Insult, Injury, and Irony

Transcript

Good morning family. Thanks guys. If you would turn with me and your Bibles to Mark chapter 15, we will begin at verse 15. This is a heavy passage this morning, but it’s a good passage for us to hear. We’ll start at verse 15.

So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas. And having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is, the governor’s headquarters. And they called together the whole battalion, and they clothed him in a purple cloak. And twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews. And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him, and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of his purple cloak and put his own clothes on him, and they led him out to crucify him

— Mark 15

(ESV)

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And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. And they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull. And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, and he did not take it. And they crucified him, and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him, and the inscription of the charge against him read, The King of the Jews. And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, Ha, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. And so also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, He saved others, he cannot save himself.

Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe. Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the truth that is contained in your word. And though this morning we deal with a very dark and horrific passage, we recognize on this side of the cross all of the beauty that comes from it. Father, we do pray this morning that you would give us all the help of your Holy Spirit. Would you empower the preaching? Would you empower the listening? And most of all, would your Spirit convict us, shift our hearts, and move us to worship this King who laid down his life as a ransom for many?

The Evil of Humanity

We seek to exalt you this morning as we unpack the very words of life, even as they testify of your death. We pray these things in Christ’s name. Amen. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the last two sermons I preached, both of those sermons in one way or another have accentuated humanity. First, we looked at the humanity of Jesus. That though Jesus is fully God, he is also fully human. And that means that he, Jesus, in his humanity can completely understand the human experience. That Jesus in his humanity is acquainted with our grief, with our sorrow, with betrayal, with our loss. And therefore, he can, in every way, empathize with our weakness and understand our humanness. And then just two weeks ago, we looked at the humanity of Peter. And how that revealed to us that though we, like Peter, sometimes fall and fail, in Jesus we can be not just forgiven of our failures and our falls, but fully restored.

The story of Peter’s humanity testifies that God is in the business of restoring fallen humanity. Well, this morning we will again be exploring the concept of humanity, but this time we’ll look at humanity in general. As it reveals to us just how evil humanity can be. As we see how much Jesus endured the cross and this evil of humanity to rescue us. And this is important for us to see. Because, brothers and sisters, we live in a time and place in our culture where most people think that humanity is mostly good. Sure, we have some flaws, but we’re mostly morally intact. And we know as Christians that’s not true. In fact, this very passage this morning showcases to us what the most vile and evil aspect of human nature is. It’s put on display as humanity mocks and crucifies the God who is the author and creator of humanity itself.

And this evil is most accentuated through Jesus’ experience in his crucifixion. And as we explore this text this morning, I want you to keep in mind that Mark, in these few passages, is dealing with the cross and the events that lead up to the crucifixion from a very human perspective. This is why Mark, in these passages, gives us a human timeline, making reference to particular places and specific people. This is important because everything we see this morning in God’s Word is historical fact. Everything here actually happened. It’s not poetry. It’s not allegory. It’s not a metaphor, as some people might suggest. These are real events. Jesus suffered a very real, humiliating, and horrific crucifixion. Many people, even among professing Christians, will tell you that all of this was merely a metaphor. But that’s not true. What Mark is doing here is he’s giving us a historically accurate perspective of the most evil act ever committed in human history.

Yet at the same time, the most glorious act of love towards evil humanity. Now listen, I know that this text is hard for those of us who love Jesus to hear. But it’s an important passage to preach. And I do want to say on the front end that I have no intention of getting into the unnecessary, gory details of the crucifixion. Because Mark doesn’t overemphasize the gory details, and neither will I. But that being said, we need to understand the text rightly, and we need to sit in the tension of the text. To have a better understanding of what our dear Savior endured on the cross. Why He endured the cross. Because the cross has huge implications for us who follow Jesus. So though this text is very dark, there is also a divine drama unfolding here with prophetic precision. Not just in the manner of His death, but with every meticulous detail leading up to His death.

Eight Scenes of Crucifixion

And each meticulous detail leading up to His death has massive implications for us. And this morning, as we move through this text, I’ll be focusing on eight details, or really eight scenes of this historical event. And I’ll try to tie in the implications for those details together at the close of the sermon. So there’s a lot to unpack. Let’s jump right in at verse 15 with the convicted. Verse 15. So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas. And having scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified. Well, if you remember, last week when Andrew preached, he so masterfully put on display the passivity of Pilate. And I love how Andrew framed Pilate as this sort of agnostic, yet spiritually superstitious person. Because I think it really helps us to understand why Pilate exercised such indifference towards this massive injustice of Jesus. Pilate, as far as we could tell, did not think Jesus was guilty of anything.

So in keeping with the Roman customs, during Passover, Pilate attempted to offer emancipation to Jesus. But instead, they chose Barabbas. And Pilate, even though he sees Jesus to be completely innocent of the charges brought against him, Pilate distances himself from the scrutiny of the crowd. And look what he does. He pushes the injustice into the court of the crowd. So that the crowd is forced to choose. And it is the crowd that chooses to release Barabbas. Who, by the way, Barabbas was a real murderer and a real insurrectionist. So Pilate, though he is passive about this injustice, it’s important to understand that he is complicit in the injustice. And so he delivers Jesus over to the soldiers to first be scourged, or another word for that is flogged, before he was to be crucified. And listen, John 19.1 says, then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him.

So John is accentuating how much Pilate is complicit in this crucifixion. Now, flogging is essentially to beat or whip a person with this Roman instrument of torture. And this instrument of torture was mostly used as an authorized means of criminal punishment. So for those who were convicted of a crime under the Roman government, they would be flogged or scourged. The act of flogging was primarily intended to completely punish and humiliate the convicted criminal. But it was also used as a means to break down the criminal physically so that his crucifixion wouldn’t go unnecessarily long. Now, in some cases, the flogging by Roman soldiers would be so horrific and so painful that the criminal wouldn’t even make it to the crucifixion. It would die before the cross. Pilate has him flogged before he’s crucified. And it’s here in this passage where we see both the Jewish authorities and the Roman authorities coming together in this syncopated dance of injustice.

The Comedy of Mockery

You have the Jewish leaders that led to the false arrest and false conviction of Jesus. And then you have the Roman authorities that led to the mockery and punishment of Jesus. But listen, both are equally responsible for the death of Jesus. They’re both responsible. And this dance of injustice plays itself out just before the crucifixion in the form of a comedy. And we see that in verses 16 through 20. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is, the governor’s headquarters. And they called together a whole battalion. And they clothed him in a purple cloak. And twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews. And they were striking his head with a reed, spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. Now, before we unpack this portion of scripture, let me quickly remind you of what happened just one week earlier in Mark’s historical timeline.

Just one week earlier was Palm Sunday. It’s what’s known as the triumphal entry. And as Jesus makes his way into Jerusalem, in this triumphal entry, just before the Passover, you see this drama unfold. The people were adorning Jesus as the messianic king who enters into Jerusalem. The crowd uses makeshift elements of royalty to honor Jesus as king. Remember, Jesus rides in on a donkey, which would be a bit of a B-class warhorse. They roll out a red carpet made of cloaks and palm branches. And then there’s this procession of praise as the crowd cries out, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. They even say, blessed is the coming kingdom of our father, David. Which means, blessed is our messianic king. They hail Jesus as king. So on that Palm Sunday, just one week earlier, that’s what was happening. What you have here, in these verses, is a different kind of unfolding drama.

It’s more of a dramedy. It’s almost a complete satirical reenactment of Palm Sunday. Where Jesus, instead of being praised by the crowd as a messianic king, he’s being mocked by soldiers with their makeshift elements of royalty. So the scene has drastically shifted from a scene of honor to a scene of horror. And this horror is accentuated in the form of comedy, which actually makes it the worst kind of horror. They’re making fun of him. The first thing we see is that they call a whole battalion together, which I think is a bit of hyperbole on Mark’s part. This battalion would have been about 600 soldiers, so I don’t think that’s the case. There would be no need for that many soldiers to escort Jesus. I think what Mark is getting at here is that there was a whole lot of soldiers that came together. But they didn’t come together because Jesus was a threat.

They came together to have fun with Jesus. And the kind of fun that they have in mind is torture and humiliation. And just like the crowd on Palm Sunday, when the people used accessible, makeshift elements of royalty, something similar happens here. But their intentions are not to use those elements to hail Jesus as king, but to humiliate Jesus as a pretend king. So they place a purple cloak around him. Because in this culture, the color purple was most reserved for royalty. Now this cloak was likely a soldier’s scarlet cloak that had been worn down and faded from the many years of the sun beating down on it, which made the scarlet cloak a bit more burgundy or a kind of purplish color. And since it’s all a game for the soldiers, they think it’s close enough to the color purple, so we’ll just use that.

This is why, brothers and sisters, in Matthew’s account, in chapter 27, verse 28, it says, And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. Just so you know there’s no discontinuity there. And the soldiers, they grab these twigs from the ground that had thorns on them, and then they weave together this kind of mock crown, or more of a Roman head wreath. And then they push this crown of thorns deeply into the brow of Jesus to painfully humiliate him. In Matthew’s gospel, it tells us that they put a reed or a stick in his hand as a kind of pretend scepter that kings would hold. And Mark continues to tell us that with that same stick, that reed that they put in his hand as a scepter, they used that reed to beat Jesus. So it’s almost like Jesus is holding this scepter, and the soldiers are holding Jesus’ hand to make Jesus hit himself with this stick.

And they begin to salute him. But while they salute him, they spit on him. It’s deep mockery. And they do this all while they kneel down before him and facetiously say, Hail, King of the Jews. And you see what’s happening here, in this demeaning drama of satire, is that they sort of role play with Jesus as this kind of clown version of Caesar. Where Jesus is being reviled as a cheap imitation of Caesar. That’s why he holds the scepter and that Roman wreath around his head. It’s to emulate Caesar. So they’re mocking Jesus as a fake king. Through their horrific and humiliating acts of dishonor, here’s what’s interesting. They only prove that Jesus is the real messianic king. Because long before the birth of Jesus, Scripture testified that this would happen to the messianic king. Now Mark spends very little time unpacking this comedy, but if you turn with me to John’s Gospel.

While holding your thumb in Mark, turn with me over to John’s Gospel, chapter 19. John chapter 19, and we’ll pick up the story after these soldiers have had their fun with Jesus. And we’ll begin at verse 4. Pilate went out again and said to them, See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him. So Jesus came out, wearing a crown of thorns and a purple robe. Pilate said to them, Behold the man. When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, Crucify him! Crucify him! Pilate said to them, Take him yourself and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he made himself the son of God. When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid.

He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, Where are you from? But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, Will you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have the authority to release you and the authority to crucify you? Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. From then on, Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, If you release this man, you are not a friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat him down on the judgment seat at a place called the stone pavement and in Aramaic, Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour.

He said to the Jews, Behold your king! And they cried out, Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him! Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. Now that’s a big portion of scripture and there is a lot going on here. But what I want you to see here is that the real comedy is with this kangaroo court. You see Pontius Pilate and the so-called religious leaders are parading themselves around as if they have all the power and all the authority. But neither one of them possesses power and authority over Jesus. Though they attempt to throw their power and authority around in this kind of political and religious chess game, they can do nothing outside of God’s control. You see Pilate, after he has Jesus flogged, he brought Jesus back out to show the chief priests, look at him.

You see Pilate assumed that if Jesus was roughed up enough by the Roman soldiers, that would satisfy them. But it doesn’t satisfy the crowd. So Pilate eventually, under the pressure of the angry crowd, he acquiesces to the religious leaders because Pilate has no power over the angry and aggressive mob. And the religious leaders, though they desire to have power and authority, well they need Pilate to formally execute Jesus because they have no power and authority on their own. They can’t do it. And look at how these religious leaders are willing to bend to get Pilate to do something for them. Pilate said, shall I crucify your king? And these Jewish leaders who hate Rome and the pagan Caesar, they say, we have no king but Caesar. See though they all maneuver their power and authority and they play this power game, neither one has ultimate authority on their own.

Carrying the Cross

They are the clowns in the comedy. Thinking themselves to be powerful and in control of the world, they fail to see that they’re just pawns in the mighty hand of the sovereign God. Bringing about God’s greater purposes for his people in the world that he created. God is using their evil human acts to bring about divine redemption for humanity. So the real comedy is these impotent fools playing the role of power brokers when they’re just pawns. And then in Mark chapter 15 verses 20, if you go back to Mark, the comedy or this parody comes to a close. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him and they led him out to crucify him. Which brings us to the next scene in verses 20 through 22, which is the carry. And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.

And they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull. So after Pilate’s failed attempt to release Jesus from this gross miscarriage of justice, Pilate then officially washes his hands of Jesus and sends him over to be crucified. Now, historically, the way this worked in Rome for convicted criminals was that as a continued act of humiliation, the criminal was to carry the cross beam of his cross to the place where he was to be crucified. Now, to make a man carry his own instrument of execution to the place of his execution was extremely demeaning. But it was, for Rome, one of the greatest means of detouring criminals of crimes that were worthy of crucifixion. So after they whip and beat Jesus in their comedic parody, they now force Jesus to carry his wooden cross beam to the place of his execution.

And because Jesus is so weakened by the flogging of these Roman soldiers, in his humanness, he struggled to carry his cross beam. And so as Jesus walks this path of shame, he and his cross beam keep collapsing. And so the soldiers, needing to expedite this execution, they enlist a man, or really they force a man to carry the cross beam for Jesus. Now, this man, Mark tells us, is Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. Now, Mark has never been one to use specific details without a specific reason. And I think Mark gives us these specific details concerning Simon and his sons as a means for us to do a bit of fact-checking, or to cue the Roman audience to investigate or to follow the history of this specific Simon and his sons. Now, we don’t know for sure, but a lot of historians and commentators point to the fact that this specific Simon,

who was a Jewish man from North Africa, eventually became a follower of Jesus. And I actually think they make a pretty compelling case, though again, we don’t know for sure. But what I think is happening here is Mark mentions Alexander and Rufus, suggesting that they would be known within the Roman church. This is why Mark does this, and here’s what’s crazy. Mark’s immediate audience for his gospel is the Roman church. And what makes this a bit more tangible is in the book of Romans, a book written to the church in Rome, in chapter 16, verse 13, Paul in his personal greeting says, Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. So the logic goes, Simon, the one who carried the cross of Jesus, who saw the agony in the eyes of Jesus as Jesus carried our sin to the cross,

eventually became a follower of Jesus, along with his wife and his two sons, and they eventually became faithful and prominent members in the church of Rome. And if this is the case, if this is the case, then Simon, a Jewish man from North Africa, was the very first Christian to literally pick up his cross and follow Jesus. And of course, this is exactly what Jesus calls all true Christians to do. Matthew 16, verse 24 and 25. Then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Remember, Jesus told his disciples that they must carry their cross before Jesus himself carried his cross, which only proves that Jesus is the all-knowing Son of God,

who beckons us to follow in his footsteps of carrying our cross and losing our lives to find our ultimate lives in him. Which brings us to the next verse in 23 with the cocktail. And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. So because Jesus was broken and in so much pain, they tried to give him this wine mixed with myrrh. Now this wine was equal parts disgusting and drug. It was a bit of a narcotic aimed to numb the excruciating pain of Jesus. Now some historians tell us that this drink was made by humble Jewish women who would offer this kind of crucifixion cocktail as an act of mercy to criminals facing death. But whether that is historically accurate or not is not the point. The point is that Jesus refused to drink the cup of wine. And the reason for that is because Jesus had every intention to face the cup of God’s wrath with full sobriety.

With a clear head. With a clear mind. He approaches the cross in a total and complete awareness of what he’s doing. So he refuses the cocktail. He refuses the narcotic to endure the pain of the cross because he’s so fixed on the cup of God’s wrath. And then we come to verse 24 which is the clothing. And they crucified him and divided his garments among them casting lots for them to decide what each should take. Now here we again we don’t get the gory details concerning the horrors of the crucifixion. We don’t get an extreme emphasis on the bloody details concerning exactly what happened to Jesus as he’s crucified. And I think that’s by divine design. Though Jesus did suffer an excruciatingly painful crucifixion. I think the gospel writer Mark chose to put his focus on the humiliation of Jesus and not on the human suffering of Jesus.

This is why Mark simply tells us they crucified him. That’s it. And I think Mark simply states it that way because in one sense the crucifixion of Jesus was just like all the other 30,000 crucifixions of other criminals. The horror of a Roman execution was not unique to Jesus. So there’s a bit of brevity in Mark’s description. But listen, what was unique to Jesus was the humiliation. That the God who created everything, the universe and humanity would condescend and suffer humiliation from the very people that he created. So Mark emphasizes the humiliation which is why he leans into it. Here Jesus, the king of creation, hangs on a cross with nails locking his hands and feet to the wood. And not only do the Roman soldiers strip him naked to humiliate him, they take his clothes and they cast lots for them. Essentially they shoot dice to see who gets what.

These sadistic soldiers, they gamble to win the clothing as some sort of trophy for their victim. They’re so heartless and so merciless that they shoot dice right in front of our naked and dying savior. This is so demeaning and so inhumane. And as if the humiliation of being stripped naked before the people was not enough, they add perhaps the greatest insult to injury in verses 25 and 26 with the citation. And it was the third hour when they crucified him and the inscription of the charge against him read, the king of the Jews. And listen, it wasn’t the inscription that was humiliating. The inscription was right. It was that the inscription was a citation. You see there’s a difference between a title and a citation. A title declares a position, a citation declares a charge. So though it is true that Jesus is the king of the Jews, this inscription is aimed to be a public mockery of that which is ultimately and most profoundly true of Jesus’ position.

And here’s the backstory behind the citation. In John chapter 19 verses 19 through 22, Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. Many of the Jews read this inscription for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, do not write the king of the Jews, but rather this man said he was the king of the Jews. Pilate answered them, I have written what I have written. So Pilate, as one last dig in his beef with these Jewish leaders, as one last act of revenge for forcing Pilate to crucify Jesus, wrote this inscription that would hang over Jesus’ cross in all three languages. All three languages that would be common in Rome so that everyone could read it.

So Pilate, in one sense, is putting this citation up to mock the Jewish leaders by making it an inscription and a title. But the Jewish leaders, they didn’t like what Pilate wrote because that would leave it ambiguous. Pilate wanted a title, the Jewish leaders wanted a citation. For them it was all semantics, but for Jesus it was all humiliation. And that brings us to verse 28 and the last half of verse 32 with the criminals. And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And then at the end of verse 32, those who were crucified with him also reviled him. I put these two verses together because they actually fit together. As Jesus hangs on his tree are two other convicted criminals. Now the text says that they’re robbers, but they were both probably insurrectionists. Probably in connection with Barabbas who was released, who was also an insurrectionist.

And the reason they’re referred to as robbers is because Romans often considered these Jewish political rebels robbers. As a way of downgrading their title from a so-called freedom fighter to a thief. Because ultimately these insurrectionists would be trying to steal power from Rome. That’s why they call them thieves. And though these two men were likely in opposition to Rome and the Roman soldiers. They were fighting against Rome as insurrectionists, which is why they likely got crucified to begin with. Here they joined the chorus with the Roman soldiers. In their mockery, as they both hang there, breathing their last breath, they both insult Jesus. In fact, in Luke’s gospel, chapter 23, verse 39, one of the criminals who were hanged railed at him saying, Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. You see, with one of these criminals, you get this picture of someone who wants to be saved by Jesus, but doesn’t want anything to do with Jesus.

And this isn’t uncommon to the people in our culture. They want Jesus to save them from eternal punishment, but they really don’t want anything to do with Jesus. But then you have this other criminal. Who starts out insulting Jesus. But then he begins to have a change of heart. And I mean that in the most literal possible sense. If you continue on in Luke’s gospel, chapter 23, verses 40 through 43, you have one of the most glorious passages in scripture. One of my most favorite passages, and perhaps one of the most relevant passages to all of us who follow Jesus. It says, but the other, meaning the other criminal, the one who didn’t initially mock Jesus, you have this other criminal rebuking that criminal saying, Do you not fear God? Since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we, indeed justly, for receiving the due reward for our deeds, you see what’s happening here?

There is an admission of guilt. We deserve what we get. But this man, he says, he’s done nothing wrong. So he admits his own guilt, and then he looks to Jesus, and he points to the fact that this man is pure. He is innocent of his charges. He’s being treated unjustly.

And then he says to Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And this most glorious statement from Jesus. Truly, I say to you, today, today you will be with me in paradise. You know, most people consider this to be the kind of deathbed conversion. But if you think about it, this encounter here is a picture of all of our conversions. We were dead in our sins. We hated God. All of us, in some degree, started off mocking God. We wanted nothing to do with God. We were quickly dying because of our sins. But God changed our hearts. So that we could admit our guilt. And plead to the innocent Jesus to save us from our sins. And what did Jesus do? He saved us. The criminal, in only a few minutes earlier, was cursing Jesus. And then in a moment later, he was converted by Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, this was me. I cursed Jesus. I hated Jesus. I wanted nothing to do with Jesus. But then he changed my heart and he saved me. And brothers and sisters, if you are a Christian, no matter how you choose to dice this theologically, this was your story too. God changed your heart. So that you can plead mercy to Jesus. And listen, if you’re here this morning and you are not a Christian, this could be your story as well. God can change your heart. Repent of your sin. Turn to him. Plead to him. And he will remember you. He will save you. Admit your sin. Repent of your sin. Trust in the sinless Savior to satisfy the wrath of God. And he will save you. Even, listen, even if you denounced him. Even if you mocked him on your way here this morning as you were being dragged here by a friend or a co-worker or a family member.

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The Contempt of Leaders

You can have him today. And then finally we come to verses 29 through 32, which is the contempt. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Save yourself and come down from the cross. So also the chief priests and the scribes mocked him to one another saying, He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down from the cross that we may see and believe.

Here the chief priests, they hold Jesus in contempt. While they misquote and misinterpret Jesus. First of all, Jesus never said that he would destroy the temple. He never said that. The very first time Jesus taught in the temple during the Passover, he drove out the money changers. And yet he flipped up tables for sure. But he didn’t destroy the temple. He didn’t say he was going to destroy the temple, but the Jews, they engaged him. Probably warning him, hey, don’t destroy the temple. And then in John chapter two, verse 19 through 21, Jesus answered them, destroy this temple. And in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said, it’s taken 46 years to build this temple and you will raise it up in three days. But he was speaking about the temple of his body. So they completely missed and misinterpreted what Jesus was saying about destroying the temple.

And you see the irony here. Do you see it? They mock Jesus about destroying the temple and rebuilding it in three days. While they’re literally destroying the temple of Jesus’s body that will raise in three days. But they’re so bloodthirsty that they fail to see what they’re saying. They don’t get it. And then they mock him even more by saying, save yourself and come down from the cross. You saved others, but you can’t even save yourself. What kind of God are you? Is that’s what they’re saying? That’s what they’re saying. And you see, the assumption of the chief priests was that Jesus, if he was able. If he was truly God, then he would be preoccupied with saving himself. Because that’s what humans do. Humans are preoccupied with self-preservation. But you see Jesus. His life mission wasn’t to save himself. But it was to give himself as a ransom for many to save evil humanity.

Now, the question we might be asking is this in the humanity of Jesus. Was it even possible for him to come down from the cross and save himself? Well, the answer is yes and no. Yes, it was physically possible for Jesus. He could have saved himself. He could have called down a legion of angels and wrecked shop. It was well within his power to do something miraculously and come off the cross. But morally and spiritually speaking, it was impossible for him to come down from the cross. You see, if he did come down from the cross, he would fail to be the Messiah. The saving Jesus. If he came down from the cross, he would fail to perfectly fulfill the demands of the Father. If he came down from the cross, then God would fail to fulfill the great promise keeping that he set out to do.

If he came down from the cross, then we would all be doomed. Because the only possible way to save sinners was perfect obedience. And perfect obedience for Jesus was marked by the path of suffering and death on the cross. Jesus, to be our sinless Savior, had to stay on the cross. He had to. But listen, it wasn’t just his obedience to the Father that kept him on the cross. It was also God’s great love for us that kept him on the cross to die for our sins. Isaiah 53, we read it this morning, says, Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him, the Father’s will to crush the Son. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hands.

Obedience to the Father kept him on the cross, but the Father’s love also kept him on the cross. And listen, we sang this in our song this morning. Don’t miss this. It was our sin that held him there until it was accomplished. His dying breath has brought me life. I know that it is finished. Our sin kept our loving Savior on the cross until it was accomplished. This was the greatest expression of God’s love for us. And with one final mock, they say to Jesus, Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down from the cross that we may see and believe. They wanted to see if Jesus could come down from the cross. And if Jesus could come down from the cross, well, then they would believe. But would they believe? I mean, they’ve seen Jesus do all kinds of miracles. Jesus has demonstrated over and over again the power of God.

He’s healed the sick. He’s cast out demons. He’s made blind people see. He’s made the lame walk. He’s even raised people from the dead. And yet, they still did not believe. And the truth is, they would never believe. No matter how many miracles they would have seen. They wouldn’t believe. And I do find it interesting the words they choose to use to mock Jesus. They say, so that we may see and believe. You see, these words are quite literally the reversal of true faith. Real faith isn’t seeing Jesus and then believing. It’s believing and then seeing Jesus. This is why even when they’ve seen Jesus do the things that only God can do, they still don’t believe. Because they don’t have the eyes of faith to believe. That is a gift from God. They need God to give them the eyes to see and believe.

Which requires faith. And you see, this is why they crucify Jesus. Because though he claimed to be the son of God, they did not believe him. Though they’ve seen him do the things only God can do, they did not believe him. So they killed him. They killed the son of God. Because they could not see that he was the son of God. And here is what’s so incredibly ironic. The very actions, the very treatment of Jesus only proves that he is the son of God. They crucify Jesus and in so doing, with meticulous providence, they fulfill all the Old Testament prophecies concerning how the son of God would be treated. I mean, just listen to a few verses in Psalm 22. We’ll probably unpack this a lot more. Andrew will next week, but just listen to this. Verse 6 and 7 in Psalm 22. Scorned by mankind and despised by the people.

All who see me mock me. They make mouths at me. They wag their heads. Did we not just read that? That the people wag their heads at him? And then look at verse 16 and 18. For dogs encompass me. That’s speaking about Gentiles. A company of evildoers encircle me. That’s the Pharisees, the scribes, and the Jewish leaders. They encircle me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me. Listen, they divide my garments among them. And for my clothing, they cast lots.

You know, this psalm was written by King David concerning the meticulous details leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus some 1,000 years before the birth of Jesus. And think about this. It says they pierced my hands and feet. A very specific reference to the crucifixion. The Bible refers to the crucifixion in the Psalms some 800 years before the invention of the crucifixion. 800 years before the invention of the crucifixion. Brothers and sisters, this should bolster your confidence in the historicity and sufficiency of Jesus in the reliability and the testimony of scriptures. It’s all true. There’s no debate to deny what is historically accurate and verifiably true. What has been prophetically fulfilled is to suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

What This Means

But this passage is not simply an apologetic on the historicity of Jesus or even the reliability of scripture. There’s something so much deeper in the unfolding drama of the crucifixion for Christians. In every meticulous detail, it screams something so profound to the followers of Jesus. Listen, because Jesus was convicted, because he was unjustly delivered into the hands of the passive pilot and the evil Roman soldiers and sentenced to die a criminal’s death. We who trust in Jesus, though we are guilty of all kinds of evil and deserve to die a guilty criminal’s death. We who trust in Jesus will receive mercy. We will not get what we deserve, which is perfect justice, by the way. We will receive mercy. We will be justified as innocent, guiltless sons and daughters of the all-powerful King. And because Jesus endured the ridiculous comedy and mockery of the soldiers,

because he was beaten and spit upon and endured the humiliation in the sight of all of his accusers. We who trust in Jesus will not have to suffer humiliation. The humiliation that we deserve for the countless times where we mocked the King of glory and our Savior. For the countless times where we participated in the evil acts against our Lord and Savior. Which means that though we are sinners with hearts prone to wander, we can always come to Jesus knowing with full confidence that we will not be shamed or mocked by him. So go to him. Enter into his presence with great joy and feel no guilt and no shame because he endured it all on the cross. And because Jesus carried the cross, because he endured the cross, because he hung upon that cross until it was finished. We who trust in Jesus can rejoice

in all that the cross accomplished for us. Our sin was nailed to the cross and it is finished. Which means we don’t have to do all this religious work. We don’t have to do this kind of Christian karma to work off our bad debt for all of our bad deeds. The cross has covered all of our sins. And though we are called to carry our own crosses, our cross will never cost us more than we can bear. Because Jesus paid it all. Because Jesus endured the cross soberly. Because he did not drink the cup of wine, the cocktail, but rather he drank the cup of God’s wrath. We who trust in Jesus will never face the most terrifying reality man has ever known. The wrath of God that will be poured out on all of humanity for its evil deeds. But instead, brothers and sisters,

we will receive the full cup of God’s grace. We will never have to face the Father turning his face away. Because Jesus Christ was stripped of his clothes and left naked before the world around him, with a branded citation of the King of Jews, we who trust in Jesus will never be naked before our God. Because through his life, death, and resurrection, he clothes us in righteousness. And more than that, he brands us as heirs of the King of Kings. Children of the Most High God. Because Jesus hung between two criminals and suffered a criminal’s death, we who trust in Jesus can know that though we’re guilty, though our sin deserves eternal punishment, we will not be delivered over to death. We will not stand as condemned criminals in the presence of a righteous judge. And, listen to this, we are given the promise

that if we turn and if we trust in him, we have assurance that we will be with him in paradise. Oh, brothers and sisters, what a glorious assurance of salvation that is. That when this life is done, we will be with Jesus for all of eternity. I mean, think about this, brothers and sisters. Today, our dear sister Dawn, she’s with Jesus in paradise because of what Christ has accomplished on the cross.

And because Jesus endured the contempt of the religious leaders and did not come down from the cross, but stayed there because of his great love for us as sinners, we who trust in Jesus can be saved from our sins and reconciled to God. Dear Father, dear follower of Jesus, this is what Christ has accomplished for us in this humiliating crucifixion, in his bloody cross. Though it is dark, it is the ugliest stain on humanity. We killed the beloved son of God because of our sin.

But this death has brought about the most beautiful display of God’s glory, salvation for sinners like you and I, for those whose sins have participated in the slaying of our dear Savior. Can I ask you this morning, do you trust Jesus? Do you trust Jesus? Do you know this crucified Savior who died on the cross who rose from the dead three days later? Do you know him?

You can know him today. You can call out to him like the criminal on the cross, turn from your sins, appeal to the work of the cross to forgive you of your sins and ask him to save you today. He is a merciful God. He is a merciful God. He is a loving God who endured the very worst that humanity threw at him to give humanity the very best that we could possibly think of. Eternal life with him. Forgiveness for our sin and the best of human flourishing.