God’s Word for You
Mark 15:12-15 Handed over
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, March 12, 2024
12 Pilate asked them, “Then what shall I do with the man you call the King of the Jews?” 13 They shouted, “Crucify him!” 14 And Pilate said, “Why? What crime has he done?” But they shouted even louder, “Crucify him!” 15 Pilate wanted to satisfy the crowd, so he released Barabbas for them. Then he handed Jesus over for scourging and to be crucified.
For the third time (in just four speeches), Pilate calls Jesus “the King of the Jews.” He lays this term at the feet of the Jewish priests by saying that “you” call him by that title. But they are blind with rage and thirsty for blood. The “they” of verse 13 is the combined groups of the priests and the crowd that had gathered here at dawn. They are the ones who shouted, “Crucify him!”
The priests agitated and stirred up the crowd. Should we associate this crowd with the throngs of believers who had shouted “Hosanna!” just five days before? It doesn’t seem likely that at this hour of the morning those pilgrims to the Feast of Passover would have been gathered in front of the Roman Praetorium. It is more probable that the “crowd” was made up largely of priests and temple servants, perhaps with a couple of bewildered beggars brought in for good measure. But it doesn’t get past our attention that the Savior was brought into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, but he will now be driven out of the city by a band of jackasses. Caiaphas and his cronies moved here and there in the crowd, slithering like snakes among the people, leading the shouts of “Crucify! Crucify!” Theirs were the teeth and fangs used by Satan to strike at the heel of the Messiah, just as God himself had foreseen: “You will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15).
The betrayal and arrest of Jesus had taken place at midnight or later. The four, five, or six trials, however we count them, were only now coming to an end as the morning opened to its full flower.
1, He had been taken first to Annas after being arrested at Gethsemane (John 18:13-24)
2, Annas sent him to Caiaphas (John 18:24-27; Luke 22:54-65). It was in the courtyard here that Peter denied Jesus as the rooster crowed (Luke 22:60) and Jesus was first beaten up (Luke 22:63-65).
3, At daybreak, to gather some semblance of legitimacy, the Sanhedrin met quickly again (they had almost all been there with Caiaphas) and judged him to be guilty once again (Luke 22:66-71).
4, They sent him to Pilate, who had only begun to listen to the charges when he learned that Jesus was from Galilee, Herod’s jurisdiction, and then sent him over to Herod who was in Jerusalem (Luke 23:1-7). This must have taken up the hour from around six to almost seven in the morning.
5, Herod briefly questioned Jesus, and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked Jesus before they sent him back to Pilate (Luke 23:8-11). It seems likely that Jesus did not make it back to Pilate until it was approaching eight in the morning.
6, Pilate now pronounced Jesus to be innocent of any crimes, but he gave in to the demands of the crowd to have him crucified. After a short time, he handed Jesus over for scourging and to be crucified. The short trip through the streets and the act of nailing Jesus to the cross happened at nine, which is called “the third hour” by Mark; the third hour since daybreak (Mark 15:25).
Jesus was brought like a lamb to the morning sacrifice (Exodus 29:38-39), but his sacrifice does not continue morning by morning like the temple sacrifices did, (Ezekiel 46:13), but was made “once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).
The grammar at the end of verse 15 has given the translator some difficulty, but the reader doesn’t need to be burdened too much by such things. In Mark, the term “handed over” has an important theological weight. Jesus was handed over to Pilate by the Sanhedrin, and now Jesus is handed over to be scourged, whipped, by Pilate. This scourging was done by the Romans with a special whip of many strands, in which bone or metal pieces were tied together by leather thongs in a kind of grotesque chain. This was used on the body of the man being punished, and soldiers were encouraged to use their imaginations as they used the scourge to punish the man with a maximum amount of pain.
The scourging was not immediately followed by the crucifixion, however. In fact, we will not reach the actual crucifixion until verse 24 (in terms of these devotions, that’s not until next Monday). The soldiers still had time to mock him and torment him in many other ways, first. But by his wounds, we are healed (Isaiah 53:5). He allowed this punishment and torture in order to suffer in our place. This prince, brighter than snow, whiter than milk, his body more ruddy than rubies and his appearance like sapphire, is now blacker than soot. His skin has shriveled on the bone. He cannot be recognized in the street (see Lamentations 4:7-8). He took our suffering on himself. Through him, “We are disgraced. Dishonor covers our faces, because strangers have come into the holy places of the House of the LORD” (Jeremiah 51:51). Those strangers beat our Lord and handed him over to death, but the death he died, he died instead of us. And since we are united with him in his death, we are also united with him in his resurrection. This is indeed “the fellowship of his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10), through which we are healed and made holy to the Lord.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.