Mark 15:25

‘And it was the third hour and they crucified him.'

The third hour would be roughly nine o'clock in the morning, reckoning twelve hours in the day from dawn, but time was not accurately calculated and he probably meant ‘about three hours had passed since dawn and it was mid-morning'. More important to him was probably the significance of the number three. It was the ‘third' hour, the set and complete period determined by God. The sixth hour and the ninth hour, also prominent, further stress the same idea rising in multiples of three, while the three sets of three confirm the completeness of what was accomplished here.

(John 19:14 indicated that the verdict against Jesus was passed at ‘about the sixth hour', Roman time. This was the comment of someone who vaguely and roughly remembered the time of day, for there had been a meeting of the Sanhedrin as well as the time taken in passing judgment by Pilate and Herod. There were no watches or public clocks and time was not as important then as it is now. Assuming ‘about the sixth hour' was measured from midnight it would indicate roughly around six in the morning, but it probably meant nothing more than a vague ‘early in the day' before the ninth hour (Mark's ‘third hour')).