossip, or one side of an event in someone's life and we make our determination of someone's guilt based on listening to one side of the story.  Justice doesn't look at just one side.  At least we need to hear both sides.