Mark 15:1-5,15-20, The Passion of Christ (1)

There have been various “accounts” of the crucifixion of Christ given by medical experts.  Those can be helpful.  But when it comes to providing background information on anything in the Gospels I have come to appreciate Alfred Edersheim, the Jewish convert to Christ in the 1800’s.  He is most known for his treatise, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah.  We will let him be our source as we continue to work our way through the Gospel of Mark and also as we are approaching Passover and the time of Jesus death and resurrection.  Additional notes will be placed in boxes with the source.  Otherwise, we have a few days with Edersheim.

·       15:15: “flogged” (scourged).  “… the scourging … when … the scourge of leather thongs was loaded with lead or armed with spikes and bones, which lacerated back and chest and face till the victim sometimes fell down before the judge, a bleeding mass of torn flesh. … scourging was the terrible introduction to crucifixion – the ‘intermediate death.’  Stripped of his clothes, His hands tied and back bent, the victim would be bound to a column or stake, in front of the Praetorium.

15:16-20: The scourging ended, the soldiery would hastily cast upon Him His upper garments and lead Him back into the Praetorium.  Here they called the whole cohort together, and the silent, faint Sufferer became the object of their ribald jesting.  From His bleeding body they tore the clothes, and in mockery array  Him in scarlet or purple.  For a crown they wound together thorns, and for sceptre they placed in His hand a reed.  Then alternately, in mock proclamation, they hailed Him King or worshiped Him as God and smote Him or heaped on Him other indignities. (Note: there have been various trees that have been suggested as the source of the thorns.  The traditional thought is the Ziziphus spina-christi tree, a picture of which we have included .)

          CROWN OF THORNS, Matt. 27:29. Our Lord was crowned with thorns in mockery by the Roman soldiers. Obviously some small flexile thorny shrub is meant; perhaps Capparis spinosa. “Hassel-quist, a Swedish naturalist, supposes a very common plant, naba or nubka of the Arabs, with many small and sharp spines; soft, round, and pliant branches; leaves much resembling ivy, of a very deep green, as if in designed mockery of a victor’s wreath.”—Alford.