Jesus Faces Pilate
1 As h soon as it was morning, having held a meeting with the elders, i scribes, j and the whole Sanhedrin, the chief priests k tied Jesus up, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. l
2 So Pilate asked him, “Are you the King m of the Jews? ” n
He answered him, “You say so.”
3 And the chief priests accused him of many things. 4 Pilate o questioned him again, “Aren’t you going to answer? Look how many things they are accusing you of! ” 5 But Jesus still did not answer, and so Pilate was amazed.
Jesus or Barabbas
6 At p the festival q Pilate r used to release for the people a prisoner whom they requested. 7 There was one named Barabbas, who was in prison with rebels who had committed murder s during the rebellion. t 8 The crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do for them as was his custom. 9 Pilate answered them, “Do you want me to release the King u of the Jews v for you? ” 10 For he knew it was because of envy w that the chief priests had handed him over. 11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd so that he would release Barabbas to them instead. 12 Pilate asked them again, “Then what do you want me to do with the one you call the King of the Jews? ”
13 Again they shouted, “Crucify him! ”
14 Pilate said to them, “Why? What has he done wrong? ”
But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him! ”
15 Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them; and after having Jesus flogged, he handed him over to be crucified.
Mocked by the Military
16 The x soldiers led him away into the palace (that is, the governor’s residence y ) and called the whole company together. 17 They dressed him in a purple z robe, twisted together a crown a of thorns, and put it on him. 18 And they began to salute him, “Hail, b King c of the Jews! ” 19 They were hitting him on the head with a stick and spitting on him. Getting down on their knees, d they were paying him homage. 20 After they had mocked e him, they stripped him of the purple robe and put his clothes on him.
Crucified between Two Criminals
They led him out to crucify him. 21 They f forced a man coming in from the country, who was passing by, to carry Jesus’s cross. g He was Simon of Cyrene, h the father of Alexander and Rufus. i
22 They j brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of the Skull k ). 23 They tried to give him wine l mixed with myrrh, m but he did not take it.
24 Then they crucified him and divided his clothes, casting lots n for them to decide what each would get. 25 Now it was nine in the morning when they crucified him. 26 The inscription of the charge written against him was: THE KING o OF THE JEWS. p 27 They q crucified two criminals ,r with him, one on his right and one on his left.
29 Those s who passed by were yelling insults t at him, shaking their heads, u and saying, “Ha! The one who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, v 30 save yourself by coming down from the cross! ” w 31 In the same way, the chief priests with the scribes x were mocking him among themselves and saying, “He saved others, but he cannot save himself! 32 Let the Messiah, y the King z of Israel, a come down now from the cross, b so that we may see and believe.” c Even those who were crucified with him taunted him.
The Death of Jesus
33 When d it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. ,e 34 And at three Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lemá sabachtháni? ” which is translated, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? ” ,f
35 When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “See, he’s calling for Elijah.”
36 Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, fixed it on a stick, offered him a drink, g and said, “Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down.”
37 Jesus let out a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 Then the curtain h of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 When the centurion, who was standing opposite him, saw the way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God! ” ,i
40 There j were also women watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, k Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. 41 In Galilee l these women followed him and took care of him. Many other women had come up with him to Jerusalem. m
The Burial of Jesus
42 When n it was already evening, because it was the day of preparation (that is, the day before the Sabbath), 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Sanhedrin who was himself looking forward o to the kingdom of God, p came and boldly went to Pilate q and asked for Jesus’s body. r 44 Pilate was surprised that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had already died. 45 When he found out from the centurion, he gave the corpse to Joseph. 46 After he bought some linen cloth, Joseph took him down and wrapped him in the linen. Then he laid him in a tomb s cut out of the rock and rolled a stone t against the entrance to the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene u and Mary the mother of Joses were watching where he was laid.
15:1–5. Following the sentence of the Sanhedrin, Jesus is transferred to Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judea (ruled AD 26–37), whose consent was necessary in cases of capital punishment (15:1; cf. Jn 18:31). Pilate normally resided at Caesarea Maritima, but during festivals, when Jewish pilgrims thronged to the temple, Pilate’s presence was required in Jerusalem. While there, he resided in Herod’s palace, which is the probable site of the hearing of Jesus.
15:6–14. Evidently harboring doubts about the necessity of Jesus’s execution, Pilate proposes releasing an insurrectionist, whose name Barabbas (in Aramaic) means “son of the father” (15:7). The real “Son of the Father” will die in place of another “son of the father,” who is a known criminal. The proposed prisoner exchange misfires, however; the crowd “came up” (15:8) in protest against Pilate to Herod’s palace, on the prominent western hill in Jerusalem. Mark explicitly states that the moving force behind Jesus’s crucifixion is no longer the scribes and Pharisees, nor the Sanhedrin, but the chief priests (15:10–11).
15:15–20. In preparation for crucifixion, Jesus is stripped, bound to a post, and beaten an unspecified number of times with a short leather whip woven with bits of bone, metal, or stone. Flogging (15:15), or flagellation, lacerated and stripped flesh, often exposing bones and entrails. Its purpose was to shorten the duration of crucifixion, but it was so brutal that not a few prisoners died before being crucified. The mistreatment of Jesus by Pilate and the soldiers fulfills the final passion prediction (10:33–34)—the handing over (15:15), mockery (15:20), spitting (15:19), and flogging (15:15)—to the detail.
15:21–23. One of the realities of Roman occupation most detested by Jews was compulsory service. Exercising this privilege, soldiers force an unknown passerby, Simon of Cyrene, to carry the heavy crossbeam of Jesus’s cross to the site of crucifixion (15:21). Simon’s place of origin in Cyrene (North Africa) may indicate he was a man of color. Mark may mention the names of his sons Alexander and Rufus because they were known by or members of the church in Rome to which he was writing (see Rm 16:13). Simon becomes the first person in Mark literally to take up his cross and follow Jesus (8:34).
15:24–27. The dividing of Jesus’s garments (15:24) fulfills the same fate of the suffering righteous man in Ps 22:18. Jews reckoned time beginning with sunrise at 6 a.m., so that the “third hour” (see the CSB footnote) was nine in the morning (15:25). Roman and Jewish custom required the cause of execution to be affixed to the cross, which in this case reflects Pilate’s accusation (15:2, 9, 12, 18), “The King of the Jews” (15:26). The crucifixion of Jesus between two robbers, “one on his right and one on his left” (15:27), is remarkably similar in wording to 10:40: the two criminals, in other words, occupy the places requested by James and John!
15:29–32. The sole point at which Mark departs from the reserve of the crucifixion narrative is in emphasizing the mockery of Jesus. Nondescript bystanders shake their heads, “yelling insults” (15:29; cf. 14:55–58); the chief priests and the scribes mock him (15:31); even the robbers taunt him (15:32). Ironically, the derision of the chief priests makes them guilty of the charge of blasphemy, for which they have condemned Jesus (14:64).
15:33–36. The crucifixion of Jesus is attended by several portents, the first being darkness (15:33). The darkness covers “the whole land,” symbolizing the universal and cosmic rejection of Jesus. Although Jesus was silent before the Sanhedrin and Pilate, he cries out from the cross the words of Ps 22:1 (15:34). His rejection by Rome, Israel, and even his own followers is so total that in his dying breath he senses separation from God.
15:37–39. With utter finality, Mark reports that Jesus “breathed his last” (15:37). At his death two further portents occur that signal the climax of the Gospel. The first is the tearing of the temple curtain “from top to bottom” (15:38). Mark intends this to be a revelatory portent, for “tear” is the same word used of the tearing of the heavens at Jesus’s baptism in 1:10 (the only other time the word is used in Mark). In both tearings, Jesus is declared the Son of God (15:39). There were two curtains in the temple, a larger one before the Court of Israel and a smaller curtain before the most holy place. The term Mark uses refers throughout the NT only to the smaller curtain. If this curtain is intended, then the cross of Jesus signifies the final Day of Atonement, allowing humanity access to the heart of God.
15:40–41. The story of Joseph of Arimathea (15:42–46) is sandwiched between the accounts of the women attending Jesus’s crucifixion and empty tomb (15:40–41, 47). The sandwich unit begins in 15:40 with the names of several women watching the crucifixion. Mary Magdalene appears in all four Gospels as the first witness of the resurrection of Jesus. “Mary,” “James the younger,” and “Joses” are probably (although not certainly) Jesus’s family members mentioned in 6:3. The names of these and the reference to “many other women” (15:41) indicate that Jesus was followed by more than the twelve apostles. Ironically, women unmentioned before now remain to the bitter end at the cross. True, they stand at a “distance,” but the distance of the women is better than the absence of the apostles.
15:42–46. Into the report of the women’s trepidation at the cross Mark inserts the story of Joseph of Arimathea. In contrast to the women, who watch the crucifixion “from a distance” (15:40) and who are anxious, distressed, and fearful at the tomb (16:5, 8), Joseph acts with resolution and boldness in procuring the body of Jesus from Pilate and burying him honorably. The faithfulness of Joseph is thus contrasted to the fearfulness of the women.
15:47. Mark completes the sandwich begun in verse 40 by returning to the story of the women in verse 47, who are once again “watching” Jesus.