Verses 1-56
Chapter 23
23:1-12 The whole
assembly rose up and brought Jesus to Pilate. They began to accuse him.
"We found this man," they said, "perverting our nation and trying to
stop men paying taxes to Caesar, and saying that he himself is the
anointed one, a king." Pilate asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"
He answered, "You say so." Pilate said to the chief priests and to the
crowds, "I find nothing to condemn in this man." They were the more
urgent. "He is setting the people in turmoil," they said, "throughout
all Judaea, beginning from Galilee to this place." When Pilate heard
this, he asked if the man was a Galilaean. When he realised that he was
under Herod's jurisdiction, he referred him to Herod, who was himself in
Jerusalem in these days. When Herod saw Jesus he was very glad, because
for a long time he had been wishing to see him, because he had heard
about him; and he was hoping to see some sign done by him. He questioned
him in many words; but he answered him nothing. The chief priests and
the scribes stood by vehemently hurling their accusations against him.
Herod with his soldiers treated Jesus contemptuously, and after he had
mocked him and arrayed him in a gorgeous dress, he referred him back
again to Pilate. And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other
that same day, for previously they had been at enmity with each other.
The Jews in the time of Jesus had no power to carry out the
death sentence. Such sentence had to be passed by the Roman governor and
carried out by the Roman authorities. It was for that reason that the
Jews brought Jesus before Pilate. Nothing better shows their
conscienceless malignity than the crime with which they charged him. In
the Sanhedrin the charge had been one of blasphemy, that he had dared to
call himself the Son of God. Before Pilate that charge was never even
mentioned. They knew well that it would have carried no weight with him,
and that he would never have proceeded on a charge which would have
seemed to him a matter of Jewish religion and superstition. The charge
they levelled against Jesus was entirely political, and it has all the
marks of the minds and ingenuity of the Sadducees. It was really the
aristocratic, collaborationist Sadducees who achieved the crucifixion of
Jesus, in their terror lest he should prove a disturbing clement and
produce a situation in which they would lose their wealth, their comfort
and their power.
Their charge before Pilate was really threefold. They charged
Jesus (a) with seditious agitation; (b) with encouraging men not to pay
tribute to Caesar; (c) with assuming the title king. Every single item
of the charge was a lie, and they knew it. They resorted to the most
calculated and malicious lies in their well-nigh insane desire to
eliminate Jesus.
Pilate was not an experienced Roman official for nothing; he saw
through them; and he had no desire to gratify their wishes. But neither
did he wish to offend them. They had dropped the information that Jesus
came from Galilee; this they had intended as further fuel for their
accusations, for Galilee was notoriously "the nurse of seditious men."
But to Pilate it seemed a way out. Galilee was under the jurisdiction of
Herod Antipas, who at that very time was in Jerusalem to keep the
Passover. So to Herod Pilate referred the case. Herod was one of the
very few people to whom Jesus had absolutely nothing to say. Why did he
believe there was nothing to be said to Herod?
(i) Herod regarded Jesus as a sight to be gazed at. To Herod, he
was simply a spectacle. But Jesus was not a sight to be stared at; he
was a king to be submitted to. Epictetus, the famous Greek Stoic
teacher, used to complain that people came from all over the world to
his lectures to stare at him, as if he had been a famous statue, but not
to accept and to obey his teaching. Jesus is not a figure to be gazed
at but a master to be obeyed.
(ii) Herod regarded Jesus as a joke. He jested at him; he
clothed him in a king's robe as an imitation king. To put it in another
way--he refused to take Jesus seriously. He would show him off to his
court as an amusing curiosity but there his interest stopped. The plain
fact is that the vast majority of men still refuse to take Jesus
seriously. If they did, they would pay more attention than they do to
his words and his claims.
(iii) There is another possible translation of Luke 23:11.
"Herod with his soldiers treated Jesus contemptuously." That could be
translated, "Herod, with his soldiers behind him, thought that Jesus was
of no importance." Herod, secure in his position as king, strong with
the power of his bodyguard behind him, believed that this Galilaean
carpenter did not matter. There are still those who, consciously or
unconsciously, have come to the conclusion that Jesus does not matter,
that he is a factor which can well be omitted from life. They gave him
no room in their hearts and no influence in their lives and believe they
can easily do without him. To the Christian, so far from being of no
importance, Jesus is the most important person in all the universe.
23:13-25 Pilate
summoned the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to
them, "You brought me this man as one who was seducing the people from
their allegiance; and--look you--I have examined him in your presence,
and of the accusations with which you charge him, I have found nothing
in this man to condemn; and neither has Herod; for he sent him back to
us. Look you--nothing deserving death has been done by him. I will
therefore scourge him and release him." All together they shouted out,
"Take this man away! And release Barabbas for us." Barabbas had been
thrown into prison because a certain disorder had arisen in the city,
and because of murder. Again Pilate addressed them, because he wished to
release Jesus. But they kept shouting, "Crucify, crucify him!" The
third time he said to them, "Why? What evil has he done? I have found
nothing in him which merits sentence of death. I will chastise him and
release him." But they insisted with shouts, demanding that he should be
crucified; and their voices prevailed. So Pilate gave sentence that
their demand should be granted. He released the man who had been thrown
into prison for disorder and murder, the man they asked for, and Jesus
he delivered to their will.
This is an amazing passage. One thing is crystal clear--Pilate
did not want to condemn Jesus. He was well aware that to do so would be
to betray that impartial justice which was the glory of Rome. He made no
fewer than four attempts to avoid passing sentence of condemnation. He
told the Jews to settle the matter themselves (John 19:6-7).
He tried to refer the whole case to Herod. He tried to persuade the
Jews to receive Jesus as the prisoner granted release at Passover time (Mark 15:6).
He tried to effect a compromise, saying he would scourge Jesus and then
release him. It is plain that Pilate was coerced into sentencing Jesus
to death.
How could a Jewish mob coerce an experienced Roman governor into
sentencing Jesus to death? It is literally true that the Jews
blackmailed Pilate into sentencing Jesus to death. The basic fact is
that, under impartial Roman justice, any province had the right to
report a governor to Rome for misgovernment, and such a governor would
be severely dealt with. Pilate had made two grave mistakes in his
government of Palestine.
In Judaea the Roman headquarters were not at Jerusalem but at
Caesarea. But in Jerusalem a certain number of troops were quartered.
Roman troops carried standards which were topped by a little bust of the
reigning emperor. The emperor was at this time officially a god. The
Jewish law forbade any graven image and, in deference to Jewish
principles, previous governors had always removed the imperial images
before they marched their troops into Jerusalem. Pilate refused to do
so; he marched his soldiers in by night with the imperial image on their
standards. The Jews came in crowds to Caesarea to request Pilate to
remove the images. He refused. They persisted in their entreaties for
days. On the sixth day he agreed to meet them in an open space
surrounded by his troops. He informed them that unless they stopped
disturbing him with their continuous requests the penalty would be
immediate death. "They threw themselves on the ground, and laid their
necks bare, and said they would take death very willingly rather than
that the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed." Not even Pilate
could slaughter men in cold blood like that, and he had to yield.
Josephus tens the whole story in The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18,
chapter 3. Pilate followed this up by bringing into the city a new water
supply and financing the scheme with money taken from the Temple
treasury, a story which we have already told in the commentary on Luke 13:1-4.
The one thing the Roman government could not afford to tolerate
in their far-flung empire was civil disorder. Had the Jews officially
reported either of these incidents there is little doubt that Pilate
would have been summarily dismissed. It is John who tells us of the
ominous hint the Jewish officials gave Pilate when they said, "If you
release this man you are not Caesar's friend." (John 19:12.) They compelled Pilate to sentence Jesus to death by holding the threat of an official report to Rome over his head.
Here we have the grim truth that a man's past can rise up and
confront him and paralyse him. If a man has been guilty of certain
actions there are certain things which he has no longer the right to
say, otherwise his past will be flung in his face. We must have a care
not to allow ourselves any conduct which will some day despoil us of the
right to take the stand we know we ought to take and will entitle
people to say, "You of all men have no right to speak like that."
But if such a situation should arise, there is only one thing to
do--to have the courage to face it and its consequences. That is
precisely what Pilate did not possess. He sacrificed justice rather than
lose his post; he sentenced Jesus to death in order that he might
remain the governor of Palestine. Had he been a man of real courage he
would have done the right and taken the consequences, but his past made
him a coward.
23:26-31 As they led
Jesus away, they took Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming in from the
country, and on him they laid the cross to carry it behind Jesus.
There followed him a
great crowd of the people and of women who bewailed and lamented him.
Jesus turned to them. "Daughters of Jerusalem," he said, "do not weep
for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children, because--look
you--days are on the way in which they will say, 'Happy are those who
are barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts which never
fed a child.' Then they will begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall upon
us!' and to the hills, 'Cover us!' For if they do these things when the
sap is in the wood, what will they do when the tree is dry?"
When a criminal was condemned to be crucified, he was taken
from the judgment hall and set in the middle of a hollow square of four
Roman soldiers. His own cross was then laid upon his shoulders. And he
was marched to the place of crucifixion by the longest possible route,
while before him marched another soldier bearing a placard with his
crime inscribed upon it, so that he might be a terrible warning to
anyone else who was contemplating such a crime. That is what they did
with Jesus.
He began by carrying his own Cross (John 19:17);
but under its weight his strength gave out and he could carry it no
farther. Palestine was an occupied country and any citizen could be
immediately impressed into the service of the Roman government. The sign
of such impressment was a tap on the shoulder with the flat of the
blade of a Roman spear. When Jesus sank beneath the weight of his Cross,
the Roman centurion in charge looked round for someone to carry it. Out
of the country into the city there came Simon from far off Cyrene,
which is modern Tripoli. No doubt he was a Jew who all his life had
scraped and saved so that he might be able to eat one Passover at
Jerusalem. The flat of the Roman spear touched him on the shoulder and
he found himself, willy-nilly, carrying a criminal's cross.
Try to imagine the feelings of Simon. He had come to Jerusalem
to realise the cherished ambition of a lifetime, and he found himself
walking to Calvary carrying a cross. His heart was filled with
bitterness towards the Romans and towards this criminal who had involved
him in his crime.
But if we can read between the lines the story does not end
there. J. A. Robertson saw in it one of the hidden romances of the New
Testament. Mark describes Simon as the father of Alexander and Rufus. (Mark 15:21.)
Now you do not identify a man by the name of his sons unless these sons
are well-known people in the community to which you write. There is
general agreement that Mark wrote his gospel to the Church at Rome. Turn
to Paul's letter to the Church at Rome. Amongst the greetings at the
end he writes, "Greet Rufus, eminent in the Lord, also his mother and
mine." (Romans 16:13.)
So in the Roman church there was Rufus, so choice a Christian that he
could be called one of God's chosen ones, with a mother so dear to Paul
that he could call her his mother in the faith. It may well be that this
was the same Rufus who was the son of Simon of Cyrene, and his mother
was Simon's wife.
It may well be that as he looked on Jesus Simon's bitterness
turned to wondering amazement and finally to faith; that he became a
Christian; and that his family became some of the choicest souls in the
Roman church. It may well be that Simon from Tripoli thought he was
going to realize a life's ambition, to celebrate the Passover in
Jerusalem at last; that he found himself sorely against his will
carrying a criminal's cross; that, as he looked, his bitterness turned
to wonder and to faith; and that in the thing that seemed to be his
shame he found a Saviour.
Behind Jesus there came a band of women weeping for him. He
turned and bade them weep, not for him, but for themselves. Days of
terror were coming. In Judaea there was no tragedy like a childless
marriage; in fact childlessness was a valid ground for divorce. But the
day would come when the woman who had no child would be glad that it was
so. Once again Jesus was seeing ahead the destruction of that city
which had so often before, and which had now so finally, refused the
invitation of God. Luke 23:31
is a proverbial phrase which could be used in many connections. Here it
means, if they do this to one who is innocent, what will they some day
do to those who are guilty?
23:32-38 Two others
who were criminals were brought to be put to death with Jesus. When they
came to the place which is caned the place of a skull, there they
crucified him, and the two criminals, one on his right hand, and one on
his left. And Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know
what they are doing." And, as they divided his garments, they cast lots
for them. The people stood watching, and the rulers gibed at him. "He
saved others," they said. "Let him save himself if he really is the
anointed one of God, the chosen one." The soldiers also mocked him,
coming and offering vinegar to him, and saying, "If you are the King of
the Jews save yourself." There was also an inscription over him, "This
is the King of the Jews."
When a criminal reached the place of crucifixion, his cross was
laid flat upon the ground. Usually it was a cross shaped like a T with
no top piece against which the head could rest. It was quite low, so
that the criminal's feet were only two or three feet above the ground.
There was a company of pious women in Jerusalem who made it their
practice always to go to crucifixions and to give the victim a drink of
drugged wine which would deaden the terrible pain. That drink was
offered to Jesus and he refused it. (Matthew 27:34.)
He was determined to face death at its worst, with a clear mind and
senses unclouded. The victim's arms were stretched out upon the cross
bar, and the nails were driven through his hands. The feet were not
nailed, but only loosely bound to the cross. Half way up the cross there
was a projecting piece of wood, called the saddle, which took the
weight of the criminal, for otherwise the nails would have torn through
his hands. Then the cross was lifted and set upright in its socket. The
terror of crucifixion was this--the pain of that process was terrible
but it was not enough to kill, and the victim was left to die of hunger
and thirst beneath the blazing noontide sun and the frosts of the night.
Many a criminal was known to have hung for a week upon his cross until
he died raving mad.
The clothes of the criminal were the perquisites of the four
soldiers among whom he marched to the cross. Every Jew wore five
articles of apparel--the inner tunic, the outer robe, the girdle, the
sandals and the turban. Four were divided among the four soldiers. There
remained the great outer robe. It was woven in one piece without a
seam. (John 19:23-24.)
To have cut it up and divided it would have ruined it; and so the
soldiers gambled for it in the shadow of the cross. It was nothing to
them that another criminal was slowly dying in agony.
The inscription set upon the cross was the same placard as was
carried before a man as he marched through the streets to the place of
crucifixion.
Jesus said many wonderful things, but rarely anything more
wonderful than, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
Christian forgiveness is an amazing thing. When Stephen was being stoned
to death he too prayed, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." (Acts 7:60.)
There is nothing so lovely and nothing so rare as Christian
forgiveness. When the unforgiving spirit is threatening to turn our
hearts to bitterness, let us hear again our Lord asking forgiveness for
those who crucified him and his servant Paul saying to his friends, "Be
kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in
Christ forgave you." (Ephesians 4:32.)
The idea that this terrible thing was done in ignorance runs
through the New Testament. Peter said to the people in after days, "I
know that you acted in ignorance." (Acts 3:17.) Paul said that they crucified Jesus because they did not know him. (Acts 13:27.)
Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman Emperor and Stoic saint, used to say
to himself every morning, "Today you will meet all kinds of unpleasant
people; they will hurt you, and injure you, and insult you; but you
cannot live like that; you know better, for you are a man in whom the
spirit of God dwells." Others may have in their hearts the unforgiving
spirit, others may sin in ignorance; but we know better. We are Christ's
men and women; and we must forgive as he forgave.
23:39-43 One of the
criminals who were hanged kept hurling insults at Jesus. "Are you not
the anointed one?" he said. "Save yourself and us." The other rebuked
him. "Do you not even fear God?" he said. "For we too are under the same
sentence and justly so, for we have done things which deserve the
reward that we are reaping; but this man has done nothing unseemly." And
he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." He said
to him, "This is the truth--I tell you--today you will be with me in
Paradise."
It was of set and deliberate purpose that the authorities
crucified Jesus between two known criminals. It was deliberately so
staged to humiliate Jesus in front of the crowd and to rank him with
robbers.
Legend has been busy with the penitent thief. He is called
variously Dismas, Demas and Dumachus. One legend makes him a Judaean
Robin Hood who robbed the rich to give to the poor. The loveliest legend
tells how the holy family were attacked by robbers when they fled with
the child Jesus from Bethlehem to Egypt. Jesus was saved by the son of
the captain of the robber band. The baby was so lovely that the young
brigand could not bear to lay hands on him but set him free, saying, "O
most blessed of children, if ever there come a time for having mercy on
me, then remember me and forget not this hour." That robber youth who
had saved Jesus as a baby met him again on Calvary; and this time Jesus
saved him.
The word Paradise is a Persian word meaning a walled garden.
When a Persian king wished to do one of his subjects a very special
honour he made him a companion of the garden which meant he was chosen
to walk in the garden with the king. It was more than immortality that
Jesus promised the penitent thief. He promised him the honoured place of
a companion of the garden in the courts of heaven.
Surely this story tells us above all that it is never too late
to turn to Christ. There are other things of which we must say, "The
time for that is past. I am grown too old now." But we can never say
that of turning to Jesus Christ. So long as a man's heart beats, the
invitation of Christ still stands. As the poet wrote of the man who was
killed as he was thrown from his galloping horse,
"Betwixt the stirrup and the ground,
Mercy I asked, mercy I found."
It is literally true that while there is life there is hope.
23:44-49 By this time
it was about midday, and there was darkness over the whole land until 3
o'clock in the afternoon, and the light of the sun failed. And the veil
of the Temple was rent in the midst. When Jesus had cried with a great
voice, he said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." When he
had said this he breathed his last. When the centurion saw what had
happened, he glorified God. "Truly," he said, "this was a good man." All
the crowds, who had come together to see the spectacle, when they saw
the things that had happened, went home beating their breasts. And all
his acquaintances, and the women who had accompanied him from Galilee,
stood far off and saw these things.
Every sentence of this passage is rich in meaning.
(i) There was a great darkness as Jesus died. It was as if the
sun itself could not bear to look upon the deed men's hands had done.
The world is ever dark in the day when men seek to banish Christ.
(ii) The Temple veil was rent in two. This was the veil which
hid the Holy of Holies, the place where dwelt the very presence of God,
the place where no man might ever enter except the High Priest, and he
only once a year, on the great day of Atonement. It was as if the way to
God's presence, hitherto barred to man, was thrown open to all. It was
as if the heart of God, hitherto hidden, was laid bare. The birth, life
and death of Jesus tore apart the veil which had concealed God from man.
"He who has seen me," said Jesus, "has seen the Father." (John 14:9.) On the cross, as never before and never again, men saw the love of God.
(iii) Jesus cried with a great voice. Three of the gospels tell us of this great cry. (compare Matthew 27:50; Mark 15:37.) John, on the other hand, does not mention the great cry but tells us that Jesus died saying, "It is finished." (John 19:30.)
In Greek and Aramaic "It is finished" is one word. It is finished and
the great cry are, in fact, one and the same thing. Jesus died with a
shout of triumph on his lips. He did not whisper, "It is finished," as
one who is battered to his knees and forced to admit defeat. He shouted
it like a victor who has won his last engagement with the enemy and
brought a tremendous task to triumphant conclusion. "Finished!" was the
cry of the Christ, crucified yet victorious.
(iv) Jesus died with a prayer on his lips. "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." That is Psalms 31:5
with one word added--Father. That verse was the prayer every Jewish
mother taught her child to say last thing at night. Just as we were
taught, maybe, to say, "This night I lay me down to sleep," so the
Jewish mother taught her child to say, before the threatening dark came
down, "Into thy hands I commit my spirit." Jesus made it even more
lovely for he began it with the word Father. Even on a cross Jesus died
like a child falling asleep in his father's arms.
(v) The centurion and the crowd were deeply moved as Jesus died.
His death did what even his life could not do; it broke the hard hearts
of men. Already Jesus' saying was coming true--"I, when I am lifted up
from the earth, will draw an men to myself." The magnet of the cross had
begun its work, even as he breathed his last.
23:50-56 Look
you--there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Sanhedrin, a good and
a just man. He had not consented to their counsel and their action. He
came from Arimathaea, a town of the Jews, and he lived in expectation of
the kingdom of God. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.
He took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a rockhewn tomb
where no one had ever yet been laid. It was the day of preparation, and
the Sabbath was beginning. The women, who had accompanied Jesus from
Galilee, followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Then
they went back home and prepared spices and ointments. And they rested
on the Sabbath day according to the commandment.
It was the custom that the bodies of criminals were not buried
at all but left to the dogs and the vultures to dispose of; but Joseph
of Arimathaea saved the body of Jesus from that indignity. There was not
much time left that day. Jesus was crucified on the Friday; the Jewish
Sabbath is our Saturday. But the Jewish day begins at 6 p.m. That is to
say by Friday at 6 p.m. the Sabbath had begun. That is why the women had
only time to see where the body was laid and go home and prepare their
spices and ointments for it and do no more, for after 6 p.m. all work
became illegal.
Joseph of Arimathaea is a figure of the greatest interest.
(i) Legend has it that in the year A.D. 61 he was sent by Philip
to Britain. He came to Glastonbury. With him he brought the chalice
that had been used at the Last Supper, and in it the blood of Christ.
That chalice became the Holy Grail, which it was the dream of King
Arthur's knights to find and see. When Joseph arrived in Glastonbury
they say that he drove his staff into the ground to rest on it in his
weariness and the staff budded and became a bush which blooms every
Christmas Day. St. Joseph's thorn still blooms at Glastonbury and to
this day slips of it are sent all over the world. The first church in
all England was built at Glastonbury, and that church which legend links
with the name of Joseph is still a mecca of Christian pilgrims.
(ii) There is a certain tragedy about Joseph of Arimathaea. He
is the man who gave Jesus a tomb. He was a member of the Sanhedrin; we
are told that he did not agree with the verdict and the sentence of that
court. But there is no word that he raised his voice in disagreement.
Maybe he kept silent; maybe he absented himself when he saw that he was
powerless to stop a course of action with which he disagreed. What a
difference it would have made if he had spoken! How it would have lifted
up Jesus' heart if, in that grim assembly of bleak hatred, even one
lone voice had spoken for him! But Joseph waited until Jesus was dead,
and then he gave him a tomb. It is one of the tragedies of life that we
place on people's graves the flowers we might have given them when they
were alive. We keep for their obituary notices and for the tributes paid
to them at memorial services and in committee minutes, the praise and
thanks we should have given them when they lived. Often, often we are
haunted because we never spoke. A word to the living is worth a cataract
of tributes to the dead.
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)