The Hill Called Skull: Mark 15:16-32

The soldiers led Jesus into the palace—the Praetorium—and called together the whole company. They put a purple robe on him, twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. Then they began to mock him: "Hail, king of the Jews!"

They struck him on the head with a staff, driving thorns deeper into scalp. They spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid mock homage. When they had finished their sport, they stripped off the purple and put his own clothes back on him.

Then they led him out to crucify him.

A man named Simon, from Cyrene—the father of Alexander and Rufus, Mark notes, as if his readers knew the family—was passing by on his way in from the country. They forced him to carry the cross. One moment he was a pilgrim coming to Jerusalem for Passover; the next he was bearing the instrument of the Messiah's death.

They brought Jesus to Golgotha, which means "the place of the skull." They offered him wine mixed with myrrh—a mild narcotic that would dull the pain—but he refused it. He would drink this cup undiluted.

They crucified him.

Mark does not describe the nailing. His first readers knew what crucifixion meant: spikes through wrists, feet twisted and pinned, the body's weight tearing at wounds, every breath a battle against suffocation. The most painful death Rome could devise, reserved for slaves and rebels, designed to humiliate as much as to kill.

It was nine in the morning when they crucified him.

The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. Pilate's mockery. Pilate's unwitting prophecy.

They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left. The seats of honor James and John had requested—filled by criminals.

Those who passed by hurled insults, shaking their heads: "So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!"

The chief priests and teachers of the law mocked him among themselves: "He saved others, but he can't save himself! Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe."

Even those crucified with him heaped insults on him.

He could have come down. He could have called legions of angels. He could have saved himself. But then he could not have saved them.

So he stayed. And bled. And breathed. And died.