The hour is early, but not too early for the wicked Caiaphas to be abroad. He slept little, if any, the previous night, and now has dawned the day for which he has lived for full three years. Before the sun is down–his eyes glow with satanic fury as he anticipates–he hopes to gloat over the body, bruised and bleeding, of the despised and hated Nazarene.
Leading his crew of satellites from his ecclesiastical palace with the heavenly Prisoner in their midst, he marches towards the Roman governor’s house. Diabolical business is on hand, but what matter? Is there not added triumph in store for the high priest? No love is lost between the religious leader of the Jewish race and Pontius Pilate, his Roman overlord. But today haughty Pilate shall be forced to accede to the wishes of the people whom he despises, and hang upon a cross of shame the mysterious Preacher whose name has now become a household word throughout the Judean country. So little wonder those eyes gleam again.
As Caiaphas had planned, so it happened. In those early hours, there was a battle of wits between the intellectual Roman and the cunning Jew which ended in the complete overthrow of all Pilate’s strategy, so that he was forced to hand Christ over to his soldiers for torture and death; and this, against the prickings of his tortured conscience. He has condemned this strangely-silent Prisoner of whom (and he hates to admit it) he is afraid, to the cross.
But he will have his revenge. Does Caiaphas regard the verdict and death sentence imposed by the unwilling governor as a personal triumph? Well, if so, Pilate will show both him and the rabble crowd he represents.
At one time during the trial, Pilate had dressed the Prisoner in a purple robe and a crown of thorns. Placing a reed in His hand, he mockingly presented Him to the assembled multitude in the words, “Behold your King!” Upon his startled ears had come their piercing denouncement, “We have no king but Caesar.” He had then to quietly stand aside while the motley group mingled with the civil and religious heads and followed the band of soldiers to jeer and mock that blessed One as He bravely carried His cross to Calvary.
And now his plan for revenge is formulated. The judgment hall is clear. Pilate is alone with his thoughts–bitter reflections, no doubt, mingled with dread forebodings as he looks into the uncertain future. But pride and retaliation, rather than sorrow and repentance, charge the unhappy man’s soul.
Hastily a writer is summoned, or, perhaps dispensing with such a service, he carefully copies in his own hand, in triplicate, the scroll to be fastened to yonder middle cross. Nailed above the Sufferer’s head we behold in the Roman language of authority and power, in the Greek tongue of culture and knowledge, and vindictively enough, in the Hebrew speech of religion and mysticism, words that are going to flash with glory when suns have eternally set and the names of Caiaphas and Pilate are no longer uttered: “THIS IS JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.”