Luke 22:1–23 centres around the Last Supper, also known as the Lord’s Supper. Jesus’ farewell paschal meal marks the close of his life, even as it draws together various threads of Luke’s story. Taking its place alongside the earthly Jesus’ other meals in the Gospel (5:30–32; 7:34; 14:16–24; 15:2, 23–32; 16:21; 19:7), this meal gives definition to all the meals that have gone before and even some that will come after. However clear the intimations of Jesus’ messianic status up to this point, his identification with the bread now seals that role. Themes of new exodus now also come to a head, as Jesus’ cup saying recalls the formation of the Mosaic covenant in Exodus 24. For Moses and Jesus alike, kingdom and meal converge.
Other subplots also begin to converge. Here the long-brewing animosity of the Jewish leaders comes to a rolling boil, as they engage Judas in betraying his master (22:1–6). More immediately, the emissary which Jesus sends on ahead in 22:7–13 finds earlier parallel in the lead-up to the triumphal entry (19:28–34), suggesting that this king’s unusual terms of peace (14:31–32) have both a glorious and a shameful aspect. The glory of the triumphal entry gives way to the shame of the cross.
1. First commanded on the night of the first Passover (Exod. 12:15–20; 13:3–10; cf. 23:15; 34:18), the festival of Unleavened Bread is a seven-day feast held from the fifteenth to the twenty-first day of the month of Abib (March–April). As Luke notes, it is also called the Passover – a cause of no little confusion for modern readers. That Luke is compelled to explain the former term with the more familiar latter term indicates that the Evangelist expected his Gospel to be read by Gentiles unfamiliar with the Jewish festivals. The notation serves as the gateway into Luke’s passion narrative, where Jesus himself will play the role of the sacrificial animal offering.
2. The chief priests and the scribes have been seeking to get rid of Jesus ever since the temple action (19:47). The intervening engagements, including the public debates (20:1 – 21:4) and his prediction of the temple’s destruction (21:5–38), have only exacerbated tensions. It is no surprise, then, that the same groups were looking [ezētoun] for a way to put Jesus to death [anelōsin], that is, ‘to get rid of’ (NIV) him. Though it is not immediately clear whether the subordinate clause (for they were afraid of the people) reflects on the failure of the temple leaders’ attempts on Jesus’ life (as the imperfect ezētoun might suggest) or on their motives for killing him, the former is more likely. In other words, the leaders’ fear of the people is not the incentive for killing Jesus but rather a disincentive for killing him in a hasty and impolitic manner.1
3. In his struggle with Satan since the temptation (4:1–13), Jesus has clearly been getting the upper hand (10:18; 11:18; 13:16). But now the tables appear to turn when the evil one physically enters into Judas. In canonical perspective, Luke’s narratival remark is curious because according to John 13:27, this satanic ‘entering’ occurred during the Last Supper, not before it. For this reason, unless we contemplate the possibility that Satan entered Judas twice, it would be wise to resist attaching too technical a meaning to this entering. Judas does not exhibit the marks of demonic possession, at least not as we find them in 8:26–39, nor does Luke’s wording force the inference. By the same token, Luke could certainly not mean anything less than this: that though Judas remained a culpable and therefore free agent, Satan here begins exerting a controlling influence on his decisions.
Whereas the betrayer has already been introduced as ‘Judas Iscariot’ (6:16), here he is identified as Judas called Iscariot.2 Iscariot is not a patrilineal name (nomen) but a nickname of uncertain derivation. The most common explanation holds it to be a transliteration of Ish Kerioth (man from Kerioth; cf. Josh. 15:25). Alternatively, it may be a variant of the Aramaic skaryota, the equivalent of the Latin sicarius or ‘dagger man’. On this theory, Judas would have had some kind of prior association with the Jewish terrorist group known as the Sicarii. It is, however, questionable that the Sicarii existed as early as Jesus’ day. Perhaps the most intriguing if not somewhat speculative etymology is that Iscariot reflects the Aramaic iskarioutha meaning ‘choking’ or ‘constriction’.3 In this case, Judas was called this by fellow Jesus-followers, either posthumously (reflecting Judas’s death by hanging; cf. Acts 1:18) or during his lifetime. One can easily imagine him being so named by Jesus himself for reasons we know not. This would at least perfect a certain symmetry, whereby he becomes the evil counterpart to the nicknamed Simon.
4. Now the chief priests appear not with the scribes (22:2) but with the officers of the temple police.4 Judas goes out to them in order to make a proposition as to how they might betray Jesus. First signalled at Judas’s introduction (6:16), this betrayal has also been predicted in Jesus’ second (9:44) and third (18:32) passion predictions. No evil takes either Jesus or Luke’s readers by surprise.
5–6. Unlike Zacchaeus and the crowds who receive Jesus with rejoicing (19:6, 37), the temple leaders rejoice (echarēsan) at Judas’s willingness to come forward. To incentivize the would-be betrayer to make good on his proposal, they also agreed [synethento] to give him silver. The corresponding verb syntithēmi has overtones of contractual obligations. By contrast, the verb indicating Judas’s consenting response (exōmologēsen) has a religious or confessional aspect, especially in Jewish and Christian literature (e.g. Ps. 29:5, LXX; 105:47, LXX; Rom. 14:11; 15:9; Rev. 3:5). Perhaps the point of the word choice is to emphasize that Judas’s decision to betray Jesus amounts to a public profession of political and religious allegiance, implying – as far as Luke’s readers are concerned – that any decision to apostatize from Christ is partially born out of perverse human attachments. Once the die is cast, it is no longer the chief priests and scribes (22:2) who are seeking (ezētei) for an opportunity to inflict harm on Jesus, but Judas. The evil forces outside the Twelve have now penetrated the community, ensuring that Jesus’ destruction will be delegated to a member from within – a sobering warning to the church.
7–8. The day of Unleavened Bread closed out the week-long feast of Unleavened Bread. It was also the day on which the Passover lambs had to be slaughtered. This traditionally occurred several hours before sunset, in time for the Passover meal that night (technically the next day, since Jewish reckoning considered evening the start of a new day). Accordingly, Jesus once again sends an envoy of two disciples (cf. 19:28–34), who are this time named: Peter and John. As in 19:29, the verb of sending (apesteilen) has connotations of a solemn errand. The same pair will take on a distinctive leadership role in the post-Pentecost church (Acts 3:1–11; 4:1–31); the two apostles also experience, along with James, the transfiguration (Luke 9:28; cf. Luke 8:51).
9–10. The ‘What?’ and the ‘When?’ of the Passover meal were already stipulated in the relevant legislation. As for the venue of the Passover, the only stipulation was that it had to be in Jerusalem (Deut. 16:5–8). Though one suspects that between Jesus and the Twelve there likely would have been at least one connection in the city who could host them for the Passover, Jesus takes a different tack. For upon entering the city, Peter and John are told that a certain man carrying a jar (keramion) will meet them. Though the keramion was a ceramic pitcher typically used for carrying wine (e.g. Seneca, Polyb. 4.26), this jar is predicted to be filled with water. This is probably not unrelated to one of Israel’s founding stories, specifically, of Abraham’s servant determining Isaac’s future spouse by means of a providentially administered water jug (Gen. 24:12–54). If, in the patriarchal narrative, the continuation of the promised seed occurs after a divinely orchestrated event involving a water jar leading to a meal, now Jesus prepares for his own meal with a divinely appointed host who is never finally identified. As for the bearer of the water jar, the two disciples are told to follow him into the house he enters.
11. Peter and John are duly led to the owner of the house (tō oikodespotē tēs okias), that is, the household manager. In previous exhortations to watchfulness, Jesus admonishes the disciples to imitate the ‘owner of the house’ who is ready to serve the returning master at a moment’s notice (12:35–48). In Luke 12 the owner of the house must ready himself for the master returning from a wedding banquet (12:36). But if we identify the soon-to-come Last Supper (22:14–23) as a covenantal meal not unlike a wedding banquet (5:33–35), then Jesus seems to be on his way to the wedding banquet. Strikingly, whereas the first envoy to secure the colt emphasized Jesus as Lord and true owner of the colt (19:31, 33, 34, 38), here the master instructs his disciples to identify him merely as the teacher. Their quest is to secure a guest room (katalyma) for the evening’s meal. Whereas Jesus’ parents were unable to secure a katalyma for bringing their child into the world (2:7), divine providence – whether the room was prearranged or not – would reserve Jesus a katalyma as he prepared to exit the world.
12–13. As in Mark 14:15, the venue for the Last Supper is described as a large room upstairs, already furnished (anagaion mega estrōmenon). That the room is large would have been a matter of practical necessity, since no fewer than thirteen men were to dine, more if others in addition to the Twelve were also in attendance. At the same time, that the room is large, already furnished (meaning that the rug and pillows have been arranged) and upstairs may hint that Jesus seeks in this space some kind of crude spatial analogy to the future and expansive kingdom above where he longs to have a meal (22:18). This cannot be overpressed since anagaion (upstairs room) may refer to a makeshift rooftop space, precisely the architectural location associated with Jesus’ first act of forgiveness (5:17–26). As in 19:28–34, the two disciples discover that everything is just as Jesus said it would be. Accordingly, they prepared the Passover meal.
14. Drawing on Daniel, Luke consistently employs the hour (hē hōra) to designate a milestone within the timetable of God’s redemptive actions (Luke 1:10; 2:38; 7:21). This is a fortiori the case in his introduction to this pericope: When the hour [hōra] came . . . In stipulating this specific time span, moreover, the Evangelist closes out a trajectory of increasingly compressed time periods, moving from the week-long ‘feast’ (22:1), to the ‘day’ (v. 7) and now at last ‘the hour’ (v. 14). Jesus had earlier reclined to eat (anepesen) with the unbelieving Pharisees (11:37), but now he took his place at the table (anepesen) with more sympathetic company, the apostles. In Luke 22 the term sits alongside other designations for Jesus’ closest followers: ‘In the account of the Last Supper all three words occur for those at the meal: dōdeka in 22:3, mathētai in 22:11, and apostoloi in 22:14.’ 5 In identifying the twelve disciples as apostles in this passage, Luke is underscoring their joint role in the ecclesial foundation, together with their shared responsibility for reiterating the Lord’s Supper in remembrance of Jesus (v. 19).
15. Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper rests on a solid footing as a fact of history, having been variously attested not only in the Gospels, but also in one of Paul’s earliest writings (Matt. 26:26–29//Mark 14:22–25//1 Cor. 11:23–26; cf. Did. 9.1–5). Still, given the divergences between Mark and Matthew, on the one hand, and Luke and Paul, on the other, specifics relating to putative sources and precise wording remain less clear. Luke’s account is the longest among these reports and may in fact depend on a Hebraic or Aramaic source. This theory would at any rate be supported by the Hebraism I have eagerly desired (epithymia epethymēsa).6 Jesus’ intense desire to eat this Passover, more likely referring to the lamb than to the meal as a whole (so, e.g., Marshall, p. 796), implies that this moment retains a singular significance. In fact, given earlier intimations of his death precisely as an exodos (9:31), Jesus’ transposition of Passover symbols (22:14–23) as a way of interpreting his own death suggests that the journey to Jerusalem (9:51 – 19:44), the bulk of the Gospel, has now reached its climax in this defining moment. Furthermore, that Jesus regards this meal as his final act before I suffer implies that his earlier predictions of suffering (9:22; 17:25) are now about to be fulfilled. If in Acts all roads lead to the ends of the earth, then in Luke all roads come together at this juncture, of which the passion and resurrection are arguably but a denouement.
16. Jesus expects not just to suffer soon but also to die. That is, he will not eat the Passover until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. But when exactly is the Passover fulfilled? Or when does Jesus eat it again? Though good arguments can be made for locating this fulfilment at Emmaus or in the bread-breakings of the early church, a stronger case can be made for linking this envisioned Passover to the eschatological meal, corresponding to the parousia and the general resurrection. This judgment is supported in the first instance by the fact that Luke’s Jesus has been consistently pointing to the eschatological meal (12:35–37; 13:28–29; 14:15), not to its harbingers post-resurrection or post-Pentecost. Second, the eucharistic oral tradition upon which Luke draws very clearly focuses the Lord’s Supper on the second coming (1 Cor. 11:26). On the Evangelist’s sacramentology, therefore, the church’s performance of the Lord’s Supper looks back to the Mosaic exodus and ahead to the final exodus achieved on the attainment of the new creation.
17. By reporting that Jesus took a cup, the first of the four cups of the Passover rite, Luke implies that Jesus himself participates in the meal, a supposition confirmed by verse 18 (‘from now on I will not drink’; emphasis added). Yet he also instructs the Twelve to divide the cup’s contents among yourselves. In typical Passover ritual, only the officiant would partake of the cup. Jesus’ instruction that the apostles share the cup is unique and may suggest that he is transferring his leadership role to them, even as he invites his followers to participate in his suffering.
18. As the entitled heir of the vineyard (20:9–19), Jesus promises not to drink of the fruit of the vine, a circumlocution for wine (Deut. 22:9; Isa. 32:12; m. Ber. 6:1). His assertion is less a vow of abstinence than, again, a vision of the eschatological feast (note the parallels with v. 16), when the kingdom of God comes. As the coming of the kingdom is also one of the leading focal points of the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:2), one surmises that neither his promised feast (22:8) nor his prescribed prayer (11:2) looks to a gradual coming of the kingdom but rather to a climactic event capping off all of cosmic history.
19–20. Next, attention is drawn to a loaf of bread (arton) and the cup (to potērion). Both components, the unleavened Passover bread (Exod. 29:2; Lev. 2:4; Num. 6:19, LXX) and one of the four Passover cups, Jesus now reinterprets wholesale.7 Whereas Luke 22:14–18 seems to reflect a conventional paschal meal with isolated moments of striking variation, now the whole meal is transformed so as to point entirely to Jesus. Within Luke’s story, the event functions as the centre panel flanked by two other meal scenes: the feeding of the five thousand (9:10–17) and the Emmaus road meal (24:28–35). Like Mark, Luke hopes his readers will connect the dots between Jesus’ actions at the Lord’s Supper (took . . . given thanks . . . broke . . . gave) and the same actions at the feeding miracle (9:16) and at Emmaus (24:30). The three messianic meals are mutually interpretative.
In identifying his body with a broken piece of bread, Jesus foretells his fate on the cross. At the same time, I believe a credible case can be made that Jesus is here identifying himself with the aphikomen, that is, the morsel of bread which was placed on the table in expectation of the coming Messiah and eventually metonymically identified with the Messiah.8 In the light of these considerations, Jesus’ implicit invitation to partake of the bread serves as a dual invitation extended to the Twelve to (1) participate in his vocation of brokenness and (2) confess him as Messiah. For Luke’s readers, their own participation in the Lord’s Supper might signify nothing less.
Meanwhile, the cup saying invokes no fewer than four different Scriptures (Exod. 24:8; Isa. 53:11–12; Jer. 31:31–34; Zech. 9:11). Pointing back to the poured-out blood of the Mosaic covenant (Exod. 24), Jesus’ cup, with its own poured out . . . blood, represents the establishment of the kingdom, catalysed by Jesus’ death, resurrection, ascension and parousia – all encapsulated in the concept of new exodus.9 The pouring out of this blood for you (hyper hymōn) indicates that Jesus’ death is atoning much as the Suffering Servant atoned on behalf of many, as in Isaiah 53:11–12. Finally, Jesus’ identification of the cup as the new covenant in my blood gestures to the new covenant of Jeremiah 31:31–34 and the covenant of blood in Zechariah 9:1. Not insignificantly, Jeremiah’s anticipated new covenant is a predicted epoch of forgiveness and life in the Spirit.
21–22. Notwithstanding the remarkable, though largely implicit, claims of Jesus’ bread and cup sayings, one of the apostles stands ready to betray Jesus, even as he is with me. Indeed, his hand is on the table. Yet this comes as no surprise either to God or to Jesus. Whereas Matthew (Matt. 26:24) and Mark (Mark 14:21) ultimately ascribe the betrayer’s actions and the Son of Man’s resultant going to holy writ (‘as it is written’), Luke by contrast owes this course of events to what has been determined. Notwithstanding the hand of divine providence, the betrayer remains fully culpable for his actions: woe to that one by whom he is betrayed!
23. On hearing Jesus’ dire warning, the Twelve start to ask one another (syzētein pros heautous) about this matter. Given the argumentative connotations of the same verb in other Lukan contexts (Acts 6:9; 9:29), however, we find the NET translation appealing: ‘So they began to question one another as to which of them it could possibly be who would do this.’ 10 Two comments are in order. First, Luke seems to be intentionally drawing attention to the sobering fact that participation in the Lord’s Supper is no guarantee against either apostasy or treachery. Second, there is some irony in the fact that once the disciples are informed of a traitor in their ranks, their first inclination is to interrogate one another rather than to countenance the possibility that they themselves might have some role in abandoning Jesus, if not betraying him altogether.
Up to this point in the story, everyone who has come to Jesus’ table has come on an equal footing. The same is certainly true of the Last Supper. Here a motley crew of twelve men, from various backgrounds and persuasions, now take a meal together with Jesus. Around the shared messianic bread and the cup, all embrace their identity as co-heirs of the kingdom and co-participants in a common mission. In taking the bread and cup, all are made equal. Whereas those outside the kingdom look to Graeco-Roman-style meals as one more opportunity to reassert status, Jesus’ disciples instead are to locate themselves, with respect to the community and to the world, through the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is a meal that flattens out worldly hierarchies even as it galvanizes those who follow the Messiah – a Messiah who summarizes his life story by breaking a piece of bread.
The reason that the kingdom poor converge around meals is because meals are celebratory at heart. The reason for celebration is Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the forgiveness that results from both. Luke retains Jeremiah’s phrase ‘new covenant’ (22:20; cf. Jer. 31:31–34), a divinely inaugurated economy that promised to include both the spiritual inscribing of the human heart (Jer. 31:33) and forgiveness (Jer. 31:34). As the visible fulfilment of the new covenant itself, the Lord’s Supper drives home the fact that God in Christ has not only cancelled past and present sin but also provided power for obedience going into the future. When Jesus’ followers re-enact this meal, they are not just remembering Jesus but opening the door to personal and communal transformation.
The section marked out by Luke 22:24–46 finds its background in at least three earlier portions of the Gospel. First, when Jesus points to himself as ‘one who serves’ (22:27) and to the disciples as those who sleep (22:46), he is retrospectively explicating the parable of the servants waiting for their master (12:35–40). Second, Jesus’ observation that the disciples have stood their ground in the midst of his trials or peirasmoi (22:28), together with Luke’s demonstration of their failure in the face of more immediate temptation or peirasmos (22:40), shows that they are experiencing uneven success in averting the trial or temptation (peirasmos) – and this perhaps because they have not sufficiently prayed (11:4). Third and finally, the missionary policies of an earlier day (9:1–6) are now reversed (22:35–38), suggesting that a new era is breaking forth, demanding a new protocol designed for intensified conflict. If there is a theme that runs through Luke 22:24–46, that theme is trial.
24–26. The disciples’ accusations and interrogations, all issued in the hope of identifying Jesus’ betrayer (v. 23), now lead to self-justifying boasts. On the mistaken assumption that the as-yet unidentified betrayer sat towards the bottom of the group’s pecking order, each disciple seeks to prove his innocence in a roundabout way by proving his relative importance (which, so it was thought, would make him a less likely suspect). Of course, as far as Jesus is concerned, this is pure nonsense. While Gentile rulers may have authority over whole nations and therefore lord it over them, such bids for power and status were inappropriate for his disciples.11 In a world where seniority trumps youth and leaders outrank followers, Jesus calls his disciples to become the youngest and the one who serves, much like the youthful Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53.
27. Jesus reinforces his point by posing a rhetorical question. It is a question that is designed to draw out the hierarchical social roles of the first-century banquet table, where the one who reclines at the dinner table is assumed to be socially superior to the one who serves. But after getting his disciples to agree to this hierarchy in theory, Jesus now asserts himself as one ‘in the middle of you’ (en mesō hymōn) and as one who serves, an assertion soon to be made palpable through his death. The call to humble service is no mere suggestion but a command based on Jesus’ modelled behaviour. Because the Graeco-Roman social world was completely structured by these hierarchies, any first-century reader would have understood such teaching to be extremely destabilizing.
28–29. Jesus does not merely belittle the disciples’ ambitions for greatness; he calls them to a higher and more lasting greatness. Placing the you (hymeis) at the beginning of the sentence (followed by a post-positive particle de), Luke’s Jesus emphasizes the disciples’ unique privilege: ‘But as for you!’ Having stuck with Jesus through his trials (peirasmoi), not least the temptations accompanying the social marginalization that followed Jesus’ commitment to the truth (cf. 11:4), the Twelve stand at the brink of inheritance. Indeed, now that the new covenant has been inaugurated through the Last Supper (22:20), it is fitting that Jesus formalize the new leadership role of the Twelve by ‘conferring’ (diatithemai; the verb diatithēmi is connotative of covenantal arrangements; cf. Gen. 9:17; 15:18; Exod. 24:8; etc.) on them the very kingdom which the Father had conferred on Jesus.
30. Participation in this kingdom inheritance entails a twofold promise: to eat with Jesus at his messianic banquet table (thus sharing an intimate relationship with the Messiah) and to sit as judge over the twelve tribes of Israel (thus sharing in one of the Messiah’s central functions). The first prospect has already been intimated in the many meal scenes of Luke’s narrative (6:21; 9:10–17; 14:12–24; etc.). Meanwhile, the expectation of participating in Israel’s judgment has also already been anticipated by earlier hints of the disciples’ priestly calling. Since judging was not a royal but a priestly prerogative (Deut. 17:9; 2 Chr. 19:8–11), not to mention the task of the eschatological priests (Ezek. 44:23), Jesus must be alluding to the Twelve’s role as those who would oversee the eschatological temple.
31. In the light of the Baptizer’s early warning that the coming one had a ‘winnowing fork . . . in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary’ (3:17), one infers that the ‘sifting’ Jesus envisions here is the very same divinely initiated activity (cf. Amos 9:9). Yet it is also, strangely enough, an activity in which Satan comes to play a voluntary role (cf. Job 1 – 2). Guided by the Gospel’s own logic, Luke’s readers must conclude that if the devil’s temptation had demonstrated Jesus’ Messiahship (4:1–13), then Satan’s warrant to sift the apostles in the ensuing passion narrative will ultimately serve to show their fragility. The lead apostle is singled out as Simon, rather than Peter, likely because his forthcoming failure is better reflected by his name prior to his encounter with Jesus.12
32. Though Satan is determined to sift the apostles collectively, Jesus mentions only having prayed for you (edeēthēn peri sou), that is, Simon alone. The thrust of that prayer is that his faith may not fail (eklipē) or quit (v. 32a).13 Though verse 32b goes on to presume that Simon will lapse in some fashion, it is not immediately clear whether, despite Jesus’ prayer, the disciple’s faith actually does fail in the sense intended by eklipē. In any case, having foreseen his protégé’s apostasy, the master also sees his restoration (when once you have turned back). At the point of repentance, so Jesus commands, the disciple must strengthen your brothers. As Luke’s sequel will go on to show, Peter will eventually oblige Jesus by strengthening the church in the first twelve chapters of Acts. In the light of these words, though Peter’s own betrayal of Jesus is certainly tragic, one is left wondering whether his sin and restoration actually leave him better equipped to strengthen his fellow believers.
33–34. Simon is dismayed by Jesus’ prediction and objects to it. Recalling dire warnings of persecution from the Olivet Discourse (21:12–16), he professes his readiness to accompany Jesus to prison and to death – outcomes with which some of Luke’s own readers would have been directly or indirectly familiar. In response, Jesus only doubles down on his prediction. Driving home the nearness and thoroughness of Simon’s denial while also filling out specific details, he promises that the cock will not crow this day until the apostle has denied him three times. Soon enough the dark prophecy will prove true (22:54–62).
35–37. At least three problems present themselves in verses 35–36.14 The first issue pertains to an ambiguity in the Greek syntax, as the precise objects of the two participles echōn (having) and mē echōn (not having) are indeterminate. Second, why does Jesus forbid reliance on purse and bag in 9:1–3 and 10:1–4, only to rescind the same directives here? Third, how does Jesus’ injunction to purchase a sword comport with his earlier stated commitment to non-violence? In an attempt to treat these problems, the following remarks are in order. First, in adjudicating the meaning of the Greek, the majority of commentators are likely correct in supporting the NRSV rendering: But now, the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. The second and third issues can be lightly touched on together: Jesus’ policy reversal is meant not to discourage trust in God’s provision but to alert the Twelve to the fact that a period of intense tribulation, introduced by but now, is underway. Jesus’ continuing commitment to non-violence, not to mention his self-understanding as Israel’s agent of atonement, is evidenced by his claim that Isaiah 53:12 must be fulfilled in me. This is further corroborated by his being counted among the lawless, a prophecy which turns to reality when he is crucified alongside two lēstai (traditionally if not somewhat misleadingly understood as robbers) in 23:32–43. Yet in all this, Jesus’ advice to buy a sword is not meant as a literal instruction for the disciples but as a general indication of the conflict to come. In short, the call to purchase a sword ‘is a call to be ready for hardship and self-sacrifice’.15
38. Over-literalizing Jesus’ words, the disciples inform Jesus that there are two swords in their possession. In saying as much, they demonstrate that they have failed to grasp what it means for their master to emulate the Suffering Servant. Jesus’ retort, It is enough (hikanon estin), does not intend to say that two swords will suffice as the disciples’ weaponry: it is to say that an exasperated Jesus wants the Twelve to drop the whole discussion.
39. Whereas Matthew and Mark identify the place of Jesus’ last prayer as Gethsemane (Matt. 26:36//Mark 14:32), and John calls it a ‘garden’ east of the Kidron (John 18:1), Luke’s contribution is to locate the so-called ‘Garden of Gethsemane’ on the Mount of Olives. The place name is appropriate for what is about to unfold on the cross, for the Mount of Olives is associated with both judgment and redemption (Zech. 14:4). Given that this was a location where Jesus went, as was his custom, one might reasonably suppose that the space was a privately owned area, tucked away within a copse of olive trees and regularly used as home camp for Jesus and his disciples. When Luke reports that the disciples followed him, the sentence likely intends something more than the apostles’ spatial relationship to their master: for the moment they are engaged as following disciples.
40. In coming to the place (tou topou), Jesus commands the disciples to pray in connection with the trial (peirasmon). Perhaps not coincidentally, ‘coming to the place’ (ēlthon epi ton topon, Gen. 22:9, LXX) is exactly what Abraham did in his hour of trial (peirasmos) when tasked with sacrificing his son Isaac. In this case, Jesus is the new Isaac, the promised seed of Abraham and the basis for Israel’s atonement going forward. The same prayer that Jesus had enjoined on his disciples as a standard prayer for life in the kingdom (11:4) he now re-enjoins for the purposes of the present crisis: Pray that you may not come into the time of trial (peirasmon). By itself, the term peirasmos can be translated here as trial (NRSV) or test (NJB) or temptation (ESV, KJV, NIV, NASB).16 Though sharp distinctions cannot be drawn between the three meanings, I prefer the first of these options as the primary sense. In this context, the term trial is a semi-technical term relating to a redemptive threshold event, for here Jesus and his disciples are entering into the same kind of testing moment that Abraham (Gen. 22:1) and the exodus-bound Israelites (Deut. 4:34; 7:19; 29:3) faced – confirming the covenant and launching the new exodus.
41. Though the disciples are called to follow Jesus in his sorrows, he must – so to speak – tread the winepress alone (Isa. 63:3): he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, a short distance.17 In the same way Jesus initiated his ministry (3:21), so now he closes it out – with prayer. This time, however, Jesus is praying on his knees, an untypical posture since Jews generally prayed standing up. Though Jesus’ position may indicate his utter submission, more to the point is his recapitulation of Daniel’s kneeling posture when he prayed in exile (Dan. 6:10). Daniel’s kneeling prayers marked out the days of exile: Jesus now demonstrates the climax of exile by praying on his knees as well.18
42. Having already instructed his disciples to call on God as ‘Father’ (11:2) in their regular prayers, now Jesus uses the term for the first time. Luke’s recording of Jesus’ term of address is partially motivated by his interest in drawing a parallel with that putatively atoning Isaac, who likewise at his point of crisis called out ‘Father!’ (Gen. 22:7). It is a common but nevertheless mistaken notion that Jesus was the first in Ancient Judaism to call God ‘Father’. More to the point is to assert that whereas pre-Christian Judaism occasionally used this epithet for God when seeking to recall Yahweh’s faithfulness in the midst of crisis, the historical Jesus, as evidenced both here and in the Lord’s Prayer (11:2), is ultimately responsible for standardizing such prayer language among his followers.19 The delicate balance of the present verse expresses Jesus’ psychological wrestling match within. Deferring to the divine will, Jesus pleads with the Father to remove this cup, which is the cup of divine wrath (Isa. 51:17–22; Ezek. 23:32–24). At the same time, Jesus affirms that the chief criterion for his future path is not his own desire but the desire of God. The Evangelist intends this prayer as a model for all Christian prayer, in order that the believer’s personal interest might take a back seat to the divine will.
43–44. These verses are text-critically disputed. If the external manuscript evidence ever so slightly favours their omission, the internal evidence provides compensatory reasons for their inclusion.20 Whether or not the words are authentic to Luke, they certainly speak of the extraordinary depths of Jesus’ prayer. So weakened is he, both physically and in terms of sheer will, that an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. Entering into a state of anguish, Jesus now prays with increased intensity, with the result that his physiological processes begin to operate in an unusual way, leading to the sweating out of blood.21
45–46. Unlike Mark (14:32–42) and Matthew (26:36–46), which recount multiple bouts of prayer with intermediate check-ins with the disciples, Luke recounts only one session of prayer and one conversation between Jesus and his followers. The apostles seem to be emotionally exhausted, as he found them sleeping because of grief. Accordingly, he chides them. The disciples must rise up and pray, precisely along the lines that Jesus had already commanded: that you may not come into the time of trial (11:4). In early Christianity, falling asleep and rising up are metaphors for spiritual lethargy and spiritual alertness, respectively (Eph. 5:14). The same certainly obtains here. The disciples fail Jesus and themselves because they have failed to pray.
Whereas the vast majority of first-century Jews expected the tribulation (i.e. the divinely ordained set of trials encapsulated in the word peirasmos) to occur prior to the messianic reign, this passage clarifies that Jesus’ messianic movement would take shape through the tribulation. The master indicates, if only indirectly, that his community of followers would face trials both from within and from without. As Luke well knew, Judas’s betrayal (22:22) of the Twelve would be only the first of many instances in which a seemingly well-established believer would unexpectedly reject the believing community and then turn on it in an effort to destroy it. On another front, Luke foresees certain external forces (like those in 22:37–38) that would conspire in fierce opposition, seeking among other things to label both Jesus and/or his followers as transgressive. When such trials come, believers have the choice to succumb or to withstand. In other words, they may succumb by responding, for example, with self-righteous finger-pointing (22:24), violent intentions (22:38a) or slothful resignation (22:45). Or they may withstand the peirasmos by relying on divine assistance (22:40). The key to such divinely empowered resistance, as Jesus has already implied elsewhere (11:4), is nothing less than watchful prayer (22:41–43). If trials succeed in breaking down a community, it is more often than not because the community has failed to pray.
Building on the Last Supper (22:7–38), the so-called ‘passion narrative’ translates into action that which had been solemnly dramatized at Jesus’ last meal. Throughout this section of the story, allegiances to Jesus are revealed for what they are, even as Messiah – in the very crucible of suffering – is revealed for who he is. The arrest scene (22:47–53) throws into sharp relief two approaches to kingdom life: the way of the misguided disciples (the path of armed resistance) or the way of Jesus (the path of blessing and healing). Soon the frailty of the disciples will be on full display with the threefold denial of Peter (22:54–62), proving that Jesus – and only Jesus – is the true Son of Man.
47–48. As the crowd (ochlos) follows Jesus over the course of his ministry, its allegiance to Jesus has been ambivalent at best (cf. e.g. Luke 3:7–10). In this instance, a crowd comes to arrest Jesus. Two steps ahead of them is one called Judas, Jesus’ predicted betrayer (22:21–22). The depth of his imminent betrayal is brought home in two ways. First, Judas is designated here as one of the twelve. The Gospel writer mentions this not to introduce new information but to accentuate the irony and the pathos of his treachery: Israel’s Messiah was about to be turned in by a member of his own core group, who otherwise would have been enthroned as one of twelve tasked with judging the twelve tribes of Israel (22:30). Second, he draws near to kiss him. Whether or not Judas succeeds in delivering his affectionate greeting (v. 48 seems to imply as much), such a sign of tenderness and devotion will soon be belied by the posse’s intentions, as the predicted fate of the Son of Man is now being fulfilled (9:22–24, 43–45; 18:31–34).
49. As if to indicate that they have temporarily lost their exalted titles, the erstwhile ‘apostles’ of 22:14 are now less grandly identified as those who were around him. They ask an honest question: should we strike with the sword? The query shows, again, that they have taken literally Jesus’ command to buy a sword (22:36) and therefore have misunderstood him altogether. Like the waylaid seed in the parable of the sower, they have become like those who listen but do not understand Jesus’ words (8:10).
50. No sooner do the disciples pose their question than one of them (identified as Peter in John 18:10), without waiting for an answer, cuts off the right ear of the slave of the high priest (identified as one Malchus in John 18:10).22 The event is preserved in all four Gospels (cf. Matt. 26:51; Mark 14:47; John 18:10–11) and therefore must have been regarded as an important datum. It is curious that Luke should specify the severed appendage as the servant’s right ear. And the note is made all the more curious by the fact that it would be more natural for a right-handed swordsman to take off his opponent’s left ear in a swordfight. This perhaps invites the suggestion that the disciple had furtively attempted to strike the high priest’s servant from behind.
51. Jesus rebukes the disciples’ violent instincts.23 And if the first half of verse 51 shows what is not the kingdom way, the second half indicates what is: And he touched his ear and healed him. Among the Gospel writers, only Luke mentions Jesus’ healing of the severed ear. Perhaps he does so in order that the first and last healings within his story would revolve around Peter: the inaugural healing performed to relieve Simon’s mother-in-law of her fever (4:38–39); and the one wrought here, to ‘clean up’ after his lead disciple’s rash behaviour. Nor is it of little relevance that Jesus’ climactic healing was performed on behalf of not a friend’s family member but rather a murderous enemy – all in keeping with Jesus’ earlier teachings (cf. 6:27–36). In this showdown between official high priest’s chief representative (Malchus) and the de facto high priest’s chief representative (Peter), Jesus insists that his priestly order play by a different set of rules.
Luke would not have his reader brush too quickly past the fact that Jesus’ healing touch has essentially recreated a human ear! There is both Christological and redemptive-historical import in this. According to the Scriptures, it is God who makes the ear (Prov. 20:12). More than that, if exile is the result of God’s failing to give ears to hear (Deut. 29:4), the granting of a new ear to the servant of the high priest may be Luke’s symbolic way of holding out hope that God would finally return Israel (epitomized in the servant of Israel’s leading figure) from exile (cf. Rom. 11:26–27).
52. The composition of the crowd now becomes clearer, being populated by the chief priests, the officers of the temple police, and the elders. The convergence of representatives of all the key stakeholders (religious authorities, executive authorities and civil authorities) on the person of Jesus reinforces both the significance of this arrest (in the eyes of Jesus’ enemies) and the climactic nature of the moment. They are armed with swords and clubs, as if prepared for a violent encounter. The posse’s self-arming would only be necessary, Jesus observes, if he were a terrorist, robber or bandit (lēstēs), a lēstēs of the kind who – according to his own words in the temple action – gather together in the temple (19:46). Ironically, the crowd of temple-associated personnel approach Jesus as if he were a dangerous rebel, when in fact it is they themselves who play the violent usurpers and show that precisely in the act of arresting Jesus under the cloak of darkness.
53. Luke has already informed his readers that the Jewish leaders resisted the idea of arresting Jesus for fear of the people (22:2). Jesus exposes their cowardly stealth by observing that the same posse that was taking him into custody now had ample opportunity to undertake the same actions publicly while Jesus taught in the temple grounds. An even more fundamental explanation for the arresting authorities’ earlier inaction, however, lies in the fact that only now has the Danielic hour of tribulation (Dan. 12:1) arrived. This is your hour, just as it is the hour that belongs to the authority of darkness, the principality of Satan.
54. The co-regency of the high priests Annas and Caiaphas (3:2) makes it an open question as to whether the high priest’s house refers to the dwelling of the former or of the latter. The issue does not seem to matter greatly to Luke, for in contrast to his chief source Mark, who frames Jesus’ confrontation with Caiaphas as a climactic showdown, Luke downplays the high priest’s role. A second layer of meaning seems to obtain in the Greek phrase eisēgagon eis tēn oikian tou archiereōs (‘they brought him into the house of the high priest’). To his credit, Peter is following. But, ominously, he follows at a distance. In the light of verse 61, it appears that Peter can watch the proceedings with a comfortable space between himself and those now interrogating Jesus.
55. Exactly who kindled a fire is left unsaid.24 We are left to assume it was the temple support staff. This matters simply because Jesus was supposed to have kindled his own fire (3:16–17; 12:49), a fire of judgment, but now his opposers kindle their own ‘fire of judgment’. Their fire is set in the middle of the courtyard (aulēs), enclosed on one side by the high priest’s house. It is to be recalled that Jesus had earlier spoken a parable about a strong man guarding his own house (aulēn) who would be overcome by a stronger man (11:21–22). In some sense, of course, the high priest’s administration seeks to do away with Jesus in an attempt to retain control over the possessions of the house. Yet in retrospect, it is the bringing of Jesus into the house/courtyard, en route to his atoning crucifixion and resurrection, that advances the plundering of this strong man’s house. In this case, the strong man is not Satan but one of his pawns in the person of Caiaphas. Meanwhile, presumably glancing at Jesus and his interrogators every now and then out of the corner of his eye, Peter sits down with those who had taken a seat at the fire. This posture does not bode well, for, in the Gospel of Luke, those who sit are spiritually and morally vulnerable (e.g. 5:17; 7:32). More than that, like the wicked of Psalm 1:1, Peter sits down in the very middle (mesos) of those who oppose Jesus.
56–57. Back in the day, a servant-girl would have occupied one of the lowest rungs on the ladder of social power. And yet as she fixes her gaze on Peter in the light (phōs) of the fire, she challenges him, quickly causing him to cave in to the pressure of her accusations. Peter’s denial is no small thing, for Jesus had previously promised that whatever had been whispered in the dark was destined to be heard in the light (phōs, 12:3), and that ‘whoever denies me before others’ with respect to this whispered message ‘will be denied before the angels of God’ (12:9). To make matters worse, in denying any knowledge of Jesus whatsoever, Peter was going well beyond the scope of the accusation. The fixed gaze of the interrogating young woman would eventually be matched by the disappointed gaze of Jesus (v. 61).
58. Whereas the servant-girl had claimed that Peter was ‘with him’, now another person charges him with being ‘of them’ (ex autōn). The first accusation bears on Peter’s willingness to be associated with the person of Jesus, while the second has to do with his commitment to his movement. For Luke’s audience hearing this story well after the historical incident, both kinds of commitments would be tested by the church’s persecutors. Again Peter fails, this time issuing a curt response: Man, I am not! (anthrōpe ouk eimi ).
59–62. A third interrogator now joins the discussion and kept insisting (diischyrizeto), repetitively and forcefully, that Peter was with him (returning to the servant-girl’s point). The give-away evidence for this claim is Simon’s identity as a Galilean, likely discernible by his accent (cf. Matt. 26:73).25 Again, for a third time, Peter denies the point. In the light of the later-attested Roman practice of allowing detained Christians three opportunities to recant their faith (or face capital charges), Luke’s story certainly would have resonated deeply with any in his audience who knew of other believers who had been forced by the Roman magistrates to choose between apostasy or death. And yet at the very moment of Peter’s denial, the cock crows (showing that Jesus was being interrogated throughout the night, since the first cock crow falls between 3 am and 4 am). Still within the scope of Peter’s vision, the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Now reminded of the word of the Lord (22:34), the lapsed disciple departs and breaks down in tears. If the ‘word of the Lord’ was the original catalyst for Peter’s calling (5:5), the same word foresees his temporary apostasy.
If faith in Christ has both a confessional and a behavioural aspect, then the same must also be true for apostasy from Christ. In Jesus’ arrest and Simon Peter’s fireside interaction, we see the lead disciple experiencing two kinds of falling away: in the former scene, his disloyalty expresses itself through how he acts; in the latter scene, by what he says. Contemplating the two scenes together, the reader discovers not just the depths to which Peter has sunk but also the ways in which apostasy often takes hold.
On hearing Luke 22:47–53 for the first time, most members of the Evangelist’s audience probably would have inwardly applauded Peter for his bravery in taking on Jesus’ arresting party. After all, they would have reasoned right along with Peter, if Jesus were indeed Israel’s hoped-for Messiah, then it would only make sense to defend him at all costs, even if that meant using the sword. But as it transpires, this way of thinking turns out to be entirely wrong. Jesus makes this clear with his rebuke: ‘No more of this!’ What seems brave in the kingdom of this world is actually cowardice in the kingdom of God.
The problem was that though Peter may have had the right goal in mind (establishing Jesus as king), he sought to achieve that goal in his own way, in his strength and by his own devices. The history of the church is littered with stories of believers, some well meaning and others ill motivated, attempting to achieve divine ends by sinful means. God requires not just an all-consuming commitment to the coming of the kingdom but also an equally uncompromising commitment to see that goal through by God’s appointed means. Those who adopt Jesus’ kingdom goal in theory but swap out his strategy for ushering in that kingdom are already at high risk of becoming apostate.
Believing that Jesus’ messianic programme has come to an abrupt end, Peter is no longer willing to endure the social shame of identifying with his master – not even while interacting with the most powerless members of society. As a result, he denies ever having been associated with him and in fact disavows any knowledge of him altogether. Triggered by inward desires and outward pressures, Peter’s apostasy, like the apostasy of countless erstwhile believers since, manifests itself in an unwillingness to embrace the person of Jesus, along with his extraordinary claims, and a refusal to associate with those who do.
As Luke shares this story, he is aware that many of his readers across the Roman Empire would face social and political pressures to recant their faith. Those who succumb to such pressures would in effect be capitulating to the forces of darkness (22:53). And just as Peter went outside to weep bitterly, so too will those who – whether through word or deed – have rejected Christ after him. Yet happily, those who, like Peter, repudiate Christ only to return can hope to be used for kingdom purposes once again (22:32).
In Jesus’ encounters with the Jerusalem power base (22:63–71) and the Roman authorities (23:1–25), the cruelty of his punishment comes into full view, as does the treachery which brought such punishment. Having been handed over by a member of his own band, the Son of Man is now betrayed by his people, not to mention the Roman justice system in general. Precisely as the quintessential victim of such injustices, Jesus prepares to atone for injustices of just this kind. Charged with being a false messiah and a false king, Jesus now demonstrates through his suffering what true Messiahship and true kingship is. Having been announced (1:32) and confirmed as the new Davidic ruler (3:22), Jesus demonstrates the surprising nature of that office.
63. In fulfilment of his third passion prediction, where Jesus foretold that the Son of Man would be mocked (empaichthēsetai; 18:32), the mocking (enepaizon) begins, the first of three rounds of ridicule (23:11, 36). The same men who taunt Jesus now also beat (derontes) him. Thus, as the last and greatest of the prophets, Jesus incurs the same fate as the two envoys in the parable of the wicked tenants (20:10–11). Clearly, Luke construes the passion not only as a recapitulation of all righteous suffering that has gone before but also as its climax in the Son of Man.
64. The retainers abusing Jesus must have been aware of his prophetic claims, most conspicuously in connection with his prediction of the temple’s demise (21:5–28). For this reason, they now taunt him by blindfolding him and quizzing him on his supernatural insight: Who is it that struck you? 26 This dark game may also have to do with a contemporary interpretation of Isaiah 11:3 (‘he shall not judge by what his eyes see’), which was understood as a messianic testimonium. If Jesus really was the Messiah, so the soldiers may have gathered, he would be able to answer their questions blindfolded, since – so it was thought – the Messiah would not require physical sight to make his judgments.
65. The main verb of the verse is the imperfect elegon: ‘they kept speaking to him’ or possibly ‘they kept speaking about him’. As they spoke, they reviled (blasphēmountes) him with respect to many other things – what ‘other things’ the Evangelist leaves to our imagination. In this context, the verb blasphēmeō seemingly performs multiple duties. In their relation to Jesus as a man, the men ‘blaspheme’ their prisoner insofar as they subject him to shameful reproach. In relation to Jesus as the emerging high priest, they blaspheme him insofar as they directly challenge his authority (Exod. 22:28). In relation to Jesus as God, they blaspheme him insofar as they insult the divine name. Whether Luke intended only one or two of these meanings, all three blasphemies can legitimately be derived from the text.
66. Though Mark gives the impression that Jesus is interrogated entirely at night, Luke takes pains to report that the proceedings begin only when day came. This would not have been an incidental point for Luke’s Jewish readers, for according to rabbinic tradition it was required that capital cases be tried during the day (m. Sanh. 4:1).27 The authorities escort Jesus to the assembly (presbyterion), another term for the council or Sanhedrin.28 The Sanhedrin was the supreme council, normally constituted by representatives who may have hailed from different political and geographical constituencies. Though the point is sometimes disputed when applied as a rule of thumb, in this instance (as in Acts 5:21) the council would have likely been convened at the high priest’s pleasure.
67–68. Up to this point, Jesus’ teachings and actions had only been gesturing to his messianic status: he had never in fact claimed to be the Messiah outright, at least not publicly so. Though the interrogations recorded by the other three Evangelists are more far-ranging and dilatory, in Luke’s account the temple dignitaries cut right to the chase by asking Jesus, in the terms of Psalm 2, if indeed he is the Messiah.29 The term is synonymous with ‘Son of God’. Curiously, he refuses to answer the question, either positively or negatively. Instead he complains about his interlocutors’ unbelief as well as their unwillingness to answer his own questions.
69. Despite this apparent evasiveness, Jesus does not leave his interrogators utterly disappointed, for now he makes a claim that at least comes close to answering the question. Whereas Mark (14:62) combines language from Daniel 7 (‘Son of Man . . . coming with the clouds’), Psalm 110 (‘seated at the right hand’) and Zechariah 12:10 (‘you will see’), Luke amends the Markan parallel so as to admit only the first two subtexts (while also dropping the Danielic clouds), two texts which were already exegetically coordinated in Jewish interpretation.30 Drawing on these two passages, Jesus intimates that God will ultimately ensure the submission of the Gentiles, divine rule and eschatological judgment.
70. Jesus’ assertion is far more tantalizing than clarifying. What role, if any, Jesus’ interrogators wanted to know, did he claim in this eschatological scenario? A follow-up question was necessary: Are you, then, the Son of God? Jesus responds: You say that I am (hymeis legete hoti egō eimi). What does Jesus mean by this assertion? On the one hand, it is an overstatement to call this an outright if halting ‘admission’.31 Nor is it the case, on the other hand, that Jesus is refusing to answer by simply ‘throwing the question back to the temple authorities’.32 The truth is somewhere in between: it is an answer but it is far from a clear-cut answer. Just as the divine voice had twice affirmed his divine sonship (3:22; 9:35), now the third and final, climactic revelation of the truth comes from Jesus himself, although obliquely. Jesus claims that the Jewish leaders have been saying that I am (hoti egō eimi). Ironically, they have spent their lives verbally confessing Israel’s God as the ‘I am’ (egō eimi) of the exodus (Exod. 3:14), yet they fail to embrace the ‘I am’ of both the first and the new exodus (Isa. 42:6, 8; 43:3, 5, 10, 11; etc.). The subsequent action is explained well by Bock: ‘Whatever the exact force [of Jesus’ answer], the absence of a denial means that the council has enough from Jesus. In their view he convicts himself.’ 33
71. After Jesus’ climactic declaration, no more testimony was necessary. Jesus had indicted himself simply by refusing to reject divine or quasi-divine status. In doing so, in the judgment of the council, he also assigned himself the messianic role. Because it was assumed that the Messiah would arise within the ranks of institutional Judaism, Jesus was clearly a false prophet and a blasphemer of the true high priest. For all these reasons put together, he deserved to die.
1. Barely a week prior, ‘the whole crowd’ (hapan to plēthos) of the disciples were praising Jesus as he entered Jerusalem presenting himself as Israel’s Messiah: at this juncture ‘the whole crowd’ (hapan to plēthos) of the Sanhedrin rises up in order to bring their alleged Messiah to justice. Except in the case of unusual exceptions, the Romans reserved the right to try and administer cases involving capital charges.34 For its part, the Sanhedrin knew that it could only go so far. And so they go to Pontius Pilate, Judea’s fifth prefect, an office in place ever since the ethnarche Archelaus was deposed in AD 6 and Rome began to exert its control directly over the region (along with Idumea and Samaria). Pilate had a reputation for being a firm (if not inflexible) and ruthless ruler.35
2–3. Part of Pilate’s daily role involved hearing cases, usually first thing in the morning. The first order of business in each case involved the plaintiffs setting forth a formal statement of the charges. The Jewish leadership makes a twofold claim: first, that Jesus was seditiously preventing Jews otherwise loyal to the emperor from paying their taxes; second, that he was claiming to be the Messiah, a king. Almost certainly struck by the fact that Jewish leaders were willing to turn over one of their own to Rome, Pilate could ill afford to treat this matter lightly. At the same time, he recognizes that the crowd is attempting to manipulate him by alluding to ‘hot button’ offences that no governor would wish to commit (playing accomplice to a seditious rabble-rouser, for example). Likely convinced of Jesus’ innocence early on and reluctant to allow such manipulations to have their intended effect, Pilate will do everything he can to shuffle off responsibility for the case. But not before he asks at least one question: Are you the king of the Jews? In response, Jesus answers Pilate precisely the same way he answered the Sanhedrin: You say . . .
4–5. Though other Evangelists are more fulsome in their report of Pilate’s interchange with Jesus, Luke presents a relatively pared-down account. Whatever his line of interrogation, Pilate returns to the crowd with an initial verdict which complains of lack of evidence. The crowd retorts that Jesus had been busily fomenting dissent by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place.
6–7. On discovering that Jesus is a Galilean and therefore under the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas, Pilate sloughs Jesus off to the ruler who had been not only John the Baptizer’s executioner but also a menace to Jesus himself. In this respect, whatever Jesus’ prospects had been for a favourable outcome, these now become suddenly dim. Since it was Passover, it was not surprising that Herod was in Jerusalem to participate in the festivities.
8. Like the crowds in response to Jesus’ miracles (13:17) and Zacchaeus in response to Jesus’ impending visit (19:6), Herod rejoices over Jesus. Indeed, he is very glad (echarē lian). The reason for such joy is that now at least his curiosity might be satisfied. Because Jesus had largely kept among the people, Herod had had no opportunity to see Jesus for himself. He had only heard about him, on account of his words and deeds. Herod’s interest in the famed miracle-worker lay in the latter’s promise for giving a good circus side act. Like the rest of the ‘evil generation’ (11:29a), Herod wished to see a sign.
9. Assuming, on the basis of verse 8, that Herod asked Jesus for such a sign, his request goes unfulfilled. This is not surprising. After all, Jesus did promise that those asking for a sign would be disappointed to learn that no sign would be issued except the sign of Jonah (11:29). Filling out a pattern, Luke notes that Herod questioned him at some length. In retrospect, when Jesus came into Jerusalem he was met with two rounds of questions (20:21, 27) before his interrogators gave up (20:40). In this second set of questions, issuing from the Roman power and beginning with the mocking questions of the soldiers (22:64), Herod’s line of questioning exhausts this stage of Jesus’ makeshift trial. Herod will prove to be disappointed not just by Jesus’ disinclination to perform a sign but also by his refusal to answer at all. The Gospel writer surely construes this as a fulfilment of Isaiah 53:7:
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth . . .
. . . like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
10. No doubt the chief priests and the scribes standing nearby were especially vexed by Jesus’ silence, as it would have seemed like an act of disrespect. Accordingly, they set about accusing him vehemently (eutonōs), that is, powerfully and vigorously.36 The initial accusations made in 23:2 are now being delivered with ever increasing intensity.
11. Before remanding Jesus to Pilate, Herod and his retainers use the time to deliver whatever bodily and emotional harm they can. Jesus’ abuse was perpetrated not just by a few isolated scoundrels who happened to surround him: even Herod, together with his soldiers, gets involved. So eager is Herod to join in the ridicule and the manhandling, Luke’s grammar suggests, that he is even willing to set aside the dignity of his office. Perhaps in a satirical attempt to imitate a royal enrobing, Herod and his henchmen put an elegant robe (esthēta lampran) on Jesus. However, the adjectives ‘brilliant’ or ‘shining’ might be preferred over the NRSV’s elegant for lampros.37 In this connection, it is worth noting that Jesus’ clothes have earlier been made radiant at the transfiguration (9:29) in anticipation of his high priestly role, and now Herod, even as he puts the robe on his victim’s shoulders, is unwittingly participating in Jesus’ securing that role. By the time Luke’s readers come to Acts 12, they will see that the gesture proves ironic, for just as Herod clothed Jesus with mock royal garb in order to prepare him for his death, Herod himself would don his own royal apparel (esthēta basilikēn) which would have no small role in his own death, dealt out by a divine act of judgment (Acts 12:20–23).
12. Whatever the details regarding the relationship between Herod and Pilate before their collaborative efforts to deal with Jesus, it may easily be imagined why Herod disliked Pilate and vice versa. After all, the scope of powers assigned to Pilate must have seemed a heavy indignity, when Herod’s father, Herod I, had ruled the whole of Judea single-handedly. Pilate in turn would have been forced to negotiate with the Herodian dynasty at countless turns in his administration. Luke includes this aside to show Jesus’ power not just to forge strong relationships in his own camp but also to galvanize opposition from without. Just as the church would make strange bedfellows of those who opposed its mission, the same principle applies to Jesus.
13–17. Now the prefect gives a speech.38 Summoning Jesus’ accusers, Pilate rehearses the initial charges brought against him, or at least one of them: perverting the people (apostrephonta ton laon). Now with the backing of the half-Jew Herod, Pilate is able to declare that, following their own independent cross-examination, Jesus is not guilty. But in order to meet the crowd halfway, as it were, he consents to have him flogged and then ultimately released. This was no small punishment, for Roman flogging was a vicious practice on any showing. The flagellum (i.e. the whip) was normally made of leather cords attached at one end to metal balls, porcelain or animal bone. A few strikes were enough to cause excruciating pain and no little loss of blood.
18–19. Yet this was not good enough: as far as the crowd was concerned, nothing short of crucifixion would do. And so the people shout out in unison. Unable even to utter Jesus’ name in their collective contempt, they call on Pilate to eliminate his detainee: Away with this fellow (aipe touton). In exchange for Jesus, they would have one Barabbas released. Whereas Matthew and Mark both note that it was customary to release a prisoner during Passover (Matt. 27:15; Mark 15:6), Luke omits any remarks on this tradition.39 Clearly it is this tradition to which the crowds are appealing. Following Mark (Mark 15:7), the Evangelist notes that Barabbas was being held for insurrection and murder; Matthew tells us that his first name was Jesus and that he was well known (27:16). There is almost certainly an intended irony in the fact that Jesus Barabbas (Aramaic for ‘son of the father’) was about to be released for murder and insurrection, while Jesus the true ‘Son of the Father’ was about to be murdered for the crime of insurrection. If one searched for any evidence that Luke held to a theory of substitutionary atonement, one need not look any further than 23:18.
20–21. Exactly why Pilate was reluctant to oblige the crowds and be done with it is not entirely clear. At some level, the governor is convinced of Jesus’ innocence. Still other traditions fill in the picture, ascribing his hesitancy to his convictions that the charges were purely politically motived (Matt. 27:18), warnings from his wife (Matt. 27:19) and intimations of the possibility that Jesus was in fact a divine messenger (John 19:8). From a political standpoint, Pilate has little choice but to make some attempt to pacify the crowds. He had hoped that the flogging would have satisfied them but reality proved otherwise. Eventually, he calls (prosephōnēsen) to the crowds, only to be shouted down by those who repeatedly (iterative imperfect) kept shouting (epephōnoun). With the repetition of the imperative crucify (staurou), the crowds now break into an iterative chant.
22–25. This marks the third time that Pilate declares Jesus’ innocence (cf. 23:4, 14). Luke construes this not just as compelling evidence of Jesus’ actual innocence (since Pilate approaches the case as a largely disinterested party), but also as an anticipation of the threefold verdict of innocence with respect to Paul’s case (Acts 23:9; 25:25; 26:31). Both Jesus and Paul are declared innocent; yet their guilt remains in the eyes of their detractors. As for the crowds in Luke 23, they now call out, again exactly as the demons (4:33; 8:28), with loud shouts (phōnais megalais). Overcome by the opposition of the crowds, Pilate grants the terms of their request. Meanwhile, in further compliance with their demands, he releases Barabbas.
There is an unmistakeable irony in the way Jesus becomes king. Having fiercely opposed his messianic claims, his enemies now conduct a mock coronation. Jesus is charged with pretending to be king, and his guards therefore pretend to make him king by forcing him to wear a robe. All the while, through the mockery and the beatings, Jesus is in fact becoming the king of the Jews. Not only the king of the Jews but the Lord of the universe.
This helps to put into perspective every expression of anti-Christian sentiment or behaviour. To be sure, anti-Christian persecution – whatever its form or severity – is an injustice that the world could do without. That said, it should also be pointed out that God has a way of taking the fiercest and cruellest persecution, and converting it into something redemptive. If Jesus becomes king through the opposition of sinful people, this means that Jesus’ co-heirs will likewise be glorified through the persecutions they endure.
Once the legal proceedings had run their course, it now fell to the Romans to crucify Jesus. This turn of events comes as no surprise. Jesus had predicted his execution three times (9:18–22, 44; 18:31–33), even as he predicted that the actions around his death would include abuse of various kinds. As Luke now recounts both this abuse and the crucifixion itself, he once again confirms Jesus’ predictive powers and thus his prophetic status. Yet in this section, Jesus is presented as far more than a prophet, for here he is repeatedly declared to be, even if ironically, the king of the Jews, that is, the Messiah. This declaration, formalized in the inscription on the cross, sets the stage for the resurrection (Luke 24): precisely because Jesus was crucified for claiming to be the Messiah, his forthcoming resurrection by the power of God will in the end vindicate that claim. This section focuses not just on Jesus’ abusers but also on various individuals from different social backgrounds and geographies who attempt to support or honour Jesus. This of course is a microcosm of what would soon play out on the world’s stage. From the very first, Jesus’ death unleashes a polarizing controversy over whether the crucified Messiah is to be mercilessly mocked or honoured with all one’s being.
26. With Roman executions, it was not uncommon for passers-by to be pressed into service, especially if the soon-to-be-executed victims were too weak to carry the patibulum (the cross’s horizontal beam) by themselves.40 Weakened by the beatings (22:63), Jesus himself falls into this category of victim, forcing the Romans to enlist a certain (tina) Simon of Cyrene. Cyrene, a metropolis on the coast of North Africa, near the modern city of Shahhat in Libya, was no small distance from Jerusalem. Simon’s presence is likely to be explained by his having made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover. That Cyrenians should later be converted at Pentecost (Acts 2:10) and then also join the Cyprians in preaching to the Greeks (Acts 11:20) shows a steadily blossoming work of God. That his son is the same Rufus (cf. Mark 15:21) mentioned in Paul’s greetings to the Romans (Rom. 16:13) is an intriguing if not finally provable theory. Yet it is also a probable theory, given that he likely belonged to the early Christian community and that his name would have been instantly recognized by Mark’s and Luke’s readers alike (why else would he be named?).41 Simon is said to be coming in from the country (ap’agrou) or the field, a detail which – perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not – puts him in company with the ideal disciple ‘in the field’ who does not look wistfully back to his or her past (Luke 17:7, 31). He is forced to carry the cross behind Jesus, a task necessitated by the victim’s weakened state. Yet it is also a task which metaphorically lines up with the duties of the disciple (9:23).
27. Whereas Luke began his Gospel recounting how ‘the whole assembly of the people’ (pan to plēthos . . . tou laou) was praying in the temple court (1:10) shortly before Jesus’ birth, now a great number of the people (polu plēthos tou laou) follow him to his death.42 Whether they were more motivated to gawk cruelly at Jesus or support him in his final hours is unclear. It is clear, however, that the women in this number are already mourning their champion’s death, following along much as they did during his itinerancy (8:2–4).
28. According to Deuteronomy 29:11, God’s covenant with Israel was not just with the nation’s men, but also with its women and children. Therefore, as Jerusalem now decisively cuts itself off from the covenant by putting Jesus to death, its women and children will not be spared from the coming doom. Accordingly, he calls out to his mourners as daughters of Jerusalem. If nothing else, the phrase underscores the profound change that had occurred in the space of just a few days. By riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, Jesus had invited – in fulfilment of Zechariah 9:9 – the ‘daughter [of] Jerusalem’ to rejoice. Now that invitation had been refused by the city’s leaders, the same epithet is repurposed to signal that a judgment like the one described in Jeremiah 4:31 is just over the horizon:
For I heard a cry as of a woman in labour,
anguish as of one bringing forth her first child,
the cry of daughter Zion gasping for breath.
Jeremiah’s ‘daughter Zion’ gasps, the same verse goes on to tell us, because she is fainting before her killers. The killers in this context would of course be the Roman legions. On the same pattern, when Jeremiah predicts – failing Judah’s repentance – the desolation of the temple (Jer. 22:1–5), he goes on to give a similar twofold set of instructions:
Do not weep for him who is dead,
nor bemoan him;
weep rather for him who goes away,
for he shall return no more
to see his native land.
(Jer. 22:10)
Now Jesus gives the same two-tier instructions: those who die now (like Jesus himself) will endure a fate preferable to that of those who shall be expelled from the land. Against the background of these prophetic texts, Jesus’ admonition not only points ahead to the grim outcome awaiting the mourning women and their families; it also serves to interpret the Jerusalem leadership’s actions as the trigger for deepening exile.
29. At a previous point in the narrative, a blessing was declared on the womb that bore Jesus and the breasts that nourished him (11:27). Now Jesus revises that blessing by stating that Israel’s mothers would be better off if they had not had children at all. The days are surely coming when that is exactly what they will say.43 Within Luke’s story, we recall, too, that Elizabeth (1:7), the bleeding woman and the dead young girl (8:40–56) are all singled out as women with unfruitful wombs. Though such women have been – in the normal course of things – regarded as cursed, in the future many will look back to declare such women blessed.
30. From Jesus’ day down to the present day, Jerusalem has stood encircled by hills and mountains. Now because these same elevations had protected Jerusalem against marauding enemies for centuries, Jesus’ vision of Jerusalem’s citizens pleading that these peaks collapse inwards towards the city has a sense of utter doom and finality about it. The coming national catastrophe, Jesus predicts, will be the fulfilment of Hosea 10:8: they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us’; and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ The prophetic line is part of a larger passage focused on Israel’s disobedience and exile, when the altar will be overrun with weeds. Not incidentally, in the Scriptures, mountains and hills are those things which normally cannot be moved (Ps. 46:2; Isa. 54:10, Nah. 1:5), except by cataclysmic events and/or a visitation of God himself.
31. Jesus’ last statement to the mourning women may be drawing on a traditional proverb now lost to history. Unfortunately, the proverb’s meaning here is not any more recoverable than the context of its origins. Two interpretative issues present themselves. First, who is the subject (the they) in the sentence if they do this . . . ? Is it the Romans, the Jews, or someone else? Second, whereas the NRSV translates en tō hygrō zylō as when the wood is green, the Greek may also be translated along the lines of the JB: ‘For if men use the green wood like this, what will happen when it is dry?’ The former approach understands Jesus to be contrasting two different eras or time periods; the latter distinguishes between two different cases (the case of the green wood versus the case of the dry wood).
In making sense of the statement and allowing Luke’s text to be its own best interpreter, we can do worse than refer back to the closing line of John the Baptizer’s exhortation: ‘Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire’ (3:9). Green trees at least hold out the hope of fruitfulness, but dry wood is useful only for burning. John’s preaching implied that there was still time for Israel to produce fruit and thus gives merit to the possibility that Jesus here is comparing Israel to a green tree. Yet according to Jesus a time is also coming when the green tree will become dry. This must correspond to the same time, referenced by John, when the axe of judgment will be applied and the tree is burned. On this analogy, those who apply the axe – those who ‘do these things’ – would be the Romans. If their cruelty is on full show in the crucifixion of Jesus, how much more will their viciousness be unleashed when God turns the nation over to judgment.
32. Now Luke returns to reproducing the narrative as told by other Gospels (par. Matt. 27:38//Mark 15:27). I find it remarkable that the NRSV’s rendering of verse 32 (Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him) is along the lines of every other English translation I have consulted. It is a remarkable thing because it is almost as if the translations conspire to avoid interpreting Luke’s Greek – no less accurately – as follows: ‘two other criminals [kakourgoi] were led away to be executed along with him’.44 Presumably, the collective avoidance is at least partially motivated by a concern not to scandalize the reader by implying that Jesus is one of three criminals. But in my view, this is exactly Luke’s point: in reputation he was among the criminals; he ‘was numbered with the transgressors’ (Isa. 53:12). At last, Jesus is led for the third and final time (22:54; 23:1), driving home, too, that he, the Suffering Servant, is ‘like a lamb that is led to the slaughter’ (Isa. 53:7, emphasis added).
33. The crowd now comes to the place that is called The Skull, a place name which John spells out in its Aramaic equivalency: Golgotha (John 19:17). Our best hypothesis is that the spot of Jesus’ crucifixion coincides with the location of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.45 Without going into all the details, Luke matter-of-factly reports: they crucified Jesus. A longstanding practice among the ancient civilizations but ‘perfected’ by the Romans, crucifixion was a grim business.46 Though all crucifixions involved the victim’s being transfixed to a cross, there was considerable variation. Though Christian art traditionally shows Jesus crucified on a t-shaped cross, it more likely was shaped like an upper-case ‘T’, with the horizontal cross-beam sitting on top of the vertical beam. The victim, suspended a few feet off the ground, was nailed through the feet and arms, with the buttocks sometimes made to rest on a wooden stub in order to partially support the body, which in turn would enhance airflow to the lungs and thereby prolong the victim’s agony. Jesus is crucified alongside the two criminals: one on his right and one on his left.
34. No sooner is Jesus crucified than he prays for forgiveness for his malefactors (6:27–36), just as he had instructed his disciples to pray (11:4). These words anticipate very similar words coming from Stephen during his martyrdom (‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them’, Acts 7:60).47 To the bitter end of his life, Jesus executes the office of the praying priest. To the bitter end of the story, he sets the standard for how Luke’s readers ought to respond to persecution and even martyrdom. All the while, the soldiers are not the least bit fazed. In fulfilment of Psalm 22:18, they cast lots to divide his clothing.
35. Roman crucifixions were spectator events and so it is no surprise that the people assemble themselves simply to watch it all slowly play out. Meanwhile, the leaders continue to revile Jesus (fulfilling Ps. 69:7, 9, 12, 19–20), pointing out that though he was able to save others, he is not willing or able to save himself. This is the first of three jibes (cf. vv. 37, 39) ridiculing the seemingly patent fact that Jesus is not finally able to save either others or himself. But the informed reader of Luke–Acts who is aware of Jesus’ saving acts past (Luke 2:11; 7:50; 8:48; 17:19; 18:42) and future (Acts 2:36; 13:23) knows that this is not the case, despite appearances to the contrary. D. A. Carson succinctly summarizes the moment:
The deeper irony is that, in a way they did not understand, they were speaking the truth. If he had saved himself, he could not have saved others; the only way he could save others was precisely by not saving himself.48
36. When Luke records that the soldiers . . . mocked [enepaixan] him, this counts as the third and final ‘mocking’, a triple fulfilment of that which Jesus had predicted (cf. 22:63; 23:11) when he said that the Son of Man would be ‘mocked [empaixthēsetai] and insulted’ (18:32). Yet the soldiers also approach Jesus bearing sour wine, that is, a wine vinegar that was common drink among the troops (cf. Ps. 69:21). Since the verb used to describe the soldiers’ approach (proserchomenoi) is often used in cultic contexts, the reader may be forgiven for seeing this moment as an ironic dramatization of a typical daily temple sacrifice, involving the offering of a lamb along with wine (Num. 28:1–8).49
37–39. Mimicking the leaders, the soldiers now call out in a language reminiscent of the devil’s (4:3): If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself! Parenthetically, Luke inserts a comment confirming the presence of an appended inscription or titulus (epigraphē), a sign not uncommonly posted on the cross, explaining the reasons for a criminal’s punishment (Suetonius, Cal. 32.2). Pilate’s motivation for designating Jesus King of the Jews, despite his doubts over his guilt, leaves room for speculation. Though Pilate may have possibly done this in an effort to cover himself legally, or to join in with the mockery directed against Jesus, or to disincentivize other would-be messianic pretenders, the solution that makes the best psychological sense of the situation is this: Pilate, well aware that he had been pushed into a corner by the temple leaders, sought to satirize the Jewish nation.50 As time passes, the refrain of Save yourself! now falls from the lips of one of the criminals, though in a modified form. Whether it was the one on the right or the left is unstated. According to the Gospel writer, this criminal kept deriding (eblasphēmei) Jesus, though we might also take this to mean ‘kept blaspheming’.
40–41. Now Luke includes a story omitted by the other Evangelists, traditionally known as the story of the ‘Penitent Thief’ or the ‘Thief on the Cross’. The one thief is now rebuked by the other, appealing to the fear of God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation. According to the second malefactor, both he and his partner in crime are being punished justly. By contrast, Jesus has done nothing wrong (atopon).51 As far as Jesus is concerned, the double assertion amounts to a personal confession of sin as well as a Christological confession.52
42. Turning to Jesus, the criminal now gives wings to his faith by issuing an astonishing request: remember me when you come into your kingdom.53 The request is ‘astonishing’ because it remarkably takes three points for granted. First, it assumes that Jesus is in fact a king (just as the titulus had mockingly suggested). Second, the sentence also depends on the assumption that this same kingdom transcends the confinements of normal space and time (a point lost even on the apostles at this juncture). Third and finally, the criminal’s words imply that Jesus has the wherewithal to enter into that kingdom, notwithstanding their shared straitened circumstances.
43. In response, as if to underscore the certainty of what he is about to say, Jesus issues an asservation of truly, amēn. An interpretative difficulty lies in determining whether the word today (sēmeron) modifies Jesus’ speaking (‘Truly today I tell you . . . ’) or the rendezvous in paradise (‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me . . . ’). Because of the natural word order of the Greek and Luke’s thematic insistence that salvation is a matter of today (2:11; 4:21; 19:9), we conclude that Jesus expects to enter into some kind of intermediate state along with the now-forgiven malefactor – and to do so today. Jesus’ name for that state is paradeisos, derived from a Persian term meaning an enclosed garden. Generations before Jesus, the notion of paradise had already had broad currency in Jewish eschatological thought (1 En. 60:8; 61:12; Pss Sol. 14:2). In promising the ‘thief’ this paradise, Luke’s Jesus is essentially promising to reopen a form of Eden while he assumes an Adamic role (3:38).
44. Throughout Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has been anticipating the instigation of the new exodus under his authority. The recent Passover meal (22:7–38) confirmed as much. Now a further sign presents itself with the unfolding of the darkness over the whole land (eph’ holēn tēn gēn). In the story of the exodus, darkness came ‘over the land’ (LXX: epi gēn) of Egypt (Exod. 10:21) as part of the penultimate plague, the plague of darkness, immediately preceding the final plague on the firstborn males. As Jesus hung dying, three hours of darkness, lasting from about noon to 3 pm, shrouded the scene, or perhaps the land of Israel, or perhaps again the whole earth (gēs could refer to any one of these things). In the Scriptures in general and in Luke in particular (not least in 22:53), darkness is associated with judgment. Here the Gospel writer seemingly interprets the phenomenon as a typological fulfilment of the palpable darkness once felt by the Egyptians prior to the exodus.
45. The eclipsing (ekliponotos) of the sunlight by the darkness leads to an even more uncanny event: the rending of the curtain of the temple – right down the middle (meson).54 The Greek term katapetasma (curtain) could refer to one of two or even several veils in the temple grounds, including the curtain spanning the entrance into the Holy Place from the outside (Exod. 26:36–37). However, if only on the basis of comparison with Hebrews 10:19–22, one suspects that Luke has in view here the veil separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place (Exod. 26:31–33), which might actually have been two veils (m. Mid. 4:7).55 If God’s throne room was in the Most Holy Place, then the threshold to that most sacred space was the curtain. And now, through the death of Jesus, it was rent in two. But what would this event have symbolized for Luke and his first readers? In part, the tearing of the temple veil pointed ahead to the coming destruction of the temple. At the same time, the destruction of the curtain signified that Jesus-followers now had new and unprecedented access into the presence of God (cf. Heb. 10:19). Finally, the rending of the veil means that God’s presence was also bursting out to reach beyond the confines of the temple space. This last implication is certainly confirmed by the Risen Jesus’ instruction to take the gospel to the region and even to the ends of the earth (cf. Acts 1:8).
46. Moments before dying, Jesus cries out with a loud voice (phōnē megalē), mirroring at the very beginning of our story Elizabeth’s blessing Mary ‘in a loud voice’ on discerning Jesus’ conception. Yet in retrospect, Jesus’ parting shout is not just the closing bookend to the story of his life but also a climactic and summative cry. In relation to the exorcised (or soon-to-be exorcised) demons who emerge from their human strongholds with a loud voice (4:33; 8:28), Jesus’ cry seemingly absorbs the demonic only to purge it (cf. Zech. 13:2). With respect to those who praise God with a loud voice (17:15; 19:37), Jesus offers the ultimate shout of human praise. In a definitive response to those who had sought his crucifixion with a loud voice (23:23), Jesus’ loud voice has the last word.
Now calling on his heavenly Father for the last time, matching this time the declaration of the Father at his baptism (3:22), Jesus prays in the language of Psalm 31:5: into your hands I commend my spirit. In the context of Psalm 31, the prayer is that of one who has been assured of redemption, much as the martyr Stephen would use the same prayer moments before his death (Acts 7:59). With that assurance of God’s deliverance, Jesus breathes his last.
47. Earlier in the narrative, the readers met a Roman centurion of extraordinary faith (7:1–10). Now, as if to provide a symmetrical frame which ensconces the story of Jesus within a larger context of imperial power already giving way to the power of the gospel, Luke narrates an episode involving another righteous centurion. (Both of these anticipate the centurion Cornelius in Acts 10.) Observing what had taken place, the Roman commander concludes with no uncertainty that Jesus was indeed innocent (diakaios) or, equally fair, ‘righteous’ (NIV). On one level, the Evangelist has been keen throughout the trial narrative to establish Jesus’ innocence, and the Gentile centurion provides a further witness to that innocence. At the same time, Luke almost certainly repurposes the centurion’s declaration as a messianic confession, just as we seem to have in the Synoptic parallels with the messianic epithet ‘Son of God’, since the ‘the righteous one’ (ho dikaios) was a circumlocution for Messiah (e.g. 1 En. 92; Rom. 1:17). Exactly what is included within the scope of what had taken place is partially illuminated by the term genomenon, since the singular participle suggests an event or complex of events rather than a series of discrete events. Whereas Matthew (27:54) and Mark (15:39) connect their centurion’s confession to the rending of the temple veil, Luke’s arrangement suggests that the pervading darkness, the torn curtain and Jesus’ expiring prayer conspired to lead him to faith. Finally, in glorifying (edoxazen) God, the centurion demonstrates the fulfilment of the eschatological hope: the day when the nations would come to glorify God’s name (Ps. 86:9).
48. The convergence of the crowds interested in viewing Jesus’ execution has already been noted (23:35). Yet now they observe what had taken place (plural neuter: ta genomena), meaning not just the events leading up to the centurion’s confession, but also – in addition to those things – the confession itself. On taking in this astounding turn of events, they return (NRSV supplies home as their destination, while the NIV and KJV do not). As they go, they follow the lead of the praying tax collector (18:13) by beating their breasts as a sign of mourning and self-humiliation. Clearly, such events are meant to invoke Zechariah’s vision in which the inhabitants of Jerusalem will ‘look on the one whom they have pierced’ and ‘mourn for him’ (Zech. 12:10). Not insignificantly, Zechariah 12:10’s mention of a ‘pierced one’ in turn alludes to the death of King Josiah (2 Chr. 35:20–25; cf. 2 Kgs 23:29–30) occurring at the battle of Megiddo. Well before Jesus’ day, that death was interpreted as an atoning death.56
49. The inclusion of the Greek particle de (but) implies a contrast between Jesus’ acquaintances (pantes hoi gnōstoi autō ) and the breast-beating crowds who were now leaving the scene. These individuals, who included the women who had followed him from Galilee (8:1–3), had all the while stood (pluperfect: heistēkesan) nearby. They too were watching these things, but if the centurion has one angle, and the crowds have a wider angle, the lens of those known to Jesus (hoi gnōstoi autō ) is wider still. Their presence sets the stage for what is about to follow.
50–51. If, in the opening chapters of Luke, a certain Joseph is tasked with a set of responsibilities surrounding Jesus’ entrance into the world, in the Gospel’s closing chapters another Joseph has another set of responsibilities. That the Evangelist should connect this Joseph with Arimathea was in part to distinguish him from other known individuals of the same name. Yet there may be an added significance. For if, as the evidence suggests, Arimathea is one and the same as Elkanah and Hannah’s home town of Ramathaim-Zophim (1 Samuel), this brings us back full circle to the beginning of the story, where a virgin yet pregnant teenager draws on the language of Hannah to praise God for what he would do (Luke 1:46–55). According to Matthew (Matt. 27:57), Joseph of Arimathea was wealthy and a disciple of Jesus. It was in his tomb that Jesus was to be buried (Matt. 27:60). Like Simeon (Luke 2:25), Luke’s Joseph was righteous and was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God. As a member of the Sanhedrin that had just condemned Jesus to death, he had also resisted the body’s decision.
52. Joseph’s approaching Pilate for the body of Jesus was a social and political risk. After all, Jesus had been publicly crucified as a criminal and to request such a favour raised the possibility of being shamed or surveilled. Ordinarily, in the aftermath of a crucifixion, the victim’s body would be left on the cross, only to be slowly picked at by vultures and dogs. This was almost a rule in cases of treason (Tacitus, Ann. 6.29), the very charge lodged against Jesus.57 For the Ancient Jews, however, unburied bodies were an abomination; they preferred to bury executed offenders in a common grave allocated to the criminal dead (m. Sanh. 6:5; t. Sanh. 9:8; Josephus, Ant. 5.44).
53–55. Joseph seems to have received permission without incident, for now he is taking down Jesus’ body and wrapping it in linen, typical of Jewish burial practice. He would have been forced to move quickly. It was already well after 3 pm and there were proscriptions against carrying the dead on the Sabbath (m. Šabb. 23:5), which began at sunset. After wrapping the body, Joseph lays it in a rock-hewn tomb. In Jewish antiquity, tombs were reused as they were handed down family lines. That makes it all the more unusual that Jesus should be put in a tomb where no one had ever been laid. As unusual as this is, it is also symbolic: the honour of being buried in a completely new tomb fell only to royalty. One last time the Galilean women follow, if only to observe where and how his body was laid.
56. As a precursor to burial, the application of scented powders such as myrrh and aloe was standard in Jewish burial rites. This was in an effort not so much to embalm the corpse as to delay putrefaction. In order to stay one step ahead of the Sabbath, the women also return home to prepare the mixture with a view to returning on Sunday morning. After all, Friday night was upon them, and that meant the onset of Sabbath, which they had every intention of obeying.
Salvation has proven to be a major theme in the Gospel. Now, as Jesus hangs dying on a Roman cross, it has also become a major preoccupation of his mockers. ‘Save yourself – and us!’ they call out – three times, in fact. If Jesus really is the saviour, then why is he not saving now? Of course, Luke’s point is that Jesus is in fact saving. Just as he saves the crucified man next to him by offering him a place in paradise, so too he promises to save all those who, like the criminal, ask to be remembered when the kingdom comes. Salvation comes through Jesus; salvation comes through the cross.
In Luke’s story there are some who accept this proposition and others who resist it. Those who resist do so largely because they have fixed notions as to what salvation should look like. For Pilate and the religious authorities, salvation meant the consolidation of political authority. For the cursing malefactor on the cross, salvation meant deliverance without repentance. All of these wanted salvation on their terms – not on the terms offered by Jesus. Yet right alongside these figures stand out certain unlikely individuals who respond positively. The criminal on the cross looked to Jesus as the king who would one day usher in his kingdom. Joseph of Arimathea staked his claim in the kingdom by bearing the shame that went with requesting a crucified criminal’s body. In the story as well as down through history, Jesus’ crucifixion has proven to be a winnowing fork, effectively separating out those who insist on salvation on their own terms from those who accept God’s salvation just as it is offered through a crucified king.
1. The number of pilgrims visiting Jerusalem during Passover may have exceeded the native population as much as sevenfold. ‘Josephus tells us further that the crowd on such feasts were particularly volatile and given to violence (Jewish War 1:88–89), an observation he supports with the description of riots at Passover (2:18–13; 2:223–227) and Pentecost (2:43)’ (Johnson, p. 332).
2. This might be to distinguish him from another Judas (son of James), also known as Thaddeus; cf. Acts 1:13.
3. Taylor, ‘Iscariot’, pp. 379–383.
4. The combination recurs at Luke 22:52 and continues into Acts (4:1; 5:24, 26). The officers of the temple police were second only to the chief priests in authority, having responsibility for the security of the temple.
5. Just, Ongoing Feast, p. 228.
6. So, e.g., Edwards, p. 624.
7. Though the leading witnesses of the western manuscript tradition omit vv. 19b–20, most commentators (including this one) regard the words as authentically Lukan.
8. Some scholars would object to this point, claiming that the evidence of this practice is too late to be relevant to Jesus’ setting.
9. See Pao, New Exodus, pp. 95–96.
10. References pointed out in Green, p. 764 n. 77.
11. Though the phrase ‘lord it over’ someone is almost always pejorative, it would be a mistake to assume the same intrinsically negative overtones here in the shared translation of the NRSV, ESV and NIV. Jesus is simply alluding to the reality of political hierarchies without implying that such structures are inherently abusive or self-serving. See Lull, ‘Servant-Benefactor’, pp. 290–294; Nelson, Leadership, pp. 149–150.
12. The repetition Simon, Simon expresses the pathos of the situation. This is one of a number of instances of the double vocative in Luke; see Edwards, p. 637 n. 87.
13. The verb ekleipō tends to express not so much binary success or failure as relative lack or failing supply; see BDAG, p. 242.
14. In the words of Liefeld (p. 1029), ‘this short passage is difficult to interpret’.
15. Marshall, p. 825.
16. BDAG, pp. 640–641.
17. The colloquial English phrase was inspired by translations of this verse.
18. Larkin (‘Old Testament Background’, pp. 252–253) notes further comparisons: Daniel and Jesus are ‘both alone and in communion with God (Dan. x. 2 ff.); both are strengthened (ότι ένίσχυέ με, Dan. x. 18 Θ) by a heavenly messenger; both are concerned with the will of God as it will be played out in future events; and both having received knowledge of God’s will find themselves in need of strength, physical restoration’.
19. Perrin, Jesus the Priest, pp. 20–38.
20. Metzger, TCGNT, p. 151.
21. Medically speaking, it may be that Jesus is experiencing hematidrosis, a condition in which the body undergoes so much stress that it begins to sweat blood.
22. Like Mark, Luke likely identifies the victim with such specificity in order to establish him as a corroborating witness to Luke’s account of the arrest. See Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, p. 195.
23. Even better than NRSV’s No more of this! is NASB’s more emphatic Stop! No more of this. Nolland (p. 1088) translates the Greek as ‘Allow even this!’, meaning that the disciples are to allow the arresting party to have its way.
24. Fitzmyer (p. 1426) notes the awkwardness of the Greek sentence.
25. By the fourth century, Julian the Apostate wrote a tractate critical of Christians entitled Against the Galileans. How early the term ‘Galilean’ was used as a moniker for Jesus-followers is hard to tell. It is not unreasonable to suppose that at the time of Luke’s writing the term was used opprobriously.
26. In 23:14, Jesus will be charged with leading others astray. This cannot be unconnected with his claim to the prophetic mantle. In instances where the Scriptures envision people being led astray, false prophets are the principal bad actors (Exod. 5:4; Num. 15:39; Ezek. 13:18, 22).
27. This of course raises the question whether ‘Jesus’ trial’ was in fact a trial in the formal sense. In my view, the historical evidence points to the legal proceedings being informal in nature.
28. Twelftree, DJG, p. 837.
29. The phrasing of the question combines ‘Messiah’ (christos) (Ps. 2:2) with the predicate ‘you are’ from Ps. 2:7. From the first-century Jews’ vantage point, this Messiah is one and the same as the promised Davidic ruler.
30. Evans, ‘Jesus before Caiaphas’.
31. So Marshall, p. 851.
32. Skinner, Trial Narratives, p. 76.
33. Bock, p. 1802.
34. See Chapman and Schnabel, Trial, pp. 31–82; Sherwin-White, Roman Law, p. 36.
35. See Bond, DJG, pp. 679–680.
36. BDAG, p. 327.
37. BDAG, p. 465.
38. The best manuscripts do not include v. 17. It should therefore be excluded from comment.
39. On the privilegium paschale, see Schnabel, Jesus in Jerusalem, pp. 288–291.
40. For historical examples, see Chapman and Schnabel, Trial, pp. 282–292.
41. On Simon’s possible connection with Rufus, see Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, p. 52.
42. For the ancient phenomenon of crowds accompanying the condemned to their deaths, see Nolland, pp. 1136–1137.
43. The phrase the days are surely coming is most reminiscent of Jer. 31:31 and the promise of the new covenant (cf. Jer. 7:32; 16:14; 38:31, LXX). If an allusion is meant here, it means that the issuance of the new covenant is not without judgment on those who fail to participate in it.
44. Matthew (Matt. 27:38) and Mark (15:27) specify them as lēstai, meaning highway robbers (as in Luke 10) or terrorists. Luke leaves the nature of their wrongdoing less clear.
45. Parrot, Golgotha, pp. 59–65; Schnabel, Jesus in Jerusalem, pp. 132–135.
46. See Josephus, J.W. 7.203.
47. Luke 23:34a is textually suspect. In my judgment, the coherence with the Lord’s Prayer and the theologically rich parallel with Acts 7:60 together make for fairly compelling evidence for counting this text as authentically Lukan. See Marshall, pp. 867–888.
48. Carson, Scandalous, p. 29.
49. Luke does not specify whether or not Jesus actually received the wine; Matthew (27:34) and Mark (15:23) report that Jesus declined the wine on tasting it.
50. Johnson (p. 378) names the first three reasons without adjudicating between them.
51. The adjective atopos has the meaning of ‘out of place’ or ‘inappropriate’; see BDAG, p. 120. Festus suspends judgment on Paul being atopos, against the charges of the Jewish leaders (Acts 25:5).
52. So too Edwards, p. 696.
53. Some manuscripts have: ‘Remember me when you come in your kingdom.’
54. The textual tradition attests to various verbs in describing the sun. Some important manuscripts have that the sun ‘failed’ (ekleipō ); others say that the sun ‘darkened’ (eskotisthē).
55. Liefeld, p. 1045.
56. Laato, Josiah, pp. 290–294.
57. See Brown, Death, p. 1208.