The Drama of His Last Days

It is clear that all through the trail Jesus never thought of himself as a victim. "I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord (John 10:17). In this situation Jesus still saw the guiding hand of God. When Pilate sought to remind him that his life was in his hands, Jesus reminded Pilate that he could have possessed no power at all, unless it had been given to him (John 19:10). Even amidst that heartbreaking injustice it was still the conviction of Jesus that he was not the victim of men but the chosen instrument and servant of God. The happenings of the last days and hours were to Jesus, not fragments in a set of circumstances which were out of control, but events in a drama, whose course and whose culmination were in the hands of God.

William Barclay
Jesus and the Cross