Matthew 27:32-37

Jesus Is Put To Death As The King of The Jews (27:32-37).

That Matthew saw the thought of the crucifixion of his Master as hard to bear comes out especially in these few short verses. There is no emphasis on the actual crucifixion. Indeed he passes quickly over the actual act of crucifying Jesus with the words ‘having crucified Him, they --', and this becomes rather a step towards why He is there. It is because He is ‘the King of the Jews'. This last is both the accusation and His glory. This is what the whole of the Gospel has been leading up to, the suffering and humiliation of the King of the Jews, which was already in a sense foreshadowed in chapter 2. Unlike the remainder of the Gospel to this point his words are here quite noticeably in the form of a sequence, rather than a chiasmus. This would have been very noticeable to his first readers. By this means he prevents the actual act of crucifixion from being central, and ensures that the focus is rather on the stages of the humiliation through which He must go, and it then results in an emphasis on why He suffers. He is suffering because He is the Expected King. The sequence proceeds as follows (note the tenses of the verbs which are expressed literally):

1) Coming out they found a man from Cyrene and compelled him to carry His cross.

2) Having arrived at the place of a Skull they gave Him wine mingled with gall which He would not drink.

3) Having crucified Him they divided His clothes among them, and cast lots.

4) Sitting themselves down, they watched Him there.

5) They set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.'

The sequence is quite vivid. Two past participles are sandwiched between two present participles (a kind of chiasmus) in order to bring out that the coming out of Jerusalem is a process, followed by the arrival and crucifying which are specific acts, followed by the sitting and watching Him which is a process. And all of this occurs because He is Jesus, The King of the Jews, the coming Suffering Messiah. We must also see that Matthew expects us to recognise that in the mention of ‘Jesus' He is being seen as the One Who will save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).

But while Matthew glides over the actual crucifixion we must not think that he is ignoring what was involved in it for the passage is filled with indications of suffering and death. The phrase ‘carry His cross' contains within it the idea of deliberately walking into suffering and death (Matthew 16:24), the stress on ‘the place of the Skull' brings home the idea of death and physical corruption (only bare bones will be left), the refusal to drink of the wine is an indication that He will bear His suffering to the full without amelioration, the dividing of His clothes is an indication of the supreme humiliation of His being displayed naked on the cross open to the gaze of all, and also draws attention to the fact that all His worldly possessions are given to others (‘shall be cut off and shall have nothing' - Daniel 9:26), while the watching of Him by the guards both indicates that they gaze on Him in His nakedness (‘they look and stare at me' - Psalms 22:17) and that they watch Him in order to prevent His being delivered from the hands of his executioners. There aim is to ensure that He dies where He is.