“Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?” (Matthew 27:22a)

During the three years of Jesus’ earthly ministry, He went about doing good unto mankind. It is not that Jesus was some good person doing good deeds, or that he had some mystical powers and decided to use those powers for the good of the people. He was and is God manifested in the flesh, working in the hearts and lives of men even unto this date (Psalms 107:1-8).

He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, made the lame to walk, and raised the dead. He cast out demons from the young and the old. He fed a multitude with five loaves and two fishes. But most of all He brought hope to a lost and dying world. He was and is a Man/God of compassion and mercy. He loved the loveless; He befriended the traitor. He defended the helpless woman caught in the act of adultery and forgave her sins. But most of all He died for you and me (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10; 1 Peter 3:18, John 3:17).

And now the very people whose lives had been changed by the wonderful works of Jesus’ loving hands have turned their backs on Him, threatening His death, “Let him be crucified.” As Jesus stands before Pontius Pilate, governor of a province of Rome, Pilate asks, “What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?”

Let us take into personal account this profound question. What works has Jesus performed in your life? Has He healed you when you were diagnosed with some severe disease or sickness; or parhaps someone you love? What about the time you were in that car accident that almost claimed your life or the life of someone you loved? Was it Jesus that brought you through? What about that time you almost overdosed on some drug? Or you lay in a hospital bed in a coma? Was God there? Maybe you had no money to pay your bills or buy groceries; did God provide? What about the protection of your loved ones, considering the world we live in today? Just as the people of Jesus’ day, “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.” (Matthew 15:8)

After all that Jesus had done for Israel, after all He has done for us, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53:3; read also verses 1-12)

What is your attitude toward Jesus? Is it “let Him be crucified?” Job asks, “What is the Almighty that we should serve him? And what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?” (Job 21:15)

What of those who have fallen away? Those “…who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come” (Hebrews 6:4-5) If this scripture fits us, then we “…crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” (Hebrews 6:6)

So what shall you – I – we do then with Jesus which is called Christ? How about this: “Only fear the LORD, and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you.” (1 Samuel 12:24) (See also Job 22:21-29.)