John Chapter 19

John Chapter 19

Pilate took JC and scourged him (yuck! Mean old Ponch)! The soldiers thought they were really funny so they took a crown of thorns and put it on his head along with a purple rob and called, Hail, King of the Jews, while they wacked him around.

Pilate went back to the crowd again and told them that he found no fault with Jesus (apparently he found no fault with beating and mocking him either). JC came up next to him and Pilate told the crowd to look at him.

When the chief priests saw Jesus all bloody and beaten they went into a frenzy and screamed for Pontius to crucify him. Ponch wasn’t a huge fan of this idea (beating and humiliating is one thing, killing a man who has not committed a crime again Rome is another), he tells the Jews to take him and crucify him themselves because he can’t find anything wrong with him.

The Jews said that JC lied about being the Son of God and so needed to be put to death by their own law. (I felt like in the last Chapter they said they couldn’t kill him because of their own law, but I am more than willing to admit that I found that string of incoherent babble very confusing, so I might be wrong about that).

Well, Pilate hear this and he started to get really nervous. He went back to the judgment hall with JC and asked where he was from, but Jesus didn’t answer. Pontius asked why he wouldn’t speak to him, especially considering that he had the power to crucify him or to release him.

Jesus tells him that Pontius has no power over him except whatever was given to him from god, therefore the people who had delivered Jesus were the ones who sinned.

Now Ponch REALLY wanted to let him go but the chief priests said that if he let this man go he’d be going against Caesar because JC thinks that he’s a king about Caesar.

Pilate brought JC before everyone and sat him down in a place call “the Pavement” but in Hebrew is referred to as “Gabbatha” (interesting lesson in the Hebrew language). By now it was the preparation for Passover and the sixth hour. Pontius asked them again if he should crucify him. The chief priest responded that they had no king but Caesar (which really pulled at Pilate’s fine Roman heart strings).

So, it was decided that JC would be crucified and he was led away to Golgotha which means skull. They crucified him with two others and Pilate wrote a title to be hung over his head on the cross “JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS”. This title was read by many because Golgotha was close to the city and it must have been a big sign because it was written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin.

The Jews were a little miffed and told Pilate to re-write it so that people wouldn’t mistake him as the King of the Jews. They thought it should say that HE SAID HE WAS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Pontius told them he wrote what he wrote.

After crucifying Jesus the soldiers took his garments and made four parts so each soldier could have a piece, but he also had a coat with no seams and they didn’t want to tear that. Instead they cast lots for it thereby fulfilling the scripture which said, “They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots.” (What scripture is this, I’m curious to know).

By the cross stood JC’s mom Mary, and his aunt Mary, who was the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene (a veritable triumvirate of Mary’s). When JC say his mom, he called to her “Woman, behold thy son!” Then he looked to his disciple Mary and told her to behold his mother. From that moment on the disciples took her into her own home. (I wonder how Joseph felt about that?)

Now some people filled a sponge with vinegar and gave it to Jesus, after he finished he bowed his head and “gave up the ghost” (I still love that that is a biblical expression, it really just kills me). Well, the Jews didn’t want the body to remain on the cross on the Sabbath because it was a high day, so they asked Pilate to break the legs of the condemned so they can be taken down.

The soldiers came and broke the legs of the other two prisoners (which apparently expedites the whole dying process). When they came to Jesus they didn’t bother to break his legs because they saw that he was already dead. One of the soldiers pierced his side just to make sure and caused some blood and water to pour out.

He saw it and told the truth about it and he knew what he saw was true so you should believe him. These things were all done so that the scripture could be fulfilled and none of JC’s bones would be broken (I guess that’s written in some scripture, somewhere). Another scripture said that they would look upon the one they pierced.

Joseph of Arimathaea was a disciple of Jesus and afraid of the Jesus asked Pilate if he could take the body away and Pilate told him it was fine. So, he came and took it. Nicodemus also came, previously he had come to Jesus by night and given him a mixture of myrrh and aloe, actually about one hundred pounds of it. (Apparently that’s really important).

Then Nick and Joe took JC’s body and wound it in linen and spices, as is the Jewish manner of burial. There was a new sepulchre in the garden where he’d been crucified and it was empty. They laid Jesus there because it was the closest one.

Only two more chapters folks. I don’t know about you, but I can hardly wait!!!