biting his weakness to
the people and helplessly exclaiming, "What shall I do with Jesus which
is called Christ?"[27] we see the predicament of many who are suddenly
confronted with Christ--disconcerted as they are to have such a prisoner
thrown on their hands, and wishing that anything had turned up rather
than a necessity for answering this question, What shall I do with
Jesus? Probably when Jesus was led by the vacillating Pilate out and in,
back and forward, examined and re-examined, acquitted, scourged,
defended, and abandoned to His enemies, some pity for His judge mingled
with other feelings in His mind. This was altogether too great a case
for a man like Pilate, fit enough to try men like Barabbas and to keep
the turbulent Galileans in order. What unhappy fate, he might afterwards
think, had brought this mysterious Prisoner to his judgment-seat, and
for ever linked in such unhappy relation his name to the Name that is
above every name? Never with more disastrous results did the resistless
stream of time bring together and clash together the earthen and the
brazen pitcher. Never before had such a prisoner stood at any judge's
bar. Roman governors and emperors had been called to doom or to acquit
kings and potentates of all degrees and to determine every kind of
question, forbidding this or that religion, extirpating old dynasties,
altering old landmarks, making history in its largest dimensions; but
Pilate was summoned to adjudicate in a case that seemed of no
consequence at all, yet really eclipsed in its importance all other
cases put together.

Nothing could save Pilate from the responsibility attaching to his
connection with Jesus, and nothing can save us from the responsibility
of determining what judgment we are to pronounce on this same Person.
It may seem to us an unfortunate predicament we are placed in; we may
resent being called upon to do anything decided in a matter where our
convictions so conflict with our desires; we may inwardly protest
against human life being obstructed and disturbed by choices that are so
pressing and so difficult and with issues so incalculably serious. But
second thoughts assure us that to be confronted with Christ is in truth
far from being an unfortunate predicament, and that to be compelled to
decisions which determine our whole after-course and allow fullest
expression of our own will and spiritual affinities is our true glory.
Christ stands patiently awaiting our decisi