The Chief Priests

Devotion for the Week...

Last week I wrote about Pilate's role in the story of Jesus' crucifixion. Ever since, I've been thinking about the chief priests and the leaders of religious law and the role they played. They didn't like Jesus because they saw Him as a threat to their position and privilege in society. Though they said they arrested Him because of blasphemy, really it was because they believed they'd lose their status if they didn't remove Him from the picture. Without a doubt, they are the bad guys of the story.

Just look at Matthew's account of their actions shortly after Jesus was arrested: "the leading priests and the entire high council were trying to find witnesses who would lie about Jesus, so they could put him to death" (Matthew 26:59). Isn't that shocking? They were knowingly searching for people who were willing to tell lies, specifically so they could kill a man they knew was innocent!

Then, when Jesus was before Pilate, "the leading priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be put to death." (Matthew 27:20). Now, this one has never made any sense to me. The custom at the time was for the governor to release a prisoner each year, anyone the people wanted, and the priests were able to convince the crowd to demand the release of "Barabbas, a revolutionary who had committed murder in an uprising" (Mark, 15:6). Why would they ask for him? I mean, I get that they didn't want Jesus released, but why would they choose a murderer? Surely there was some other prisoner they could have asked to have released. Or maybe it was a statement about Jesus and how much they didn't want to see Him go free. They would rather see a known murderer released than this man who threatened them.

Whatever their reasoning, the priests convinced the crowd to demand Barabbas be set free and Jesus be crucified and they got what they wanted. Pilate gave in to the demands of the crowd stirred up by the priests.

Here's what has been going over in my mind this past week. It's so easy to sit in judgement of the priests, to vilify them and to sit on our high horses, certain that we would never act the way they did. On a certain level, we wouldn't, of course. I hope we would never purposely set out to have someone put to death because they could affect our comfortable lives. I hope we would never incite other people to lie to protect our way of life. And I hope we would never be so selfish that we would consider our comfort more important than another person's life.

But, here's the thing, any animal, when threatened, will lash out and attack and that is exactly what the priests did. Their way of life was threatened by this man and so they lashed out to protect themselves against Him. Their methods were reprehensible and extreme, but at the very core of it, they were reacting to what they perceived as a threat. How would we have reacted if we were in their place?

How would we react if our jobs were threatened? If our way of life was threatened? If our beliefs were threatened? Our reactions might not be as extreme as theirs were, but I can see us reacting with anger. There would be plenty of verbal attacks, both in person and online, against whoever was causing the threat. Church history, in fact, is full of awful stories of how religious people reacted to those who threatened them, whether the threat came from Christians who believed a little bit differently, from another religion altogether or from a secular source like scientific discoveries.

The chief priests are the bad guys of the Easter story, no doubt, but they are also an extreme example of what we could all be if threatened.

My Quilting Blunder

Bernie, of Needle and Foot, has come up with a fun link up all about our quilting blunders and mistakes. Bernie said, "While I do love the inspiration found on Instagram and Facebook, sometimes it makes me wish I were more skilled or more artistic or more prolific a quilter or more, just more. Know what I mean? It seems to me we should share both – the mistakes and the achievements, the blunders and the best of our work. This would present a balanced picture, it would show quilting – in real life!"

There's no doubt that we're more likely to share our triumphs with the masses on social media, but that doesn't mean we haven't ever made mistakes! When Bernie invited me to take part in this blunder exposing link up, I knew exactly which of my blunders to share 😊

I learned the basics of sewing from my Mom and everything else has been picked up from books, magazines and (more recently), online tutorials or classes. Back around 2001 or 2002, I bought this book so I could learn paper piecing.

From it, I made this mini quilt. I bet you can see my blunder (and I'm not even talking about my complete disregard for the direction of the fabric I used for the border).

  Yes, I was hand quilting everything back then 😊

The book had a great explanation of how to attach a binding that finally allowed me to figure out how to do it properly. Unfortunately, I've never been good at estimating distance. In the instructions, it said to stop stitching about ¼" from the corner and I must have been scared of going too close and ruining my chances at a properly mitered corner, so this is how far away I stopped...

I measured and it varies from 1" - 1¼!! Not even noticing that I had way too much of the binding unattached, I blithely continued on and hand stitched it to the back and proudly displayed my little quilt 😆

The quilt is kept on a small table next to our bed and every now and then the gap in the stitching of the binding captures my attention and I consider hand stitching it down. In the end, though, I always decide to leave it because it captures a stage of my journey to becoming a competent quilter. I love being able to look back and see how far I've come!

If you have a quilting blunder to share, head over to Needle and Foot. You can either write your blunder in a comment on Bernie's post or you can write a post of your own and share the link in a comment.

Pilate or Peter?

Devotion for the Week...

With Easter coming up, I've been thinking a lot about the story of Jesus' last days on this earth. One of the people in the story that I've been thinking about is Pilate. Pontius Pilate's trial of Jesus is told in all four gospels (see Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and he has always interested me.

Pilate was the Roman governor, which meant the Jewish high priests needed him to put Jesus to death because they didn't have that authority themselves. It's hard to tell how long Pilate actually spoke with Jesus since the Bible often skims over most details, but we do know that after talking with Him, Pilate declared, "He is not guilty of any crime" (John 18:38). That should have been the end of it, don't you think? Jesus is not guilty of any crime, so He should be released. Obviously, that's not what happened and it's why that doesn't happen that Pilate has always interested me.

After saying Jesus wasn't guilty of any crime, Pilate asked the crowd if they would like him to release Jesus. I love the aside Mark includes in his gospel, where he wrote, "(For he realized by now that the leading priests had arrested Jesus out of envy.)" (Mark 15:10).  Pilate understood the situation; he saw the envy written all over the faces of the priests who sought Jesus' death and so he appealed to the people. He clearly wanted to free Jesus.

But he didn't.

When the priests incited the crowd to demand Jesus be crucified, Pilate asked, "Why? What crime has he committed? I have found no reason to sentence him to death. So I will have him flogged, and then I will release him" (Luke 23: 22). Let's just pause here for a minute. Pilate believed Jesus has done nothing wrong, but he was still willing to have Jesus flogged to appease the crowd. I remember the first time I read that passage to the boys and they yelled out, "What?? Why would he have Jesus whipped? That doesn't make any sense!"

They were right. It doesn't make any sense. Unless, of course, you are Pilate and you have an angry, shouting, mob on your hands and you're trying to appease them.

The people continued demanding that Jesus be crucified and a criminal named Barabbas be released, to satisfy the custom at the time of releasing one prisoner at the Passover. Mark says, "So to pacify the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified" (Mark 15:15).

Four words sum up Pilate's part in Scripture, to pacify the crowd. Even though Pilate knew Jesus was innocent and even though he understood the reason the priests brought Jesus to him, Pilate caved to the demands of the crowd because he didn't want to deal with the mob being angry at him. To be fair, having the mob, and particularly the priests, angry at him would have been a big problem for Pilate. He would likely have had to deal with rioting and maybe even with the priests making good on their threat to declare him "no 'friend of Caesar'" (John 19:12), which would have been a huge political problem that he clearly did not want to risk. Regardless of what the consequences might have been, it all boils down to one fact - Pilate ordered Jesus be crucified to please the people.

Thinking about Pilate and his need to please the people made me think about Peter and the apostles when they were arrested by the Jewish high council for teaching about Jesus. "They brought the apostles before the high council, where the high priest confronted them.“We gave you strict orders never again to teach in this man’s name!" (Acts 5:27, 28). How did Peter and the apostles respond? "We must obey God rather than any human authority." (v. 29). What a contrast to Pilate!

I've never dealt with any situation that had me responsible for a man's life or potentially finding myself thrown in prison, but I have had times where pleasing the people around me wasn't the right thing to do. You've probably been in those situations, too. It's hard to go against people, isn't it? The louder they are or the worse the potential consequences to us, the harder it is to go against them, even when we know that going against them is the right thing to do. How we respond will be determined by one question - are we more worried about doing what is right or about pleasing the people around us?

Here's something for us to think about the next time we're in one of those situations: What we do in those moments puts us in either Pilate's or Peter's company. Whose company would we rather be in?