Mrs. Pilate

Good Friday.  Most people miss it.  Most everybody knows about Easter.  Whether you celebrate Easter with a big bunny and a crap ton of candy and eggs or you celebrate Easter as the day Jesus defeated death, you probably remember Easter every year.  But Good Friday…unless you are in a denomination that celebrates Holy Week, you might just miss it.  Easter Sunday is big and bright and full of family and church and tradition.  It’s a holiday.  Good Friday…sadly…not so much.  But there is so much to Good Friday.  So many things to remember.  So much pain to sort through.  An arrest.  An illegal trial.  A rag tag group of disciples scared whitless.  A guy named Peter and a rooster crowing.  Pilate.  Jesus.  Cross. Thieves.  Roman soldiers.  Darkness.  Death.  Earthquake.  Torn veil.  Sadness. Questions. Pain.

But most people who do remember Good Friday still miss an insanely important person on that day.

Mrs. Pilate.

Who?

Yep.  Mrs. Pilate.

It seems she was almost forgotten in the Word as well.  But God saw fit to have Matthew, a tax collector turned people fisherman, add one sentence to his side of the story.  One line.  One thought.  But I bet it made a difference to Jesus.  She was important to Him.

“While he (Pilate) was sitting on the judge’s bench, his wife sent word to him.  ‘Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for today I’ve suffered terribly in a dream because of Him!'” Matthew 27:19 (bold letters are in the New International Texas girl living in Colorado version)

Mrs. Pilate had some guts y’all.  She sent a servant to interrupt her husband at work.  Not just at work.  In a meeting.  Not just a meeting.  A trial.  Not just a trial. A trial of a man who everybody knew or had at least heard stories. And those stories were shocking.  It’s like your husband is the CEO and you send the secretary to interrupt the biggest meeting of the year to tell him your opinion of the other guy in the room.  I may be a strong, opinionated Texas woman who is married to a wise and compassionate man, but I don’t even have the guts to do that.

She did.

And what exactly did she say?

She knew He was righteous.  She knew He was undeserving of what was happening to Him.  She had suffered because of a dream and was affected so strongly, she didn’t care about proper etiquette.  She had to stand up for this man.

She was the only one y’all.

Not the disciples.  Not the Sanhedrin.  Not the people.

No one else but Mrs. Pilate.

“In the whole history of the Passion of Christ no one pleads for Him but a woman, the wife of a heathen governor, the deputy of the emperor of the world.” Wadsworth

She wasn’t even temple-folk (church-folk to you and me)…but she stood up for Him.  (Don’t even get me started on church-folk, we could be here for hours.  But main thought…we church-folk need to look and act a lot less like church-folk and a lot more like Jesus.  Yep, I’m lookin’ at me too!)

I have to wonder.   Did Jesus overhear the servant telling Pilate?  If He did, what did He do?  Did it warm His heart?  Did God use her boldness to remind Jesus man that He had not forsaken His One and Only Son?

I’m SURE Jesus didn’t shun her or what she said because she wasn’t church-folk.

Legend says she might have become a Jewish convert.  Legend also says she became a Follower after His death and resurrection.  I hope so.

Legend calls her things…

I call her brave.  I call her a voice.  I hope to meet her in Heaven someday.  I want to hear her whole story.  I want to know word for word, exactly what happened in that dream.  I want to know the look in Jesus’ eyes when they met face to face.

And between now and that moment when I get to meet her…I want to be like her and not care about proper etiquette

and…

I want to stand strong for “that righteous man”.