CHAPTER 26

One.

Pilate sat stone-faced as the whip whistled through the air and landed on the prisoner’s back.

Jesus flinched and gasped; the metal shards dug in and took their bite of flesh.

Two.

The Syrian guard seemed to be enjoying himself and leaned into the lash with his entire body. The whip wrapped around Jesus’ torso, and its tips tore into his flesh, drawing blood from his back, chest, and side. I winced and wondered just how much the prisoner could stand. He stared straight ahead, hands tied tightly to the post, his upper body and legs exposed.

Three.

It was easy now to spot his followers in the crowd. A few women, standing near the front of the circle of onlookers, with tears flowing down their cheeks. The oldest one had her head in her hands, sobbing. Was that his mother?

Four.

A man next to the woman shook his head and placed an arm around her. He covered her face with his hand, and she buried her head in his shoulder.

Five.

Even some of the leaders who had been calling for the prisoner’s crucifixion just minutes ago could no longer watch. They looked at the ground or stared at Pilate as if wondering when the torture would stop.

Six.

Jesus’ back was already crisscrossed with ragged red lines, the torn skin exposing muscle.

Seven.

And so it went. Thirty-nine lashes in all. Thirty-nine times the whip whistled through the air, landed, and ripped flesh and muscle. The last few times the Syrian hesitated before unleashing the next blow and glanced at Pilate, thinking that the prefect would call a halt. Finally Pilate raised a hand, and I felt the bile rising in my throat. Somehow, after thirty-nine lashes, the prisoner was still standing. His back was lacerated into ribbons of flesh, muscle, and blood. Would they even need to crucify him now?

As they untied Jesus’ hands, he looked up at Pilate. He struggled to straighten but seemed disoriented and dropped to one knee. A soldier on each side grabbed an elbow and jerked him to his feet. Another soldier appeared with a circle of woven thorns and jammed it on Jesus’ head like a crown. A third picked up the purple robe that had been provided courtesy of Herod and placed it around the prisoner’s shoulders, then pressed the cloth against his gaping wounds. The soldiers laughed, bent at the waist, and brought their arms down in adulation for a great king.

Some of the crowd egged them on. Others were silent and had seen enough.

“Hail! The King of the Jews!” the soldiers said.

“Enough!” Pilate snapped. “Bring him up.”

They pulled Jesus up the stairs, leaving a trail of blood behind. When the prisoner reached the top, Pilate gave an order to turn him around. Pilate stood next to him and surveyed the crowd. The chanting had stopped. The flogging seemed to have taken the wind out of some of the main accusers.

“Behold the man!” Pilate said. He pointed to Jesus. Blood trickled down the rabbi’s face and collected around his swollen eyes and lips. His beard was matted with it. I hardly recognized the man I had first seen just a few short days ago.

What more do you want us to do?

This time the crowd hesitated. But the chief priest and officers of the Temple started the relentless chant again. “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

Pilate shook his head, disgusted and saddened.

“We have no king but Caesar!” Annas shouted.

“I need to speak with him again,” Pilate said. Once more, he turned and headed inside.

A moment later, for the second time that day, I found myself inside the Praetorium with Pilate and the Nazarene.

Pilate was desperate. “Where are you from?” he asked, his voice strident.

The prisoner stared at the ground, the same way that Roman governors did in order to show no emotion.

“Where are you from?” Pilate took a step closer. “Talk to me!”

Still, the purple-robed prisoner said nothing.

“Don’t you know what power I have? Don’t you understand that I have the power to set you free? Give me something to work with.”

Jesus looked up, his face streaked with blood and sweat. He took a breath and spoke softly, yet still loud enough that I heard it a few feet away. “You have no power except that given you from above. The one who turned me over to you has the greater sin.”

Pilate seemed startled by the answer. This man’s life was about to be taken from him, and yet here he stood, judging the prefect of all of Judea? Telling Pilate how much sin he committed because of his role in these proceedings?

“Take him back out,” Pilate ordered.

When the guards and Jesus exited, we were left alone. Through the open doors we could hear the reaction of the crowd when Jesus reappeared. The people seemed to have regained their bloodlust and roared insults when they caught sight of him. Quickly the jeering and angry shouts coalesced into a chant. “We have no king but Caesar.”

Pilate looked stricken, ashen with worry. I was afraid the riot would begin before we returned to the portico. The crowd would press too tight, and the soldiers would strike out, starting the slaughter. Whatever we decided, it had to be quick.

Pilate walked to the smooth marble wall, and I followed him. He touched the holes in the concrete seams of the enormous stones. “You know what these are?” he asked.

“No, Your Excellency.”

“This is where we mounted the shields,” he said. “Every time I walk this hall, I think about the letter from Tiberius.”

The crowd outside seemed to be more in sync now, their chants ringing louder.

“We have no king but Caesar!”

“You are no friend of Caesar!”

“How would I explain this one to him?” Pilate asked. “If I set the man free, if we slaughter half that crowd when they protest, how would I explain it?”

“He’s an innocent man, Your Excellency. Tell Caesar that we upheld the glory of Roman law. Tell Caesar that we refused to be intimidated by a mob, that we did what was right.”

Pilate snorted at the answer, and it wasn’t hard to read his thoughts. What is right? What is truth? Don’t give me platitudes, Theophilus; give me solutions.

The chants crescendoed as if somebody had incited the crowd anew. They sounded so close that I wondered if they had somehow moved just outside the door.

“We have no king but Caesar!”

“You are no friend of Caesar!”

The noise distorted my thinking. I was anxious to return to our place at the top of the steps. Longinus could not be trusted to control the soldiers or the crowd.

“Play it out, Theophilus,” Pilate said. “If I stand my ground, what happens?”

“We lock up the prisoner. The crowd eventually goes away.”

“Or perhaps they don’t. Somebody panics. Somebody pulls out a weapon,” Pilate said. “Our guards react, butchering hundreds. Annas writes to Tiberius and tells him that the man I protected claimed to be a king.”

I didn’t respond because I didn’t know what to say. Pilate was right; there was no honorable way out.

“Speak to me!” he demanded between clenched teeth. “Tell me where I’m wrong.”

Like the prisoner, I maintained my silence. Pilate wasn’t wrong. If I told him he was, he would explode in anger. Freeing the rabbi would be costly, perhaps devastating. Pilate’s mind was made up. I could see it in his eyes.

“Sometimes,” Pilate said, his voice suddenly calm, “one man must die for the good of a nation.”

I wanted to argue the point, to tell Pilate that the law required an innocent man to be set free regardless of the cost. But the prisoner wouldn’t even speak in his own defense. It was almost as if he wanted to die. If Jesus wouldn’t defend himself, why should I stick out my neck to take up his cause?

“This is the shields all over again, isn’t it?” Pilate asked.

The chanting continued as I weighed the question. The Jewish leaders had been willing to lay down their lives to protest the shields —harmless symbols honoring Caesar that were hanging in Pilate’s own palace. How much more would they be willing to die for this —to punish a man who had ridiculed them and upended their Temple? And how would Tiberius react when he learned that Pilate had refused to condemn a man who claimed to be a king?

“Yes, Your Excellency,” I said. “It’s the shields all over again.”

It must have been the answer Pilate needed. He steeled himself and turned toward the door.

“Let’s go,” he said.