Just Before the Crucifixion

186:2.1When Je­sus was ar­rested, he knew that his work on earth, in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, was fin­ished. He fully un­der­stood the sort of death he would die, and he was lit­tle con­cerned with the de­tails of his so-called tri­als.

186:2.2Be­fore the San­hedrist court Je­sus de­clined to make replies to the tes­ti­mony of per­jured wit­nesses. There was but one ques­tion which would al­ways elicit an an­swer, whether asked by friend or foe, and that was the one con­cern­ing the na­ture and di­vin­ity of his mis­sion on earth. When asked if he were the Son of God, he un­fail­ingly made re­ply. He stead­fastly re­fused to speak when in the pres­ence of the cu­ri­ous and wicked Herod. Be­fore Pi­late he spoke only when he thought that Pi­late or some other sin­cere per­son might be helped to a bet­ter knowl­edge of the truth by what he said. Je­sus had taught his apos­tles the use­less­ness of cast­ing their pearls be­fore swine, and he now dared to prac­tice what he had taught. His con­duct at this time ex­em­pli­fied the pa­tient sub­mis­sion of the hu­man na­ture cou­pled with the ma­jes­tic si­lence and solemn dig­nity of the di­vine na­ture. He was al­to­gether will­ing to dis­cuss with Pi­late any ques­tion re­lated to the po­lit­i­cal charges brought against him—any ques­tion which he rec­og­nized as be­long­ing to the gov­er­nor’s ju­ris­dic­tion.

186:2.3Je­sus was con­vinced that it was the will of the Fa­ther that he sub­mit him­self to the nat­u­ral and or­di­nary course of hu­man events just as ev­ery other mor­tal crea­ture must, and there­fore he re­fused to em­ploy even his purely hu­man pow­ers of per­sua­sive elo­quence to in­flu­ence the out­come of the machi­na­tions of his so­cially near­sighted and spir­i­tu­ally blinded fel­low mor­tals. Al­though Je­sus lived and died on Uran­tia, his whole hu­man ca­reer, from first to last, was a spec­ta­cle de­signed to in­flu­ence and in­struct the en­tire uni­verse of his cre­ation and un­ceas­ing up­hold­ing.

186:2.4These short­sighted Jews clam­ored un­seemlily for the Mas­ter’s death while he stood there in aw­ful si­lence look­ing upon the death scene of a na­tion—his earthly fa­ther’s own peo­ple.

186:2.5Je­sus had ac­quired that type of hu­man char­ac­ter which could pre­serve its com­po­sure and as­sert its dig­nity in the face of con­tin­ued and gra­tu­itous in­sult. He could not be in­tim­i­dated. When first as­saulted by the ser­vant of An­nas, he had only sug­gested the pro­pri­ety of call­ing wit­nesses who might duly tes­tify against him.

186:2.6From first to last, in his so-called trial be­fore Pi­late, the on­look­ing ce­les­tial hosts could not re­frain from broad­cast­ing to the uni­verse the de­pic­tion of the scene of “Pi­late on trial be­fore Je­sus.”

186:2.7When be­fore Cai­a­phas, and when all the per­jured tes­ti­mony had bro­ken down, Je­sus did not hes­i­tate to an­swer the ques­tion of the chief priest, thereby pro­vid­ing in his own tes­ti­mony that which they de­sired as a ba­sis for con­vict­ing him of blas­phemy.

186:2.8The Mas­ter never dis­played the least in­ter­est in Pi­late’s well-meant but half­hearted ef­forts to ef­fect his re­lease. He re­ally pitied Pi­late and sin­cerely en­deav­ored to en­lighten his dark­ened mind. He was wholly pas­sive to all the Ro­man gov­er­nor’s ap­peals to the Jews to with­draw their crim­i­nal charges against him. Through­out the whole sor­row­ful or­deal he bore him­self with sim­ple dig­nity and un­os­ten­ta­tious majesty. He would not so much as cast re­flec­tions of in­sin­cer­ity upon his would-be mur­der­ers when they asked if he were “king of the Jews.” With but lit­tle qual­i­fy­ing ex­pla­na­tion he ac­cepted the des­ig­na­tion, know­ing that, while they had cho­sen to re­ject him, he would be the last to af­ford them real na­tional lead­er­ship, even in a spir­i­tual sense.

186:2.9Je­sus said lit­tle dur­ing these tri­als, but he said enough to show all mor­tals the kind of hu­man char­ac­ter man can per­fect in part­ner­ship with God and to re­veal to all the uni­verse the man­ner in which God can be­come man­i­fest in the life of the crea­ture when such a crea­ture truly chooses to do the will of the Fa­ther, thus be­com­ing an ac­tive son of the liv­ing God.

186:2.10His love for ig­no­rant mor­tals is fully dis­closed by his pa­tience and great self-pos­ses­sion in the face of the jeers, blows, and buf­fet­ings of the coarse sol­diers and the un­think­ing ser­vants. He was not even an­gry when they blind­folded him and, de­ri­sively strik­ing him in the face, ex­claimed: “Proph­esy to us who it was that struck you.”

186:2.11Pi­late spoke more truly than he knew when, af­ter Je­sus had been scourged, he pre­sented him be­fore the mul­ti­tude, ex­claim­ing, “Be­hold the man!” In­deed, the fear-rid­den Ro­man gov­er­nor lit­tle dreamed that at just that mo­ment the uni­verse stood at at­ten­tion, gaz­ing upon this unique scene of its beloved Sov­er­eign thus sub­jected in hu­mil­i­a­tion to the taunts and blows of his dark­ened and de­graded mor­tal sub­jects. And as Pi­late spoke, there echoed through­out all Neb­a­don, “Be­hold God and man!” Through­out a uni­verse, un­told mil­lions have ever since that day con­tin­ued to be­hold that man, while the God of Ha­vona, the su­preme ruler of the uni­verse of uni­verses, ac­cepts the man of Naz­a­reth as the sat­is­fac­tion of the ideal of the mor­tal crea­tures of this lo­cal uni­verse of time and space. In his match­less life he never failed to re­veal God to man. Now, in these fi­nal episodes of his mor­tal ca­reer and in his sub­se­quent death, he made a new and touch­ing rev­e­la­tion of man to God.