Mark 15:1-15

The Roman Trial - King of the Jews

Mark 15:1-15 – Pilate Sentences Jesus

The night meeting of the Sanhedrin had found Jesus deserving of death. The penalty for blasphemy was stoning to death. Apparently they could not execute the sentence - possibly because the Roman governor had deprived them, at least at the time, of the authority to pass the death sentence for religious crimes.

¹ Quite early that morning

the chief priests along with the elders and scribes,

and the whole Sanhedrin,

assembled together.

They bound Jesus, took him away

and handed him over to Pilate.

Mark had not given the reason for the second convocation of the council, whether it was to give formal ratification to the questionable proceedings of the previous evening, or to plan how to have Jesus tried and sentenced by a Roman court and killed. If that option were to succeed, Jesus would have had to be found guilty of something other than blasphemy, which was not a Roman concern.

² Pilate questioned him,

“Are you the king of the Jews?”

In reply, Jesus said to him,

“You are the one who says so.”

Pilate’s question assumed that the council had accused Jesus of declaring himself a Jewish king – effectively a rebel against Roman rule.

Pilate referred to Jesus as King. Jesus did not deny the title, possibly for reasons similar to why he accepted the high priest’s reference to his being Messiah and Son of the Blessed One.

³ The chief priests laid many accusations,

⁴ and Pilate asked him again,

“Do you make no reply?

Look how many accusations they are making.”

⁵ Jesus still gave no answer,

so that Pilate was amazed.

Pilate obviously saw nothing threatening in Jesus’ understanding of kingship, or in the evidence brought forward by the chief priests, though Jesus gave no answers to his requests for clarification. Proceedings were close to stalemate.

⁶ At each festival Pilate used to release one prisoner,

whomever they wanted.

⁷ There was one of them named Barabbas

imprisoned with the insurgents

who had committed murder

during the popular uprising.

⁸ The crowd came up

and began to ask him to do so for them.

An interruption occurred that Pilate seized on as a possible excuse to allow Jesus to go free (though it seems uncharacteristic for a governor otherwise known to be brutal and abrasive to be looking for excuses).

A crowd arrived.

They cited his custom of releasing a prisoner by way of honouring the festival. Mark made no mention of the size of the crowd or its composition. Were they urban Jews, or Galileans? The crowd was probably not large, because there was little room for any sizeable gathering in the governor’s headquarters. A small crowd would not have been representative of the people generally.

Pilate had seen through the pretences of the chief priests, and so offered Jesus to the crowd, little expecting that they would have demanded a genuine criminal instead - Barabbas, a murderer and political rebel.

⁹ So Pilate answered them saying,

“Do you want me to release the king of the Jews for you?”

¹⁰ because he knew that the chief priests had handed him over from ill-will.

¹¹ But the chief priests stirred up the crowd

so that he would rather release Barabbas for them.

Pilate had not counted on the cunning of the priests who had stirred up the crowd to ask for Barabbas. He was surprised at the crowd’s choice.

In asking for their suggestions regarding Jesus, Pilate thought they would have been on his side. He was wrong. The crowd demanded the death of Jesus, wanting him crucified. Violence is so easily contagious.

Surprisingly this was the first time that crucifixion had been explicitly mentioned in the narrative (though Jesus had earlier asked his disciples to take up their crosses and to follow him).

¹² Pilate asked them again,

“What do you want me to do then

with the one you call the king of the Jews?”

¹³ But they shouted back, “Crucify him!”

¹⁴ But Pilate said to them, “What crime has he committed?”

but they shouted out even more, “Crucify him!”

¹⁵ Wishing to satisfy the crowd,

Pilate released Barabbas for them,

On this occasion Pilate acceded to the crowd’s demand. Why did Pilate who normally had had little regard for Jewish crowds listen to them on this occasion? Mark is silent.

and handed Jesus over to be flogged and then crucified.

Flogging was a normal preliminary to crucifixion, carried out by the Roman guard.

Next >> Mark 15:16-41