Many times before, Jesus had turned down the chance to declare himself… Only on this day, first before the religious establishment and then before the political, only when his claims would seem the height of absurdity, did he admit to who he was. “The Son of God,” he told the religious powers.

…A pitiful specimen, he probably reminded Pilate of one of Rome’s deranged who claimed to be Caesar. Weak, rejected, doomed, utterly alone—only then did Jesus think it safe to reveal himself and accept the title “Christ.”

As Karl Barth comments, “He did not confess his Messiahship until the moment when the danger of founding a religion is finally past.”

from The Jesus I Never Knew