Pilate, the Roman Governor, had no reason to put Jesus to death.  There was no legal charge to put against Him: and without a legal reason to execute Jesus, the Governor could be stripped of his office, or worse.  The charge that the religious leaders brought was blasphemy (but that was not recognised in Roman law).
 
There was another charge against Jesus: sin against a holy God.  However, that sin was not His but ours! As Isaiah 53:5 says, “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”  The death of Christ was not a Roman mistake or a religious conspiracy alone; it was the will of God. Acts 2:23 reports Peter on the Day of Pentecost: “This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.”

The crown of thorns and purple robe were designed to mock Jesus, and so was Pilate’s derisive shout, ‘Here is the man’ (or ‘Behold the man’ in the King James Version).  It was unwittingly prophetic.  Jewish ears would have heard Zechariah’s prophecy, “Here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the Lord. It is he who will build the temple of the Lord, and he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne. And he will be a priest on his throne.” (Zechariah 6:12-13) That messianic prophecy inflamed the religious leaders who retorted that Jesus must die because He claimed to be the Son of God.
 
As the old hymn says, ‘… it was for us He hung and suffered there’.  Our response should be to be totally ashamed of our sin and also to be overwhelmingly glad about our salvation.  We were the criminals, but He is the Saviour of all those who put their trust in Him.  Alas, we often revert to being the centre of our little worlds and push Jesus (and His cross) to the sidelines.  That is a tragedy, and almost a blasphemy, to treat the death of God the Son as a small matter.  His willingness to accept the wrath of Father God for all the sins, of all the people, of all the world, for all time … is the only reason why we can have peace with God (Romans 5:1).  We should be so grateful that we should be willing do anything for Him.