is figure out more questions (Matthew 27)

Jesus is taken to Pilate for execution.  While this is happening Judas repents his betrayal and tries to give the money back.  This is another scene that I don’t understand.  I didn’t know why he betrayed Jesus in the first place and now he is sorry that he did betray him.  I suppose he was expecting something more from Jesus at his trial but none of that seems clear.  As a result Judas hangs himself.  A Judas is the worst possible insult yet I am saddened by his death.  Unlike Peter who denied Jesus, Judas takes full responsibility for his actions.  Maybe killing himself is an easy way out but clearly he feels guilt and would ask forgiveness.  Would Jesus offer it to him?

Pilate does not understand the problem with Jesus and, especially after being warned by his wife to have nothing to do with Jesus, he tries to avoid punishing him.  He questions Jesus but Jesus remains silent.  Pilate offers the crowd a choice between Jesus and another prisoner, Barabbas.  They select Barabbas.  Pilate asks what crime Jesus has committed and the crowd just demands that Jesus be crucified.  Pilate then washes his hands of the whole affair (literally as well as figuratively) and tells the crowd that they are responsible.  The crowd says that it will full on them and their children.  (This must be the excuse for the persecution of Jews in later centuries.)

This scene also confuses me because Jesus seemed to have the crowd on his side up to this point.  Where were all the people that caused the scribes and priests to fear arresting Jesus at other times?

Jesus is whipped and crowned with thorns as the crowd mocks the idea that he is King of the Jews.  While on the cross, people ask why he was able to save others and not himself.  Jesus cries out to God asking “Why have you forsaken me?”  Crucifixion had to be a horrible death and the pain over several hours must be unimaginable, so anything anybody says while dying in this way can’t be questioned.  But, Jesus either knows what is happening and what must happen for his life to mean something to his followers or he doesn’t.  What does he mean that God has forsaken him?  Has he lost faith?  Perhaps I am reading this incorrectly.

When Jesus dies, there is an earthquake and graves open and some people come back to life.  At this point, many people think that Jesus may in fact be the Son of God.

Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man who followed Jesus, asks for the body and places it in his own tomb and blocks the entrance with a large stone.  The priests, knowing that Jesus predicted his resurrection, ask Pilate to place guards around the tomb so that Jesus’ followers do not steal the body.