Big Idea: There is a twofold emphasis: (1) the guilt of the Jews and the Romans for Jesus’s death; (2) Jesus as the king of the Jews, continuing his revelation in 14:62 that he is the Messiah and eschatological judge.
Understanding the Text
The progression of events continues as Jesus moves inexorably toward his divinely ordained destiny. On Wednesday Judas offers to hand him over to the leaders, and the movement accelerates to its denouement. On Thursday evening at the Last Supper, Jesus reveals the significance of his coming death to the disciples, and then they move to Gethsemane and on to his arrest around midnight. Throughout the night until dawn, he endures the hearing before the Sanhedrin (where they gather evidence to demand his crucifixion by the Romans), and then at dawn they d…