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Before the Passover feast, and in the darkness of the night, Jesus is captured by the Pharisees (the priests). They want Him crucified and put to death. The reasons are many; they don’t believe in everything that Jesus says, and Jesus is confronting and questioning their character. There is also the jealousy of the Pharisees, who were looking for a another kind of savior, a Messiah, and Jesus proclaimation of the Kingdom of God wasn’t well received at all.
Jesus is sent to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, who has the authority to put Jesus to death, the Jews don’t have that legal right. When Pilate questions Jesus, he finds the accusations harmless and believes there should be no charges against him. But the Pharisees are determined to put Jesus to death, so Pilate are pressured to avoid an uprising and therefore agrees to punish Jesus with 39 lashes and torture. After Jesus is severely beaten, he is shown again to the Pharisees and a crowd of people. Pilate who has sympathy for Jesus, wants to release him and tells the people that they can choose to free Jesus or a captured murderer called Barabbas. The Pharisees shout; Jesus, crucify Jesus! So Pilate is forced to decide that Jesus should be sentenced to death when the Pharisees incite the crowd to demand Jesus be crucified. Then Jesus carries the cross to Golgotha, the place where he is crucified next to two thieves.
The thieves who are crucified next to Jesus, together with the spectators, mock Jesus and ask him to help himself and them, if he is the Son of God. But then one of the thieves asks Jesus to remember him when Jesus comes in the kingdom of God. Jesus replies that he will be with him in paradise.
When Jesus hangs on the cross, darkness falls over the earth and Jesus prays to God with the words from Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And later he says “It is finished” and ask God to receive his spirit.
Jesus gives up his spirit and dies, and the earth shakes and a soldier pierces Jesus’ side with his spear to confirm that he is dead. Another soldier guarding the cross says: “Surely this man was the Son of God. One of the disciples then takes down Jesus’ body, wraps it in linen cloths and spices, and lays it in a tomb near the place where he was crucified. After three days, Jesus rises from the dead and appears to his diciples again.
