Pontius Pilate, What You Did Was NOT Manly

I thought several times throughout Holy Week, as well as when I watched “The Passion of the Christ” on Friday night, that Pontius Pilate (pronounced pon-chus pi-lot) was not manly in his decisions to condemn Jesus to death.  He tried, yes, at first, to tell the people that Jesus had done nothing wrong.  Where he went wrong was when he worried about what sort of uprising the Jewish high priests would start and what the people would do.  He let self-preservation win out over justice. 

He’s infamously remembered by Catholics in our Creed (our profession of faith) “…He (Jesus) suffered under Pontius Pilate…“.  This is because Pilate had the power to prevent Christ’s horrible torture, scourging, carrying of His cross and His death, but failed to act; all out of fear.  He was a coward.  Even the movie “The Passion of the Christ” (picture above from a scene with Pilate and Jesus) shows Pilate’s wife as a hero and a servant, with compassion and deep sorrow while Pilate simply looks on, worried about himself.  Pilate leaves us with a good example of what not to do. 

Christ tells us that we’ll be persecuted because of Him, because we follow Him and because we love Him.  We should be ready and prepared to persevere.  We prepare for this by training (prayer and fasting, mostly).  When it comes down to it, who will you side with?  Will you take the easy way out and deny Christ or will you stand firm in your beliefs, in your faith and in HIS love and witness for Jesus?  Only time will tell. 

Again, society tells men that we must look out for ourselves and self-preservation.  Christ, the Church and TrueManhood.com say something different.  We all say “defend Christ, defend Mother Church, defend Truth” – God will provide for us and will raise us up on the last day.  A True Man does this.  A man like Pontius Pilate doesn’t.  What kind of man are you?

Man up!