Matthew 27:22-23

Matthew 27:22-23: Pilate said to them, What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? They all said to him, Let Him be crucified! Then the governor said, Why, what evil has He done? But they cried out all the more, saying, Let Him be crucified!

Pilate asks the question which every man that encounters the message of the gospel has to answer. Romans 1 reminds us that all men are without excuse due to the witness of God's creation.

What are you going to do with Christ? Pilate did not want to deal with this situation of deciding what to do with Jesus. Thus, he asked the crowd assembled. A lot of people do that with Jesus today. They follow the crowd that tries to live in a secular society that wishes away the existence of Christ. The crowds in the streets of France seized the government and banned Christianity during the French Revolution. Now, more than 200 years later, we can still see the results of that calamity in the moral and spiritual fibre of the French living there today in unbelief. Considering America and its change over the last 50 years, we see that the crowd calling for rebellion against God was relatively small--the Supreme Court. In 1962 they banned prayer from the public schools, in 1963 banned the Bible from public schools, in 1973 permitted abortion on demand throughout the land. There were protests, but lawmakers have yet to undo any of the damage done to this nation by that small crowd.

When Pilate asked the question, the throng cried as with one voice, "Let Him be crucified." Thus the King of israel, the Anointed of the Lord, was definitely rejected; and so, for the time, the hopes of the Jews were destined to be obliterated. There could be no kingdom for them when their rightful Ruler was spurned and slain.

Yet today, thanks to the Resurrection, we are still the opportunity to answer that question: What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?