Mark 15:1-21

Before dawn that morning, the ruling priests, elders, religious scholars, and the entire Jewish council set in motion their plan against Jesus. They bound him in chains, took him away, and handed him over to Pilate. As Jesus stood in front of the Roman governor, Pilate asked him, “So, are you really the king of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “You have just spoken it.” Then the ruling priests, over and over, made bitter accusations against him, but he remained silent. So Pilate questioned him again. “Have you nothing to say? Don’t you hear these many allegations they’re making against you?” But Jesus offered no defense to any of the charges, much to the astonishment of Pilate. Every year at Passover, it was the custom of the governor to pardon a prisoner and release him to the people—anyone they wanted. Now, Pilate was holding in custody a notorious criminal named Barabbas, one of the assassins who had committed murder in an uprising. The crowds gathered in front of Pilate’s judgment bench and asked him to release a prisoner to them, as was his custom. So he asked them, “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” (Pilate was fully aware that the religious leaders had handed Jesus over to him because of spite and envy.) But the ruling priests stirred up the crowd to incite them to ask for Barabbas instead. So Pilate asked them, “What do you want me to do with this one you call the king of the Jews?” They all shouted back, “Crucify him!” “Why?” Pilate asked. “What evil thing has he done wrong to deserve that?” But they kept shouting out with a deafening roar, “Crucify him at once!” Because he wanted to please the people, Pilate released Barabbas to them. After he had Jesus severely beaten with a whip made of leather straps and embedded with metal, he sentenced him to be crucified. The soldiers took Jesus into the headquarters of the governor’s compound and summoned a military unit of nearly six hundred men. They placed a purple robe on him to make fun of him. Then they braided a victor’s crown, a wreath made of thorns, and set it on his head. And with a mock salute they repeatedly cried out, “Hail, your majesty, king of the Jews!” They spit in his face and hit him repeatedly on his head with a reed staff, driving the crown of thorns deep into his brow. They knelt down before him in mockery, pretending to pay him homage. When they finished ridiculing him, they took off the purple robe, put his own clothes back on him, and led him away to be crucified. As they came out of the city, they stopped an African man named Simon, a native of Libya. He was passing by, just coming in from the countryside with his two sons, Alexander and Rufus, and the soldiers forced him to carry the heavy crossbeam for Jesus.