King of the Jews
What is your verdict?
Mark 15:25 ESV - And it was the third hour when they crucified him.
This is an approximation. John has it as the sixth hour, or noon. Mark’s recorded time is the third hour, or 9:00 am, which is not difficult to believe in view of the events as Mark has laid them out. If the brief hearing before the Sanhedrin began at 6:00, and he was in front of Pilate by 7:00, he could have been tried and flogged and marched out to Golgotha by 9:00. But we are left then with the apparent contradiction with John.
One commentator I read suggested that this verse should be ascribed not to Mark, but to a later scribal editor. Others have suggested that perhaps John was mistaken about the time in his gospel. When we stop and reflect, however, that four men writing at different times, and for different audiences, and for different purposes, all give their witness with such striking similarity in detail, we marvel at the fact that this is the only apparent discrepancy in their witness.
So whether the crucifixion began at 9, or at 12, or, as likely, somewhere in between, with both writers giving approximations, I'm sure none were looking at a Timex on their wrist. We must remember that exact sequences and exact times are modern and Western. Such things were neither expected nor delivered by writers in those days.
Mark 15:26 ESV - And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.”
This would have been written on a placard that was hung around his neck as he carried his cross, and then it would have been nailed onto that cross, above him, after he was hung on it. This was the charge laid against him—high treason against Rome. And this was Rome's way of saying, “This is what happens to anyone who dares have any aspirations against Rome. Rome will brook no rivals.”
But more than all that, this is Mark's way of informing his readers that Jesus was, indeed, crucified as Messiah. No doubt Pilate intended the words as a mockery of both Jesus and the Jews, but his intended insult unwittingly proclaimed the truth. The King of the Jews is on display. This is his greatest act.
To Rome it signifies his defeat and his shame. It epitomizes the contempt that this world has for God and Christ. But to us it is his glory. It is his victory. It is his defeat of all his and our enemies.
The death of Christ on the cross symbolizes both this world's rejection of Jesus, and Jesus's rejection of this world and its order. This world, represented by both Rome and the Jewish authority, rejected and crucified Jesus. But it is through this death that Jesus defeats and brings to an end this present world and ushers in the world to come. The beginnings of the world to come will be seen in just a few verses, in just a few days, when Jesus comes up out of the tomb.
“King of the Jews,” wrote Pilate, and rejected him. “King of the Jews” read the placard nailed to his cross by the soldiers, and they rejected him. “King of Israel” the Jewish leaders will mockingly refer to him as in a few more verses, and they will reject him. Yet king of all the Israel of God and King of the ages and King of kings he remains. What will you do with him?