Two thousand years ago, a Roman bureaucrat asked, “what is truth?”, washed his hands, and passed the buck concerning his responsibility over the cruel murder of a man he knew to be innocent. It was the greatest crime in history.

When men in authority have the biblical and legal power to save innocent life from state-sanctioned torture and murder, but refuse to do so citing lawyer-speak and technicalities as justification for moral cowardice, they are demonstrating the spirit of Pontius Pilate.

Thankfully, if God can use the greatest crime in history as the centerpiece of the greatest act of love and redemption, he can (and does) use the behavior of lesser Judases and Pontius Pilates in our modern world to advance His Kingdom.

For our part, we must learn to recognize the differences between heroes and villains, between courageous men and the Pontius Pilates of the world. There are many lessons to be learned from the torture and murder of Terri Schiavo — one of them is the difference between professing Christians in leadership with the legal philosophy of Pontius Pilate, and leaders who behave like Christians because they fear God and will not pervert justice.

Pontius Pilate had his excuses and so do our leaders today. One can almost imagine Pontius Pilate burning in Hell for eternity, repeating over and over again: “But I just didn’t know, I just didn’t know.”