Luke 23:22-25

Rachel Workman: ² For the third time he demanded, “Why? What crime has he committed? I have found no reason to sentence him to death. So I will have him flogged, and then I will release him.”

²³ But the mob shouted louder and louder, demanding that Jesus be crucified, and their voices prevailed. ²⁴ So Pilate sentenced Jesus to die as they demanded. ²⁵ As they had requested, he released Barabbas, the man in prison for insurrection and murder. But he turned Jesus over to them to do as they wished. We are the angry crowd of people. Our sins are what put Jesus in this place.

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John Burnett:  ²² And he said to them the third time, “Why, what evil has this man done? I have found in Him no guilt demanding death; therefore I will punish Him and release Him.” ²³ But they were insistent, with loud voices asking that He be crucified. And their voices began to prevail. ²⁴ And Pilate pronounced sentence that their demand be granted. ²⁵ And he released the man they were asking for who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, but he delivered Jesus to their will.  I find it ironic that the verse says Jesus was delivered to their will but it was Jesus’s will that He be turned over so that He could pay the price for our sins on the cross.

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Tomorrow’s reading for Luke 23:26-31

²⁶ As they led Jesus away, a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene,^[b] happened to be coming in from the countryside. The soldiers seized him and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. ²⁷ A large crowd trailed behind, including many grief-stricken women. ²⁸ But Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. ²⁹ For the days are coming when they will say, ‘Fortunate indeed are the women who are childless, the wombs that have not borne a child and the breasts that have never nursed.’ ³⁰ People will beg the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and plead with the hills, ‘Bury us.’^{[c] 31} For if these things are done when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?^[d]”