Pontius Pilate is a typical Roman governor: efficient, concerned for order, brutal. Like the other rulers of the time, he perceives Jesus, quite correctly, as a threat: So you are a king? Pilate asks. Jesus says, My kingdom does not belong to this world.
This does not mean that Jesus is unconcerned for the realities of politics, with the very this-worldly concerns of justice, peace, and right order. When he speaks of his kingdom not belonging to the world, he shades the negative side of that term. The world is the realm of sin, selfishness, hatred, violence. What he is saying is that his way of ordering things is not typical of worldly powers like Pilate, Caesar, and Herod.
--Bishop Robert Barron, Gospel Reflection,
September 24, 2020
Image source: Follower of Hieronymus Bosch, Christ before Pontius Pilate (ca. 1520), https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/collections/objects/34742
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