Throughout His ministry, Jesus attempted to keep people from publicly announcing Him as the Son of God or as the Messiah. But after His arrest He claims this to both the religious leaders and to Pilate. Why did He wait until moments before the crucifixion to begin plainly declaring who He was?
Many times before, Jesus had turned down the chance to declare himself. When healed people, disciples, and even demons recognized him as Messiah, he had hushed them up. In the days of popularity, when crowds chased him around the lake like fanatics pursuing a celebrity, he had fled. When these fans caught him, eager to coronate him on the spot, he preached a sermon so troublesome that all but a few turned away. Only on this day of his crucifixion, first before the religious establishment and then before the political, only when his claims would seem the height of absurdity, did he admit to who he was.
“The Son of God,” he told the religious powers, who had him in their grasp. “A king,” he told a Roman governor, who must have laughed aloud. A pitiful specimen, he probably reminded Pilate of one of Rome’s deranged who claimed to be Caesar. Weak, rejected, doomed, utterly alone — only then did Jesus think it safe to reveal himself and accept the title “Christ.” As Karl Barth comments, “He does not confess his Messiahship until the moment when the danger of founding a religion is finally past.”
–Philip Yancey
Certainly it must have seemed absurd to these leaders (who Jesus had finally allowed to arrest Him) to consider Jesus as Messiah. He was about to be crucified. He was now under their control (at least that was how it seemed to them). How ridiculous for Jesus to make such claims as to be the Son of God. And yet, when Jesus was raised up on the cross, He drew men to Himself for all eternity! The claims may have seemed ridiculous and absurd at the time, but when Jesus rose from the dead, He proved that He was exactly who He said He was!
That is why the disciples were radically transformed after the resurrection. And that is why He deserves my very life given in full obedience to Him – not only my service, but also my thoughts, my attitudes, my speech, my behavior – all of my life given to Him to use however He directs. I hope you have investigated the absurdity of Jesus’ claims and also come to the conclusion that He is exactly who He claimed to be. I hope you have decided to declare Him Lord of all of your life.
(and if you are wondering why I had a week hiatus from writing after almost four months of daily posts… well, my computer died on me! Last Sunday it worked on Sunday morning, but then on Sunday afternoon… kaput! I had to go buy a new computer, had to get all the information from the dead computer extracted and moved to the new one, etcetera etcetera…. So it took the full week to get everything moved over to a new computer and back on track with posting again! Hopefully I won’t have any other unexpected interruptions in the near future!)