To insure they had the complete approval of the top Roman governor, and to give the "kangaroo court" the semblance of legality, Jesus was secured in His bonds again, and led away to the residence of Pilate, the Governor.

At about this time, a servant came to some of the priests, and mentioned that a man was desperately wanting to see them on "a most urgent matter" concerning Jesus.

It was Judas. He said urgently, "I have sinned—I betrayed an innocent man!"

He thrust toward them the bag with 30 pieces of silver in it, and begged them to take it back.

The chief priests said, "Whose business is that? That’s your problem!"

With that, Judas simply cast down the bag in the sanctuary, and left.

The chief priests gathered up the silver, and terribly careful to make sure they complied with Deuteronomy 23:18 said, "It isn't lawful to put this into the treasury, since it is the price of blood" and so decided after a hurried caucus to buy a potter's field to bury strangers in.

Even this fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah (see Jeremiah 18:2; 19:2; 32:6.15 with Zechariah 11: 13). From that time on the field they bought with that money became known as the "Field of Blood."

John's account is particularly important at this point because he said that they led Jesus from Caiaphas into Pilate's palace while it was early "and they themselves entered not into the palace that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover"! (This passage absolutely proves that the Jews were going to eat the Passover later on in the afternoon of the fourteenth of Nisan or the early evening of the fifteenth as was their custom. Consequently, the supper Jesus had eaten with His disciples at the beginning of the fourteenth, called the Lord's supper by the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians the 11 th chapter, was about 20 hours earlier than the Jewish Passover!)

Pilate wanted to know what the man was accused of, and the delegation said, "Obviously, if this man were not an evildoer we wouldn't be here with him! But we found him perverting our nation, forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar [all lies!] and even claiming that he himself is a king!"

Pilate said, "Fine. Do what you want. Take him yourselves and judge him according to your own law." But the religious leaders answered, "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death!" They knew they had to have the Roman governor's full permission before they could get away with their hasty "kangaroo court" and put Jesus to death!

Pilate relented and asked to see Jesus Himself. He knew the crafty dealings of these religious types. But he also knew their power over the people. So Pilate's curiosity was now really aroused. Who could possibly have elicited such feelings of jealousy and rivalry from these religious leaders?

In due time, Jesus was brought in, the blood-spattered garments and open cuts on His face, the spittle in His hair and His beard, testifying to the terrible treatment He had received.

Pilate asked Him, "So you are the one they are calling the king of the Jews?"

Jesus answered, "You are the one who is telling me! Are you saying this of yourself, or did others merely bring this story to you?" Pilate responded, "What am I, some Jew? It's your own people and the chief priests who have delivered you to me. Just what is it you have done?"

Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this society. If my kingdom were of this time, then my servants would fight, I will assure you, that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But my kingdom is not of this time!"

"So you're a king?" Pilate asked.

Jesus said, "You claim I am a king. To this end have I been born, and for this purpose I came into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.

"Everyone that is of the truth hears my voice!"

Sighing, remembering his Roman education, and the teachings of some of the great philosophers, Pilate asked the age-old question still being repeated plaintively today, "So what is truth?"

Turning from Jesus, Pilate told the Jewish leaders, "I can't find any crime whatsoever in this man!"

The chief priests and Sadducees fell all over one other clamoring about the great crimes and sins Jesus was alleged to have committed.

Jesus, standing there, heard it all. Pilate turned to Him and said, "Won't you answer any of their accusations? Listen to how many things they are accusing you of !"

But Jesus stolidly refused to open His mouth in answer to the hideous tales they were telling, including everything from theft to adultery, robbery, a threatened destruction of the temple, insurrection, rebellion, refusal to pay taxes and every other crime and sin that they could imagine.

The more urgently they accused Him, the more Pilate marveled that Jesus would stand there quietly taking it, and never saying a word.

Hearing all these railing accusations, Pilate finally realized that the man was a Galilean and thought he could find a way to get out from under the calamitous insistence of the Jewish leaders in this riotous mess.

Obviously, the man belonged under Herod's jurisdiction, and Pilate, knowing Herod would be in Jerusalem for the feast, told them to take Him away to see Herod.

Herod was actually happy when he heard he would have an opportunity to interview Jesus, because he had heard about Him for a long time. Herod earnestly wanted to see Jesus privately, and had even hoped that maybe some miracle could be performed for him.

When Jesus was brought before Herod, it was much like the scenes at Annas' house, the house of Caiaphas, and the court of Pilate.

The chief priests and the scribes took turns vehemently accusing Him, with Herod sitting on his throne, the soldiers standing about, and all listening attentively.

Jesus repeatedly refused to answer. Question after question was hurled at Him; carefully worded, laboriously explained, doubly and trebly repeated accusations of the filthiest nature.

Herod thought he had found a way at last to build some bridges between himself and Pilate, with whom he had been having the coolest of relations.

If he could appear to be totally cooperative even with one of his own subjects in asking for Pilate's help, perhaps he could heal some of the wounds.

Seizing upon a ridiculous idea, knowing Pilate would appreciate his little joke, Herod decided to make a mock "king" out of Jesus.

He quickly gave some orders to his soldiers, who, searching through Herod's wardrobe, found a purple king's robe, together with all the other trappings of the royal attire, and hurriedly dressed Jesus, cackling and laughing in glee as they arranged the gorgeous apparel on him (see Luke 23:6-11).

When Herod was satisfied he had fully developed the charade and Jesus looked suitably attired to tickle Pilate's funny bone, he had the men take Jesus back to Pilates residence.

It had been a custom for a long time for the governor of the province to grant a pardon for one leading prisoner as a sign of clemency at the time of the feast.

A very famous prisoner named Barabbas, a leader of a large group who had tried to overthrow the Roman government, was in jail. During the insurrections they had caused in this and that town, some had lost their lives, and Barabbas was up for murder. The early morning hours were waning by the time Pilate called together the chief priests and the rulers of the people. Finding Jesus had been delivered back to him from Herod again, Pilate said, "Look, you've brought back to me this man as if he were someone who is perverting and subverting the people. Now look, I have examined him before you, listening to everyone of the accusations you've brought, but I can find no fault in this man, and no corroboration for those things you accuse him of.

"Even Herod, when I sent him over there could find no fault in him, and has sent him back to me again. So far as I can tell, he has not done anything that would mean he is guilty of the death penalty. As you know, there is a custom that I should grant clemency to one prisoner at this time of the Passover."

Pilate hoped his words were scoring well with the Jewish leaders, for he seriously wanted to see Barabbas killed! The man had been the scourge of the countryside, and Pilate had had to send his legions clattering around in their chariots in fruitless searchhes here and there, but Barabbas had always eluded him until a fortuitous circumstance involving the bribery of a certain maid Barabbas was known to favor had delivered him into the hands of some of Pilate's more skilled lieutenants.

Pilate had no intention of seeing Barabbas get away this time, and was hoping that by making a public example of his death he could have a little peace for the next few months or so.

Therefore, he was sincerely hoping that these Jewish leaders, screaming for the death of Jesus, would listen to both the testimony of Herod and of Pilate himself, and would agree that Jesus had done nothing worthy of the death penalty, and conclude that Jesus was the one who should be released.

Pilate finished his speech, "Therefore, seeing that he has done nothing worthy of death, would you want me to release unto you this one who claims he is king of the Jews?"

Pilate had another very important reason for making this speech, because while he was sitting on the judgment seat during the very time Jesus was being interviewed by Herod, his wife had interrupted him, saying, "Don't have anything to do with that righteous man! I'm telling you I have suffered many things just last night in a vivid dream because of him!" She went on to tell her husband of some of the frightening things she had experienced in a very real vision, and urged him with all of her persuasive powers to see to it that he kept completely uninvolved.

But his speech before the religious leaders was to no avail, and they began screaming that Jesus be crucified and Barabbas be the one released! Pilate asked, "Well, if I release Barabbas, then what am I supposed to do with this person you claim is the King of the Jews who is called Jesus the Christ?"

The mob screamed the louder, "Crucify him, crucify him, crucify him!"

It began to become a chant—surging, ebbing, flowing, growing increasingly louder! They began to stamp their feet in unison, jam the butts of spears on the court floor, some of them jumping up and down with rage as the chant grew ever louder, until it literally rang against the walls and echoed down the corridors of the governor's residence, "Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!"

Finally, Pilate gained their attention by gesturing to the soldiers nearby, and when he had quieted the crowds, he said, "Why in the world should I do such a hideous thing as pass on him our Roman form of death sentence? What evil has he done?"

Jesus stood there with the blood draining out of the livid scratches and scars on His cheeks, His mock crown of thorns glistening wetly with the blood of His own head where it had been jammed cruelly down over His forehead and had gouged deeply into one eyelid. The gorgeous purple robes, so gleefully and playfully arranged by Herod, were now darkening with the drops of blood dripping out of His hair and from His beard. Pilate said, "Crucify him yourself! I can't find any crime in him whatsoever!"

One of the leaders finally gained Pilate’s attention while he stood talking to the mob in the courtyard and said, "We have a law; and according to our laws that man ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God—and that is blasphemy!"

When Pilate heard these words, that the man had actually "made himself the Son of God," something struck his mind with a resounding jolt.

His wife's beseeching eyes and her urgent voice came to him, as did a great deal of his earlier teaching, and his own religious doubts.

He turned, went back into the palace again, and coming before Jesus who had been standing there with the drops of His own blood spattering the floor about Him, said, "Where did you come from?"

Again, Jesus did not move His lips; did not acknowledge Pilate's presence, and gave no answer.

Pilate, irritated, said, "Do you refuse to talk to me? Don't you know that I have the power to either release you, or the power to crucify you?"

At this, Jesus said, "You would have no power against me whatever, except it were allowed you from above. Therefore, because of this, those who delivered me unto you are guilty of the greater sin!"

That clinched it in Pilate's mind. A man who could speak this way, and act with this incredible dignity in the face of such a hideous death, saying such striking things in utter honesty, must not die. Pilate wanted very badly to release Him.

Returning to the men outside, Pilate again encouraged them to allow him to release Jesus. But they screamed the louder, saying, "If you release this man, you're going to be in terrible trouble with the Emperor! Everyone that makes himself a king is after all claiming to speak directly against Caesar!"

Pilate was perplexed. What should he do now? The Jews had scored a telling blow with this statement that any insurrectionist was actually looked upon as a direct rebel against Caesar's claim to divine powers himself. Pilate was in fact being blackmailed. He therefore decided to bring Jesus down to the judgment seat at a place on a wide courtyard called The Pavement or in Hebrew Gabbatha.

John says, "Now it was the preparation of the Passover, about the sixth hour (by Roman reckoning probably 6:00 A.M.), and when Pilate had descended with Jesus to the courtyard where the mob stood, he said, "Behold your king!"

They screamed loudly again with the same chant,"Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!"

Pilate shouted over their heads, "What? Am I supposed to crucify your very king?"

The high priest screamed, "We have no king but Caesar!"

Pilate sighed, realized he was getting nowhere, and that a riot was about to develop. So in the eyes of all, he called for a basin, dipped his hands, held them aloft so they could see the water, and went through the ceremony of handwashing, finally turning to the crowd and saying aloud, "You see it! I am washing my hands of it! I am proclaiming myself completely innocent of the blood of this righteous man. It's your problem, you see to it."

Willingly, the leaders screamed, "Fine! Let his blood be on us—and upon our children!"

Pilate, worried deeply about keeping his own office if this riotous tumult caused such an upset that it actually got all the way back to Rome, and recognizing he couldn't escape the full legal and even spiritual and moral responsibility for this surrender to the Jewish leaders, nevertheless couldn't seem to find any other way out. He desperately wanted to keep his own office, and had sincerely hoped that he could talk these rabid religionists into letting him release Jesus, and go ahead with his scourging and crucifixion of Barabbas instead, he found himself faced with the doubly obnoxious decision to release Barabbas, whom he knew assuredly would cause him terrible problems in the future, and to go through the brutal process of commanding his Roman soldiers to beat Jesus with a scourge, and lead Him out to be crucified.

Legionnaires in a Roman army were a motley collection from nations all over the Roman world; they came from Africa, from Germanic tribes on the continent, from faraway Spain, or even Gaul.

Most of them were totally illiterate save a few of their officers, and because of the harsh conditions under which they lived and fought, were wont to be as brutal as any soldiers at any time.

It was the soldiers who were finally given the nod at sometime between 6:00 and 9:00 A.M. in the morning on that Wednesday to lead Jesus away within the court (called the Praetorium). The Roman soldiers actually looked forward to venting their wrath and frustrations on this one man who claimed to be King of the Jews. What better way to attack this hated race than by scourging and crucifying their "king"!

The soldiers began by stripping Him of His blood-spattered clothing, finding a newer robe made of scarlet, and then, following the idea that Herod's own men had devised, jammed the crown of thorns back down on His head. They gave Him a useless reed for His right hand, and then, one by one came forward to do mock obeisance before Him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!"

As each leering soldier shuffled forward with his brawny forearms glistening with sweat, his leering, filthy face grinning in cruel expectancy, he would kneel before Jesus, grasp the rod (it was more like a cattle prod, or a stick than a reed) out of His hand, and strike Him right across the top of the crown of thorns on the top of His head, saying, "Hail! King of the Jews!" Then, each one would hawk up a clot of spit and expectorate it fully into Jesus face!

Finally, getting no response, save a wincing now and then, and the tightest shutting of His eyes, the Roman soldiers tired of their play, and took all of His garments away until He was naked.

The leader of the group grasped the heavy handle of his scourge, letting the metal chunks grate ever so slightly on the polished floor, and, with a cruel leer at his fellow soldiers, his eyes feverishly glinting with a perverted bloodlust, he flailed at Christ's back with all, his strength.

A scourge was the Roman version of the "cat-o’-nine tails," and featured leather thongs with bits of metal wrapped in the ends of each one, fastened to a wooden or a heavy leather handle.

Oftentimes, a person who was so scourged died in the whipping, just as many seamen in the navies of the world, both then and in the generations thereafter, have died during a particularly vicious whipping on the gratings.

Jesus grunted in terrible pain, his back arching spasmodically, lips torn back from bleeding face and gums. The first blow had cut him deeply, splattering blood and chunks of flesh on those soldiers closest; they stepped back quickly, wiping at their faces and clothing.

"Chunk!" "Splat!" 'Smack!" The raining blows continued; opening great gouges in his arms, chest, stomach, back, thighs and legs. The soldier's great chest heaved with his efforts; his companions laughed with perverted, bestial pleasure; Jesus' moans were becoming a dull sob, a bare whimper, until He almost fainted!

A splashing bucket of water in the face, and, jerking Him upright again, the hideous beating continued! Jesus was stark naked and terribly vulnerable; and the soldier now and then deliberately flayed the whip at his hips so as to strike out at his manhood.

The Roman soldiers, delighting in their animal-like bloodlust, took turns whipping Jesus' body until they quite literally laid open His flesh, exposing the ribs through the wounds, with chunks of lead and metal biting deeply into His body, and splattering the hall and the Romans themselves with His blood.

They beat Jesus until He fell, hauled Him to His feet, and beat Him until He fell again. Finally, they had to tie Him upright and continue the vicious beating until Jesus' head slumped down in total exhaustion and He had to be revived once again.

"Wait! Wait!" an officer cried out! "TenSHUN!" he screamed. The whip trailed bloodily on the floor. The soldier's face glistening with blood and sweat; his crazed eyes bulging with half-insane, animal-like incomprehension.

"You’ll kill him, you fool!" the officer screamed! "If he dies here you'll be crucified in place of him, I assure you!" "Let’s get on with the crucifixion. You two, pick him up; revive him, and let's get going—a huge crowd is gathering, and we may not be able to get him through it to the gate alive if we don't hurry! I’ll want a triple guard, and a runner sent to the gate; we've got to keep this thing from getting out of hand!"

With a bitter glance at the still-dazed leader of the group carrying the whip, the officer said, "You stay here! I may have to talk to you later!"

With that, another bucket of water was splashed into Jesus' face and they dragged the hideously deformed man to His feet. Quickly throwing His own clothes back on Him, they half-dragged, half-carried Him from the garrison room back to the street. They led Him out, and, holding up the heavy wooden beam He was to bear, slowly lowered it onto His hideously torn back. Then, urging Him on with whips, they began to lead the procession through the crowds.

By now, with His face a purpled, livid, blackened and bloody swollen mass, His eyes swollen nearly shut, one eyelid laid horribly back, huge open wounds in His scalp, shreds of skin and flesh openly exposed, Jesus would not survive much longer, the soldiers knew. So they hurried along the street, urging Jesus along when He stumbled and fell, inexorably moving toward the denouement of their bestial drama—crucifixion.

He could still speak even though His lips were torn and swollen twice to three times their normal size. As He felt His strength draining from Him, He knew He could not survive much longer. It was becoming increasingly difficult for Jesus, wracked with pain, to keep His mind focused on God and His own mission. But He prayed to God, utilizing all His mental efforts, and God gave Him the strength to continue.

When they first placed the heavy beam on Jesus' back, He trudged a few painful steps, and crying out in pain, stumbled and fell under the weight,