Matthew 27
Matthew 27:1-66 (NLT)
1 Very early in the morning the leading priests and the elders of the people met again to lay plans for putting Jesus to death.
2 Then they bound him, led him away, and took him to Pilate, the Roman governor.
3 When Judas, who had betrayed him, realized that Jesus had been condemned to die, he was filled with remorse. So he took the thirty pieces of silver back to the leading priests and the elders.
4 “I have sinned,” he declared, “for I have betrayed an innocent man.” “What do we care?” they retorted. “That’s your problem.”
5 Then Judas threw the silver coins down in the Temple and went out and hanged himself.
6 The leading priests picked up the coins. “It wouldn’t be right to put this money in the Temple treasury,” they said, “since it was payment for murder.”
7 After some discussion they finally decided to buy the potter’s field, and they made it into a cemetery for foreigners.
8 That is why the field is still called the Field of Blood.
9 This fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah that says, “They took the thirty pieces of silver—the price at which he was valued by the people of Israel,
10 and purchased the potter’s field, as the LORD directed.”
11 Now Jesus was standing before Pilate, the Roman governor. “Are you the king of the Jews?” the governor asked him. Jesus replied, “You have said it.”
12 But when the leading priests and the elders made their accusations against him, Jesus remained silent.
13 “Don’t you hear all these charges they are bringing against you?” Pilate demanded.
14 But Jesus made no response to any of the charges, much to the governor’s surprise.
15 Now it was the governor’s custom each year during the Passover celebration to release one prisoner to the crowd—anyone they wanted.
16 This year there was a notorious prisoner, a man named Barabbas.
17 As the crowds gathered before Pilate’s house that morning, he asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you—Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?”
18 (He knew very well that the religious leaders had arrested Jesus out of envy.)
19 Just then, as Pilate was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent him this message: “Leave that innocent man alone. I suffered through a terrible nightmare about him last night.”
20 Meanwhile, the leading priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be put to death.
21 So the governor asked again, “Which of these two do you want me to release to you?” The crowd shouted back, “Barabbas!”
22 Pilate responded, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” They shouted back, “Crucify him!”
23 “Why?” Pilate demanded. “What crime has he committed?” But the mob roared even louder, “Crucify him!”
24 Pilate saw that he wasn’t getting anywhere and that a riot was developing. So he sent for a bowl of water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. The responsibility is yours!”
25 And all the people yelled back, “We will take responsibility for his death—we and our children!”
26 So Pilate released Barabbas to them. He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified.
27 Some of the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into their headquarters and called out the entire regiment.
28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him.
29 They wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head, and they placed a reed stick in his right hand as a scepter. Then they knelt before him in mockery and taunted, “Hail! King of the Jews!”
30 And they spit on him and grabbed the stick and struck him on the head with it.
31 When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified.
32 Along the way, they came across a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene, and the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross.
33 And they went out to a place called Golgotha (which means “Place of the Skull”).
34 The soldiers gave Jesus wine mixed with bitter gall, but when he had tasted it, he refused to drink it.
35 After they had nailed him to the cross, the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice.
36 Then they sat around and kept guard as he hung there.
37 A sign was fastened above Jesus’ head, announcing the charge against him. It read: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”
38 Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.
39 The people passing by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery.
40 “Look at you now!” they yelled at him. “You said you were going to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. Well then, if you are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross!”
41 The leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders also mocked Jesus.
42 “He saved others,” they scoffed, “but he can’t save himself! So he is the King of Israel, is he? Let him come down from the cross right now, and we will believe in him!
43 He trusted God, so let God rescue him now if he wants him! For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”
44 Even the revolutionaries who were crucified with him ridiculed him in the same way.
45 At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock.
46 At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
47 Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for the prophet Elijah.
48 One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding it up to him on a reed stick so he could drink.
49 But the rest said, “Wait! Let’s see whether Elijah comes to save him.”
50 Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit.
51 At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split apart,
52 and tombs opened. The bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the dead.
53 They left the cemetery after Jesus’ resurrection, went into the holy city of Jerusalem, and appeared to many people.
54 The Roman officer and the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened. They said, “This man truly was the Son of God!”
55 And many women who had come from Galilee with Jesus to care for him were watching from a distance.
56 Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary (the mother of James and Joseph), and the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee.
57 As evening approached, Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea who had become a follower of Jesus,
58 went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. And Pilate issued an order to release it to him.
59 Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a long sheet of clean linen cloth.
60 He placed it in his own new tomb, which had been carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a great stone across the entrance and left.
61 Both Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting across from the tomb and watching.
62 The next day, on the Sabbath, the leading priests and Pharisees went to see Pilate.
63 They told him, “Sir, we remember what that deceiver once said while he was still alive: ‘After three days I will rise from the dead.’
64 So we request that you seal the tomb until the third day. This will prevent his disciples from coming and stealing his body and then telling everyone he was raised from the dead! If that happens, we’ll be worse off than we were at first.”
65 Pilate replied, “Take guards and secure it the best you can.”
66 So they sealed the tomb and posted guards to protect it.
It’s interesting how integral the body is to the state of spiritual and ideological perception. Though it is just an earth suit that houses the being that moves around here on Earth, it is the very object of attack and punishment when they are to be delved out. It may be the ideas and heart of the individual that are the problem, but it is the body that receives all the retribution. It was Judas’ plotting and betrayal that were so evil, and yet it was his body that was extinguished as if its termination would also bring to an end that guilty being inside of it.
The educated religious leaders were totally bent out of shape by Jesus’ words and claims of identity with God as His Father. It was that man on the inside of His walking suit that was their problem, and yet it was the walking suit that would be seen as the target of condemnation. Somehow, this outer shell torture was meant to bring them the satisfaction that the “errant” being inside of that body was being righteously dealt with. It wasn’t enough to just accuse, mock, and ridicule. Their compulsion was not gratified until there was a beating, bleeding, and death to a body they thought to be the container of their problem. As His body was receiving every infliction of their judgment, because of the nature of that Man on the inside, every blow was actually securing the completion of His true purpose rather than terminating it. Attacks against His body only furthered to fulfill His mission instead of derail it.
A promise we’ve received from Jesus is that to follow Him is to experience inevitable attacks against our body. Mocking and ridicule won’t be enough as the perception will be that damaging the body is destroying that inner identity. As Paul indicates in 2 Cor 4, all those things intended for the demise of the purpose through the destruction of the flesh only serve to aid in that inner man’s mission. He is renewed day by day. There is such great freedom in separating the afflictions of the flesh from the legitimacy of new creation inside. As we have died to our flesh, it only becomes the container of Glory inside, ready to respond with the movements of that Glory’s goodness.
What an incredible reframe, that while the world or that old way of being was identified with the flesh, that what and who we are is just what is seen, the spirit man never ceases. Our life in Christ is more real and eternal than anything seen with the natural eyes.