Where does the buck stop? Pilate didn’t want to deal with Jesus. Perhaps he felt it was a no win situation for him. His superiors in Rome did not like controversy of any kind. If he crucified Jesus, this would offend some of the people. If he did not, he would offend the others. When he first tried to shirk his responsibility, the crowd said the magic word: “Galilee.” Herod Antipas was in charge of Galilee, so he quickly sent him to the other ruler to make the decision about Jesus.
Do you ever try to avoid your responsibility? Bishop Fulton Sheen was the first to call for a “Statue of Responsibility” on the West Coast to compliment the Statue of Liberty in New York. Liberty without responsibility never works out well. In a political arena where everyone passed the buck, President Harry Truman famously said, “The buck stops here.”
Each of us must own our relationship with Jesus Christ. He is unavoidable. To those who say, “Well Christ may be good for some, but not others,” the New Testament witnesses say we must choose what to do with Jesus of Nazareth. We can receive him or we can reject him, but we may not ignore him. He stubbornly refuses to go quietly away. The choice is ours. What will we do with Jesus today?
