"Who is my king?"
"Away with him," they yelled. "Away with him! Crucify him!"
"What? Crucify your king?" Pilate asked.
"We have no king but Caesar," the leading priests shouted back. (John 19:15 NLT)
Complete shock. That's what these words produce here. The fact that they want to crucify Jesus is a shock. A man that has broken no law is condemned to die. No one should govern this way.
But what is more shocking is what the Jews are actually saying. "We have no king but Caesar" is an unthinkable statement. They are so motivated to kill Jesus that they are willing to acknowledge Caesar as their king to do it!
Israel was being occupied by Rome. They had Roman governors who were placed over them. They saw the Roman government as a pagan influence corrupting their land & way of life. Caesar was the embodiment of this ideal. Pagan ideas & pagan rule even moved some Jews to violence in a sect called the "Zealots." They hated Rome & were always looking for ways to rebel. Eventually they did rebel & Jerusalem was destroyed by Rome in 70 AD.
So the fact that the people say, "We have no King but Caesar" is not only politically shocking but spiritually as well. God was their King. At least he was supposed to be. God's people rejected him to get a King in 1st Samuel & have been rejecting his rule ever since. And what's more, the people are committing the same blasphemy with this statement that they are accusing Jesus of. To call Caesar their king is to blaspheme their true King.
And this reveals how far they are willing to go to do away with Jesus. They are willing to do whatever it takes to see him dead. Calling Caesar king is just a way to manipulate Pilate to do what they really want.
We have done the same. Jesus is our true king but rather than serve him we have replaced him. We don't want his rule in our lives & we are willing to go to any lengths to see him done away with. But we can't kill the King of kings. Eventually Jesus was crucified but he was raised from the dead. And his rule has been firmly established forever. He deserves to be king. Is he king of our hearts?
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