The Death of Jesus

March 29

It’s surprising how much sway the Jewish leaders held over the common people. If you’ve seen a Christmas or Easter pageant, you probably saw the very same characters hail Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday (Mark 11:7–10) and cry out for Jesus’ crucifixion just a few moments later. But, looking at the stories in the gospels, it doesn’t appear to have happened that way.

The common people loved Jesus. They brought their children, their sick, disabled, and afflicted to Jesus for healing and deliverance. Then, suddenly, they were crying out for Him to be crucified. The Jewish leaders had whipped them into a frenzy. (Mark 15:10–14) We don’t know the size of the crowd. Evidently, though, they expressed their wishes very loudly.

Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, was not the biggest fan of the Jews, nor were they his. They tolerated each other. So, when the Jewish leaders pressed Pilate to do their dirty work of sentencing Jesus to death (crucifixion), he obliged their request against his better judgment. God, however, was working out all things according to His Master Plan of Salvation.

Side note: The Mosaic Law prescribed stoning people to death for certain behaviors. The Romans, however, held the authority of perhaps the cruelest forms of capital punishment ever invented. Crucifixion was a savage and barbaric method of executing criminals. By the time of Jesus, the Romans had refined the practice into a highly skilled art and science. They knew how to bring about the most excruciating death possible—a death that could last for days. Yes, days.

You see, most often, the one being executed didn’t die from bleeding. Instead, death came slowly, as his lungs filled with fluid, the criminal literally drowned. To avoid this torture of drowning, a criminal would push his body upward on his pierced feet, which would ease the pressure on his diaphragm and enable him to exhale. But doing so was unsustainable.

The Jews, not wanting Jesus and the other criminals to hang on their crosses through the Passover, asked for their legs to be broken so that their death would be expedited. Again, Pilate obliged. They broke the first man’s legs, but when they came to Jesus, He was already dead. Breaking Jesus’ legs wouldn’t be necessary, thus fulfilling Psalm 34:20, which said that the Messiah’s bones wouldn’t be broken. A Roman soldier verified Jesus’ death by plunging a spear into his side. John notes that Jesus’ blood and water flow out of the wound. (John 19:34)

Jesus literally died of a broken heart.

On March 27, I mentioned that I would say more about the Temple in today’s devotional as it relates to Jesus’ death. Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us that when Jesus died, the curtain in Herod’s Temple was torn from top to bottom. (Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:38, Luke 23:45) The purpose of the curtain was to separate the Most Holy Place from the rest of the place of worship.

The Temple itself was a massive structure, and its curtain that the writers describe was sixty to eighty feet tall! The curtain was also anywhere from four to eighteen inches thick. It reminds me of the heavy curtain in old high school theaters, but this curtain was so much higher and thicker. Imagine the amount of force required to tear the curtain!

It’s interesting that although all three of the Synoptic Gospels mention the tearing of the Temple curtain, none of them mention anything about any other structural damage to the Temple complex. 

Application

Why was the curtain torn, and why from top to bottom?

One would expect that an earthquake might have caused the curtain to be torn from the bottom up, if at all. One would also expect there to have been other significant damage to the Temple complex. The New Testament is silent here, though.

I think this fact demonstrates that an earthquake didn’t cause the tearing of the curtain. God Himself tore it—from the top. Why? Hebrews 10:19-20 tells us: “Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus—He [Jesus] has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain (that is, through his flesh). Jesus’ sin-atoning blood removed the need for the curtain that had separated sinful man from holy God for over 1,400 years. So, God removed the curtain!

With the death of Jesus, mankind’s sin-debt was now covered—for all time—for everyone who would believe in Him. Jesus cried out, “It is finished,” because there was nothing left to do for people to be made right with God. (John 19:30)

Because of the death of Jesus Christ, God’s people have access to the holiest place. And, we have access to the Throne of Grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:16, CSB)

© Copyright 2026 Craig Beaman