"What Child is This?"	December 25th, 2005

John 18:33-38, 19:4, 6-11a, 12-13, 15-16

33. Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"
34. "Is that your own idea," Jesus asked, "or did others talk to you about me?"
35. "Am I a Jew?" Pilate replied. "It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?"
36. Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."
37. "You are a king, then!" said Pilate. Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."
38. "What is truth?" Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, "I find no basis for a charge against him.

4. Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews, "Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him."

6. As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, "Crucify! Crucify!" But Pilate answered, "You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him."
7. The Jews insisted, "We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God."
8. When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid,
9. and he went back inside the palace. "Where do you come from?" he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer.
10. "Do you refuse to speak to me?" Pilate said. "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?"
11. (a) Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.

12. From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar."
13. When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge's seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha).

15. But they shouted, "Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!" "Shall I crucify your king?" Pilate asked. "We have no king but Caesar," the chief priests answered.
16. Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

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