verse 27 then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters and they gathered the whole battalion before him and they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him and twisting together a crown of thorns they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand and kneeling before him they mocked him saying hail king of the Jews and they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him. As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, and they compelled this man to carry his cross. And when they came to a place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull, they offered him wine to drink mixed with gall. when he tasted it he would not drink it and when they had crucified him they divided his garments among them by casting lots then they sat down and kept watch over him there and over his head they put the charge against him which read this is Jesus king of the Jews then two robbers were crucified with him one on the right and one on the left and those who passed by derided him wagging their heads and saying you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days save yourself if you are the son of God come down from the cross so also the chief priest which describes and elders mocked him saying he saved others He cannot save himself. He is the king of Israel. Let him come down now from the cross and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now if he desires him. For he said, I am the son of God. The robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. This is the reading of God's word. I mentioned earlier, and I really mean this, it's fitting on a day like today, that our nation, that we stop and take a day and recognize what our nation has done for us and all that was accomplished to gain our freedom as a nation. I think sometimes we do take that for granted. Something so valuable like freedom comes with a very high price. And mothers and fathers have been given of their sons and daughters for years to serve our country, and for many, it cost them the lives of their children. And from war to war, the ways of sacrifice perhaps differed greatly, and the cost of death has varied from a violent and brutal death to even merely death by disease due to the surroundings or lack of medicines or even, sadly enough, through accidents or machinery malfunction. But the point is the sacrifice of life has been at the core of giving to us freedom. And to all that have served in some capacity in our armed services, days of observance and honor for such duty and sacrifice just doesn't seem enough. To say thank you doesn't, seems like we could do so much more. It's humbling. And it's also very sobering to think of the extent of pain and suffering that has taken place over the years. And it would stir within us this idea of this immense gratitude to these who have sacrificed so that we might enjoy these freedoms. National pride and honoring those who served is a grace that we get to experience each year and celebrate. And I'm personally very grateful beyond words to live here in the USA. especially after living and traveling abroad, I'm even more grateful to return to a country where we can enjoy freedom, to meet together, to worship together, to vote, and to live our lives for God. It is even more fitting on a day like this in our nation for our churches to remember all that has been done not to gain our earthly freedom, but our eternal freedom. And the sacrifice was far more expensive than what those who have given just of their lives. This is the creator of the ends of the earth. It's not just an external freedom that Jesus gives to us But there's been the sacrifice of life literally on our behalf to bring to the soul an internal freedom from the bondage of sin and its eternal destruction and judgment from God himself. And it took great sacrifice. So it is fitting even for us in God's own providential time that we come to a text like we have today and contemplate the extent of that sacrifice that we see our Savior go through. Everything has been pointing to this very text. One writer says this, the crucifixion of Christ is the climax of redemptive history. It is the focal point of God's purpose for salvation. Everything culminates in the cross where the Lord bears the sins of the world and therefore provides salvation to all who would believe. and in a sense the cross then is the climax of the plan of God the single greatest manifestation of God's love and grace is seen on the cross and so today we find our Savior in a quicksand of wicked dark and evil humanity so much so that this evil in humanity begins to be unmasked. It's unveiled and it begins to be exposed for all to see. And Matthew's intentions are very clear. He has a goal here for his readers to see clearly the extent of the sinful humanity. The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked to see the sinfulness of human depravity and then let the contrasting glory of the eternal King shine bright. And I want us to see this today as we watch and walk through this very dark trail that our Savior walks. Because each step He walks is a step towards the cross. And He endures each step with His eyes set on fulfilling every part of the Old Testament in order that you and I then would, our salvation, nothing would nullify it or nothing would void our salvation. One thing that he doesn't do, or extra that he does do, could perhaps mess up the whole plan of salvation, and he just won't do it. While this was indeed painful, because Jesus suffers rejection, he suffers a humiliating denial and betrayal by his own followers, and while it is indeed painful, what was about to take place would be what perhaps most consider very unbearable as a human being. Matthew doesn't go into great detail about the physical aspect of the process that leads to crucifixion. He does give us a glimpse though. Look at verse 26 with me. This is where we ended last week, but you'll notice verse 26, then he, that's Pilate, released for them Barabbas and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. Pilate releases Barabbas. And then he delivers Jesus to be crucified. But before he does that, though, Scripture is very clear. He has Jesus scourged. This is significant. It meant that the Roman guards would take over at this point. And at this point, Christ had already endured a very tense time in the hours before the arrest with the disciples. And then the agony and the shame of the arrest, the betrayal by Judas, the denial of Peter, and up all night enduring the charade of the Jewish religious trial, going back and forth from Annas the high priest to Caiaphas the high priest. And now before Pilate in the very early mornings, he's had no sleep. This wasn't the final step of punishment. that he would endure. But now it seems to go to another level. The scourging would mean he would be stripped completely. They would expose his skin from his neck down to his feet. They would use a short whip consisting of several leather straps with iron balls or bones perhaps from sheep or other dead animals tied at the intervals into the leather. and usually they would employ two guards who would stand on either side of him and ultimately they would lay their whips upon the exposed skin of the back. The whip was designed to bite into that skin and with a sudden pull it would tear the skin literally off the back of Jesus. The ultimate purpose of this scourging was to weaken the person just short of death. This is the condition that we now find Jesus. The wickedness now ramps up, though, to a much more real torment, to a much higher and even fever pitch. It wasn't enough for the physical torment, although that was a lot. There is an emotional torment that is inflicted upon Jesus that we find in this text. One writer tells us that it's interesting that as you go through each of the gospel writers, they don't spend a lot of time on the physical torment. You actually have to go into the annals of history to find out what that meant to be scourged. I actually wrote a paper on it for some of my doctrinal work on the Roman crucifixion, so I was appalled at what I read. You would too as you studied that particular thing. But here we find something even more appalling. And that is the wickedness of being mocked. The emotional torment that is inflicted upon Jesus that we find in this text. And in all of this, Jesus Christ humbly bears the mockery and reproach of men in order to bring sinners into repentance and faith. Jesus goes through each step so that we would have life, and I want us to see this. So what does evil in the hearts of men and the reproach of men look like? What does it look like? Well Matthew shows us. Let's look carefully. First of all Jesus bears the mindless mocking of the soldiers. You see this in particular verses 27 through 37. Evil has many forms. has many varieties, but when it rears its ugly head, it is a vicious and pernicious force to reckon with. And this is what we see. Jesus bears it all. He bears every bit of it one step at a time. And what we see in this text is a glimpse of all the forces of evil united in winning this battle between good and evil. But what we see unfold is the way of a particular part of the evil, and that is what I would call the mindless and callous wickedness. There's no feeling that's given here of love, no feeling of care for our Savior, and notice first of all how Matthew pictures this. This must have been just burned into his memory. Notice first of all in verse 27, the gathered crowd. You see that? Look at verse 27 with me as he talks about this. He said they gathered the whole battalion before him. Once again, Matthew gives us numbers. He's a number guy. This is very important to him. The word given here, battalion, gives us the picture of the immense crowd that gathered here. It is the word for a cohort, and it's a group of about 600 or so soldiers Matthew also tells us that these soldiers belonged to Pilate, the commander. They were under the command of Pilate. So you can imagine the condition of these men. These men get the very best. But it's odd, it may be a bit odd, that there would be a need to have that many soldiers just for this one man. But many figure they were a bit fearful of the people rioting or protesting. We've already read glimpses of this. Jesus would have been pretty weakened by this time. He had been slapped and struck and spit upon and beaten until almost dead. So no doubt they all came then to watch this show. To watch this man who claimed to be king and for all they knew some guy who had done some wonderful things and they couldn't perhaps put it all together but it would be entertainment for these hardened men. all it was something they just did and then notice secondly the mindless mocking of Christ's dignity and honor and you see this really in verse 28 as they begin to strip him and notice they put a scarlet robe on him in very quick short phrases Matthew reels off several levels of mocking that indicate these men didn't even have to think about the evil of what they were doing to this Christ. It was callous, it was mindless, and free-flowing mocking of Christ's dignity and honor. I mean, these are Roman soldiers hardened by war, hardened by death, and it was their job to not think. but merely to execute the enemy. And the methods were barbaric and brutal. So as you read through this text, you can see the hardened nature of these men and know there wasn't a care about accountability. No one was looking over their shoulder at how they would treat any man. There wasn't any care about civil rights of an individual. There wasn't any love that was lost on the poor souls that were on the receiving end of such wickedness. And so Matthew reels off these phrases. The first phrase, they strip Jesus. Verse 28. Now remember, this was after being scourged. After being scourged, they stripped him and they put his clothes back on him. So you can imagine, here he is bleeding, the skin just pulled off. So now they will rip the clothes off again. And very interestingly, they put a scarlet robe on him. It is our worst fear, first of all, to be completely exposed like this. Historians say that this exposure would be a complete nakedness in front of everyone. History tells us that this scarlet robe, though, was significant because history would say that the Roman kings wore purple robes. But the kings of the former rulers in Israel, in particular, wore scarlet robes. And so when Rome came and overtook those kings, the Roman soldiers adopted this scarlet robe as their robe in mockery of the kings who are now subdued by the Romans. And so now they place this robe on Christ as yet another way to poke fun. at the Jews. You're nothing like the Romans. You have no power over the Romans. You see the Romans hated the Jews. They hated everything they stood for so to mock them was sheer entertainment. So they stripped him, stripped Jesus. Then notice secondly they mindlessly mocked Jesus as king. you see this beginning in verse 29 do you see this and they twisted together a crown of thorns and they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand and kneeling before him they mocked him saying hail king of the Jews they played a game that we have played before as little children we played let's pretend let's pretend let's pretend that you have a crown Jesus only this was a painful crown with thorns that were said to have a certain sap in the thorn that would also bring a stinging sense when it pierced the skin. They gave a scepter of false power, just a common reed. This was like child's play for them. It was meant to belittle. They would kneel before Jesus in a mocking and playful way saying, Hail King. The word hail was a formal greeting that they would use very much like we would say hail to the chief the word hail is rooted in a word that literally means rejoice and so when we would say hail to the chief we would say let's rejoice that the chief is here with us that the king is here with us but these these soldiers have no joy in Jesus except to keep his sovereign and wrath bearing blood flowing freely verse 30 they continue to spit on him We've mentioned this already because they've done it before, but spitting is the lowest form of abuse when you take your saliva, the part that God had given to you in order to aid in digestion, and you hurl that in his face. They showed contempt for him and they take the reed out of his hand, the symbol of power, out of his hand and then they beat him on the head with it. And all while Christ is silent, in his bruised, bloody face, matted with dust and spit from the soldiers, is pointed firmly to the cross. And once again they took his false robe off of him, while most likely taking even more flesh from off his back, and they put his own clothes back on him. And this was all meant to make a joke of Jesus. It was all in a day's work for these men, where they would mock him as king. But thirdly, they mindlessly mocked Jesus' dignity. And this is something that you can't quite put words to. Because Jesus was a man. He was the God-man, the perfect one. But these soldiers were relentless. Matthew writes that when they went out of the city that that Jesus would be carrying his own cross at this point but he would be so weakened beyond any strength that these men would then compel someone and they take this man Simon to carry the cross and it means and what what Simon did is he he's immediately said no way I don't want any part of this I don't want to do this because they have to compel him These men had to exercise their authority and put pressure on him to do as they demanded. And some say he just carried the beam of the cross. But scripture doesn't give us any other indication other than he carried the cross. And he carries it all the way out to Golgotha. It's called the place of the skull. We sometimes want to dress up this part of the story because we don't like what it all means, and so we'll sing, on a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, and in our minds we have that the hill was filled with greenery and perhaps landscaping and plants. There's even a hymn that's called, On a Green Hill Far Away. This is not it. It's not what it was. Luke calls it a place were a skull. It's the place of skulls. Some speculate that it had several skulls around that. I don't think that's necessarily the case because the Jews were very superstitious about body parts and skulls so I don't think that's what it is probably it's the word that Luke uses because he's a doctor he would understand it's the word cranium from which we get the word cranium in Luke chapter 23 verse 33 the Latin Vulgate translated it Calvary which is the Latin term for cranium so we could be cranium Bible Church While we laugh at that, it does give us a better picture of what we're talking about. The dignity of the God-man was no longer to be found. He would have no guardian angel to help him out, but is led really to the local dump to be murdered. They give Jesus at this point wine, to drink mixed with gall which would have been an analgesic of some sort in order to deaden the pain and when Christ tasted it he spit it out and said I have nothing to do with that he wanted to make sure that he suffered absolutely everything for your sin and mine then they took his garments and they played a bit of a game to see who would win the souvenir of his clothing It was all a game for them. Their callous, mindless hearts left them unfeeling, uncaring for what was really going on. Then Matthew adds the fact that they put a sign up over his head. And Matthew says it's, this is Jesus, King of the Jews. And Matthew includes this idea that this is Jesus. And he turns the sign into a proclamation rather than an accusation. This is Jesus. And to the soldiers, he was a fake king. But to Matthew, and to us today, he is the king. And if the physical condition of Christ wasn't bad enough, the emotions at this time would be numbing to our Savior. Forsaken by all. Ridiculed by all. But there's more. It's not over yet. notice verse 38 Matthew goes out of his way to tell us that Jesus bears the purposeful identification with sinners this too had to take place Matthew doesn't give us much here in verse 38 look at that with me then two robbers were crucified with him one on the right hand one on the left it's all he says till he gets to the bottom and he actually adds one more sentence about what went on there Matthew's point is not to tell everything. His point is to get us to understand something very very important and his point is clear. The king is murdered, surrounded by sinners. They were identified here as robbers. How was Christ identified throughout the entire ordeal given to us by Matthew? Over and over and over. We just read through it all. He is the righteous one. He is the innocent one. Rome wanted to mock Jesus, but Matthew wants to announce to one more time everyone that Jesus is the suffering servant who was, as Isaiah 53.12 says, numbered with the transgressors. That means Jesus was numbered with folks like you and me. Robbers, thieves, envious, angry people. Everything the enemies of Christ did to shame Christ, true Christians saw it as a revelation of Scripture. Matthew began to connect the dots. and he tells us that he bears the purposeful identification with sinners but there's more Jesus also bears the manipulated mocking public and you see this in beginning in verse 39 you see this here and those who pass by derided him wagging their heads and saying you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days save yourself now what most people don't realize is they think of Golgotha as a hill that people would look up and see Christ hanging there but in reality from everything that I've read when a cross was set into the ground it really put the body of that person almost just a little bit above eye level where you just have to look up a little bit and see him there it's not up like this it's kind of up like this and so these people are walking by and they're seeing him And they're talking, and these are just common folks who had just days earlier shouted from Psalm 118, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And most likely they're just common Jews and maybe even mixed in Gentiles who had seen scenes like this over and over and over. But Passover had just taken place. And the city was filled with Jews coming with the idea of participating in Passover. And they had their own view of Christ intact on Monday. But between Monday and where this is now here, that whole view of God and the whole view of Jesus had completely turned upside down. Their world was shattered of who this Jesus was in their estimation. No good king would be put on a cross, and Christ is now rejected by them. So as they pass by, they of course revile him. They didn't meet, he didn't meet up to their expectations. They're deeply disturbed by what they see. So they revile him, and the wording here indicates that they kept on reviling him. It was like that pent up wrath that you're seeing even in our world today. People are so angry, driven by anger. We see people just going berserk on highways, road rage. Why is that? Because there's this wrath that's pent up within us because things are not as they ought to be. Why? Because of sin. And what we see here is this continual defamation, continual blasphemy and they did it wagging their heads in a taunting kind of mockery and it fulfills scripture from Psalm 22 and they predicted exactly they would do this in fact in verse 7 of Psalm 22 all they who see me laugh me to scorn they shoot out the lip they shake the head and they say he trusted in God let him deliver him it's exactly what the psalmist wrote about in Psalm 22 but the force of their mocking now seems to be the very words that Christ uses to them and he uses these people use it against him. You see my friend even in our world today the word of God is still ridiculed. It's okay to have a Bible on a desk or a shelf, but to actually read it, and to study it, and to memorize it, to believe it, and then apply it to all of life, seems to be the most absurd thing imaginable for much of the world. And so they mock a belief in the inerrancy of Scripture, or the sufficiency of Scripture. And so, if you come and you say, well, the Word of God says this, and I'm trusting and placing my faith in the Word of God, they will begin to mock you, and they will even take the words of God themselves, that they know, because just about everybody knows something from God's Word, and they'll twist it, and they'll use it back on you. Go, look, see, you don't know what you're talking about. This is very normal. Another area that is often mocked is the insistence that Jesus Christ, though a man, is the Son of God. So you have words like, if you are the Son of God, come down off the cross. They actually look at Jesus and talk to Him and demand from Him. And little did they understand that had He come down from the cross, there would be no salvation for them or for anyone. But remaining on that cross with all the suffering physically and all the intense anguish that he experienced spiritually as he met the wrath of God, this is the only way that your sin and my sin is forgiven and their sin. It's the only way it's forgiven. So for Christ to do what he came to do, to pay the eternal debt of sin that we owed, Our relationship to God opened up because sin had so closed it. For Christ to accomplish this, He had to have been someone with two natures. The divine nature cannot die, nor can it represent the human race. So, He that has always been God took upon Himself human flesh in what is called the Incarnation. And there He became one of us so that He might fulfill in every detail the divine righteousness on our behalf. It's called His active righteousness on our behalf. That He went and fulfilled all righteousness so that we might be clothed with His righteousness. And in doing so, Jesus might represent us before God as He poured out eternal justice that is due for our sins. He must die this way. So the public, the crowd, the passers-by all mock this king at his death, not knowing at all what was really going on. These are folks who want nothing but to manipulate their own world. They want to just fix their own righteousness, and they want to get the God that would satisfy them. Sound familiar? Oh my friend, this is the way our hearts really are. We want our own righteousness. We want to fix ourselves with our own good works. But Jesus goes and takes all of this in order that we would be freed from self-manipulation of good works in order to try to gain God's approval. That He would be our Savior. Jesus is mocked by the crowds. And then finally today I want you to see that Jesus bears the calculated mocking hearers. You say, what are you talking about? Look in verse 41 with me. So also the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders mocked him, saying, this last group Matthew cannot get away from. We've seen that phrase over and over and over as we've walked through this. This group of people called what we call the senior pastors, the elders and Sunday school teachers. These are people who should have known Jesus. They mock Jesus. But I want you to notice something. While the pastors by look at Jesus, they use the second person, you. These people use the third person, he. saved others. He trusts in God. They can't even look at Jesus to talk to him. There is such hatred here that is boiling over. You see, my friend, having a knowledge of the Word of God and refusing it only makes the heart angrier. You start talking about the real one true God, and people who know a little bit about the Bible, they're the ones that are most furious about pushback away from God. And what I want you to see, what Matthew wants us to understand is the greatest miracle Jesus ever did was the miracle that he did not do. He didn't save himself. He didn't do. what they told him to do. In fact Jesus taught his disciples in chapter 16 verse 25, whoever saves his life will what? Lose it. Whoever gives of his life the same shall save it. Save yourself is exactly what the devil tempted Jesus to do three times. Clear back in Matthew chapter 4 verses 1-11. Save yourself Jesus! You can do this, but he doesn't. then they were taunting him. In verse 43 the words are stunning. He trusts in God. They were taunting him, but this is exactly his entire life. His life was one message of trusting God. Jesus is every bit God-centered. Remember the temptations. What did he do? He came out and said, thus says God's word. In the garden, what does he do? Father, not my will, but your will. And his constant words were, I must do the will of the Father. You see, my friend, God was the simple and obvious center of Jesus' life and mission. For Jesus, the entire life that he lived was about the will of the Father. But their words indicate their own misunderstanding of faith, which you see in our world today. They demand to see the Father save the Son and do it now. John Calvin said, quote, it's contrary to the nature of faith to insist on the adverb now. Nowhere is faith more threatened than in death. Death is the final test of all that is true. Is the righteousness of Christ and the love of Christ more powerful than sin and death? Is it? The answer for all who trust Jesus is unequivocally yes. So these comments of these men are calculated and premeditated. And the words of Christ must have rung in their ears. They heard him speak over and over and over because they quote Jesus in his last words to the Sanhedrin. They said, I am, that he said he is the son of God, quoting Daniel. And these words of Jesus, now they stick in his face as one more sharp dagger to inflict onto him one more bit of pain. Then one last comment in verse 44 that Matthew writes, and the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him the same way. You see my friend Matthew wants to show the utter loneliness of Jesus. These of all people, these two of all people who heard Christ and should have had some sort of compassion on him found no Kind words for the king. Jesus must have struggled under the weight of the cross due to the emotional and physical strain that he bore, but he does not run from the cross. He does not listen to the taunts of his opponents that told him to come down from the cross so that they might believe. Of course they wouldn't believe. They haven't believed now. They won't believe even if He does come down from the cross. Jesus Christ is submitted to all that the Father required so that He might be the just and the one that justifies sinners like you and me. And if you are a sinner today, the good news of the gospel is you qualify for His gift of eternal life. You qualify for His gift of righteousness. But you must turn from your sin. Your attempt at righteousness you must throw down. And you must place your trust in His finished work on your behalf. My friend, listen to me. Don't walk out of here with your own righteousness. You must have His. And that comes through repentance, turning from your sense of righteousness and place your faith in Him alone. You see, my friend, we have so many signs and traditions that we celebrate today, and we celebrate our freedom because folks have sacrificed their life in order that we might be free. But today, the most important truth is that we have a Savior, the Creator of the ends of the earth, who went to the cross, and who will very soon, in our study, die on your behalf and He is our only hope. Let your heart soar in hope and satisfaction in His work on your behalf and find in Christ your true freedom from the real bondage of sin and eternal judgment from God. Run to Him and be saved. Will you pray with me this morning? Father, we cannot read this without imagining and without understanding our own hearts this morning. Even those of us that have been made new, been born again by faith in Christ, we stand today knowing the deceitfulness of our own hearts. And although we may not externally, verbally mock you, we often find ourselves mocking your righteousness because of our tendency to look to our own strength to look to our own good works and point and say I'm good when in reality we need to fall before you as the sinners that we are and turn from our wicked self-righteousness and rest in the finished work of Jesus on our behalf Lord I pray for that one here today who may be unsure whether or not they are truly born again. Father don't let them leave in their own righteousness this morning. Send the Holy Spirit. Lord allow us an opportunity to to bring them to a clear understanding of what it means to be truly born again. Father we need the righteousness of Jesus Christ and by faith you have given to us in through grace It's a work. It's a gift. It's not a work lest any of us would boast, and we know ourselves too well. We would boast. So Father we bow before You as a great Savior, as Jesus the righteous has been given to us for our sin. So thank You Jesus for Your salvation. Thank You that You endured all of this suffering and shame. Thank You that You have given to us eternal life through Your death, burial, and resurrection. And we say to You today we love You, and we seek to follow You in this grace that You have given to us. Now be with us as we leave here this morning, and let our hearts rejoice in Your great glory, we pray because of Jesus, Amen.