Page 239 - Demo

JOHN 
191* a Then Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged. 2And the soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and placed it on his head, and clothed him in a purple cloak, 3and they came to him and said, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they struck him repeatedly. 4Once more Pilate went out and said to them, “Look, I am bringing him out to you, so that you may know that I nd no guilt in him.”b 5So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple cloak. And he said to them, “Behold, the man!”c 6When the chief priests and the guards saw him they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him. I nd no guilt in him.”d 7* The Jews answered,e “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.” 8Now when Pilate heard this statement, he became even more afraid, 9and went back into the praetorium and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” Jesus did not answer him.f 10So Pilate said to him, “Do you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you and I have power to crucify you?” 11Jesus answered [him], “You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above. For this reason the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”g 12Consequently, Pilate tried to release him; but the Jews cried out, “If you release him, you are not a Friend of Caesar.* Everyone who makes himself a king
opposes Caesar.”h
13When Pilate heard these words he brought Jesus out and seated
him* on the judge’s bench in the place called Stone Pavement, in Hebrew, Gabbatha. 14It was preparation day for Passover, and it was about noon.* And he said to the Jews, “Behold, your king!” 15They cried out, “Take him away, take him away! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your king?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” 16Then he handed him over to them to be cruci ed.* The Cruci xion of Jesus. So they took Jesus, 17i and carrying the cross himself* he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha. 18There they cruci ed him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus in the middle. 19* Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, “Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Jews.” 20Now many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was cruci ed was near the city; and it was written
This arch in the old town of Jerusalem says, “Ecce Homo.”
19:20
Like Caiaphas in John 11:49, Pilate unwittingly becomes a prophet: Jesus is condemned for being who he is, the Son of God, the King of the Jews. The inscription is written in three languages—not only
in Hebrew, but also Latin
and Greek, the most widely spoken languages in the ancient world, symbolizing the universal reach of
Christ’s saving death and resurrection. “Oh the ine able power of the working of
God, even in the hearts of
the ignorant! Was there
not some hidden voice that sounded through Pilate’s inner man with a kind, if one may so say, of loud-toned silence, the words that had been prophesied so long before.?” (St. Augustine).1
1 St. Augustine, Commentaries on the Gospel of John.
* [19:1] Luke places the mockery of Jesus at the midpoint in the trial when Jesus was sent to Herod. Mark and Matthew place the scourging and mockery at the end of the trial after the sentence of death. Scourging was an integral part of the cruci xion penalty.
* [19:7] Made himself the Son of God: this question was not raised in John’s account of the Jewish interrogations of Jesus as it was in the synoptic account. Nevertheless, see Jn 5:18; 8:53; 10:36.
* [19:12] Friend of Caesar: a Roman honori c title bestowed upon high-ranking o cials for merit.
* [19:13] Seated him: others translate“(Pilate) sat down.”In John’s thought, Jesus is the real judge of the world, and John may here be portraying him seated on the judgment bench. Stone pavement: in Greek lithostrotos; under the fortress Antonia, one of the conjectured locations of the praetorium, a massive stone pavement has been excavated. Gabbatha (Aramaic rather than Hebrew) probably means “ridge, elevation.”
* [19:14] Noon: Mk 15:25 has Jesus cruci ed “at the third hour,” which means either 9 a.m. or the period from 9 to 12 noon, the time when, according to John, Jesus was sentenced to death, was the hour at which the priests began to slaughter Passover
lambs in the temple; see Jn 1:29.
* [19:16] He handed him over to them to be cruci ed:
in context this would seem to mean “handed him over to the chief priests.” Lk 23:25 has a similar ambiguity. There is a polemic tendency in the gospels to place the guilt of the cruci xion on the Jewish authorities and to exonerate the Romans from blame. But John later mentions the Roman soldiers (Jn 19:23), and it was to these soldiers that Pilate handed Jesus over.
* [19:17] Carrying the cross himself: a di erent picture from that of the synoptics, especially Lk 23:26, where Simon of Cyrene is made to carry the cross, walking behind Jesus. In John’s theology, Jesus remained in complete control and master of his destiny (cf. Jn 10:18). Place of the Skull: the Latin word for skull is Calvaria; hence “Calvary.” Golgotha is actually an Aramaic rather than a Hebrew word.
* [19:19] The inscription di ers with slightly di erent words in each of the four gospels. John’s form is fullest and gives the equivalent of the Latin INRI = Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum. Only John mentions its polyglot character (Jn 19:20) and Pilate’s role in keeping the title unchanged (Jn 19:21–22).
a. [19:1–16] Mt 27:27–31; Mk 15:16–20; Lk 23:13–25.
b. [19:4] 18:38. c. [19:5] Is 52:14.
d. [19:6] 18:31; 19:15.
e. [19:7] 10:33–36; Lv 24:16.
f. [19:9] 7:28.
g. [19:11] 3:27; 10:18; Rom 13:1.
h. [19:12] Acts 17:7.
i. [19:17–22] Mt 27:32–37; Mk 15:21–26;
Lk 23:26–35.
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