Introduction
To get a complete picture of the final days of Jesus, you really need to study all of the gospel accounts. Each tends to emphasize different parts of the story.
Matthew 27:1-2 leads in with the chief priests and elders deciding to put Jesus to death on Wednesday morning. They bound Jesus and led Him away to Pontius Pilate the governor who had the authority to set the death sentence that they wanted.
Repentance and Death of Judas in the Potter's Field
Only Judas knows what was going through His head during this time. It's possible that he really didn't believe that the Jewish leaders were going to have Jesus killed and suffered remorse when he discovered that. It's also possible that he simply was remorseful for his part in the whole affair. At any rate his story concludes in Matthew 27:3-10 .
He realizes that Jesus shouldn't have been condemned to death and brought the money back to the leaders. He admits his sin in betraying Jesus innocent blood. They basically say they don't care. They had what they thought was Jesus' blasphemous statement that they were hanging their hats on. At this point in time, some may have even believed Jesus was just a prophet empowered by God. That's another thing that we won't know until we get to heaven.
Certainly the sentiments about Jesus weren't uniform across all the leaders as Joseph of Arimathaea recovered Jesus body to be buried and in Acts Gamaliel was warning the elders to perhaps take no further steps against the teaching of the disciples in case God really was behind it.
Judas, however, threw the money back at them, and left and hung himself. The Bible doesn't say he did this immediately. To resolve the accounts, my assumption is that the chief priests bought the field of blood since they couldn't return the money to the treasury known as the potter's field to bury strangers in [Zechariah 11:13]. Dake notes that although the KJV references Jeremy, some manuscripts reference Zechariah.
Sometime after this happened, Judas went and hung himself in that field. Since it was a new burial plot it probably wasn't visited much and he likely decomposed for some time, his body fell to the ground, and his decomposing body suffered rupture either from the drop itself or whatever he dropped onto. We won't know for sure what happened till we get to heaven, but it is possible to harmonize the accounts of the Bible in Matthew, Luke, and Acts. J. Warner Wallace in his Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels supports this.
Jesus Before Pontius Pilate
Matthew 27:11-14 gives a brief account of Jesus before Pontius Pilate and omits the side trip to Herod after Pilate tries to wash his hands of the whole deal altogether, recorded in Luke.
While there, Jesus follows the same standards He used when under trial by the Jewish elders. When Pilate asks if He was the King of the Jews, Jesus replies that Pilate just said He was. He didn't answer the accusers at all. Pilate was amazed that Jesus would not say anything while the Jewish leaders railed on.
Release of Barabbas
At the Passover celebration, it was evidently customary for the Roman leader to release a prisoner of the people's choice. Matthew 27:15-26 records how this played out with Jesus. The Roman government was planning to release Barabbas before Jesus showed up, but Pilate wanted to release Jesus.
His wife had sent him a message because of dreams she was having about Jesus, whom she called a just man. Pilate was leaning that way anyway because he was probably a good enough judge of politicians on his own to know they were jealous of all the accolades Jesus was getting, and probably had enough information about spies to realize the accolades were well earned from the healing and miracles he probably got reports of.
When Pilate offered the people the choice of which prisoner to release, they cried for Barabbas to be released because the chief priests had convinced, persuaded, threatened, coerced, or otherwise influenced the people to not select Jesus for release.
Just how they did that will be another interesting thing to find out when we get to heaven. If they could pay for false witnesses, I'm sure they could pay for enough agitators to make people hesitant to select Jesus - "That's a nice cart you haul your produce in... it'd be a shame if something happened to it."
The people then replied they wanted Jesus crucified when Pilate asked what to do with Him. When Pilate wanted to know what evil thing Jesus had done, the crowd didn't have an answer but just yelled louder for Him to be crucified.
Pilate acquiesced, and tried to wash the guilt off of his hands, saying he was innocent of Jesus blood, and gave his permission. The people cried out that Jesus' blood would be on their hands, and those of their children. The start of perhaps one of the greatest generational curses there ever was, taken on voluntarily. Pilate released Barabbas.
Torture of Jesus
Matthew 27:26-32 describes the rest of the time before the crucifixion. First Pilate had Jesus scourged in public. Indeed, by His stripes we are healed [Isaiah 53:5].
After that, he was taken to the common hall and the whole band of Roman soldiers. Dake notes that this was probably a cohort or around 600 men. They stripped Christ, robed Him in a scarlet robe, put together a crown of plants with long sharp thorns and pushed it down on His head. They gave Him a reed to hold in His right hand and bowed their knees mocking Him, saying Hail, King of the Jews.
They spit on Jesus and hit Him with the reed He had been holding. After pulling the red robe off Him and putting His own clothes back on, they led Him away to be crucified. While they were beating and mocking Him, the blood probably soaked into the robe on His back so when it was pulled away, anything that had slowed bleeding would have started again, along with all the fresh strikes from the reed.
Since He wasn't in any shape to carry His cross, Simon from Cyrene was ordered to carry it for Him.
Crucifixion
Matthew 27:33-37 describes the crucifixion, with the rest of the chapter following up to His burial. The crucifixion happened at Golgotha. They tried to give Him a mixture of vinegar and gall to drink to numb the pain, but Jesus refused. The soldiers drove in the nails, stood up the cross, parted His garments which fulfilled a prophecy in Psalms 22:18. Then they sat down and waited, watching Jesus and the other prisoners die. Their work was done. At this point, the Roman soldiers were probably thinking, there's another few troublemakers in the area disposed of. Because, of course, Roman justice never made a mistake.
They put a sign over his head declaring this man to be Jesus the King of the Jews.
I've heard modern depictions of what it was like for Jesus or anyone who was crucified. The Bible really doesn't do justice to what Jesus went through on the cross, but I won't go into more ghastly details here. You can find several sources online for more information. Just be clear that nobody would want to die that way.
Two Thieves
Jesus was crucified between two men condemned for stealing [Matthew 27:38-44. Everyone who passed by reviled them all, probably thinking, like the soldiers, good riddance to bad men. Because that's what people naturally think. Justice is never wrong.
They took particular delight in giving Jesus grief at his claim that He would destroy the temple and build it up in three days. Anyone that powerful should be able to save Himself. If He really was the Son of God He should be able to come right down off the cross.
The elders and chief priests and scribes all came by mocking Him saying He saved others but can't save Himself. If He really is the king, just come down off the cross and we'll believe.
The two thieves, described more in other accounts, also reviled Him for a time.
I'm sure that similar thoughts go through the minds of people who are martyring and terrifying Christians and their families today. Jesus still had 72,000 angels at His disposal - literally at His beck and call. We might not have 72,000, but one would be more than enough for any situation we found ourselves in. I'm sure that the angels who watch over individuals today are no different than those who watched over Jesus, looking to God and asking, "Can we go now,. Please let us go." And I don't say that to make light of the situation at all.
The angels knew the plan of God. They probably heard Jesus prayer in Gethsemane. All they needed was the go ahead and it would have been lights out for humanity. Those attacking Christians should realize that they didn't get the go ahead only because Jesus was willingly carrying out God's plan. Nobody knows when some attack on a Christian will be the time God says - all right angel X - go take care of that situation. Food for thought and something it be worth praying for as our missionaries go to dangerous parts of the world including some spots in the United States.
Death
Matthew 27:45-51 records some of the things which happened leading up to and which followed Christ's death. From noon to three p.m. it was dark. This continued until six p.m., when normal evening would start to take over. Then Jesus cried out with a loud voice asking why God had forsaken Him? The simple answer was that as Jesus was being the sacrifice for sin. Other words are recorded in other gospels.
He cried again with a loud voice, and died. Immediately, the veil in the temple separating the Holy of Holies from the inner temple area was split from top to bottom. The veils were 60 feet high and thick, and represented the separation between Holy God and Israel. It isn't recorded who first saw what had happened there, but I suspect that a whole lot of leaders, priests, and elders got pretty sick pretty fast. Especially those who were walking around mocking Him.
The earthquake probably caused many of the graves of the saints to be opened that had been sealed away for a long time. An aside here notes that after Jesus resurrection, many saints who were long dead appeared to many in the city before they went to heaven to be with Jesus and God from that point on. They had been in the paradise compartment of sheol before that point.
The darkness, combined with the earthquake at the time of Christ's death but fear into the battle hardened centurion and his men, because they were watching Christ at the time, saw Him die, and immediately the earth quaked. I suspect any hardened soldier would freak out if that happened to them, especially if they had heard about all of the healings and miracles that Jesus had been doing around the temple area.
Burial
When evening came, Joseph of Arimathaea came to ask for the body of Jesus to bury Him before the high holy sabbath of Passover. This was done quickly, with Joseph using his own new tomb [Matthew 27:55-61]. He wrapped it simply in clean linen cloth and then rolled a large stone against the entrance to the sepulchre and left.
The Watch
In Matthew 27:62-66, we see that the next day the chief priests and Pharisees came to Pilate and asked for a someone to guard the tomb so that the disciples couldn't steal the body. They remembered Jesus claiming that after three days He would raise up again and they wanted to make sure the disciples couldn't come and steal away the body in order to claim that had happened.
Pilate ordered his soldiers to form a watch which could have been from 12 to 72 men to cover the all day and night shifts. He ordered them to make it as sure as they could, so they sealed the stone entryway and set the watch. You can be sure that the guards would have checked to make sure the body was still there before taking over, as they would be held responsible if anything happened to the body.