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Luke 23:7-12  When [Pilate] learned that Jesus was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time.  When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him.  From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform a sign of some sort.  He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer.  The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him.  Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him.  Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate.  That day Herod and Pilate became friends – before this they had been enemies.

It is interesting that Luke is the only one of the four Gospel writers who reports this little interplay between Pilate and Herod.  Although we are not sure of the identity of ’Theophilus’ to whom his Gospel was written, it is possible that Luke thought he would be particularly interested in the Jewish/Roman political aspects of the trial of Jesus.

Two other interesting things are apparent in Luke’s report.  Firstly, we can see a similarity between King Herod, and Pharaoh, King of Egypt, before whom Moses brought his case for the liberation of God’s Covenant People.  Both Herod and Pharaoh were extremely egotistical rulers who refused to recognise any authority than their own.  Both were happy not only to oppose God’s authority, but to mock it.

There is perhaps a parallel between Pharaoh’s pig-headed refusal to bow before the undeniably miraculous plagues God inflicted upon him and his people, and Jesus’ refusing to respond to Herod’s ‘hoping to see him perform a sign of some sort’ on the other.  Pharaoh’s heart was progressively ‘hardened’ with the increasing severity of the plagues; Herod’s heart was already rock-hard, not only personally, but in his infamous family tradition, and Jesus knew, that regardless of anything he said or did, the outcome would be the same!

Secondly, Herod and Pilate were long-standing and traditional political enemies, but their shared inbuilt opposition to who Jesus was and what he represented as God’s Promised LORD and Saviour gave them a basis for some sort of ‘alliance’ against their common enemy who challenged their rule and authority.  None of this, of course, took God by surprise.  He had already declared a thousand years earlier what would be the reaction when he sent his King among us:  “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?  The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the LORD and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.’” (Psalm 2:1-3)  God knows the native condition of our hearts, and this is why, and in what way, he sent his King among us, ‘meek and lowly of heart’, ‘humbling’ himself to be obedient to death, even death on a cross, to pay the penalty of our sin, that we might go free.  It’s all one big story centred on God’s eternal, loving plan of salvation, which is why the revealed truth of his Word, the Bible, has such an impact upon us for blessing, and why it is so exciting to be able to read it each day!

Let us not be surprised, or dismayed, when all the different forces of evil around us today unite in active opposition to the Church – God isn’t  … and Jesus has promised to come again one day in power – maybe soon?

– Bruce Christian