John 18:28-40
Jesus on Trial
28 Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”
30 “If he were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed him over to you.”
31 Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.”
“But we have no right to execute anyone,” they objected. 32 This took place to fulfill what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die.
33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
34 “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”
35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”
36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. 39 But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”
40 They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.
It is easy to miss the Truth...I believe we sometimes miss the Truth, because each one of us has our own individual Truth...So as we find out about the truth of others, then we may or may not believe in their truth, and continue believe in our own truth...So there are many truths out in the world today...So when Jesus went to trial, there were some who believed in His Truth, and others who did not believe in His Truth and what He taught and was saying...
When Jesus was on trial, the High Priest and his followers missed the Truth, or did not understand the Truth...The crowd gathered around Jesus missed the Truth...Everyone on the side of Jesus and Truth listens to Him...And sometimes, we may be fooled by Truth...The Truth was right in front of Pilate and he could not see it...Yet, Truth has this deep Intrinsic Value for each of us...Truth is positive and helpful...While lies are negative and self-defeating...Each one of us try to decide what Truth is and when we do we inherently decide what to believe in...So we believe in what we think Truth is...This makes sense, because why believe in anything that is not the Truth...Why believe in anything if you do not believe that it is true?...