SHIRKING RESPONSIBILITY.
By G.
TOO common in this world is the delusion that shirking responsibility is equivalent to doing duty. Men naturally like to be popular, and the performance of unpopular duty is very disagreeable. Pleasant duty is done with alacrity, but that which brooks danger or is liable to incur unpopularity is, if possible, evaded. The pretext may be never so flimsy, the fact that it serves the present purpose is too often deemed to be of sufficient weight. The case of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who gave consent to the crucifixion of Jesus, is a striking illustration of the folly and weakness of such a course. The Jewish council adjudged Jesus to be worthy of death, but they had not the authority to inflict the death penalty. So, after passing their own judgment, they took Him to Pilate to have their decision confirmed by competent authority. They made charges of high treason against Jesus, saying, “We found this Fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying that He Himself is Christ a king.” They wanted Pilate to take their word for it, and sign a death warrant without further examination. But the governor examined the Prisoner himself, and promptly declared, “I find no fault in this Man.” This aroused the anger and indignation of the Jewish rulers, and “they were the more fierce, saying, He stirreth up the people, teaching thruout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.” The prospect of a troublesome tumult caused Pilate to waver in the face of plain duty. He had declared the Prisoner innocent, and it was his official duty to release Him, and then to protect Him from violence; but the vacillating governor had not the courage of his conviction. He was at once ready to shirk the responsibility of duty. The mention of Galilee suggested the manner of evasion. Herod, the governor of Galilee, was in the city attending7the Passover. So Pilate decided to recognize Herod’s right to pass judgment upon a citizen of his own province. This was a flattering compliment he would have been loath to bestow upon an unfriendly potentate, but for the desire to escape the performance of an unpopular duty. But the scheme failed, and Jesus came back upon Pilate’s hands. The governor was now in a worse position than he was before. His wavering had strengthened the hands of the Jews, and they were ready to press their suit with even more urgency than at first. Pilate next thought to shift the responsibility of Jesus’ release onto the priests and rulers themselves, by inducing them to consent to the Prisoner’s pardon. For this suggestion he had the prestige of a custom of pardoning a prisoner at the Passover. This attempt also proved unsuccessful. The weight of responsibility seemed to grow heavier with every effort to throw it off. The people scouted the idea of release, and demanded the pardon of Barabbas, a noted criminal charged with insurrection and murder. With every evasion of duty the situation became more difficult. The people now not only demanded death for their victim, but they demanded death by crucifixion. A third time Pilate appealed to the mob to allow him to do what he ought to have done in spite of them. To appease the unreasoning wrath of a mob wrought into madness thru the encouragement of a cowardly shirking of responsibility, the governor suggested that the Prisoner be “chastised,” and then released. But he had wavered too long to succeed in getting any one or any party to assume an unpopular duty in his stead. He next thought to wash off the stain of guilt from his hands in a basin of water. Having performed this ineffectual ceremony, Pilate yielded to the demand of the priests and rulers and people. They assumed the responsibility of the blood of Jesus, and the governor gave the death warrant. While this assumption on the part of the crowd added to their own guilt, it in no degree lessened the responsibility of the governor. All his efforts to evade duty could no more relieve him than could the basin of water wash away his sin. He had in the most cowardly manner given into the hands of a vengeful assembly, for the infliction of death, the One whose blood alone could wash away sin. There is no such thing as being relieved of the responsibility of individual duty. One may evade it in the sight of men, and to the satisfaction of mankind, but it still stands in the mind of God. Every legitimate position of trust is held by the individual in the providence of God, and is a test of character. And that character will be tested in the judgment by the unchangeable law of God and the unerring scrutiny of the Court of heaven. “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” Rom. 14:12. No responsibility of individual duty can be transferred to another. Others may come in and assume it, and by assumption become co-responsible; but that in no sense relieves or lightens the responsibility of the original party. G.