THE MOB.
Crowds had played an important part in Christ’s life. Most of them were favourable to Him and Jesus had learned to live with cheering multitudes thronging Him. Others opposed Him and there had been a couple of attempted lynchings by roused mobs, but these were the exceptions.

He had ridden into Jerusalem and the crowds had waved Him in with palm branches.

Always “The common people heard Him gladly.” (Mark 12:37).

But the mob who shouted for His death was not the common people. In fact, the reason Caiaphas was in such a hurry to have Him transferred to the Roman army for execution was fear of the common people. It was Passover season and people were slow coming out and about, but if Jesus had still been on trial by the time the populace became involved, the shouts may well have gone the other way.

This crowd was a mixture of Caiaphas’ own supporters, hastily called together during the night, and rabble. Every nation has its rabble. They might have been out hoping to watch an execution. Rabble rousers had brought them together, Chief Priests and their colleagues led the shouting.

Tragically anti-semitists have, down the centuries, used the taunt that Christ was killed by “The Jews” implying some kind of corporate guilt and so justifying their anti-semitism.

One answer to their arguments would be, of course, that there is no such thing as corporate or hereditary guilt and no one is responsible for what their ancestors did. In this case, however, it is not even true that their ancestors did do it.

Caiaphas was a Roman puppet High Priest - not the true High Priest of Judaism. The court which condemned Jesus during the night was not the true Sanhedrin but a kangaroo court meeting illegally at night and packed with Caiaphas’ supporters. Finally the mob who screamed for Christ’s death was not composed of the ordinary Jewish people.

In short, none of the people responsible were either typical or representative of Judaism. They were Jews, certainly. So were Peter and James and John. Every nation has its saints and its rogues. The Jewish nation, past or present, is not responsible for the action of a few rogues who happened to be Jewish - any more than Britain as a country is responsible for the actions of a few modern British hooligans.

If the mob were not typical, however, they were present and shouting. Pilate gave way, not to real popular opinion but to loud voices and immediate threats.

Perhaps the final anomaly is that Romans placed a special value upon courage; Jews upon justice. Each betrayed his own nation’s values. Pilate was a coward and Caiaphas rigged a trial.


THE EXECUTIONERS.
Four Roman soldiers under the supervision of a Centurion had to carry out the sentence - or rather the two sentences because Jesus was first flogged, then brought back to Pilate and afterwards crucified.

To Roman soldiers, cruelty was a way fo life. Public entertainment in Rome was the spectacle of people and animals fighting, killing and dying - often dying slowly and in agony. There was no revulsion from blood or suffering.

Jesus had been sent to them with, on top of His ordinary clothes, a purple robe supplied by Herod - probably a discarded robe but a royal one, used in mockery. This and a hazy knowledge that the charge was something to do with being a king was enough to add spite to duty at His flogging. They would have stripped Him naked - with ribald jokes - to flog Him and when finished put only the once-valuable now-worthless purple robe on Him. A prisoner’s clothes were the perks of the soldiers and these would have been ruined if put back onto a bleeding lacerated body too soon after flogging. He was wearing the purple robe and crown of thorns when Pilate sent for Him to be presented to the people. Only later when the sentence of crucifixion was finally passed, did they return His own clothes to lead Him to His death.

At the cross even these were removed. Crucifixion was naked with the full intention of increasing its shame. The executioners had reserved for themselves the four items of approximately equal value - headgear, sandals, outer jacket and the long girdle which tied the main robe. The robe itself was worth more and being seamless could not be divided without spoiling it.

For that they threw dice.

A Centurion watched over it all, not taking part, but not restraining the mocking cruelty. It was all routine, but at the end it was the Centurion who declared, “This man was innocent.”

It was the Centurion who was given the job of checking that Jesus was dead, and one of his men made quite sure with a javelin thrust. It was not, however, Roman soldiers who guarded the tomb or who made the arrest.

THE SECURITY GUARDS
When Pilate said to the High Priests “You have a guard, make it secure as you can,” he was authorising them to use their own security guards - the same as those who had arrested Jesus. To their presence he added a Roman seal.

Only so could the Priests have told the guards to say, “We slept on duty.” They could persuade the governor to take no action against those guards. If Roman soldiers slept on duty they were executed.

It was the security guards who were sent to arrest Jesus in John 7:32 and who returned without Him in John 7:45-49 giving as their excuse, “No man ever spoke like this man.”

When Jesus was arrested the guards were plainly afraid of Him, and He said to them, “You all heard me in the temple, why didn’t you arrest me then?” John 18:1-9.

He could not have said that to Roman Soldiers. It was the security guards who protected the temple.

Finally it was these guards - under the priests control - who formed the nucleus of the mob which called for Jesus to be crucified, see John 19:6.