As we make our way through the Gospel according to Mark, we come to the next to last chapter, Mark 15. And I'm going to take on a pretty sizable chunk this morning. And you are about to see how Jesus got sent to the cross from a human perspective. God sent Jesus to the cross. God is the one who sent his son to take away our sins, but he used a number of people, wicked people at that, to get Jesus to the cross. The text that we're going to be looking at in Mark focuses mainly on a man named Pontius Pilate. He was the Roman governor who actually handed down the sentence of death by crucifixion. Again today, to help you with putting all of this together, on the back of the sermon outline in your bulletin, I've included the chart of all six phases of Jesus' trial. Three Jewish phases, we saw that two weeks ago in Mark 14, and then three Roman phases that we're going to see today. The Roman part of the trial was just as much a mockery of justice as was the Jewish part of it. Just imagine, for a perspective, if someone in our world is accused of a very serious crime worthy of capital punishment, Imagine how long it would take to gather all of the information, put together the case, get the indictment, go to trial, present the prosecution, present the defense, have the jury deliberate, and then have a sentence passed down. They did all of this in five hours. in six different courtrooms with a whole array of accusations, all of them false. Humanly speaking, this was absurd. But let's see how it unfolded, because next week, Lord willing, we're going to look at the crucifixion, and we want to see what led up to it. So we're going to look, focusing on Pilate, Mark 15, verses 1 through 21. The first point will be, we'll call it Pilate to Herod to Pilate. Those are the three portions of the Roman trial. And then six verses mocking the master. Now, this is kind of a different style of sermon. There are going to be many, many verses to read today. If you like working on harmonizing parallel passages, this is a whopper. because we're going to be in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We're following Mark's narrative, but to make it all be fleshed out for you to be able to see the big picture, we're going to do a lot of flipping back and forth today. But let's look at Pilate to Herod to Pilate. We come to Mark 15, verse 1. And actually, this is the end of the Jewish portion of the trial. Mark 15, 1. Early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders and scribes, and the whole council," that's the Sanhedrin, and binding Jesus, they led him away and delivered him to Pilate." Now remember, in the Jewish trial, he'd already been to Annas, the former high priest. He'd been to Caiaphas, the son-in-law of Annas, who was the reigning high priest at that time. They'd broken just about every rule of their own legal structure in doing all this by cover of darkness. It was all illegal. But at the end of the trial, they wanted to give some sort of at least an appearance of legality to what they'd done. Part of the rules that they'd broken is you couldn't do it at night. So they waited until sunup and then held this consultation where they said, yeah, everything we said before and send him away. That was pretty much what this part of the Jewish trial was all about. All right, right away, let's jump to John. We've heard they delivered him to Pilate. Let's go over to John 18, verses 28 and 29. Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas into the Praetorium. The Praetorium is a judgment hall or sort of a royal palace that included a judgment hall, probably located in Fortress Antonia, just north of the temple. It was an ostentatious place, as you would expect from the pomposity of the Romans and how much they loved their own displays of authority and power. So they led Jesus from Caiaphas into the Praetorium. And it was early, sun had just come up. And they themselves did not enter into the praetorium so that they would not be defiled, but might eat the Passover. Therefore Pilate went out to them and said, what accusation do you bring against this man?" All right, here we meet Pilate or Pontius Pilate. He was appointed the governor of the region of Judea by Emperor Tiberius in AD 26. So about four years before this, he had made the governor of that region. He lasted from 26 until 36. His duties were to be responsible to command the Roman military in that area, to collect taxes. And you know how corrupt that system was, where the Romans would have the Jews collect the taxes from their own people, and they had their tax collectors that would collect what Rome needed, plus whatever they could rip off. The whole thing was a mess. And Pilate was also responsible to adjudicate certain legal matters. Though he was often brutal and impulsive, Pilate also at times exhibited some rather profound weakness and indecision. And you're going to see both sides of him, the mean part and the wishy-washy part today. Now, it's important to know that on two prior occasions, Pilate had been forced to back down when he threatened Jews and the people then stood up to him. Josephus and Philo and somebody else, different historians, document that, an extra biblical history. He was known to be a paper tiger puppet of Rome with a mean streak, but not much of a spine. So he liked to rail, but he could also be forced to back down. And did you notice the absurd hypocrisy of the chief priests and scribes. All night long, they'd been lying. They'd arrested an innocent man. They had falsely accused this innocent man. They'd twisted words. They'd broken virtually every rule of their own judicial system. But then after sunup, we can't set foot in the praetorium because that's Gentile territory, and we don't want to be defiled before we eat the Passover tonight. That's how legalism works. We will steamroll you in our righteous way. That's exactly what they were doing. No compunction about lying in order to murder the Son of God. But, oh, don't step across that line. That's Gentile territory. And then you couldn't eat the Passover. And if you recall, remember, Jesus and his guys ate the Passover the night before, Passover meal. They're talking about, we are going to eat the Passover. Remember that the resolution of that is that the Galileans, the northern part of Israel, and the Judeans in the southern part, they had two different traditions about which day of the series of days the Passover meal was to be eaten and which day the Passover lambs were to be slain. Jesus was going to be slain at exactly the hour of the slaying of the Passover lambs for, according to the Judean custom, but they'd already eaten it the night before. All right, John 18, continue at verse 30. They answered and said to him, he just said, what charge do you bring against him? And I love this answer. They answered and said to him, if this man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered him to you. Now that's an interesting thing. Can you see the prosecutor walking into the courtroom and saying, order this man's execution? Well, what's the charge? You don't think I'd bring him to him, he wasn't a bad guy, do you? That's how deep their case ran, and that's exactly what they did. And Pilate, he's savvy, he's spineless, but he's also savvy. So Pilate said to them, take him yourselves and judge him according to your law. The Jews said to him, we are not permitted to put anyone to death. And that's true according to the Roman law. But they did it to fulfill the word of Jesus, which he spoke, signifying by what kind of death he was about to die. Here's the significance of that. If the Jews had put somebody to death, it would have been by stoning. How do they stone somebody? Well, you get an elevated place with a little cliff or an overhang, and you push the person off, or you tie them up at the bottom, and then you rain down stones on them until they're dead. Jesus said that He would be lifted up What form of execution lifts someone up? Well, that was a figure of speech for crucifixion. If the Jews had succeeded in killing Jesus, it wouldn't have fulfilled that prophecy. So who's in charge of this situation? Jesus, arranging it all according to the eternal plan of God. All right, so that's why he had to go to the Romans. Pick it up. Therefore Pilate entered again into the praetorium, and summoned Jesus and said to him, Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answered. Most of the time he didn't answer, but when it was a factual, direct, legitimate question, he would answer. Jesus answered, Are you saying this on your own initiative or did others tell you about me? He knew that Pilate didn't care at all about his title with the Jews. but he was trying to find a loophole to get himself out of the mess, not Jesus himself. Pilate answered, I'm not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered you to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm. Therefore Pilate said to him, So you are a king? Jesus answered, You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born and for this I have come into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice." Now here comes words you often hear with no reference to the context. Pilate said to him, What is truth? And when he'd said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, I find no guilt in him. Now, the Jews didn't want that to happen. They didn't want anything to do with Pilate actually acting as a judge. They wanted a rubber stamp for their death sentence. That's all that they wanted. All right, jump back to Mark. Mark 15, verses 2-5, Pilate questioned him, this is overlapping what we just read, Pilate questioned him, are you the king of the Jews? And he answered him, it is as you say. The chief priests began to accuse him harshly. They weren't hearing what they wanted, so they raised the decibel level. Then Pilate questioned him again saying, do you not answer? In other words, they're screeching all of these accusations and Jesus just isn't dealing with them. He said, see how many charges they bring against you. But Jesus made no further answer. So Pilate was amazed. Pilate is seeing through this whole thing. He knows he's caught in the middle. Jesus answered only the legitimate factual questions, did not defend himself against the ridiculous charges. He did not dignify any of the absurd accusations that came from the Sanhedrin. They're over there blustering and shouting their accusations, and they're probably changing because they'd been changing all night long. While they're shouting, Jesus is silent, and Pilate is amazed. They just didn't want a judge, they wanted a rubber stamp. Well, now that brings up another change of venue. Mark doesn't mention it, but now he's gonna go to Herod Antipas. Herod Antipas was a son of the Herod that you hear of in the Christmas story, Herod the Great. When Herod the Great died, very shortly after Jesus was born, Herod Antipas received one of the four slices of the territory that had been under Herod the Great. He ruled over Galilee and Perea, Galilee up around the Sea of Galilee, Perea to the east of the Jordan River from there. He was their leader under the jurisdiction of Rome, while Pontius Pilate was their guy down in Judea. This Herod Antipas, he's the Herod that you've already heard about in Mark. Remember his backstory? He's the one who had a wife. He had married her for one of those political alliance situations. He dumped her. He wooed and committed fornication with and then stole and married the wife of his half-brother. When John the Baptist called him on his very open treachery against his first wife and the incestuous marriage to his next wife, Herod Antipas had had John the Baptist killed. And remember how that played out, even getting his head on a platter? That whole situation involved immorality and drunkenness and manipulation. Shows you how these people functioned. When Herod Antipas then, having killed John the Baptist, when he heard about Jesus and all that he was doing and saying, he, with his bad theology, he feared that Jesus might actually be John the Baptist coming back from the dead to seek revenge against him. That's why he wanted to meet Jesus. He wanted to kill Him, just in case his superstitious, wacko theory was true. But all along, Jesus deliberately evaded Herod's clutches. So this was the first time that Herod saw Jesus face-to-face. And when he saw Jesus face-to-face, remember, Jesus has already been beaten and pummeled and spat upon. wasn't very impressive. So Herod Antipas is the one who oversees the second part of the Roman trial, not in Mark. So let's jump to Luke this time, Luke 23, 6 through 12. When Pilate heard it, heard the accusations against Jesus, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. Probably had heard Jesus of Nazareth. Nazareth is in Galilee. And when he learned that he belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod. who himself also was in Jerusalem at that time. When you're the governor over the Jews, you want to make nice, you want to at least have a pretense of caring, so Herod was there for the Passover. Now, Herod was very glad when he saw Jesus, because he wanted to see Him for a long time after the John the Baptist incident. read on, for he had wanted to see Him for a long time because he had been hearing about Him, and here's what he wanted, and was hoping to see some sign performed by Him. Oh, I hope I can get that guy to my palace and he'll do a trick. That was the depth of what he was really thinking about. And he questioned Him, Herod questioning Jesus, at some length, but He answered him nothing. And the chief priests and scribes were standing there accusing him vehemently. These guys never shut up. Just accuse and accuse and accuse and accuse and accuse. Change people, accuse and accuse and accuse some more. They're not listening, raise the volume. It was awful. Herod, keep reading in Luke, Herod with his soldiers, after treating him with contempt and mocking him, so he was no longer threatened by him, so immediately turned it into a joke, mocking him, that he dressed him in a gorgeous robe and sent him back to Pilate. Now Herod and Pilate became friends with one another that day, for before that they had been enemies with each other." You see what a uniter Jesus was? Pharisees and Sadducees hated each other. The only thing they ever agreed upon is kill Jesus. Pilate and Herod could never get along except, well, we both like to make fun of the Son of God, so they became friends. So here He is now. forced into this dazzling royal robe, bleeding, already bruised, maybe close to unrecognizable by them. we see of Herod's character just what we already knew of him, no problem with treating the Son of God as a mock king. Once he found out that Jesus wasn't an immediate threat to him, he just turned him into a joke for his own depraved amusement at the expense and pain of Jesus. So Herod returns Jesus to Pilate, and he didn't add any charges. And as a matter of fact, Pilate sent him to him saying, I don't find him guilty of anything. So you wind up with two now independent witnesses saying that despite the loud and incessant accusations from the chief priests and scribes, he's innocent. They both added though to the title, both Pilate and Herod added to his title, Man of Sorrows. from Isaiah 53, which describes the physical torture that Jesus endured before the cross. Now, that brings us to the third part of the Roman trial. Again, back in front of Pilate, and this time we jump to Mark again, Mark 15, 6-8 in our main text. Now, at the feast, he, the he is Pilate, used to release for them any one prisoner whom they requested. The man named Barabbas had been imprisoned with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the insurrection. The crowd went up and began asking him to do as he had been accustomed to do for them." Now, we don't know the background of that in detail. What insurrection this is, is not specified. It was probably a popular thing among the Jews. I mean, they had the whole party called the Zealots that lived to throw off Rome's authority over them. And some insurrection had happened. A bunch of people had been arrested. They'd been accused of murder. Barabbas was one of them. So Barabbas was probably a popular figure among the Jews. And so going into this day, Pilate had probably figured that his token act of kindness would do this once a year, give a little semblance that he had some compassion and that he actually cared about the people that he governed. They would release one prisoner. He had probably teed up Barabbas to be the one that would be set free, and that would help him gain favor with the Jews. But now he's in a tough spot. He knew Jesus was innocent. Barabbas might have been popular, but he wasn't innocent. And it appears that part of Pilate wanted to do the right thing. In one sense, you can understand why he was happy to figure out that Jesus was from Galilee, because Herod is in town, Herod's the governor of Galilee, I can hand off my problem, and I won't have to deal with him. I think he thought that as well, but now he sends him off to Herod, and he gets him back in short order. And it's just as bad as it was only now the chief priests and scribes are even more hot in their screaming accusations. Pilate had a long history of doing rash things that alienated him from the Jews, and things that when he alienated the Jews would get him in trouble with Rome, because his and Herod's job is keep the Jews happy, keep them paying taxes, no rebellions, and you'll be fine. Well, his problems had begun when Pilate got carried away with himself and he allowed his soldiers to enter Jerusalem carrying banners and standards that had on them the image of Caesar. Remember, Caesar worship was an issue in those days. The Jews regarded that as idolatry. So they were incensed with Pilate when Pilate did that. So a delegation of the Jews went down to Caesarea by the seashore. That was where Pilate usually hung out. That's where his main palace was. They went there to complain, and they protested for five days. Finally, Pilate agreed to meet them in the amphitheater. You that have been to Israel, you that were there with me a couple of years ago, we went to that amphitheater by the seashore in Caesarea, quite a spectacular place, even the ruins of it. And he gathered all the Jews there, but instead of listening to their complaint, He surrounded them with his soldiers and he threatened that he would have them all killed on the spot unless they would stop demonstrating against what he had done in Jerusalem. He figured they would buckle, and they didn't. Instead of backing down, they defiantly bared their necks. The symbol you give like, okay, you want me? Come get me. Cut my head off if you want to. It's like when your dog is attacked by the big dog and your dog rolls over on its back to say, okay, I submit, hoping the big dog won't carry through. That's what they did. Well, Pilate realized he wasn't going to get away with carrying out his bluff, so he reluctantly acquiesced and removed the images. And it didn't help his approval rating to have done that. Now they know he's not only mean and vindictive and idolatrous, he's also a wuss, and he's going to back down. There were two other occasions we know that Pilate either killed some Jews or threatened to kill Jews who opposed him, so no wonder the resentment was so high. There was another conflict when Pilate insisted on not those standards and the pictures of Caesar he'd brought in, He brought in gold-covered shields honoring Tiberius Caesar in Herod's palace in Jerusalem. Well, Herod's palace in Jerusalem, that's probably the same as the Praetorium. That's right next to the Temple Mount. And again, that was regarded as idolatrous. So this time, the Jewish delegation didn't want to press their luck and go to Caesarea and fight with Pilate there. They sent a delegation to Rome to appeal directly to Caesar. Well, Caesar didn't like hearing that Pilate wasn't able to handle things there, so he was angered by Pilate's insensitivity and provoking the Jews over and over, so he ordered him to take the shields down. So Pilate also hated the people who hated him. This guy's in a mess. If one more bad report about him gets to the ears of Caesar, he knows he's done. So watch him try to wriggle out of this situation. We have to jump to Luke again to keep weaving the story together. Luke 23, 13 through 16, Pilate summoned the chief priests and the rulers of the people and said to them, You brought this man to me as one who incites the people to rebellion. Remember, that was the false charge they brought to the first part of the Roman trial, even though that wasn't what they accused him of in their part of the trial. He says, and behold, having examined him before you, You were here when I was questioning him. He said, I have found no guilt in this man regarding the charges which you make against him. Jesus had said plainly, yeah, I'm a king, but I'm not after your kingdom. Pilate was not worried about that. It says, nor has Herod, for he sent him back to us and behold, nothing deserving death has been done by him. Now, that sounds pretty good so far. Let's reword that. You accused him, but the charges don't add up. I found him innocent. I sent him to Herod. Herod found him innocent. He's done nothing worthy of death. He sent him back to me. I say to you again, he's done nothing worthy of death. So far, so good. Jesus is innocent and doesn't deserve to die. But then there's that last sentence. Therefore, I will punish him and release him. What do you do when you're the judge and the guy before you is clearly not guilty? You release him. But... If you are a cowardly, self-serving mini-tyrant who cares more about your own self and maintaining your own position and your own power than you care about truth and justice, and you're afraid of the people in front of you, and you're afraid of your boss in Rome, you say something totally ridiculous like, well, since he's innocent, therefore I'll punish him and let him go. What? Did you hear what you just said? Here's what he's thinking, pretty obvious. He figured, if I'll just commit a little bit of violence against Jesus, maybe that will satisfy the bloodlust of these chief priests and rulers. He didn't care at all. that Jesus was innocent and His accusers were guilty. Jesus did not matter at all to Pilate in this situation. Jesus, in the eyes of Pilate, was merely a problem that needed to be handled in whatever way necessary to wiggle out of the pickle that he's in. Now we have to jump to John. John 18, 39, Pilate speaking. He says, yeah, I think the first time he tried to get out of it, I'll send him off to Herod. Thank goodness, the governor from Galilee is here. Oops, I got him back. Here's his second thought. He says, but you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover. Do you wish then that I release for you the king of the Jews? He had seen those crowds in the temple. He knew Jesus was incredibly popular. He'd heard about him all of this time. And he had this custom, throw a bone the way of the Jews once a year at the Passover to act like you have a little compassion or a little mercy. So he's figuring, okay, I'll release him. But Pilate was as savvy as he was spineless and foolish. Understand that he saw through this whole situation, except for how stupid he looked. Back to Mark, Mark 15, 9 and 10. Pilate answered them, now we just read John's version of this, now Mark adds this comment. Pilate answered them saying, do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews for, He was aware that the chief priests had handed him over because of envy. He saw that they weren't after justice. They came with the death penalty first and then tried to find an accusation. He knew that the motive for killing Jesus had nothing to do with their feigned loyalty to Rome. Oh, this man doesn't want people to pay taxes to Rome, which is exactly contrary to what Jesus said. Pilate could sniff out envy. He could recognize desperate hunger to hang on to position and power because that's how he lived. Takes one to know one. And he saw right through these guys. Now, there's one more juicy little unexpected piece of this drama. Haven't been to Matthew yet. Let's go over to Matthew. Matthew 27, verse 19. While he, and he is Pilate, was sitting on the judgment seat, that's the place in the praetorium where he would make legal pronouncements. While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent him a message saying, have nothing to do with that righteous man, for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of him. Wow. as if Pilate isn't miserable enough. He's got the Jewish leader screaming over here. He's got the problem of what to do. What if this gets back to Rome? Now he's going to have his wife on his case. Trust me, Mrs. Pilate didn't usually interrupt him when he was at the judgment seat. but she obviously knew what was going on. They had likely spoken of Jesus during the week. I mean, you couldn't have been there for the five days before this and not have talked about Jesus and the crowds in the temple and clearing the temple and all of that stuff. Probably his wife knew of Pilate's original verdict. Maybe he'd come back home after he sent him off to Herod and said, wow, honey, boy, I just, I dodged a bullet. Herod's in town, I'm off the hook. Oh, wait a minute, they want me back at the praetorium. Jesus is back. She probably knew all that was going on. Well, she had had a terrible dream. Remember, this is happening first thing in the morning. She'd had a terrible dream about what might happen, presumably, to her husband if he sent Jesus to his death. Now, I promise, she did not have a legitimate dream about what would happen to her husband unless she dreamed about the lake of fire. That's where her husband ended up, for all that we know. I've heard people say that this was a prophecy, that God gave this prophecy about Jesus and lay off the righteous man. Well, there's no indication that this was a revelatory dream from God, and there's no reason whatsoever to take it as such. Far more likely, she was convinced of Jesus' innocence. She knew her husband had trouble with his boss in Rome. She knew he was in a mess, and she was frightened for her husband. So why is this mentioned here? We don't need Mrs. Pilate to convince us that Jesus is innocent. We don't need Mrs. Pilate to further illustrate that Pilate was a weasel. But by taking this very unusual act of interrupting the governor on the judgment seat, Pilate's wife is recorded forever in Scripture as yet another voice attesting to Jesus' innocence. Now, there's a lot of things I would hope are true. I would like to think she was a believer. somehow through all of that, maybe she had been in the crowds, maybe she'd heard, maybe she'd come to faith, or that maybe after Jesus went to the cross, that maybe she became a believer. I've heard some wonderful points of sermons to that effect, and those are great sermons if you're willing to add to the Word of God. It doesn't say that. She had a bad dream as she was scared for her husband, to the point that she did something very unusual. Poor Pilate. The jaws of the vice, with every word spoken, get tighter and tighter and tighter on Pilate. Pressure to release Jesus, even from his wife. Pressure to send him to the cross. I imagine his discomfort was pretty easy to see. I could see the messenger coming up and handing him a note, and he's looking at it, and it would only get worse. Well, the chief priests sniffed that out, and they pounced on his discomfort. We go back to Mark 15, verses 11 through 15. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to ask him to release Barabbas for them instead. You know, I think he came there planning to release Barabbas that day. He was thinking, wait a minute, Barabbas is guilty. Jesus is innocent. Why don't I give him an innocent man that's been very popular among them? So the chief priests, they led spiritually the same way that Herod and Pilate led politically by intimidation and manipulation. They whipped the crowds up to demand the release of Barabbas. Answering again, Pilate said to them, Then what shall I do with him whom you call the king of the Jews? They shouted back, Crucify him! But Pilate said to them, Why? What evil has he done? They shouted all the more, Crucify him! Now, here comes everything you ever need to know about the character of Pilate in one verse. Look at it carefully. Wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas for them. And after having Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified. He knew Jesus was innocent. He knew that his accusers were absolutely filthy in this situation. They'd manipulated truth. They'd manipulated people. They'd broken countless of their own laws. He even knew that his own wife was going to be mad at him. But what mattered most to this man? Wishing to satisfy the crowd. So he lets a murderer loose. He decided to go ahead and inflict an unspeakably horrible physical punishment on a totally innocent man in order to try to please the crowd of murderers led by hypocrites. He was just fine with doing that as long as it solved his problem. And in the end, he handed over the only innocent man in all of history to be crucified. He who knew no sin became sin for us. We're going to see the became sin for us part of it next time. Well, that's Pilate to Herod. and back to Pilate. One more step before we are ready to look at the cross next time. Before the actual crucifixion comes another absolutely abhorrent scene. I'm not going to describe scourging to you, flogging to you. It's utterly terrible. But even though only the most despicable of human beings could ever order something like this or do something like this, that's what was done to Jesus. Go back to Mark and Mark chapter 15 verses 16 through 20, and this is mocking the master The soldiers took him away into the palace, that is the praetorium, and they called together the whole Roman cohort. Now, what's that about? Remember the Roman cohort, that's the soldiers. A cohort would be up to 600 of them. Now, they did not need 600 soldiers to contain Jesus. And remember when they did come after him, he said two words and knocked them all off their feet. It wasn't like he was their victim at any point. But they called all of them together. You know why they called them together? Hey, guys, come look at this. We're going to have some fun. It was that wicked. They dressed him up in purple, signal of royalty, mocking him. And after twisting a crown of thorns together, they put it on him. The thorns would have, a crown of thorns would have been digging into the skull, more pain, more blood. And they all began to acclaim Him, Hail King of the Jews. They kept beating His head with a reed. He's got a thorny crown on His head and they keep beating Him with a stick of bamboo, if you will, and spitting on Him, and kneeling and bowing before Him. Total mockery, utter blasphemy. After they had mocked Him, they took the purple robe off Him and put His own garments on Him, and they led Him out to crucify Him." He's about to lose His life. It's a death sentence. There is no compassion. There is no sense of solemnity, no sadness at all for what they had just done to this guy, let alone what he was about to face. There's no human decency. They ridicule and they mock the Son of God. They inflict the unspeakable torture of flogging upon Him. And by the way, many victims of flogging died at that stage from the trauma and the blood loss. But we have one more really interesting little detail. It's a fascinating thing when you try to think about why Mark included this. Last verse of our pericope is Mark 15, 21. They're on the way to the cross. They, they refers to the soldiers, they pressed into service a passerby from the country, Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. Now probably what's going on is the soldiers want to get this done. They got to get to Golgotha, the place of the cross. There's Jesus and the two others who were crucified there. And I'm sure you've had it explained to you. They would typically make the person being crucified carry across their shoulders and tie the arms to this big piece of timber. that would be the cross piece of the cross, and they had to carry that there. Well, if somebody had been flogged, it wasn't easy to carry that on a good day, but if you'd been flogged, it was even worse. They were probably in a hurry to get the men to their crosses, and Jesus wasn't going fast enough to carry that piece of the cross. So they randomly conscripted from the crowd a man named Simon of Cyrene. Cyrene is a vibrant port city or was a vibrant port city on the North African coast. It's in what would now be modern day Libya. Not sure if it's still called Cyrene or not. Cyrene was also the home to a significant Jewish population. So Simon was one of those thousands of Jewish pilgrims who traveled to Jerusalem to observe the Passover. He happened to be coming by and he was the random choice of the executioner. But there's more to the story. God's invisible sovereign hand is at work here, providentially using the witless actions of the Roman soldiers to draw this poor bystander. He probably looked like a strong young guy. Make him carry the cross. And they wound up bringing him to Jesus. And they played a role in bringing him to faith. Now notice Mark identified Simon as the father of Alexander and Rufus. Now here's where this is, it's wonderful how this comes together. That tells us that Mark, who wrote for Gentiles in Rome, he knew that his original readers were acquainted with sons of Simon. and the dots all connect within the pages of scripture. Alexander and Rufus were almost certainly active in the church at Rome. And when Paul would, many years later, write his letter to the church at Rome and send greetings there, he says in Romans 16, greet Rufus, a choice man in the Lord, and also his mother and mine. Put that together. What's he saying? Greet Rufus. He's a member of the church in Rome. He's a choice man in the Lord. And also his mother, who would be the wife of Simon of Cyrene and mine, implying that Rufus' wife had treated Paul as, or Simon's wife, one of the two, had treated Paul as if he were her own son. This family had played a role in ministering to Paul, and he's sending greetings to them. So, wondrously, the man who carried Jesus' cross came to embrace Him in saving faith, as did his wife and sons. Now, that's an avalanche of Scripture. I don't know if I've ever read any more verses than that in one sermon. As we close, take a step back and think about what we've taken in and understand this is here for our edification, for our instruction, for our reproof, for our correction and training in righteousness. Pilate, a weasel of a political tyrant, he tried to find ways to release Jesus, but he was intimidated into giving in. He actually came to believe that He might somehow be worse off if He risked His standing with Caesar than He would be if He ordered the execution of the Son of God. And remember how He was ultimately described in verse 15 of Mark 15? Wishing to satisfy the crowd, He handed Him over to be crucified. Pilate did what many had done before and what countless ones have done since. He put his career, his personal peace and affluence, his comfort, he put all of that above his convictions, and he let them all overweigh the truth. He caved in to the demands of the mob that was stirred up by hypocritical murderers in the Sanhedrin. And in this case, he made himself an accomplice to murder. And unless something happens that we're certainly not told about and never recorded anywhere outside the Bible, he's in the lake of fire, or he's headed for the lake of fire. Don't get mired in all the details of what happened that night and early in the morning. Obviously, it's very important. You can tell by the amount of ink allotted to it in Matthew and Mark and Luke and John. But the most important response that you can have to all this would be a fresh appreciation for the humiliation and the indignity that Jesus suffered on your behalf. How humble was He? He endured the cross, despising the shame, it says in Philippians. He was willing to go through all this. And by the way, none of these horrible things that happened to Him between 1 a.m. and 6 or 7 a.m., 9 o'clock when He was nailed to the cross, none of that saves you. His physical suffering isn't what saved you. It was him taking your sin upon himself on the cross. That's why, we'll see next time he screamed out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He was bearing the wrath of God for our sin. He didn't deserve any of it. You don't deserve anything that mild. Hallelujah, we might say. What a Savior. Come back, Lord willing, next Lord's Day, and we'll look at the crucifixion. In the meantime, let's pray. Our Father, thank You for all the details of this that you have given to us. It does indeed show us this is very important and you want us to understand it. And oh, how we thank you for the Savior who endured all of this in order to get to the cross to bear our sins that we might stand complete in Christ today. whatever needs to be done in any heart here today, that we might walk with this Savior, that we might not compromise as Pilate and so many others did. Peter, Evan, thank you, Father, for your grace in which we stand, but we pray you'll strengthen us in our faith as we go from this place today, and put the words of the gospel freshly upon our tongues as we go. In Jesus' name, amen.