This past Sunday we continued our "Ancestors" series with a look at Pontius Pilate, "the troubled politician". Pilate served as the governor of sorts for the province of Judea. With that title came much power and authority over the people. We are not really sure what exactly was going through Pilate's mind when he chose to follow the people's cheers to release Jesus Barabbas and crucify Jesus Christ instead. Maybe Pilate was trying to keep peace among the people and follow what they wanted. Maybe he had some agenda of his own which he wanted to make happen. We are not really sure. We do know from Matthew 27 that Pilate's wife had a dream and told Pilate to not have anything to do with Jesus Christ, but Pilate followed the voices of the people instead. So once Barabbas was released and Jesus was sentenced to death, Pilate washed his hands to try to signify that Jesus' death was not his fault.
We all make mistakes. We have all done something we regret doing. The amazing thing about the God we worship is that we are forgiven for those things. Jesus' died that we might all have life and live our lives as forgiven and reconciled people...not matter how many times we screw up. We spent time writing down some things we struggle with--sins we do or things we should do but don't. Then we took a permanent marker and wrote "FORGIVEN" over top of that sin. Together we washed our cloths clean, leaving only the proclamation of God's forgiveness there! What is it that you struggle with? Do you know God's forgiveness? I pray that you do!
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