15:4-5 So Pilate asked him again, “Have you nothing to say? See how many charges they are bringing against you!” But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed.
Jesus didn’t defend himself… his mission was the cross.
15:11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas instead.
Was this the same crowd that waved palm branches the previous week welcoming him as the Messiah? Maybe - Jesus didn’t overthrow the Romans as expected, so maybe they were disappointed.. Maybe not - certainly there’re enough people in Jerusalem that they could be a different crowd, and the chief priests’ instigators drowned out the pro-Jesus crowd.
15:16-41 Jesus is mocked, whipped bloodily to shreds, and the crown of thorns piercing his head, and struck, and spit on. Then he’s forced to carry the cross in his weakened state, (until he collapsed and Simon of Cyrene had to take over, as other Gospel accounts tell us) and then nailed to the cross and died an excruciating death.
“He could have called 10,000 angels to destroy the world and sent him free.
He could have called 10,000 angels, but he died alone, for you and me.” 😱😰🙏🏽
“What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul?”
“O sacred head, now wounded,
with grief and shame weighed down,
now scornfully surrounded
with thorns, your only crown.
O sacred head, what glory
and blessing you have known!
Yet, though despised and gory,
I claim you as my own.”
15:34 “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” The perfect lamb of God who had never sinned, never been separated from God, now God had to turn away from him for the sins laid upon him.
This may have been worse than the physical pain Jesus felt.
15:44 Pilate was surprised that he was already dead.
It wasn’t just the physical distress that killed Jesus -- that God had to turn away from him. He gave up the ghost. “It is completed” as other Gospel accounts pointed out.
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