At daybreak, the chief priests – with the elders, legal experts, and the whole Sanhedrin – formed a plan. They bound Jesus, led him away, and turned him over to Pilate. Pilate questioned him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
Jesus replied, “That’s what you say.” The chief priests were accusing him of many things.
Pilate asked him again, “Aren’t you going to answer? What about all these accusations?” But Jesus gave no more answers, so that Pilate marveled.
Pilate wanted to satisfy the crowd, so he released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus whipped, then handed him over to be crucified.
~ Mark 15:1-5, 15
Truth itself cannot be stated. Truth simply is, and is what is, the good with the bad, the joy with the despair, the presence and absence of God, the swollen eye, the bird pecking the cobbles for crumbs. Before it is a word, the Gospel that is truth is silence, a pregnant silence in its ninth month, and in answer to Pilate’s question, Jesus keeps silent, even with his hands tied behind him manages somehow to hold silence out like a terrible gift.
~ Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale
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