Luke 23 Round Two: Our King Reigns

A courtroom that won’t hold truth, a crowd that won’t sit still, and a king who refuses to save himself—Luke 23 brings history’s darkest hour into sharp focus. We walk scene by scene through the trial before Pilate and Herod, the crowd’s shocking choice of Barabbas, and the road to Golgotha, where Rome’s power meets a deeper plan. Along the way, we unpack why substitution sits at the heart of the gospel, how ancient Leviticus patterns echo through Passover, and what it means that two criminals heard the same words and only one found paradise.

I share the human details that make this chapter throb with reality: the strain of a flogged body under a crossbeam, the way nails were driven to hold bone and breath, and why crucifixion was designed to humiliate as much as to kill. Then we zoom out to the theology in motion—the sign above his head, the taunts that accidentally preach, and the thief who prays the simplest, boldest prayer, “remember me,” and receives the most immediate promise, “today.” When darkness falls at noon and the temple veil tears from top to bottom, access to God ceases to be a guarded corridor and becomes an open door. The centurion’s confession, the crowd’s silence, and Joseph of Arimathea’s quiet courage lead us to a new tomb and a Sabbath of waiting, charged with hope.

If you’re hungry to understand why the cross was chosen and how Luke’s eyewitness structure magnifies both justice and mercy, this walkthrough will steady your heart and sharpen your faith. Subscribe for more daily chapter breakdowns, share this episode with a friend who’s exploring the Gospels, and leave a review to help others find the Bible Breakdown Podcast.

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The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Community Invitation
• 1:08 Why Luke 23 Matters Now
• 2:27 The Trial: Pilate, Herod, Barabbas
• 7:34 Prophecy and the Scapegoat Pattern
• 9:06 The Way to the Cross
• 11:03 Crucifixion Details & Mockery
• 14:15 The Thief’s Plea and Promise
• 15:50 Darkness, Veil Torn, Final Breath
• 18:00 Joseph of Arimathea’s Risk and Burial

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. Every day, we take one chapter of the Bible, dig deeper, and discover that the more we dig, the more we find. You can find out more at the BibleBreakdown.com. Now let's grow in God's word together. Well, hello everybody, and welcome back to the Bible Breakdown with your host, Pastor Brandon, today, Luke chapter 23. And I'm gonna tell you something, man. This is the one, this is the chapter that we have been waiting on. Before we get started, if you would like for me to send our daily Bible reading to you, text RLC Bible to 94,000 and we will get these to you. Also, you can go to brandoncannon.com and you can get my weekly newsletter where we break down more of this stuff together. And then last but not least, if you are watching this on YouTube, make sure to like the video, subscribe to my channel. Also, if you are listening to this as a podcast, we now have a podcast. Make sure that you subscribe to it and then rate and review so we can get more information out there because I just have this dream now. This is slowly becoming a dream of mine. What would it look like if we could develop just a community of people that were just enjoying and reading God's word together? Wouldn't that be what an amazing reason to rally around one another, right? Okay, let's jump into Luke chapter 23 because this is it. This is the moment that everything comes to a head. Remember that Luke was a trained physician, but he has now become an investigative journalist, and he's getting to everything has been leading to this point. Because what we're going to read in Luke chapter 23, the first several verses, first 25 verses, talks about the trial before Pilate. And then verse 26 through 43 is talking about the crucifixion of Jesus. 44 through 49 is about the death of Jesus, and then 50 is about the burial of Jesus. And I don't know who, I in my imagination, I wonder who Luke was talking to. Did he have a personal interview with Pilate? I mean, he was sent by Theopolis, a possible high-ranking government official, and Pilate didn't last much longer in this uh province before he was sent elsewhere. But did he get an audience with Pilate because of the influence of Theopolis? I mean, what who was he talking to here? I don't know. What we do know is that the Holy Spirit inspired this so that we could know what happened in this moment. So I want to read through this. I'm going to read the entire narrative of the trial before Pilate, and I want to break down for you some things that just excite me when I read God's word. So here we go. If you got your NLT Bible ready, you got your coffee ready, let's dive into this. Verse 1 of chapter 23. Then the entire council took Jesus to Pilate, the Roman governor. They began to state their case. This man has been leading our people astray by telling them not to pay taxes to the Roman government and by claiming he is the Messiah, a king. So Pilate asked him, Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus replied, You have said it. Pilate turned to the leading priest and the crowd and said, I find nothing wrong with this man. Then they became insistent. But he is causing riots by his teaching wherever he goes, all over Judea, from Galilee to Jerusalem. Oh, he's a Galilean, Pilate asked. Well then, uh, when they said that he was he was, Pilate sent him to Herod Antipos because Galilee was under Herod's jurisdiction, and Herod happened to be in Jerusalem at the time. But Herod was delighted at the opportunity to see Jesus, because he had heard about him and had been hoping for a long time to see him perform a miracle. And he asked Jesus the question after question, but Jesus refused to answer. Meanwhile, the leading priests and teachers of religious law stood there shouting their accusations. Then Herod and his soldiers began mocking and ridiculing Jesus. Finally they put a royal robe on him and sent him back to Pilate. And then there's like this princess. By the way, Herod and Pilate, who had been enemies before, became friends that day. Pause real fast just to say, isn't it amazing? That even enemies, when they share Jesus with one another, become friends. I think that's amazing. All right, verse 13. Then Pilate called together the leading priests and other religious leaders along with the people, and he announced his verdict. You brought this man to me, accusing him of leading a revolt. I have examined him thoroughly on this point in your presence and find him innocent. Herod came to the same conclusion and sent him back to us. Nothing this man has done calls for the death penalty. So I will have him flogged, and then I will release him. But then a mighty roar rose from the crowd, and with one voice they shouted, Kill him and release Barabbas to us. Barabbas was in prison for taking part in an insurrection in Jerusalem against the government for and for murder. But Pilate argued with them because he wanted to release Jesus. But they kept shouting, Crucify him, crucify him. And 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. But the mob shouted louder and louder, demanding Jesus to be crucified, and their voices prevailed. So Pilate sentenced Jesus to die as they demanded. And has as he as they had requested, he released Barabbas and the man who's in prison for insurrection and murder, but they turned Jesus, but he turned Jesus over to them to do as they wished. I was getting kind of distracted because there's so much in this text that we don't even have an opportunity to cover all of it. But first, who is Pilate? So Pilate was sent in by the Roman government kind of as a magistrate, the one who kind of kept order in the area. They he represented Rome to all of the people and he kept everything under Roman control. But he also gave like social power to the Pharisees and Sadducees because they knew he knew that the Pharisees and Sadducees would keep the Jewish people in line for their own benefit. So there was this uneasy sort of, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, sort of alliance between the Jewish leaders and Pilate. Pilate ultimately spoke for the Roman Empire, but he knew things would go better because the Jewish people were just very rambunctious and very willing to get into a fight if necessary. And so he knew that if I let them have a certain level of autonomy, it'll go better for me. And so there was this uneasy peace that was constantly happening, and that's why he he couldn't just say, well, this is what we're going to do, because he knew that everything came at a cost, right? Well, on the other side of that, he wanted to let Jesus go. He realized that Jesus wasn't guilty of anything. He realized they were just jealous of Jesus. So what they had was is every year as a custom, because the feast of Passover, which is what was going on at the time, was one of the highest holy days of the year. And so as a custom, as a way of just showing their the the goodness of the Roman Empire, whoever was in charge would release a prisoner every year. Hey, this guy's condemned to death. We're going to release him just to show that we're nice guys. And so what he wanted to do, Pilate wanted to do, is to use that little kind of gray area in the law to be able to release Jesus. But once again, they didn't want to do that. They wanted to kill Jesus. Isn't it interesting though that even without them realizing it, they were helping to fulfill Old Testament prophecy? Because all the way back in the book of Leviticus, like we just got through reading, there was a time on the Day of Atonement when the nation was uh asking God to forgive them of their sins for the year. They would bring two sacrifices to the to the doorway of the of the temple tabernacle. And what the high priest would do is they would have two. One would be the goat for Azazel, one would be the goat for the Lord. The goat for Azazel, he would uh send out into the wilderness and be the one that would be spared, but then the goat for the Lord, he would put his hands on him, transferring the sins of the nation, and then slaughter that that sacrifice for the nation. Isn't it amazing? Right there, standing before the people, there is Pilate, and he's saying, Which one do you want me to release to you? And there's a lot of there's some historical evidence that says that actually Barabbas' first name was Jesus. Jesus was a very common name during the time because it was very close to the name Joshua. And in Hebrew, there's no J, there's a Y. So Joshua would have been Yeshua, and Jesus would have been Yeshua. So Yahshua, Yeshua, very, very, very similar. And so, and Bar Abas, Barabbas, Bar means son, Abbas means father. And so his last name meant son of my father. So isn't it interesting? That on one side you've got Yeshua, the son of my father, and you got Yeshua, the son of God, side by side, and you have one that was led off, and we don't really know what happened to him after that, and then we've got the one who is now going to be slaughtered for the sins of the nation. So even without realizing it, all of these pieces are still coming into the alignment because God has a plan, and it's absolutely amazing. All right, here we go. Verse 26. As they led Jesus away, a man named Simon, who was from Serene, happened to be coming in from the countryside. The soldiers seized him and put a cross, put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. A large crowd trailed behind, including many grief-stricken women. But Jesus turned and said to them, Daughters of Jerusalem, don't weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the the days are coming when they will say, Fortunate indeed are women who are childless, the wombs that have not borne a child, and the breasts that have not have never nursed. People will beg the mountains to fall on us and plead with the heels, bury us. For if these things are done when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry? So pause again. Jesus is giving a prophecy that is later fulfilled in 70 AD, when the siege of Jerusalem had happened, and it was such a horrible, horrible thing as people were slaughtered as the Romans uh came into Jerusalem, and it is very similar to what Jesus is prophesying. But also the reason why this guy named Simon was compelled to do this is that Jesus had already tried to carry his cross and he fell and wasn't able to do it. There was an interesting thing about this is that most of the time you were either flogged or crucified. You both didn't happen. Because flogging, especially the Roman style of flogging, would really put you within an inch of death. And so it wasn't considered a good sport because one of the things about crucifixion is that it lasted a while. People who would be crucified, sometimes they would be on a cross for multiple days because it took a while for your body to slowly die of exposure, really, and suffocation. And so if you you if you had full strength, then it would take a while. But if you were flogged within an inch of your life, you would only be able to live a little while on the cross. And so Jesus literally physically his body is breaking down and he's unable to carry this cross beam. And so this guy named Simon was compelled to then carry the cross beam because Jesus was unable to carry it because they had already beaten him with an inch of his life. All right, verse 32. Two others, both criminals, were led out to be executed with him. When they came to the place called the Skull, also known as Golgotha, they nailed him to the cross, and the criminals were also crucified, one on the right and the other on the left. Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing. And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. And the crowd watched, and the leaders scoffed. He saved others, they said. Let him save himself if he really is God's Messiah, the chosen one. The soldiers mocked him too, by offering him a drink of sour wine. And they called out to him, If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself. A sign was fastened above him, read the words, This is the King of the Jews. Now, another thing that's going on here, just to help you kind of get your mind around the enormity of crucifixion, is I know we we have like these different paintings that have Jesus with a nail in the middle of his hand, but that actually is not what they would do. Because, and sorry for being graphic, but as soon as they were to nail him on the cross and his weight would try to get um would try to hold his weight by that, it would just rip right through because there's no bones there to stop uh what was going on. And so they actually would nail him to the cross right underneath or right behind his wristbone so that as he pulled up to kind of catch a breath, he would have to pull up on the bones in his wrist. And so they would have nailed him there, but then they would have also nailed him with his feet so that he his feet would have he been able to have actually a little bit of purchase so he could lift up to get a breath of air and then fall back down again. And these other two criminals are also crucified on his left and on his right, and they actually have more strength than he does, and so they may not, may or may not have been nailed like he was because they didn't always nail them there, because once again, part of the reason why the uh crucifixion was so bad was because you would die of exposure. So sometimes they would just lash your hands there and then let you just hang for as long as your body would hold up. So we don't know for sure here, but we do know that Jesus was nailed to the cross. All right, verse 39. One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, So you're the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself and us too while you're at it. The other criminal protested, Don't you fear God, even when you're being sentenced to die? We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn't done anything wrong. Then he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus replied, I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise. By this time it was about noon, and darkness fell across the whole land until three o'clock. The light from the sun was gone, and suddenly the curtain in the sanctuary of the temple was torn down in the middle, and Jesus shouted, Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands. And with those words he breathed his last. And when the Roman officer, seeing the execution, saw what had happened, he worshipped God and said, Surely this man was innocent. And then the crowds that came to see the crucifixion saw what had happened, and they went home in deep sorrow. But Jesus' friends, including the women that had followed him to Galilee, stood at a distance watching. Now it talked about the temple curtain being torn. It's talking about the curtain that was there between the holy place and the most holy place, which is where the presence of God was said to reside. And there's a wonderful symbolism with that. Because before that, only the high priest could go in once a year to offer sacrifice for the sins of the nation. But the symbolism is now at the death of Jesus, that bridge has been crossed. Now, because of Jesus, we no longer need a curtain to protect us from the holy presence of God. But because of the blood of Jesus, all are welcome into his presence. Alright, let's finish this up, verse 50. Now, there was a good and righteous man named Joseph. He was a member of the Jewish High Council, but he had not agreed with the decision and actions of the other religious leaders. He was from his own town in Arimathea in Judea, and he was waiting for the kingdom of God to come. He went to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body. Then he took the body down from the cross and wrapped it in a long sheet of linen cloth and laid it in a new tomb that had been carved out of rock. This was done late on Friday afternoon, the day of preparation, as Sabbath was about to begin. And his body, uh at as his body was taken away, the women from Galilee followed and saw the tomb where his body was placed. And they went home and prepared spices and ointments to anoint his body. But by the time they were finished, the Sabbath had begun, and they rested as required by the law. And so as we finish this chapter, what we see happening here is Jesus has died, and now his body is there. And because the Sabbath is on the way, the Jewish people did not want a dead body to be on the cross during the Sabbath. And so they actually ended up, we we know from another, they broke the legs of the other two criminals because then they couldn't, you know, lean up and get a breath of air, so they suffocated to death. So they're they're all dead, and they take them down. And Joseph actually took a big risk by going to Pilate and asking for the body of Jesus. But he did because he believed in the kingdom of God and what Jesus was doing. And according to the text, they wanted to go ahead and anoint his body, but because the Sabbath had come, they didn't touch his body, they let it stay where it was, and so they went away and had to come now on Sunday morning. Of course, we know exactly what's about to happen on Sunday morning. So there's a lot here, and really the best way to look at the crucifixion of Jesus is to yes look within the context of the four gospels and to understand what crucifixion was. Crucifixion was meant to be the worst punishment that had ever been created. I mean, that's what many historians say that the Roman crucifixion was the worst form of capital punishment that mankind had ever been able to come up with. And isn't it amazing that at the worst moment in history, that's when Jesus says, I'm coming. He didn't pick the easiest. If you think about now, nowadays we have lethal injection, but they give you a shot and you die. He didn't do that. He picked the worst one in history because that's what was required for our sin. And he did it willingly, knowing. There's not a moment in here where it says that he just decided he wasn't going to do it anymore, but he's already there. No, instead, he went willingly for all of us. And so now I want to pass it over to you. What about this sticks out to you? What is this that you can take a next step with? I would encourage you to take out your Bible journal and just kind of write down whichever one of these scriptures that really spoke to you today. And then write down, you know, the scripture, then write the O for observation. What was it that you did you observe in the text? And then A for application. What are you gonna do about it? Like God's word is not intended just to be for us a book that we read, but it's a word that we apply. And so we want to apply God's word. And then let's pray and ask God to seal his word in our heart, okay? All right, I want to pray for us, and then we're gonna be done for the day. Father, thank you so much for your goodness. Thank you that you love us. Thank you that you're sent, that you sent your only son to die on a cross for us. But thank you, Jesus, that your love went all the way to the cross and it kept you there. But what we love even more is that you didn't stay there. But as we're gonna read the next chapter, you rose again, and because of that, we have life forevermore. I pray that as we know you more, God, we will love you more. And as we love you more, we will follow you more all the days of our life. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Listen, I love you. I'll see you next time for the grand finale of the Gospel of Luke.