Luke 23
Pilate finds no fault, Herod sends him back dressed in fine clothes, and he dies with a psalm on his lips promising paradise to a thief.
Summary
The trial before Pilate unfolds in a pattern of repeated declarations of innocence. The assembled crowd accuses Jesus of three political charges — perverting the nation, forbidding tribute, and claiming to be the Messiah king. Pilate interrogates him and finds no guilt in this man. The crowd insists on Galilean origins, which gives Pilate the opportunity to send him to Herod Antipas, who is in Jerusalem for the festival. Herod, who has long wanted to see Jesus, questions him at length and hopes to see a sign; Jesus offers him nothing. Herod and his soldiers treat him with contempt, dress him in elegant clothing, and send him back. Luke adds the note that Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that day, having previously been at enmity. Pilate reconvenes the chief priests and the rulers and the people and again declares that he has found no guilt, that Herod has found nothing deserving death, and that he will therefore flog him and release him. The crowd demands the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus; Pilate gives the verdict they require.
Simon of Cyrene is pressed into carrying the cross. Jesus addresses the weeping women of Jerusalem — weep not for me but for yourselves and your children — with a prediction of the city's destruction. At the place called The Skull he is crucified, with criminals on either side. Luke alone records the prayer — Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do — which the soldiers and the rulers and one of the criminals mock. The second criminal rebukes the first: we are receiving what our deeds deserve, but this man has done nothing wrong. He asks to be remembered; Jesus answers: today you will be with me in paradise. At noon darkness covers the land for three hours; the curtain of the temple is torn down the middle. Jesus prays — Father, into your hands I commit my spirit — and dies. Luke replaces Mark's cry of dereliction with a psalm verse of confident commitment. The centurion, seeing what has happened, declares this man was certainly righteous. The watching crowd beats their breasts and returns home. The disciples stand at a distance. Joseph of Arimathea, a council member who had not agreed to the decision against Jesus, goes to Pilate and asks for the body, wraps it in linen, and lays it in a rock-cut tomb where no one had yet been laid. The women who have come from Galilee observe and see where the body is laid.
- Luke 1Chapter 1 opens with a formal literary preface — Luke addresses a certain Theophilus and claims to have investigated everything carefully, setting himself apart as a self-conscious historian among the gospel writers.
- Luke 2Chapter 2 contains the nativity scene that dominates Western cultural memory of the gospels: the census under Quirinius, the journey to Bethlehem, the birth, the manger, the swaddling cloths, the angels appearing to shepherds in the fields at night.
- Luke 3Luke situates John's ministry with extraordinary chronological precision — the fifteenth year of Tiberius, the governorship of Pilate, the tetrarchies of Herod and Philip and Lysanias, the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.
- Luke 4The Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness for forty days, where the devil offers him bread, political authority over all the kingdoms of the world, and divine protection — and is refused at each turn with a quotation from Deuteronomy.
- Luke 5By the Lake of Gennesaret, the crowds press against Jesus and he steps into Simon's empty boat to teach.
- Luke 6The chapter opens with two Sabbath controversies: the disciples pluck grain as they walk through fields, and Jesus defends them by citing David's eating the showbread when his men were hungry.
- Luke 7Three distinct episodes give chapter 7 its range.
- Luke 8Chapter 8 moves quickly across a range of narrative modes.
- Luke 9Chapter 9 is a turning-point chapter.
- Luke 10Jesus sends out seventy (some manuscripts say seventy-two) in pairs ahead of him into every town and place he intends to visit, with instructions similar to the twelve's but addressed to a larger group and a longer journey.
- Luke 11The chapter opens with Jesus praying in a certain place; when he stops, a disciple asks him to teach them to pray as John taught his disciples.
- Luke 12With ten thousand pressing around him, Jesus addresses the disciples first: beware the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
- Luke 13Some report to Jesus about Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.
- Luke 14Jesus goes to eat at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees on the Sabbath, watched carefully by those present.
- Luke 15The Pharisees and scribes grumble that this man receives sinners and eats with them.
- Luke 16Chapter 16 contains two of Luke's most difficult parables.
- Luke 17The chapter opens with warnings about causing stumbling — better to have a millstone around your neck and be thrown into the sea — and the obligation to rebuke and forgive a brother who sins seven times in a day and repents each time.
- Luke 18Jesus tells the parable of the persistent widow to teach that they ought always to pray and not lose heart: a widow in a city where a judge neither fears God nor respects people keeps coming to him demanding justice against her adversary; he eventually grants it not because of justice but because she is wearing him out.
- Luke 19Jericho contains the Zacchaeus scene, unique to Luke: a chief tax collector who is wealthy and short climbs a sycamore tree to see Jesus over the crowd.
- Luke 20Chapter 20 is a series of confrontations in the temple.
- Luke 21Looking up at those putting gifts into the treasury, Jesus observes that a poor widow puts in two small copper coins — the smallest unit of currency — and says she has put in more than all of them, because they gave from their abundance and she from her poverty gave everything she had.
- Luke 22Satan enters Judas Iscariot and he goes to the chief priests to discuss how to betray Jesus.
- Luke 23The assembly brings Jesus to Pilate, accusing him of perverting the nation, forbidding tribute to Caesar, and claiming to be king.
- Luke 24Very early on the first day of the week, the women — Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and others — bring spices to the tomb and find the stone rolled away.