Luke 23:12 "And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day, for before this they had been at enmity with each other." Pilate had sent Jesus to Herod, hoping to get this problem off of his plate, and Herod had been very grateful to see Jesus, hoping Jesus would perform a sign for him. But Jesus remained silent while the chief priests and scribes vehemently accused Him before Herod, so Herod and his soldiers treated Jesus with contempt, mocking Him and arraying Him in resplendent garments before sending Him back to Pilate. It is at this point that Luke tells us that Herod and Pilate became friends that day.Why was this the point at which Pilate and Herod became friends? Perhaps because they took comfort in each other's mistreatment of Jesus, assuaging their own consciences.

At His first appearance before Pilate, Jesus had not defended Himself - the chief priests told Pilate that Jesus said he was Christ the King, and Pilate asked Jesus if He was the King of the Jews. All Jesus said was "You have said so," and He answered no further. So Pilate, finding no fault in Jesus, determined to send Him to the known King of the Jews of that time - Herod. I'm sure Pilate was hoping Herod would straighten out the whole mess. When Jesus would not perform for Herod, Herod decided Jesus was worthy of mockery, and he dressed Him like a king before sending him back to Pilate. Perhaps this relieved Pilate a bit - he saw that Herod also saw the farcical nature of this trial, and this led him to be better disposed to Herod than he had been before. That could be one reason for the friendly feelings, but I think there is more to it than that.

I also think that perhaps Herod's treatment of Jesus gave Pilate inner cover for his ultimate capitulation to the chief priests. Pilate will go on to again tell the chief priests that he finds no fault in Jesus, and say that he will have Him scourged and released. But the chief priests won't stand for that, and eventually, through their unreasonable obsession against Jesus, they prevail upon Pilate to crucify Jesus. Pilate probably took some comfort in the fact that, by ultimately giving into the mob, he knew he was not going to offend Herod. Herod's treatment of Jesus made that clear, and gave Pilate cover to have this one man killed to placate the mob.

I think, at its heart, the newly formed friendship between these two men sprung from the fact that they both knew, deep down, that they were doing wrong by Jesus. When we are doing something very wrong, we want to know others are doing the same, or would do the same if in our shoes. This assuages our consciences. This may be the basis of the newfound friendship, but it is not good for either of these two men. They each would have been better off if they had exercised good moral judgment, rather than finding comfort and friendship in each other's moral weakness. Perhaps we should evaluate our own friendships, and ask ourselves if we may be finding comfort in them for our weaknesses, rather than working to try and better ourselves.