JESUS’ ARREST, TRIALS, CRUCIFIXION, DEATH, BURIAL, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION

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    Jesus’ public life ends with his passion, a word that has changed in meaning over the centuries. In the New Testament sense it means “suffering.” It was first applied to Jesus’ suffering on the cross, then took on a broader meaning to include Jesus’ agony beginning in the Garden of Gethsemane and ending with his death on the cross. The passion narrative is included in all four gospels, and is the longest self-contained segment in each of the Gospels.



JESUS’ FINAL WEEK


There are large gaps in the Jesus story, but in the final week we get a day-by-day, then an hour-by-hour account.


  • Palm Sunday: Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey (Zech. 9:9b), with people waving palm branches (John 12:13) and crying “Hosanna!” (Palm branches were symbols of victory; Hosanna means “Lord, save us.”)
  • Monday: Jesus overturns the money changers’ tables and drives the merchants out of the temple.
  • Tuesday: The Pharisees and others ask Jesus about his “authority”; whether or not jews should pay taxes to Caesar; marriage in heaven; and which of the commandments is the most important.
  • Wednesday: The plot against Jesus
  • Maundy Thursday: The Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus’ arrest and indictment.
  • Good Friday: The Jewish and Roman “trials” and Jesus’ scourging, crucifixion, death and burial.
  • Holy Saturday: Jesus in the tomb.
  • Easter Sunday: Resurrection Day (the Lord’s Day). Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

THE EVENTS OF JESUS’ FINAL WEEK


The following are some events in the last days of Jesus’ life, which for Christians are the most important days in the history of the world.


The Last Supper. According to tradition, the Last Supper - so called because it was Jesus’ last meal with his disciples - took place in an “upset room” at Mary’s house (Mary, the mother of Mark) on what is now called Maundy Thursday. The word maundy comes from the Latin mandatum, meaning “mandate” or “command,” because Jesus gave his disciples ”a new commandment, that you love one another . . . as I have loved you” (John 13:34). The earliest account of Jesus’ Last Supper appears in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (11:23-25). At this meal, Jesus instituted the new covenant. When we eat the bread and drink the wine (or grape juice), we remember and reaffirm this covenant.


Judas Betrayal. Judas betrayed Jesus by leading the Jewish authorities to him in the Garden of Gethsemane. (Judas knew where to find Jesus at night and could the guards to him without attracting public attention.) The gospel writers indicate that Judas was driven by Satan to betray Jesus and that he was given money for doing so (Luke 4:13; 22:3-5).


Peter’s Denials. Jesus predicted that Peter would deny him, which he did. This incident highlights the honesty of the gospel accounts because Peter was highly regarded in the early church. Jesus returned to Peter after his resurrection and “reinstated” him, summoning him to “feed my sheep” (John 21:15-19).


Jewish Arrest and Jewish Trial. On Thursday evening, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was arrested by the temple guards. He was formally charged by the Sanhedrin (from a Greek word meaning “council”), the seventy-member Jewish ruling body (Num. 11:16), plus the chief priest, which had authority over religious matters. On Friday morning Jesus was tried and found guilty of blasphemy, a grave offense in which the name or essence of God is cursed or reviled. Jesus’ blasphemy was not he claimed to be the Messiah - many claimed to be such, both before and after Jesus - but that he claimed not to be divine, by saying, “You will se the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62).


Jesus’ Roman Trial. Rome denied capital punishment powers to local authorities throughout the empire (see John 18:31b), so the Jews took Jesus to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, who resided at Antonia Fortress in Jerusalem during Passover Week to keep peace and order. (As mentioned above, Passover was a celebration of the liberation of Israel from foreign rule, dating back to the Exodus.) Pilate gave in to the liders of the Sanhedrin and sentenced Jesus to death as a political revolutionary. This was a trumped-up charge because the Sanhedrin’s guilty verdict on the grounds of blasphemy would not have warranted Roman execution.


Jesus Crucifixion. Jesus’ death sentence was crucifixion, the cruelest and most shameful method of capital punishment. Roman citizens could be crucified only for high treason, which is why, according to tradition, Paul, who was a citizen, was beheaded. (Crucifixion, because of its inhuman cruelty, was abolished by Emperor Constantine in 316).


Crucifixion was usually preceded by flogging or scourging with whips containing bones and metal in the lashes. This was done to weaken the victim’s resistance and shorten the time it would take him to die. The accused was then made to carry his crossbeam to the spot of execution, which for Jesus was the “Place of the Skull” (Golgotha in Greek, Calvary in Latin), so called either because the area was shaped like a skull or because it was a place of execution. When Jesus fell en route, SImon of Cyrene (an ancient city in present-day Libya) was forced by the Roman soldiers to carry Jesus’ beam the rest of the way.


Crosses were put in a public place, with a sign or notice of the accused’s crime as a warning to others. Jesus’ sign read: “The King of the Jews” (Mark 15:26), implying that Jesus claimed to be a king who opposed the emperor. The victim was then stripped naked (humiliated) and nailed or bound to the cross to prevent any movement. Death was by asphyxiation and was slow and agonizing, some lived and suffered for days. The final disgrace came at the end: the body of the deceased was left to birds of prey, who often picked it clean.


Jesus’ Death and Burial. Most scholars believe that Jesus died on April 7 in the year 30. According to Mark, Jesus was crucified at 9:00 A.M. (Mark 15:25) and remained on the cross until 3:00 P.M. (Mark 15:33). The Gospels report that Jesus’ disciples and closes friends abandoned him, except for his mother and a few other women and John. After Jesus died, Joseph of Arimathea (a town northwest of Jerusalem), a member of the Sanhedrin and “a disciple of Jesus” (Matt. 27:57), placed him in his family tomb. Some women followed Joseph so they would know where to go on Sunday (Easter) morning to anoint Jesus’ body with oils and spices for burial (Luke 23:55 - 24:1).


Jesus Resurrection. On the third day Jesus was  raised from the dead. There are several accounts of Jesus’ resurrection appearances in the New Testament, but there is no uniformity with regard to sequence, place or names and numbers of people. If the four Resurrection accounts were exactly the same, we should be suspicious, not convinced, as we would be if the testimonies of four witnesses in a murder trial were identical in all respects.


An illustration of different accounts of the same event occurs in two different stories of Hannibal crossing the Alps - one by the Greek historian Polybius, the other by the Roman historian Livy - which New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger says “can by no stretch of the imagination be harmonized, yet no one doubts that Hannibal most certainly arrived in Italy. . . . Discrepancies in the accounts of Jesus resurrection cannot be used to prove that the resurrection did not take place” (The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Church).


The Resurrection accounts are written as fact - as something that actually happened - not as theology. And they emphasize the element of surprise: no one expected what happened on Easter morning, even though Jesus had said that he would be raised on the third day (see Mark 8:31). And they struggle to describe Jesus’ risen body; which was clearly a body, with wounds that can be felt . . . but somehow transformed: Jesus was not immediately recognized; his body was physical but it could pass through doors; and he was able to eat and drink as he did before his crucifixion. According to Frederick Buechner, “Unless something very real took place on that strange, confused morning, there would be no New Testament, no church and no Christianity” (The Magnificent Defeat).


Jesus Ascension. After forty days, Jesus was “taken up . . . into heaven” (Acts 1:11). Jesus ascension ended his earthly life, Jesus’ ascension is mentioned by Luke at the end of his gospel (24:50-51) and at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles(1:9-11). It is also mentioned in Mark’s “longer ending” and is alluded to by John in verses such as 20:17 (“ascended . . . ascending”). Although the word ascend means “to rise,” Jesus’ ascension is not meant to be understood as if heaven were a place in space and time. It is meant to be understood as Jesus’ coming into the presence of God, and being seated “at the right hand of God” (Rom. 8:34), where he now reigns over all things.


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