Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them, “Behold the Man!” John 19:5
What is it about saying, “Behold!” that just sounds so much more regal than shouting, “Hey, look!”? In the time of the King James translation, words like behold and thee and thou weren’t actually considered special at all. Thee and thou were the familiar forms of address, not the formal ones as we might assume.
But there’s something about that language that, for us at least, gives things a little more weight. When I think of Pilate saying, “Behold the man!” as he looked on Jesus in his pathetic state before the Jews who wanted him dead, that phrasing seems to add to the drama of the scene (John 19:5).
Notice another dramatic moment the first time those words are used in the Bible in Genesis 3:22.
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—
Adam and Eve had stretched out their hands to take of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and now they would be banished from the garden so they could no longer reach out to the Tree of Life. The way to that tree would henceforth be guarded by “a flaming sword which turned every way,” (v. 24).
Toward the end of the Old Testament the phrase is used again when Zechariah quoted the LORD of hosts as saying, “Behold, the Man whose name is the BRANCH! From His place He shall branch out, And He shall build the temple of the Lord,” (Zechariah 6:12).
This passage has more implications than we can cover here, but if you’ve ever watched a time-lapse video of a seed being planted and then breaking through the earth to grow taller and taller, that is kind of what I picture Jesus doing at his resurrection. “I am the vine; you are the branches,” he had said in John 15:5. We branches are carried along toward the Father by the power of The BRANCH, by his life, death, burial, and resurrection.
Furthermore, Romans 11:16-24 teaches that the Gentiles were grafted in to this BRANCH that is Christ. God reached out beyond Israel to all the nations of the earth to offer salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16).
It is something very dramatic to behold— all the ways that God has reached out to man even after we over-reached by our collective disobedience.
God has always been reaching out to us.
Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened,
That it cannot save… but your iniquities have separated you from your God…Isaiah 59:1-2
And even when justice required Adam and Eve to be sent out of the garden because of sin, even then, God held out an olive branch as it were, a hint of the BRANCH to come, referring to the Seed that would eventually bruise Satan’s head (Genesis 3:15).
It was a dramatic scene when that Seed finally came. An angel announced Jesus’s birth to the shepherds saying, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy,” (Luke 2:10). John said that when “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,” (John 1:14).
Thirty-three years later, Pilate, a human ruler, looked on with pity at the King of kings. When Jesus stretched out his arms to bear “our sins in His own body on the tree,” (1 Peter 2:24), the world beheld his shame and disgrace. But in his resurrection and his return to glory at the Father’s right hand, he became the BRANCH that could give life to the world.
Behold the Man!
It is a dramatic scene: God reaching out to people helplessly hopelessly lost in sin.
He’s reaching out to you. Will you reach back?
“Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29
by Christie Cole Atkins
Dear Heavenly Father, Your love and grace astound us. We are undeserving, yet what can we do but adore You and magnify Your name and the name of Your Son? Thank You for reaching out to us in our helpless state, and may we take hold of Your hand and never let go. In Jesus’s name, Amen.
How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure,
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure.
How great the pain of searing loss –
The Father turns His face away,
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory.
Behold the man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders;
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers.
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished;
His dying breath has brought me life –
I know that it is finished.
I will not boast in anything,
No gifts, no power, no wisdom;
But I will boast in Jesus Christ,
His death and resurrection.
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer;
But this I know with all my heart –
His wounds have paid my ransom.
Stuart Townend Copyright © 1995
Walk Worthy 