Jesus died about the ninth hour or 3 pm on Thursday of Passion Week. He and His disciples had celebrated the Passover the night before, based upon an earlier sighting of the new moon at the beginning of the “moonth”, which is not uncommon with a lunar calendar. But for the religious leaders who had…
By a turn of events that the religious leaders who crucified Jesus had not counted upon, His grave was not assigned with wicked men as they had planned but with a rich man of their own number (Isa 53:9). In this way the stigma as an evildoer with which they had hoped to seal His…
All of the religion of the religious leaders who put Jesus to death was of the flesh and political, and not real and of the heart. They had imagined that they would be able to deal with any repercussions politically as they had always done before. For just an instant though, they realized that all the rest of their religion to which they had only given lip-service was really true and had now come upon them. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb 10:31).
The religious leaders who sought their will against Jesus had now fully obtained it; He was dead. But as C.S. Lewis notes, although everyone ultimately gets what they want, not everyone likes what they get. For even from the moment that Pilate surrendered Jesus to their will they immediately began to sense that perhaps they…
Around 3 pm on Thursday of Passion Week Jesus died upon the cross. The religious leaders of Israel had sought their will against Him and had now obtained it. He came as light into the world but they would not receive it, for they loved darkness rather than the light and wanted to extinguish His…
Jesus’ followers believed He was the Messiah, but couldn’t understand His many warnings that He would be crucified, and never expected Him to be so; cf. Luk 9:44-45. When it happened, they no doubt hoped that God would somehow rescue Him. For in spite of His teaching that God would also raise Him from the…
Although God had ordained centuries before that the Messiah would be with a rich man in His death (Isa 53:9), there was much for the particular rich man whom He had set apart, Joseph of Arimathea, to overcome in order that it might come to pass. Jesus had been assigned a grave with the wicked…
It was Thursday evening of Passion week. Jesus had been raised upon the cross shortly before noon (Mar 15:25, Joh 19:14). His followers no doubt hoped that God would somehow rescue Him, but after seeing Him die a few hours later any such hopes were quickly replaced with thoughts of what would happen to His…
After Jesus died upon the cross on Thursday afternoon of Passion week any hope His followers had that God might send Elijah or otherwise somehow rescue Him gave way to the reality that He was dead; what then of His body? His enemies had Him crucified between two criminals to cast Him as an evildoer…
After Jesus expired upon the cross the hope of His followers that God might yet somehow rescue Him quickly gave way to the reality that He was dead, and thoughts of what would happen to His body. “His grave was assigned with wicked men” (Isa 53:9) by those who had Him crucified, for the corpses…