Chapter One
Gethsemane was a comfortable and familiar place, holding a myriad of good memories. Jesus and his disciples had been there so often that every tree and path must have been familiar. When they had been there during daylight hours, Jerusalem gleamed like a celestial city with all its whitewashed houses and the magnificent temple on the western horizon. At night the city could appear almost mystical with the flickering of oil lanterns in the windows. It was especially beautiful at sunset with the smoke from cooking fires turning the sun’s rays into a rainbow of oranges, yellows, and reds.
But this was not a night for joy. Those old trees for which Mount Olivet was named would witness anguish and tyranny before the night was over. That Thursday night would become a moral preview of the physical destruction of the garden and all the olive trees in AD 70 when the soldiers of Titus would cut down every one of them.
†Gethsemane means “oil press,” and that is where the garden got its name. Olives were gathered in baskets and transported to a shallow rock cistern and then crushed with a large upright millstone.
“Sit here while I go over there and pray,” Jesus told his disciples as he pointed toward his place of prayer in an abandoned oil press.† They had spent several hours together there on Tuesday afternoon. “Pray that you won’t cave in to temptation.”
“Peter,” Jesus said, “you and the Zebedee brothers come with me.” The four of them walked the path to the oil press. During the short walk, a dark cloud of sorrow and trouble fell over Jesus like a sudden storm on Galilee’s lake. Jesus said, “My soul is so sad that I feel like I’m going to die!” Of course this was absolutely frightening to his friends—he was dying before their eyes, but it was not like other deaths they had seen. It was almost as if he were being crushed to death by a massive but unseen spiritual mountain. Forcing himself to go on, he told the three to stay there and stay alert.
†Abba was the Aramaic name that children called their fathers, similar to Daddy. It was an unusual and particularly intimate term for Jesus to use. Interestingly, the term carried over into the Greek-language worship of early Christians.
Jesus went a short distance and collapsed onto his knees in a position for prayer. He painfully said to God, “Abba, Father, you can do absolutely anything.† Take this cup of suffering and death away from me. Yet it’s not what I want, but what you want.”
Supernatural forces were colliding. Jesus dreaded the horrific death coming the next day. He knew that God was his Father and had ultimate divine powers. The anticipation of the cup of death was already taking him down. How could he endure all that was coming? He pleaded with his Father for a way out. Others had received miracles to meet their needs, and now he prayed for a miracle to meet his need.
Jesus must have known the answer—no—before he asked. God’s will was for him to die on Friday, and Jesus, the Son of God, was committed to doing the will of his Father. The agony of all this was horribly wrenching, and the divine response was to send an angel—not an angel to call off the suffering, but an angel to give him strength. With the renewed physical and spiritual strength the angel provided, Jesus prayed even more earnestly and passionately. Sweat dripped off him like drops of blood pouring to the ground.
Jesus stood up and went back to his disciples, yearning for the company and support of his dearest friends. Despite all their misunderstanding of him and his message, along with too many moments of selfishness, they were the ones who were closest to him, and he loved them deeply. He wanted their help. Instead of finding them praying for him, he found them sleeping. One further blow to a man who was already down and dying. Jesus looked at Peter with sadness as he asked them all, “Are you asleep? Could you not keep your eyes open for just an hour?” No one answered—maybe just one woke up enough to hear him say, “Stay awake and pray so that you will not slip into temptation. The spirit may be willing, but the body is weak.”
Jesus went back to his place of prayer, his heart heavy with grief. The ground was still damp from tears and sweat. He knelt a second time and prayed the same request: “My Father, if you still say I have to drink this cup of agony, I’ll do what you want.” It was a statement with an implied question. And the answer was still no. This wasn’t going to be called off.
Seeking their support, he returned again to his friends. They had been there for him in the past. They had as recently as their supper together declared their love loud and long. Judas the betrayer was gone, the loyal eleven remained, but his closest were asleep again. Jesus turned around and returned to pray. Same prayer. Same answer.
Jesus returned to his disciples and commented, “Are you still sleeping?” But there was no condemnation in his voice. Their rest was over. The garden was about to become a battlefield. “Wake up. It’s almost time. They’re coming for me,” he announced. “Get up! Let’s go! Here comes the man who is going to betray me.”
As the words rolled off Jesus’ tongue, Judas appeared on the path. He had been to this place often and rightly guessed Jesus would go to Gethsemane after the Passover dinner.
†A “cohort” was normally six hundred men, although it was hard to tell if it was actually that many because the area was small and crowded. The expression may have been used in a general sense to communicate a sizable group of soldiers.
As the betrayer entered the grove of olive trees, it was clear in the moonlight that he hadn’t come alone. He was accompanied by a delegation of officials representing the chief priests, religion teachers, elders, and Pharisees, and they were backed up by most of a Roman cohort of soldiers.† They were armed with torches, lanterns, swords, clubs, and other weapons, none of which seemed necessary in the light of the full moon and their intent to arrest the unarmed Jesus.
Knowing what to expect, Jesus did not resist. He stepped forward and asked the posse, “Whom do you want?”
“Jesus of Nazareth,” replied the leader of the Sanhedrin delegation.
“I am.”
†There was something about the manner in which he said, “I am” that was like the same words from God to Moses in the desert. Moses had asked God’s name and was told, “My name is I Am.”
When he identified himself, the arresters stepped back, and many of them fell to the ground in awe.†
When no one else came to get him, Jesus asked again, “Whom do you want?”
Same answer. “We’ve come for Jesus of Nazareth.”
“I told you that I am Jesus of Nazareth. If you are looking for me, then let these men go.” He pointed to the eleven, not including Judas. Judas was standing with the Sanhedrin representatives and the soldiers. Jesus didn’t want to drag his followers into jail with him; he wanted to fulfill his promise to God that he wouldn’t lose any of the followers God had entrusted to his care.
The mob may have thought it possible that a loyal follower was playing the part of Jesus and they could mistakenly arrest a stand-in. Even though Jesus admitted who he was, they wanted confirmation from Judas. They had a prearranged signal. “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him,” Judas had told them as they left the city and headed toward the Mount of Olives. It was an easier promise than when actually standing in front of Jesus.
Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi.”
“Friend, do what you came to do,” Jesus responded.
Judas quickly kissed Jesus, who said, “Judas, are you really going to betray the Son of Man with a kiss?”
It all suddenly became clear to the eleven. As the soldiers stepped forward to seize and arrest Jesus, his disciples shouted, “Jesus, should we fight with our swords?” Peter’s dagger was already drawn, and he lunged at Malchus, cutting off the right ear of the high priest’s servant.
It all happened quickly. Jesus shouted his own command, “Stop right now! Put your sword away, Simon! Those who fight with a sword die by a sword. Don’t you know that I could ask my Father to send twelve legions of angels to defend me? But how then would the Scripture’s predictions be fulfilled? Do you think I should escape the cup that the Father has given me to drink?” Then Jesus performed his last miracle before death—he put back the soldier’s ear and healed him.
Jesus turned to those arresting him, almost as if he were in charge of the proceedings. “Does it look to you like I’m commanding a rebel army so you needed to bring your weapons to arrest me? I’ve been publicly teaching at the temple every day, and you didn’t arrest me there. So what’s going on here? Evil darkness is taking over! The predictions of the prophets are coming true!”
†This peculiar piece of the story comes from the writing of Mark, and although he never actually says who ran away naked, many have assumed that an incident like this would best be remembered by the person to whom it happened. And it would make sense for Mark not to mention his own name. Unlike in Greek culture, the Jews were very modest and abhorred nakedness in front of others. It would be common to wear a loincloth as an undergarment, and that may be what Mark meant, rather than completely unclothed.
While Jesus spoke to his enemies, fear took over, and all eleven of his disciples abandoned him and ran away. There was even an onlooker named Mark,† a distant follower of Jesus, watching from behind one of the olive trees. When he saw the disciples take off, he started to run away too. A soldier grabbed him by his clothes, but he tore away so the clothes ripped off and the soldier was left holding his robe. Mark wasn’t wearing anything underneath and ran away naked.
†In addition to the Mosaic Law in the Pentateuch, there were many oral traditions passed down and accumulated through the generations, dealing with details of civil and religious life. There is uncertainty about the detailed trial rules in first-century Jerusalem. Later records describe the practice of Jewish law and trials, but they were written after the first century. Assuming that these descriptions apply also to first-century practices, the trial procedures here are probable.
With Jesus now in their custody, the soldiers took him back across the Kidron Valley and into the city, where they delivered him to the courtyard of Annas for the first of a series of trials. The first of these trials was held in Jewish courts.†
†The Sanhedrin was considered the Supreme Court of Jews, not only in the land of Israel but for Jews living anywhere in the world. The Sanhedrin consisted of seventy men. It included priests, scribes, and elders who met very specific qualifications: (1) full-blooded Jew (that is, both parents were Jews), (2) extensive knowledge of Jewish law, (3) multilingual (so they could hear cases in different languages, because translation was forbidden), (4) solid reputation, and (5) no personal interest in the case (or they had to recuse themselves).
Jesus was accused of offenses carrying the death penalty. This made the judicial process much simpler, narrowing the scope and volume of the laws. Only the Sanhedrin could hear capital cases.†
The soldiers brought Jesus to Annas, who had been retired from the office of high priest for fifteen years. The Romans had replaced him with his son-in-law Caiaphas as the current high priest, although many Jews still considered Annas their legitimate spiritual leader. Annas was never far from power because his successors included five of his sons plus Caiaphas.
Jesus’ first trial was during the night in spite of the law against legal proceedings after dark. It started with Annas interrogating Jesus about his disciples and his teachings. Protecting them from similar charges, Jesus didn’t tell their names, although he was candid about his teaching. “I have spoken openly to the world,” Jesus said. “I regularly taught in synagogues or at the temple, the places where all Jews go to assemble. I didn’t speak in secret. There is no need for you to question me. Just ask all those who heard me teach. They certainly know what I said.”
A court official standing nearby slapped his face and angrily asked, “Is this the way you answer the high priest?”
He had no right to strike Jesus unless he had done something wrong. With amazing poise, Jesus turned to him and said, “If I said the wrong thing, please testify to my mistake. But if I told the truth, why did you just hit me?”
It was apparent that Jesus knew the law and intended to invoke it. That was no doubt a surprise to Annas, who had never personally met or heard Jesus before. He may have assumed that he was an illiterate, ignorant, and unsophisticated itinerant rabble-rouser from Galilee who would be overwhelmed by his superiors in the big city. Whatever Annas’ assessment, he decided to pass the defendant on to Caiaphas and let him handle the popular rabbi himself.
The temple police took Jesus to the home of the high priest, where Caiaphas was in a late meeting with former chief priests as well as the elders and teachers of the law and several other temple officials. Although most of the membership of the Sanhedrin was present, it wasn’t a legal meeting because they weren’t in their courtroom. When Jesus was brought in, they were in the midst of a discussion on how to recruit false evidence to use in trial against him so he would be convicted and executed. It was turning out to be more difficult than they expected; they were meeting with little success. There were plenty of witnesses willing to commit perjury, but they weren’t very credible.
At almost the same time Jesus was brought in, a new group of potential witnesses arrived. One of them testified, “I heard the defendant say he could destroy God’s temple and then rebuild it within three days.” Others testified that they had heard Jesus say, “I will tear down this man-made temple, and in three days I’ll build another one without human help.” Close, but not close enough. The more they were pressed on the details of their testimony, the more discrepancies showed up.
Frustrated by the lineup of unbelievable witnesses, Caiaphas was left with no option but to directly question Jesus. Leaping to his feet, he demanded, “Are you not going to respond? What do you say about this testimony that these witnesses are bringing against you?”—as if the testimony had been credible. Jesus knew the law. He knew he wasn’t required to answer. So he said nothing.
Caiaphas knew that almost every pious Jew would respond to an invocation of the name of God even if it meant self-incrimination. He instructed Jesus, “I charge you under oath by the living God to declare to us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”
The ploy seemingly worked. “Yes, I am,” Jesus answered. “Someday every one of you will see me, the Son of Man, sitting at the right hand of Almighty God and then coming to earth on the clouds of heaven.”
The high priest tore his clothes in a dramatic gesture of shock and dismay, wailing, “Blasphemy! He has blasphemed against God! We don’t need witnesses! You’ve all heard this blasphemy for yourselves. What do you think? What do you say?”
“Guilty!” they all shouted. “He deserves death!” The unanimity should have been a cause for a retrial, but no one pressed that point of law so late at night. Jesus’ admission that he was both the Messiah and the future ruler alongside God was a claim no mere mortal could rightly make. They concluded that their charge of blasphemy against God was now confirmed.
The pretense of a legitimate trial further degenerated as members of the Sanhedrin started to spit in Jesus’ face. Because he was still tied up, he couldn’t even brush off their saliva or deflect their fists when they punched him. The trial turned to further anarchy as several of the guards put a blindfold over his eyes and made sport of him. They spun him around, beat him, and mockingly demanded, “Prophesy! Who hit you?” They were out of control, and their insults multiplied. Jesus just took the degrading humiliation without saying anything.
John and Peter had followed the arrest party at a distance. There was enough light from the moon and the group was sufficiently large and loud that it wasn’t difficult to keep in sight. When they reached the residence of the high priest, John, whose family had a home in Jerusalem and knew the high priest, easily got through the gate into the courtyard, but Peter had to wait outside. A few minutes later John talked to the girl who was watching the gate and convinced her to let Peter come in. It all went very smoothly until the girl saw Peter’s face in the moonlight and asked him, “Aren’t you one of his disciples?”
Peter quickly and firmly said, “No, I am not!” His first impulse probably was that lying was the only way he would get in.
The night was clear and cold, as was typical at this altitude in this season. When the guards started a fire in the middle of the courtyard, many gathered around to get warm—servants, guards, officials, and Peter. Peter was largely unnoticed until a servant girl who worked for the high priest stopped and stared at him. Finally she thought she remembered how she knew him. “You’re one of his disciples, aren’t you? Yes, you are! You were with Jesus of Galilee!”
Peter’s reaction was quick. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do! You are a disciple of that Nazarene, Jesus,” she insisted.
More emphatically he spoke so everyone nearby could hear, “Woman, I don’t know him. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. How many times do I need to tell you? I am not one of that man’s disciples!” As he talked he moved backward toward the gate.
As he exited the courtyard, another girl saw him and announced, “He’s one of them! Look at him. This fellow was part of the group with Jesus of Nazareth.” Others agreed, “She’s right. You’re one of them, and you know it.”
Surrounded by those identifying him as a disciple of Jesus, Peter again denied affiliation with Jesus, this time swearing with an oath as he said, “Listen! I don’t know the man! I don’t know the man! How many times do I need to tell you?”
†Peter’s curses weren’t profanity or vulgarity, but he was swearing by various things that he didn’t know Jesus. It was a type of behavior Jesus had addressed in the Sermon on the Mount when he said, “Some people are pretty creative in the oaths they take, swearing by heaven as God’s throne or earth as God’s footstool or Jerusalem as the city of God. Others say, ‘I swear by my own head that I’ll do what I promise,’ as if we can even control which hairs grow in black or white! Simplify your promises. Don’t swear by anything. Just say yes that you are going to do something and then do it. Just say no, you’re not going to do something and then don’t do it. Don’t let Satan twist your words into fake promises that you don’t really intend to keep.”
When everything calmed down, it appeared that the worst was over for Peter. He stayed outside the gate where he could watch but could more easily run away if there were problems. After about an hour, several people standing nearby started saying to one another, “I think I recognize that man over there. I heard him talk with a Galilean accent. Certainly he is one of those who came to Jerusalem with Jesus.” One of them decided to talk directly to him. “There’s no doubt about it. Your accent gives you away.” Peter called down a string of curses on himself and totally denied knowing Jesus.† “I don’t know this man you’re talking about,” he exclaimed. “I don’t know anything about this at all.”
The clincher came when one of the high priest’s servants walked up. He wasn’t just any servant; he was a relative of Malchus, whose ear had been cut off by Peter a few hours earlier in the Garden of Gethsemane. Hearing what was being said, he got right in Peter’s face and confronted him. “I recognize you. I saw you over in the olive grove with Jesus when he was arrested. You know I did!”
†Peter denied Jesus repeatedly—entering the courtyard, in the courtyard, and leaving the courtyard. Depending on how the denials are counted, it was at least three times.
As Peter opened his mouth for another ineffectual denial, a rooster began to crow. Jesus, bound and between soldiers, had been brought into sight on the far side of the courtyard beyond the fire. As the rooster crowed, Jesus’ eyes caught Peter’s and Peter remembered what Jesus had said earlier, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny knowing me three times.”†
What emotions did Peter feel? Ashamed? Afraid? Disappointed? Angry with himself? Peter ran from the courtyard and wept bitterly.
As the eastern sky lightened and sunrise neared, the high priest called for an official meeting of the Sanhedrin. Skipping most of the legalities that should have governed this procedure, Caiaphas spoke for the Sanhedrin and directed Jesus, “If you are the Messiah, say so.”
Jesus answered, “If I tell you the truth, you won’t believe me. Besides, if I asked you a question you wouldn’t answer me. So let me answer like this: from now on the Son of Man will be seated at Almighty God’s right hand.”
Jesus’ answer wasn’t quite direct enough for their purposes, so they rephrased the question and asked him, “Are you saying that you are the Son of God?”
“You are right when you say that I am.”
“Why do we need any more? We have all heard what he said!” they exclaimed to one another. There wasn’t even a need to vote. He was obviously guilty. He claimed to be the Son of God.
So it was settled. Or was it? While the Sanhedrin under Jewish law once had the authority to execute, they were now subject to Roman law, and only the governor could authorize capital punishment. Apparently they thought the governor would do it. He had ordered other executions as a political expedient to keep the Sanhedrin happy, so he would probably sign off on killing Jesus.
Jesus was tied up once again and held for transfer to the court of Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea.
While the entire Sanhedrin prepared to march from the residence of the high priest over to the palace of the Roman governor, Judas heard what was happening and was overcome with remorse. He returned to the chief priests and elders to give back the thirty silver coins he had been paid to identify Jesus for arrest. “I have sinned,” he told them. “I have betrayed an innocent man.”
“That’s your problem, not ours,” they said. “What’s it to us? Whatever you did is your responsibility. Besides, it’s too late now anyway.”
†The record of Judas’ death describes the results, not the process. His death was violent and bloody. The best explanation is that he put a rope around a high tree above a rocky field, closed the noose around his neck, and jumped. The rope snapped his neck and then the rope broke.
Frustrated and depressed, Judas threw the coins on the temple floor and left to commit suicide in a forlorn place near where the Kidron and Hinnom Valleys meet in the south of Jerusalem.† He hanged himself and his body fell to the rocks below with an impact that ripped him open so that his intestines and other internal organs burst out. Those who found him spread the story around Jerusalem for weeks, and the people nicknamed the field where he died Akeldama, “the Field of Blood.”
Having received the money back from Judas, the chief priests weren’t sure what to do with it. One of them insisted, “It is against the law to put this blood money into the treasury.” When they heard the stories rumored around Jerusalem about where and how Judas died, they decided to purchase the Akeldama land and turn it into a cemetery for indigent foreigners who died in Jerusalem. At the time they didn’t realize that their pragmatic decision fulfilled a five-hundred-year-old prophecy by Zechariah: “They took the thirty silver coins, the price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.”
The Sanhedrin, with the help of temple guards, transported Jesus from Caiaphas’ house in the upper city to Pilate’s house north of the temple at the Fortress of Antonia. Although it was not a long distance, the journey through crowded city streets was not easy.
Somewhere en route the charges against Jesus were changed. The Jewish leaders knew that a blasphemy conviction before the Sanhedrin was meaningless under Roman law and that the governor was unlikely to order an execution for a local religious sin. They needed charges that had standing in a Roman court.
The other challenge the religious leaders faced dealt with ritual purity. Entering a Gentile residence made a Jew ritually impure and temporarily disqualified from temple worship for the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread. Sensitive to their needs, Pilate agreed to come outside to talk with the members of the Sanhedrin rather than have them enter his court. It was one of many unusual concessions a Roman governor had to make to keep the peace in one of the empire’s most difficult to control provinces.
†Roman law was efficient. Some historians have observed that western culture took religion from the Jews, literature from the Greeks, and law from the Romans. The typical Roman trial was divided into four parts: indictment, examination, defense, and verdict.
Pilate’s most important appearance in history began on Friday, April 6, AD 30, when he first met Jesus. It was still early, not long after dawn, which was a typical starting time of Roman trials. When everyone had assembled outside the palace, Pilate asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”† Pilate knew and followed the law, first asking for a statement of the charges.
The Sanhedrin were caught by surprise because they had hoped he would just sign the execution order without formal proceedings. The best response they could come up with was, “If this man wasn’t a criminal, we wouldn’t have brought him to you.”
That wasn’t an adequate answer for Pilate, so he tried to dismiss them, saying, “Take him away and judge him by your own law.”
He should have known they would not go away so easily. Their objection was predictable: “But he’s accused of a capital offense, and we don’t have the right to execute.” As Jesus stood there listening to this verbal exchange, he knew all this was happening to fulfill his prediction that he would die by crucifixion, the Roman method of capital punishment.
Several members of the Sanhedrin who knew Roman law eventually told Pilate what they knew he legally needed to hear: “Our investigation indicates that this man is guilty of subversion of our nation. He speaks against paying taxes to Caesar and claims to be the Messiah. He says he is a king.” It was an accusation laden with irony because they hardly thought of the Roman Empire as “our nation,” they hated paying Roman taxes, and they acknowledged Tiberius Caesar as their king with great reluctance.
Having received an indictment of sorts in compliance with Roman law, Pilate turned around and went back inside the praetorium, ordering that Jesus be brought in for examination. The Jews wouldn’t enter, so the accusers were all outside.
Pilate was seated. Jesus stood. “Are you the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked.
“Yes,” answered Jesus, “just as you say. Is this your conclusion or did you hear it from others?” His question was not a diversion. Jesus was asking if Pilate was inquiring from a Jewish point of view, in which case the answer would be, “Yes, I am the king of the Jews,” or from a Roman point of view, in which case the answer would be, “No, Caesar is king of the Romans.”
“Am I a Jew?” Pilate scowled. Many Romans held as much disdain for Jews as many Jews held for Romans. “Your religious leaders and people arrested you and brought you here. What did you do?” Pilate was sticking with Roman law in this trial.
“My kingdom isn’t an earthly kingdom. If it were, my servants would have raised arms to defend me against arrest. My kingdom comes from someplace else,” Jesus explained.
It was an answer that gave Pilate a quiet sigh of relief. Jesus wasn’t planning to muster an army to fight the Romans. He claimed to lead some kind of otherworldly realm. “You are a king, then!” Pilate said.
Jesus was unlike any other accused criminal Pilate had tried. Jesus’ defense wasn’t really a defense at all. It seemed as if he were the judge and Pilate were the defendant. Jesus answered him, “Yes, I am a king. In fact, I came to earth in order to be born a king, one who tells the truth. Everyone who believes in truth listens to what I say.”
“What is truth?” Pilate asked as if he were a Greek philosopher dialoguing near the acropolis in Athens. But he didn’t wait for Jesus to answer. He had decided his verdict and was ready to move on to the next items on his agenda for that Friday.
Pilate stood up and walked out to the waiting Sanhedrin and company. “I have examined the defendant and find no legal basis for the charges against him!”
His accusers weren’t going to accept a quick dismissal of the charges. They knew from past experience that enough pressure could change Pilate’s mind. One after another and then many at once, they shouted a litany of accusations at Jesus. Still standing near enough to each other for conversation, Pilate turned back to Jesus and asked him, “Don’t you hear the charges they are bringing against you?” Jesus gave no reply. Pilate was amazed at the powerful presence and sense of authority exuding from a prisoner under such pressure.
The accusations kept coming so quickly and simultaneously that it was impossible to distinguish what they were saying. Someone with an unusually loud and powerful voice shouted, “He incites crowds all over the province of Judea. He started teaching in Galilee and worked his way down here.”
Suddenly Pilate saw a politically convenient way to escape this growing conflict. “He’s from Galilee?! Why didn’t someone say so? If he’s a Galilean, he’s under the jurisdiction of Herod, not me. Take him to Herod! He’s in Jerusalem for the Feast and will be glad to meet this Jesus.”
So, on the order of Pilate, a unit of Roman soldiers transferred Jesus across the city from the praetorium on the northeast side of town to the Palace of Herod on the west side of town.
Herod was indeed delighted. He had wanted to meet Jesus for the last few years and was especially hopeful Jesus would perform some miracles for him to see. The king was full of questions, and they flowed out of his mouth. At first he may have assumed that Jesus was slow to answer because the questions were so clever and demanding, but then he realized that Jesus was deliberately silent. The room wasn’t quiet, though. The chief priests and teachers of the law from the Sanhedrin had come inside this time and were bombarding Jesus with accusations. He answered none of them.
In the courts of Annas and Caiaphas, the accusation was religious blasphemy. In the court of Pilate, the accusation was political treason. In the court of Herod Antipas, there was no clearly defined indictment. It didn’t seem to matter. Herod didn’t appear to take this confrontation very seriously. He treated his meeting with Jesus as if it were for his entertainment. When Jesus didn’t answer, those present mocked him and made fun of him. One of Herod’s soldiers draped Jesus in an elegant robe and Herod sent Jesus—still wearing this impressive robe—back to Pilate without ever rendering a verdict. Ironically, Herod and Pilate became friends because of this contact, whereas before this they were avowed enemies.
Pilate didn’t want Jesus back. Why would he want anything to do with someone who might trigger a riot or rebellion? Jerusalem was always ready to explode, and Pilate must have hoped to pour water on these incendiary flames rather than fan them into a wildfire. But he wasn’t having much success and had to come up with another strategy to get past Jesus.
An infrequent practice of some Roman governors was to placate the people once a year by granting a pardon to one popular prisoner on death row. It was an easy ploy because the released man could always be rearrested and recharged if the governor really wanted him executed. With Jesus on the docket and Barabbas in a holding cell, this seemed like a good time to offer the crowd a choice. Barabbas was a well-known insurrectionist convicted of murder during a recent uprising, and he was awaiting execution.
†It appears that Pilate knew exactly what he was doing. Legally, he found Jesus not guilty and planned to release him. Politically, he may have assumed that a beating would satisfy the crowd and shut Jesus down for a while. It could be a good all-around compromise to bring closure to this whole event.
Anticipating the offer, many had gathered in a new crowd outside the praetorium asking for a prisoner pardon and release. Pilate told the chief priests and leaders who were back at his palace, “You brought me this man accused of inciting insurrection among the people. I have examined him in your presence and have found no basis for your charges against him. Neither has Herod, who sent him back here. Look at the defendant. You can see for yourselves that he has done nothing deserving of death. I’m going to punish him and release him.” To subsequent generations and cultures, this would make no sense. Why would someone found innocent be punished?†
The Sanhedrin wanted more blood than Pilate was offering. They were looking for execution, not compromise.
Falling back on the prisoner release idea, Pilate may have assumed that the popularity of Jesus would win him more votes for release than the politically controversial Barabbas could ever garner. So Pilate raised his voice over the heads of the religious leaders and asked the assembled crowd, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas or Jesus ‘the Messiah’?”
While people in the crowd discussed the proposal, he sat down in his judge’s chair and received a written message from his wife. Her note told him, “Don’t have anything to do with this Jesus. He is an innocent man. I have been suffering all day over a dream I had about him.” Pilate took her dreams seriously. While he was sitting and contemplating her message, the chief priests and elders spread out and began to work the crowd. Many of these people were aligned with them already. It didn’t take long to persuade enough of them to choose Barabbas over Jesus. Pilate stood up again and asked the crowd, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” They shouted back in a united voice, “Barabbas! Barabbas! Away with Jesus! Release Barabbas to us!”
Pilate asked the people, “What about Jesus? Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”—almost as if he were offering to release both, although he never said that. They shouted back, “No, not Jesus! Give us Barabbas!”
Because Pilate wanted to let Jesus go, he asked them what they wanted to happen to Jesus if Barabbas was released. Some of them yelled back, “Crucify Jesus!”
“Why?” Pilate asked. “What crime of his deserves crucifixion? I examined him and found no legal basis for the death penalty. I will punish and release him.”
The governor wasn’t ready to let a guilty man go free, execute an innocent man, and anger his wife and the gods all in a single decree. He had one last option—to have Jesus beaten. Who knew? Maybe when they saw him after a beating, that would be enough.
Pilate went back inside his palace, where he ordered his soldiers to flog Jesus. Jesus was turned over to the scourging team, and a group of Roman soldiers performed this gruesome task.
What they did to Jesus at that flogging pole fulfilled the prophet Isaiah’s description of the Messiah as a suffering servant:
Look at him if you can—he is so disfigured that he doesn’t even look human. No one is attracted by his good looks. To the contrary, he is despised and repudiated, full of sorrow and suffering—the type of person you don’t even want to look at or respect.
When Jesus reached the point where he could not survive much longer, the soldiers stopped the beating and dressed him up as a mock king. They wove a makeshift crown out of a vine with long sharp thorns and placed it on his head. They put the purple robe that came from the Jerusalem palace of Herod Antipas back on his shoulders and wounded back. They pretended to treat him as if he were royalty, bowing as they approached him but then slapping his face when they came close and jeering, “Hail, king of the Jews!”
Perhaps hoping that this would satisfy the crowd, Pilate ushered Jesus out to where they could see him. Certainly the Sanhedrin could no longer view him as a threat, and maybe the thousands who followed him would abandon him at first glimpse. This could end the whole affair.
Pilate raised his voice to speak. “Look, I present the prisoner to you to confirm that there is no basis for further charges against him.” When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe and looking so disfigured, it was enough to make some in the crowd cringe at the sight of him. Pilate pointed to Jesus and said, “Here is the man!”
When the chief priests and their officials saw him, they yelled, “Crucify! Crucify!”
Pilate asked the crowd, “What do all of you want me to do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?”
The crowd took their cue from the religious leaders and shouted, “Crucify him!”
Pilate, disgusted, told them, “He’s yours. You take him and crucify him. I’ve told you—there is no basis for crucifixion.” It was an impulsive thing to say. He knew it was illegal for Jews to crucify without his approval. He was trying to buy time while he figured out what to do next.
One of the leaders spoke for the Sanhedrin. “We have our law that says he must die because he claimed to be the Son of God.”
That statement was enough to frighten the governor even more than his wife’s note. At first it had looked like he was simply dealing with one more of a long line of problem people in a place where life was cheap. Keeping the peace and satisfying Rome was far more important than anyone or any issue in Jerusalem. But this Jesus affair was taking on a life of its own. Jesus was so different; his wife had a dream; and now they say he is a god or at least a son of a god. Did he just have a god flogged? What would happen to him if he crucified a god?
Pilate swirled around, his back to the crowd, and went inside. He sat down and ordered Jesus back in front of him. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus.
When Jesus stood silent, Pilate said, “You’re not going to talk to me? Don’t you realize I have power either to release you or to crucify you?”
“You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from heaven. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”
This was an impressive statement from Jesus. Pilate had already argued to set him free, but there was a crowd outside chanting, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.” They knew exactly how to exert enormous political pressure on the governor, because anyone in his position needed to be a friend of Caesar. He certainly didn’t want a rumor going back to Rome that he was supporting some renegade king.
A final decision had to be made that morning. If this continued, it would only get worse. Pilate brought Jesus back outside where the crowd could see him and then sat down in his official judgment chair on an outside patio called Gabbatha, which means Stone Pavement.
He ordered a servant to bring a bowl of water and a towel. With the crowd watching, Pilate washed and dried his hands as he announced, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. He is your responsibility!”
If the governor thought his drama would change the crowd’s mind, he was wrong. They all answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!”
The shouting evolved into chants as before: “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him! Crucify him!”
Pilate didn’t even try to quiet them this time. He just shouted back, “Here is your king! Do you really want me to crucify your king?”
The priests up front were the only ones close enough to hear Pilate’s question. They answered, “Caesar is our only king!”
Pilate decided to placate the crowd. He ordered soldiers to release Barabbas and have Jesus crucified.
The soldiers grabbed Jesus’ arms and pulled him inside the praetorium, where the entire Roman guard had gathered. They were free to play with Jesus in a game they often enjoyed before executing a man. Today it was customized to Jesus’ fame and claim. They replaced Herod’s robe with a different purple robe, recrowned him with the thorns from earlier that morning, put a staff in his right hand, and knelt in front of him with mock fealty. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they laughed. One after another they took turns spitting on him and taking the staff out of his hand and using it to beat him over the head again and again.
The cross would be next.