The Word Made Fresh
1At sunrise all the chief priests and elders discussed how they might bring about Jesus’ execution. 2They had Jesus bound and led him away to hand him over to the governor, Pilate.
3When Judas saw that Jesus was condemned, he regretted having betrayed him. He brought the thirty silver coins back to the chief priests and elders. 4“I have betrayed an innocent man. I have sinned.” But they said, “Why should we care? You yourself are responsible for what you’ve done.”
5Judas threw the silver coins on the floor of the temple and left. Then he went out and hanged himself. 6But the chief priests took the silver coins and said, “It’s not lawful to put them in the treasury because this is blood money.” 7They discussed what they should do, and decided to use the money to buy a potter’s field as a burial ground for foreigners. 8That is why the field has been called the Field of Blood ever since. 9So, what the prophet Jeremiah had said was fulfilled – “They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price that had been set by the people of Israel, 10and bought the potter’s field as the LORD had commanded.”
11Now Jesus was standing before the governor, who asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Yes, if you say so.” 12But when the chief priests and elders accused him he was silent. 13Pilate asked him, “Don’t you hear all the accusations they’re bringing against you?” 14But Jesus gave no answer, not even to a single charge, and the governor was amazed.
15Now it was the custom at the festival in those days for the governor to release a prisoner for the crowd, anyone they asked for. 16At the time they had in custody a notorious prisoner named Jesus Barabbas. 17So, after the people had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus the Christ?” 18He realized they had handed Jesus over out of envy. 19He was sitting on the judgment seat, and while he was there he received a note from his wife. She had written, “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man. I have suffered a great deal because of a dream I had about him.”
20Meanwhile, the chief priests and elders had coached the crowds to ask that Barabbas be set free and that Jesus be put to death. 21So, when the governor asked, “Which of these two do you want me to release for you?” they shouted, “Barabbas.” 22Pilate asked, “Then, what should I do with this Jesus, the one who is called the Christ?” and they all yelled, “Crucify him!” 23Pilate asked, “Why him? What law has he broken?” But they shouted even louder, “Crucify him!”
24Pilate realized that he could do nothing, and that a riot was beginning to break out, so he washed his hands with water in full view of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s death,” he said. “You see to it yourselves.”
25The people answered, “Then let his blood be on us and on our children!”
26So, Pilate released Barabbas to them. Then he had Jesus whipped, and handed him over to be crucified.
27The governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters. They gathered around him, 28stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. 29They twisted some briars into the shape of a crown and placed it on his head. They put a reed in his right hand and mocked him, kneeling in front of him and yelling, “Hail, king of the Jews!” 30They spat on him and struck his head with the reed. 31After all this, they removed the robe they had put on him and gave his own clothes back to him. Then they led him away to be crucified.
32While they were going they saw a man from Cyrene named Simon. They pulled this man out of the crowd and forced him to carry Jesus’ cross. 33When they came to Golgotha (“Place of the Skull”), 34They offered him wine mixed with bile, but when he tasted it he refused to drink more of it. 35When they had crucified him, they cast lots to see who got to keep items of his clothing. 36Then they sat down and kept watch over Jesus, 37and over his head they put the charge that had been brought against him: “This is Jesus, king of the Jews!”
38Two thieves were crucified with him, one on his right and the other on his left. 39People walking by made fun of him. They shook their heads 40and said, “You said you’d destroy the temple and then rebuild it in three days. So, save yourself! If you are God’s son, come down from the cross!”
41The chief priests, too, along with the legal experts and the elders, were making fun of him. 42“He rescued others, didn’t he? Why can’t he rescue himself? He is the king of Israel! So let him come down from cross now and we will believe in him! 43He said he trusts in God, so why doesn’t God come and rescue him now? He said, ‘I am God’s Son!’” 44The thieves who were crucified beside him taunted him as well.
45At noon, darkness began covering the land, until midafternoon. 46Then Jesus cried out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 47Some of the bystanders heard him and said, “He is calling for Elijah.” 48One of them ran to get a sponge soaked with sour wine, put it on a stick and held it up to him to drink. 49The others said, “Wait! Let’s see if Elijah is going to come and rescue him!”
50Then Jesus cried out aloud again, and breathed his last. 51At that very moment the curtain in the temple was torn asunder, top to bottom. An earthquake shook the ground, and rocks split open. 52Tombs fell open and a lot of the bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. 53After his resurrection they came from the tombs and went into the holy city where they were seen by many.
54When the centurion and others who were keeping watch over Jesus saw what was happening in the earthquake, they were terrified. They said, “Surely this man was a Son of God!”
55Some women also were there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee, caring for his needs – 56Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.
57About sundown a wealthy man who was also a follower of Jesus, Joseph from Arimathea, came 58to ask Pilate for Jesus’ body. Pilate gave orders for it to be done, 59so Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth 60and laid it in his own tomb, newly hewn in the rock. Before he left, he rolled a large stone over the entrance of the tomb. 61Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting across from the tomb and saw all of this.
62The next day, the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees met with Pilate 63and said, “Sir, we remember that, before he died, that imposter said he will rise again after three days.” 64We’re asking you to make certain the tomb is secure until the third day. If you don’t, his disciples might go and steal the body and tell the people he has been raised from the dead. And this deception will be worse than the first one.”
65Pilate told them, “Take some soldiers to guard the tomb and make it as secure as you can.” 66Then they went with the soldiers and sealed the stone to make the tomb secure.
Commentary
1-2: The council, perhaps wanting a little distance from Jesus’ execution, remands Jesus to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea.
3-10: Judas’ motivation is perhaps revealed in these verses, for he recognizes that he has betrayed “innocent blood.” He returns the money to the chief priests and elders. When they refuse to take it back he throws it on the floor (thus re-enacting Zechariah 11:12-13), then goes out and hangs himself. The chief priests and elders use the money to buy land for a cemetery (a different account of his suicide is given at Acts 1:18-19).
11-14: Pilate attempts an interrogation, but Jesus refuses to respond to his accusers.
15-23: Pilate is portrayed in the gospels as being unwilling to execute Jesus. Matthew is the only gospel to report the dream of Pilate’s wife. Pilate offers to free a prisoner (a dubious custom!), thinking they will choose Jesus, but now the infamous brigand Barabbas is introduced and the crowd clamors for his release and cries for Jesus’ crucifixion.
24-26: Matthew alone records the scene of Pilate washing his hands before the crowd. Barabbas is released. Jesus is whipped and turned over to the Roman cohort in charge of crucifixions.
27-31: So, Jesus finds himself before the third group of accusers, the soldiers who prepare him for execution. Of the three — the council, Pilate, and the soldiers — they are the cruelest and their treatment of Jesus is especially brutish.
32-37: Their inhuman treatment continues to the cross. A visitor to the city for the Passover observance is forced to carry the cross, Jesus being obviously unable to do so. In Matthew’s account, the inscription over his head on the cross is placed there in mockery; in Mark it is an official notice of the crime he has committed (Mark 15:26).
38-44: Two thieves are hung on either side of him. In Matthew and Mark, the mockery to which Jesus was subjected is emphasized throughout, with even the two thieves both joining in; in Luke’s account one of the thieves takes up for Jesus (Luke 23:39-42).
45-54: Finally, Jesus himself succumbs to the mockery and, feeling forsaken even by God, cries out from the cross. Some of the bystanders illustrate a popular belief that the prophet Elijah will have something to do with the advent of the Messiah. This is the only hint in the narrative that anybody thinks Jesus might possibly be the Messiah. In Matthew’s account the only words Jesus speaks from the cross is to quote Psalm 22:1. It is instructive to read that psalm alongside the crucifixion story.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all report the darkness that fell over the scene: scholars have been unable to pair the description with any known solar eclipse, and it may be that the darkness is a way of illustrating the awful gravity of what is happening. They also report the splitting of the curtain in the temple, a sign that the veil between this world and the next had been torn. Matthew is the only gospel that reports rocks being split and tombs being opened, and dead saints being raised.
55-56: The mention of the presence of the women is perhaps a way of transitioning to the resurrection story in which some of them will discover the empty tomb. We do note, however, the information that these women had followed Jesus from Galilee and had provided for him — a succinct acknowledgment that the twelve disciples were not the only support Jesus had.
57-61: Matthew is the only gospel writer who depicts Joseph of Arimathea as a rich man who is a disciple of Jesus, or that the tomb in which Jesus is buried was owned by him. Mark says that he was a member of the council (Mark 15:43). Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary,” supposedly Mary the mother of James and Joseph (see verse 56) watch him place the body in his own tomb. It was said in chapter 13 verse 55 that James and Joseph were brothers of Jesus, and we are left to wonder if Matthew means to say that Mary the mother of Jesus was there.
62-66: The chief priests and Pharisees fear that Jesus’ disciples might have arranged to stage his resurrection. They go to Pilate to ask him to secure the tomb with a guard. He gives them permission to do so, but not with the use of Roman troops; he has washed his hands of the whole affair. They must use the temple guards, though it is surely an ignoble duty for them to have to watch a tomb. I cannot imagine how they would go about sealing the tomb, but that is what Matthew thinks they did.
Takeaway
O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.