These are words from the Old Testament, so I'm going to use brothers and sisters at the beginning of our message here this morning. Many bulls have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. They gape at me with their mouths like a raging and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joints. My heart is like wax. It has melted within me. My strength is dried up like a pot shirt, and my tongue clings to my jaws. You have brought me to the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me. The congregation of the wicked has enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They look and stare at me. They divide my garments among them. And for my clothing, they cast lots." Well, that's not from, you know, one of the Gospels. That's from Psalm 22, describing somebody suffering beyond just an individual of that day going through some sort of oppression and some kind of deep, deep, dark, you know, sorrow. But it can only be fulfilled in what we're looking at this morning, the Jesus Christ and the shame and the guilt that he's bearing and what that brings upon the Son of God, upon our Savior, upon Jesus Christ as he's He's heading to Golgotha as he hangs there between heaven and earth in all of our shame and all of our guilt. As we look at Mark 15, these verses this morning, I want to first of all just look at the details. There's so much here we could really spend an entire sermon on each aspect of that the hell that surrounds Jesus? Well, we'll look at them just briefly and then we'll come back and look at some four or five key points from this passage. So we're kind of looking first at just the details of the text and then we'll circle back and see what this means for us. First of all, consider the gang around Jesus during these events and what they do to him. Put yourself a little bit into the middle of these barracks where these soldiers, Roman soldiers now, more fierce, stronger than the Jewish soldiers that arrested Jesus and beat them already. These are seriously military men and Theirs is a hard life, and they tend to take advantage of those that have been placed in their care to do with what they want. Place yourself there as he's surrounded by this gang. He's already been beaten twice by the Jewish leaders, by Pilate. Pilate had him scourged, verse 15, which meant already Jesus' body is split apart. He's been whipped, not just with some sort of leather belts or whip, but by something that had sharp objects like bones attached to it. So that when it would have entered or gotten on Jesus' back, it would actually have impaled and and torn out pieces of Jesus' flesh. So he's, you know, we sung about him being pale with anguish, you know, he's losing blood. So Jesus' visage is noticeably affected. He's slowly but surely dying because of that scourging. And now he's in the barracks with these soldiers and they continue to mock him and draw blood and strike him. And the entire scene is one of just hellish intimidation and mockery. This is somebody who, he's guilty, and their society is about to be condemned. I mean, they kind of lose any kind of moral fabric that they might have. He's deserving of death. I mean, we have to make a public display of, this is what happens when you sin, when you break the law. This is what happens. So every kind of emotional, psychological, physical torture is brought to bear against Jesus here. Them calling him the king of the Jews and mocking him in that way is also a mockery of the Jews as a whole. I mean, the Jews are enslaved to the Romans, and now this is the kind of king that they come up with. Here's the king of the Jews. Look at him, how weak he is. Jesus is fair game for every form of cruelty. So they set up this parody of a king and its subjects. So the gang around Jesus. Secondly, the robe. They find some kind of piece, probably a piece of their own discarded clothing, perhaps something on the outside of their uniform that they've set aside in order to have their hands free a little bit more to deal with Jesus. And they're sweating because of the suffering they're inflicting on him. So they take off a piece of purple and They clothe him with that in verse 17. You know, children, that's royal raiment, right? Royal color. Purple. Expensive. And they kind of wrap that around Jesus a little bit. It's not fitting him like a beautiful purple robe. It's a mockery. There's something very protective about your own clothing. They tear it off Jesus, and it's previewing the cross where those who were crucified died naked on the cross. I mean, just, it was purposeful, all your shame on display. It's a warning to everybody, you don't wanna become like them. Submit to the law, or this is what happens. All of this is. It's not sexual, but it's like rape. It's control. It's power. We have the power, we have the right to control you and use you. That's what's going on here. It's terrible intimidation. A gang light like hellish atmosphere, sadistic as they strip him. For them, it's a delicious irony. The power of Rome compared to the power of the Jews, and power of this king of the Jews. They salute him. Hail, king of the Jews. Children, this is mockery. They're making fun of Jesus. Jesus who has come into the world to save the world, who is the king of kings. They're mocking him. If he's a king, let's dress him as a king. We couldn't even repeat here the kind of language they would have used. F-bombs are dropping left and right. I mean, just to give you an idea of what's going on here. They don't hold anything back. The crassness, the cursing, the blasphemy that is going on all around Jesus at this point. People could come up during Jesus' life and just touch the hem of his garment and they would be healed. A woman who had a flow of blood, a sickness for many years, just touch Jesus' hem. just the edge of his cloak, and she was healed. His clothing turned white during his transfiguration when he was up on the mountain, and God showed him his glory, and Peter, James, and John saw his glory, and now that clothing is stripped off. He's gonna die as a publicly humiliated human being. consider the worst of all criminals. Thirdly, they put a crown on him. They take some kind of branch with thorns. Some were known as having two-inch thorns. The pictures of them attaching that to his head. Ancient, you know, classic paintings of Jesus with the crown of thorns is probably correct, that that was pressed into his head, and that also caused blood loss for the Son of God. They grin maliciously. They salute him. There you are in your purple, there you are with your crown, king! And they offer him mock worship. They bow the knee, verse 19. Here's real power. Here's the power of Caesar. Here's the real power that you can touch and feel and see. Here it is. The power of Rome against the power of this world against this so-called Messiah. He's also got a scepter now. Mark doesn't tell us about the scepter, but I think he references it in verse 19. They struck him on the head with a reed and spat on him. Probably some sort of stick that they put in Jesus' hands, like a scepter. Every king's got to have a scepter that he just puts forward and his will is done. And they show what they think about his kingly authority. They take his scepter and they beat him with it. So much for your power and authority. You've got none of it. You've got nothing. There's a cup, fifthly and finally, in verse 23. They give him wine mingled with myrrh to drink, but he did not take it. We're not sure exactly who it is that's giving him this drink, but myrrh was a narcotic of sorts, the sort of drug that would have helped a person in Jesus' situation with all the pain that he's enduring to dull the pain. It's possible that some of the women have gone forward and brought him this narcotic drink, this drug, to help him. Or perhaps even a sympathetic soldier. Perhaps that's what they did for some. We're not sure about that. But Jesus refuses the cup. He refuses to have his mind and his passion clouded and muted by this drug. If you've ever had been in a surgery and had some severe pain afterwards, boy, you're really thankful for the oxycodone afterwards, right? I mean, just to dull that pain, even make you a little bit sleepy, just to get through a time of real physical distress. Jesus doesn't want that sleepiness. He doesn't want it to look as though he is being helped in any sense on the way to his sacrifice. He's going to be totally alone. He's not even going to have the support of this narcotic on the way. There's one cup that he's drinking. He picked it up in the Garden of Gethsemane. He said, if it's possible, take this cup away from me like if there's any other way to save those that I want to save, let's do that. But not my will, but your will be done. And so he took the cup of his father's wrath, and he's drinking it. That's the only cup he's going to drink. He's not going to take any other cup on the way to the cross. Hebrews 2 verse 9, we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. And he's tasting death fully. What's the truth at the center of this broken world? This world has sinned against the eternal living God. And God warned Adam and Eve way back in the beginning, the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die. The wages of sin is death. And so the best deed, the brightest deed, the most precious hope in this world, outside of someone interceding means nothing. This world is broken. It started with dust. It's going to go back to dust. The center of this world without God intervening is death. It all is meaningless. The writer of Ecclesiastes, it's vanity of vanities. Everything means nothing unless God has intervened. Somebody wrote, death is a worm that curls inside our every act. like a parasite eating the lasting value out of it. Even in our dearest kissing is the parasite which shall on our death day prove that this act too was futile. And all of our loving so much sound and fury signifying nothing. That's, unless God intervenes, that's what's at the root and foundation of this world. That's all this world can hope for is death. Except, that God did do something. God did intervene. And God did not just send something from heaven or send someone from heaven, but He came so that the cross is the central point in all of history. Don't let anyone tell you different. And all of their proofs and all of their evidence is that the Bible is not real. That God is not real. Don't believe them. The cross is the center of history. where God came down and died for his world in their place so that his world could be saved. That's how much he loved this world. They mock him. They mock Jesus completely as a prophet. They did that back in his trial. They slapped him and they said, prophesy if you're a prophet. They mock him as a king. This whole thing is a parody. basically to identify him as a totally false king, the most ridiculous king ever. They reject him as a prophet, they reject him as a king, they reject him as a savior or a priest, as a mediator. He saved others, himself he cannot save. He's a false savior. They reject him as prophet, priest, and king. He's a failure on all three counts. And they mock him, mercilessly, as being a fake. One author compares Jesus' birth to his death. On his birth, he's got wise men coming and bringing gifts and angels announcing, you know, the wonder of his birth. Do not fear, shepherds. He's this little baby. He's achieved nothing in terms of his human life yet. He hasn't even spoken. He's just like cried and filled his diaper and all that stuff. And the brightness of his appearing. And now only devils surround him. And the God of the stars holds his peace. Star Savior. Feel. Feel the suffering of Jesus and what Mark wants us to see especially is his shame. Feel his shame, the cackles of laughter. The parody of Jesus as a king, utter contempt of sinners. This is the hatred of sinners for their maker. This is the very picture of lost mankind. That doesn't just kind of neutrally deal with its maker, but rejects him, hates him, wants to kill him, wants God to be dead and gone so that we can do what we want, so that I can be God in my life. This is the state of mankind unless God intervenes. This is your state, this is my state. And Jesus is feeling all of it. And what do you hear from heaven? What do you see? There's no earthquake, there's no lightning. God spoke on Mount Carmel when Elijah gathered against the prophets of Baal and they called upon their gods and Elijah called upon his God and God spoke. And there was this great display of his power. And at Jesus' baptism, you know, God spoke and said, this is my beloved son, you know, in whom I am well, please listen to him. But not now, not now. God's not speaking. He's not saving his son. 1 Peter 2, he did not revile and return. He did not threaten, he entrusted himself to God. He bore our sins in his body on the tree by his wounds. You have been hailed. What are we supposed to believe or do in response? Let's look at a few points in conclusion here. This morning, first of all, I want you to see the glory of God on display and all of His sovereign power, even through this, especially through this, despite sinner's worst actions, God's sovereign will is being done, by the way, so that you could know that your suffering could never possibly get worse than this darkest of all moments on the face of the earth. So you might know that if God is sovereignly at work here, you can know He's sovereignly at work in your life, no matter how dark it gets, okay? But just to see that in his sovereignty, that Jesus' weakness and Jesus' suffering and this whole display of mockery, the sadistic, hellish agony that Jesus is going through, that God is bringing salvation through it. He's accomplishing his salvation. That the weakness of Jesus here is the strength of God, right? To deal with sin. We see the power of God at work. They said he saved others, himself he cannot save. They can't help speaking the truth. He did save others. Think about it. Think about how many people he saved in his life, and then even more in his death. They got a little wrong there. He cannot save himself. He could, in order to save others. He chooses not to save himself. He cannot both save himself and save those he came to save, so he gives up himself. He will not save himself. There's a little clue to the victory that Jesus is gaining, and that's in verse 21, where we see the soldiers compelling a certain man, Simon of Cyrene, he's from North Africa. The father of Alexander and Rufus is very, very odd for Mark to list three personal names in the text. And so Simon bears his cross. It was just the top piece, the top piece of the cross. The rest of the cross would, the vertical piece would already be laid out in Golgotha, and then they would attach Jesus to the cross that he's bearing and then attach that to the vertical piece horizontally. And Mark references these three, Simeon and his two sons. And the only reason he could have done that is because his readers would have recognized these people. We have a Rufus mentioned in Romans 16. And it could be this, it could be another. Rufus was a pretty common name. But what this means is that Mark's readers knew these people, knew Simeon and his sons, whether they were born now or not. And his experience has meant that he has come to know Christ, and these names are known to the early church. They're recognized. Just already pointing ahead a little bit to the price that Jesus paid is more than enough to save sinners, even North Africans who are in Judea, even Washingtonians, you know, far from God and brought into brought in his kingdom already a display of the victory that God sovereignly is working through the shame and through the death of his Son, which seems to be a failure and actually is the victory at the center of the universe. So see the glory of God on display in a sovereign rule over even the worst of sinners' actions. Secondly, what are we supposed to feel? We are not supposed to feel pity for Jesus. I mean I think we naturally feel that, we feel a sense of sympathy. I chose the song Oh Sacred Head because I think it gets right to the edge of thinking about all of the thinking about Jesus' head and his sorrow and the crown of thorns and going to a safe place in terms of understanding the weight of Jesus' suffering and feeling that in ourselves and expressing that. There are actually many more stanzas to that song which I think go a bit too far in getting more emotionally based and just pitying Jesus. There's a certain level in which we enter in and start to just understand what he went through. But what we're supposed to feel is the cost that Jesus is paying for you and for me. We're supposed to experience and understand the shame that Jesus had to bear so that you could go free. He's despised, he is full of shame. And the thing is, that shame is real. Jesus in this moment, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5, God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us. This is the irony of the cross. Jesus in himself doesn't deserve any of this shame, but Jesus as our substitute does. I mean, all of that shame, he in these moments deserves it because he's taking our place. He's drinking the cup. He's taking our sins upon himself. He has welcomed that and drawn himself into this place. You can imagine how torn up Jesus is within himself. He's the Holy Son of God, but he also has become sin for us. He's become guilty. He's become worthy of shame. In that sense, everything that they're saying about him, in the sense of, The sense of this guilt and this shame are true. They don't know why it's true. They think it's true because he's nothing. He's a false messiah. He's a charlatan. He's a fake. The king of the Jews. But it's true in that he has taken our place. And what a cost and what a price. What shame on thee is hurled. We have this great text in Lamentations 1, not a book we turn to very often. Verse 11 or so, is it nothing to you? All you who pass by, look and see if there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow. The words of the Lord Jesus Christ already back in the Old Testament. Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow ever that is like unto my sorrow. So we're supposed to look, we're supposed to see, we're supposed to feel the weight of shame that Jesus Christ has accomplished on on our behalf, how thankful we are for his endurance on the cross through all of that mockery and all of that suffering, the spitting, the thorns, the evil that he bore for us. As the hymn writer expresses, I love thee for wearing the thorns upon thy brow. Do you love him for that? I mean, do you think often about the thorns? Has it affected you in the deepest core of your heart? in terms of what means everything to you, what you value above everything else? You love him for wearing the thorns? You love him for accepting all of this mockery? They're parroting him as a king, he is the king, he's dying as the king. Are you thankful, do you love him for it? Do you tell him that? And finally, let us remember who we are today. Be studying the prodigal son afterwards and just for a few weeks, that great parable in Luke chapter 15 and the real sense in which what's happening to Jesus here is. you know, the opposite, what happens to the younger prodigal son. You gotta come to the lesson if you wanna see it's not a parable of the prodigal son, it's the parable of the prodigal sons. And most of all, it's the parable of the prodigal God, a God who does the unexpected. So they strip Jesus in their text, but the father, who's the picture of the loving God coming out to meet his returning son, takes off his robe, and puts it on his son. He gives up his robe so that his son might have the best robe that there is. Strip Jesus, but close me. They mock him and they, first of all, they put this scepter, just this gnarled reed in Jesus' hands, make him look like a king, and they take him and they beat him with it. But the Father comes, and our Father comes and puts a ring on us, on our fingers. Sandals on our feet. And they press this crown of thorns into Jesus. He starts to bleed even more. But our Father runs to us and falls on our neck, weeping and kissing, welcoming. They mock, and they spit, and they throw this party of sorts, but it's hell. It's a party of hell, because that's what Jesus bore for us, right? He descended into hell. But the Father, in the real life story of the good news, he comes, he runs out to us, and he doesn't just take us in. I'll take you in, and I'll put you on probation for a while and see if you can make up what you've done wrong. No. He clothes us and then he throws a party, he throws a feast. He welcomes us into his home, his heart. He makes us part of his kingdom, of his future. A feast of joy and gladness that will never end. This is the good news, but in order to know the good news and experience it really, you must understand the shame that Jesus experienced. You gotta pray over it. You've got to love him for it. Now we end there, but I just wanna conclude with this one thought that will lead us into next week. There's only one left who could save Jesus, right? Our journey through this is everybody abandoning Jesus. And there's one left who can save him. And that's his father. We'll see what happens with that next week. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for Mark, again, slowing down after his quick gospel. Jesus on the move, ministering, healing, teaching, going from place to place, but now no longer controlling his own actions, allowing himself to be taken, spit upon. Mark doesn't even record many of the words from the cross, just one that we'll see next week, the terrible cry. All the starkness of human depravity is on display before us. And we pray that we might feel the weight of human depravity, feel the weight of our own sin, and feel just how good grace is. just how marvelous is your work of salvation, and help that to change us. Help that glory to be at the center of our lives, help it to change our priorities, change how we treat each other, certainly change how we worship and how we follow you. Let this good news take root in our hearts. Father, Father's love for lost sheep, Jesus' endurance on the cross. In His name we pray. Amen.