The Final Verdict

Before the Crowd Once Again

After the Roman guards carried out their session of torture, they sent Jesus back to Pilate's courtyard. Battered and bleeding, Jesus was forced to stand in front of the mob once again - this time with a red and purple robe draped over His body and a crown of thorns shoved onto His brow.

Pilate continued his previous plan with Barabbas. This time the offer should've been more appealing to the crowd. Barabbas was a notorious murderer who needed to be executed for the sake of the public. Jesus was an just an innocent man that they didn't like. He had already been beaten to a pulp, and might just die from His wounds without anything more being done to Him. Clearly this was an easy choice...right?

But the crowd was not pacified at all. In fact, the sight of Jesus presented as a "king" sent the crowd into a frenzy.

Pilate proclaimed, "Behold the Man!" - as if the sight of Jesus should've been enough to convince the crowd to leave Him alone.

But in response, they screamed out "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"

Pilate didn't know what to do at this point.

Then the crowd said something that really frightened him: "That Man claims to be the Son of God." When he heard this, Pilate remembered his wife's dream about Jesus. At the same time, he probably recalled all the stories he had heard of Jesus healing the sick and performing miracles. Now, instead of condemning an innocent Man (which was bad enough)...he was now was faced with the possibility of condemning a divine Man. 

Pilate tried everything else he could think of to get Jesus set free. But the crowd only grew more frantic. the entire city was about to explode into violence if the situation wasn't resolved. With his back to a corner, Pilate called for a bowl of water. In front of the crowd, Pilate washed his hands and declared, "I'm innocent of this man's blood!"

The crowd cried out a chilling response, "That's right! His blood will be on us, and on our children!"

"Take Him, do what you want to with Him then," Pilate said.

And with that, Jesus was handed over to the crowd. Along with Him, Pilate gave the Jews a detachment of soldiers to carry out the crucifixion.

Just Another Criminal

Jesus was added to a parade of criminals sentenced to die. Together with two hardened felons, He was led out of town...forced to carry His own cross on His back. (It was likely that this wasn't the entire cross, just the crossbeam that was going to be attached to the cross.)

A mixed crowd of people followed this procession.
Many of these people were glad to go and see the death of this Man they hated.
Some of them were close to Jesus and followed behind, weeping for Him.
Still others didn't even know what was happening...and didn't even recognize the Man at the center of it all.

Isaiah 52:14 tells us that Jesus was "marred more than any man." This tells us that, if you didn't know it was Him to begin with, you would not recognize who He was. This was due to the severe beating that He had gone through...first by the Sanhedrin and Temple guards, then by the Roman soldiers.  So as He was paraded through town, in a group of criminals, many people would've just assumed He was a convict Himself.

At some point along the way, Jesus was no longer capable of supporting the weight of the cross. The cruelty He endured and the loss of blood severely weakened Him and He must've either collapsed under the weight, or moved very slowly as He struggled under it. Either way, the Roman soldiers grew tired of waiting for Him. They took a man out of the crowd at random (a visitor to Jerusalem named Simon) and forced him into carrying the cross for Jesus.

We know that Jesus was fully aware of what was left for Him to suffer. We know that He was aware of the scriptures that prophesied, "They've pierced My hands and My feet". It's easy to think that He was dreading what was going to happen at the execution place of Golgotha. But that dread had already been put aside in the Garden the night before. Whatever Jesus thought of the coming crucifixion...it was not dread or fear.

On the contrary, the Bible tells us in Hebrews 12:2, "Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising (that is, taking lightly) the shame..." Jesus didn't think to seriously about the nails that would pierce His hands, the hours that He would hang on the cross, or the ultimate shame that He was about to experience. Instead, He kept His mind on the joy and the glory that He would experience when it was all over!

For All The World To See...

The place of crucifixion - called "the Place of the Skull" - is often referred to as a "hill". I suppose it's possible that Jesus was crucified on the hill that's commonly called "Calvary" today...but there is evidence that could suggest this tradition is wrong. 

One: The Bible doesn't refer to the site as a hill...only as "Calvary" and "Golgotha".

Two: "Place of the Skull" may not refer to a skull-shaped hill, but a place of death.

Three: Roman custom was to crucify criminals in public, well-traveled areas...such as beside a road. (In fact, the Bible supports this idea of a roadside crucifixion by the phrase, "all those who passed by".)

When they arrived at the site, Jesus was stripped down. While there are a lot of films that try to show Jesus' suffering on the cross...none of them are truly capable of doing so. There are just some things you can't show in a movie - and a fully naked and exposed Man on a cross is one of those.

Jesus didn't have a convenient "loincloth" covering Him. No, crucifixions were as much about humiliation as they were about execution. So the last thing Jesus possessed, His dignity, was torn away as He was stripped naked and laid on the cross.

No pun is intended here...but Christian often miss a major point of the crucifixion while they argue about one particular detail. Some Christians claim that the Romans placed the nails in Jesus' wrists; others say they were put through the palms of His hands. I want to say, does it really matter where the nails were placed? Forget about trying to figure out where they were for a minute and think about this...Jesus had nails hammered through His hands, and into the cross! Can you imagine the pain He felt as He was attached to the cross with nails through His hands?

The same kind of debate rages over whether his feet were nailed together with one nail, or separately with two. These kinds of debates often keep us from realizing the truth of this moment. Does it somehow make it more of a sacrifice for Jesus' feet to be nailed together, instead of separately? Would that somehow make His choice more or less redemptive for us? Not at all!

The simple truth is this: Jesus knowingly submitted to being nailed to a cross, and raised up for everyone to see.

What was happening during the procession (that is, people thinking of Jesus as just another criminal) continued during the crucifixion. Many people who passed by where Jesus was hanging wouldn't have even turned to look at Him...considering Him to be another lawbreaker suffering His fate. Decent people, who didn't know who He was, were probably afraid to look too closely.

Others in the crowd knew exactly who He was. Look at their words from Matthew 27:39-40, "And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, 'You Who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.'" These were the words of the crowds that condemned Jesus before Pilate...no doubt passing Jesus on their way back to their homes.

The Jewish elders themselves joined in, saying "He saved others; He can't even save Himself! If He really is the King of Israel, the let Him get off the cross...If we saw that, we'd believe in Him. He trusted in God; let God deliver Him now..."

That last sentence is huge. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, the elders were quoting from Psalm 22:7-8, "All those who see Me ridicule Me; They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, 'He trusted in the LORD, let Him rescue Him; Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!'"

And yet...it was for the salvation of other that Jesus refused to be delivered from the cross. He had every right to ask for help...every right to be delivered because of His righteousness. But this was the cost of our salvation. This was what it took: A naked and bleeding Messiah, nailed on a cross for the world to see.

This is how much He loves you, my friend!