From the Sanhedrin and the charge of blasphemy to Pilate and the charge of treason, still Jesus did not retaliate.

Convicted of treason with Pilate demanding that the religious leaders accept their participation in this event, Pilate consented to their demand to crucify Jesus, and sentence was passed.

Here is the video link:

Mark 15… and They Crucified Him

The audio links to Spotify and iTunes are to the right.

Here is the transcript used for this podcast:

Mark 15

Jesus Before Pilate

1 Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, made their plans. So they bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.

2 “Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate.

“You have said so,” Jesus replied.

Remember in Chapter 14, Jesus answered in the affirmative when the High Priest asked Him if He was the Messiah 

Mark 14:61B-62

Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?”

62 “I am,” said Jesus…” 

This is important, as they have a charge that will get Rome’s attention. These leaders reworked Jesus’ blasphemy charge into a sufficiently political charge (treason) to ensure Roman involvement. Since the Messiah was Israel’s king (v. 2), this was not difficult, and the heightened tension at Passover and the apparently recently failed insurrection (v. 7) only heightened Roman concerns. These leaders would say that with Jesus claiming to be Messiah, and therefore the King of Israel, that he posed a significant threat to Rome.

3 The chief priests accused him of many things. 4 So again Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.”

5 But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.

6 Now it was the custom at the festival to release a prisoner whom the people requested. 7 A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. 8 The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did.

9 “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate, 10 knowing it was out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. 11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.

12 “What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them.

13 “Crucify him!” they shouted.

As “king of the Jews” and therefore a rival to Roman authority, a guilty verdict can have only one outcome.

14 “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.

But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”

15 Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

This “flogging” was accomplished using whips of leather thongs often tipped with pieces of bone or metal. It severely weakened the prisoner, sometimes proving fatal.

The Soldiers Mock Jesus

16 The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. 17 They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. 18 And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” 19 Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. 20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

The Crucifixion of Jesus

In an article from www.guardian.com dated 8 April 2004, we read this about the horrors of crucifixion:

How did crucifixion kill?

“The weight of the body pulling down on the arms makes breathing extremely difficult,” says Jeremy Ward, a physiologist at King’s College London. In addition, the heart and lungs would stop working as blood drained through wounds. 

Crucifixion was invented by the Persians in 300-400BC and developed, during Roman times, into a punishment for the most serious of criminals. The upright wooden cross was the most common technique, and the time victims took to die would depend on how they were crucified.

Those accused of robbery were often tied to the crucifix and, because they could better support their weight with their arms, might survive for several days. One of the most severe methods of crucifixion put the arms straight above the victim. “That can [kill in] 10 minutes to half an hour – it’s just impossible to breathe under those conditions,” Ward says.

Someone nailed to a crucifix with their arms stretched out on either side could expect to live for no more than 24 hours. Seven-inch nails would be driven through the wrists so that the bones there could support the body’s weight. The nail would sever the median nerve, which not only caused immense pain but would have paralysed the victim’s hands.

The feet were nailed to the upright part of the crucifix, so that the knees were bent at around 45 degrees. To speed death, executioners would often break the legs of their victims to give no chance of using their thigh muscles as support. It was probably unnecessary, as their strength would not have lasted more than a few minutes even if they were unharmed.

Once the legs gave out, the weight would be transferred to the arms, gradually dragging the shoulders from their sockets. The elbows and wrists would follow a few minutes later; by now, the arms would be six or seven inches longer. The victim would have no choice but to bear his weight on his chest. He would immediately have trouble breathing as the weight caused the rib cage to lift up and force him into an almost perpetual state of inhalation.

Suffocation would usually follow, but the relief of death could also arrive in other ways. “The resultant lack of oxygen in the blood would cause damage to tissues and blood vessels, allowing fluid to diffuse out of the blood into tissues, including the lungs and the sac around the heart,” says Ward.

This would make the lungs stiffer and make breathing even more difficult, and the pressure around the heart would impair its pumping.

21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. 

The condemned normally carried the crossbar, which often weighed 30–40 pounds (13–18 kilograms), to the site of crucifixion. Jesus, weakened by flogging, was incapable of completing (cf. John 19:17) the relatively short journey, some 328 yards (300 meters), to just outside the city walls, so Simon was pressed into service.

Edited by Carson, D. A. (2018). NIV, Biblical Theology Study Bible. Zondervan

 

22 They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”). 23 Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24 And they crucified him. 

One of the most cruel, public, and shameful forms of Roman execution (see photo). Fixed by either nails or ropes, the victim’s outstretched arms were pinned to a crossbeam that was raised and attached to a vertical stake. The legs were then similarly attached, either straddling the upright or supported on a foot rest, with the victim often seated on a small support to prevent a premature demise. Damaging no internal organs and causing no serious blood loss, it was designed to prolong suffering for as long as three days (hence, Pilate’s surprise, v. 44) before shock or slow asphyxiation due to muscle fatigue resulted in death. Naked—though a loin cloth may have been permitted when Jewish sensibilities were a factor—the humiliated victim was subject to vitriolic abuse, often enduring birds and animals beginning their feast while the victim was still alive.

Edited by Carson, D. A. (2018). NIV, Biblical Theology Study Bible. Zondervan

 

Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.

Mark’s description conforms closely to Ps 22:18:

They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.

which first-century readers understood as describing David’s suffering when abandoned.

Edited by Carson, D. A. (2018). NIV, Biblical Theology Study Bible. Zondervan

 

25 It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. 26 The written notice of the charge against him read: the king of the jews.

27 They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left.

This is possibly an allusion to Isa 53:12, where the servant would be “numbered with the transgressors” 

Edited by Carson, D. A. (2018). NIV, Biblical Theology Study Bible. Zondervan

 

 

 [28] [a] 29 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 come down from the cross and save yourself!” 31 In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! 32 Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

I find it amazing – do they actually think that if Jesus HAD come down from the cross in a supernatural display of God’s power that they would be spared? Don’t they realize that it was an act of MERCY for Jesus to stay there?

Jesus’ refusal to save Himself is PRECISELY what saves others.

Edited by Carson, D. A. (2018). NIV, Biblical Theology Study Bible. Zondervan

The Death of Jesus

33 At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 

This is the first divine intervention during Jesus’ death (see also v. 38). Unnatural darkness signifies God’s judgment (e.g., Exod 10:22; Isa 5:30) and a time “like mourning for an only son” (Amos 8:9–10; cf. 1:11; 9:7; 12:6–11). A potent apocalyptic statement, its three-hour duration (“noon . . . until three”) puts the puny human mockers in true perspective and is the first intimation that Jesus’ death is far more significant than they had imagined.

Edited by Carson, D. A. (2018). NIV, Biblical Theology Study Bible. Zondervan

 

Don’t think for a moment, that the religious community didn’t realize what this three-hour darkness signified. They would have recognized this as a portent of God’s judgement.

34 And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).[b]

His cry is the final and clearest echo of Ps 22:1 – 

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

35 When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.”

36 Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said.

37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died,[c] he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”

Just as at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel the torn heavens were accompanied by God’s declaration that Jesus is his Son (1:10–11), so here at the end of Mark’s Gospel the torn curtain is accompanied by the first human affirmation of Jesus’ divine Sonship.

Edited by Carson, D. A. (2018). NIV, Biblical Theology Study Bible. Zondervan

40 Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph,[d] and Salome. 41 In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there.

The Burial of Jesus

42 It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. 

we learn for the first time that not all of the Sanhedrin supported Jesus’ execution. One godly and prominent member ensures that Jesus receives an honorable burial. Coming from someone who was not a family member but instead a member of the Sanhedrin, which had condemned Jesus, Joseph’s request to provide proper burial for an extremist could have had severe consequences; by appearing to be sympathetic to Jesus and his agenda, he may have been viewed as implicitly critiquing Roman justice. Joseph was willing to risk the ire of the Sanhedrin as well as Rome by doing this.

Edited by Carson, D. A. (2018). NIV, Biblical Theology Study Bible. Zondervan

44 Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. 45 When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. 46 So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid.

In His Grip,

Paige