I was reading the story of Jesus’ crucifixion the other day to see the different details of each writer. Before starting I asked God to let me see His word anew and fresh like never before. To my amazement He answered(sarcasm). I was excited that I was able to pull out a few verses and people in the crucifixion story that I don’t know I have every seen. I am going to write out some of my notes on these new revelations as I am trying to learn and apply them to my life. I am calling this “It’s Personal” because Christ is making it personal for each set of verses or people I have seen in my reading. Not because of Andy Stanley’s series called “Its Personal”, I promise!
I started in the book of Matthew, not for any intellectual reasoning but just because it came first in the gospels order. I saw a character the I never knew was even in the bible. Pilate’s wife. She isn’t mentioned anywhere else in the gospels but God thought that just for this one verse her personal interaction with Jesus was important enough to be in Matthew 27:19. The scene takes place when Jesus is brought before Pilate so he can decide if Jesus is guilty of any wrong doings. Pilate knows in his own heart that Jesus is undeserving but he can also hear the people outside cheering for Jesus’ death and I picture him debating in his mind what to do. At that moment Pilate’s wife leans over and whispers in his ear, “leave this man alone!”
Pilate’s wife actually says that she has had a dream about this innocent man today and it was really like torture. Maybe the Lord was allowing her to see a piece of what was to come if this Jesus was condemned or maybe it was conviction of sin. I believe that a God that is big enough to create men out of dust is able to give us dreams to see the future. Actually in the history of Israel this had happened numerous times. (example, Joseph, Gen 37) The other thought I had was that the Lord was allowing her to be under conviction. You may have heard people say that when they are not living right or before they gave their life to Jesus they felt a guilt or weight, that can be a great feeling of torture. So we will never know what kind of torture she went through in her dreams but we know that it was because of Jesus.
Why would Jesus of all people allow torture? I think it was for her own good. I really don’t think that Jesus thought that by her telling Pilate anything that it was going to change what was to take place the next day. I mean, God had already ordained this time for Christ from the moment of Adam and Eve’s sin and no one was able to change that. So when I say that it was for her own good I mean that Jesus was trying to reach out to her in a real and personal way. Jesus wanted her to see him as the Savior and King. He will do whatever it takes to reach out to the spiritually blinded and needy even if it is in some crazy supernatural way. He is always pursuing us for our good and He will make it personal.
The Rousehouse 