Please turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew chapter twenty seven verses twenty seven to sixty six Matthew twenty seven verses twenty seven sixty six on page eight hundred thirty four in the pew Bibles. This week and next, we will finish up the Gospel of Matthew. This week will be focusing on the death of Christ. Next week on the resurrection of Christ, these two events stand at the very center of what Jesus has done for us. Please listen carefully and follow along is if you have a copy of descriptions in front of you, follow along as I read the passage. As we read, notice how different groups of people react to Jesus Christ. Matthew, chapter 27, starting at verse 27, this is God's holy word. 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. 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. But 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, the 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're the son of God, come down from the cross. So also the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him, saying he saved others. He cannot save himself. He's the king of Israel. Let him now come down 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. And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. Now, from the 6th hour, there was darkness over all the land until the 9th hour and about the 9th hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Ali, Ali, Lamar, Sabah, Denny, that is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders hearing it said, this man is calling Elijah. And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the other said, wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him. And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom and the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection. They went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, truly, this was the son of God. There were also many women there looking on from a distance who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. And when it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there sitting opposite the tomb. The next day, that is the day of preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, Sir, We remember how that imposter said while he was still alive, after three days I will rise. Therefore, order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him and tell the people he has risen from the dead. And the last fraud will be worse than the first. Pilate said to them, you have a guard of soldiers. Go make it as secure as you can. So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard. Here is the reading of God's holy word. May God bless it to our hearts this morning. We'll look at the text in three parts this morning. First of all, the mockery of Christ. What was happening there is Jesus was mocked. What does God want us to learn from it? Secondly, the abandonment of Christ, what does it mean that the father forsook the son on the cross and what does it not mean? Thirdly, how people respond to the crucified Christ, the onlookers reacted in different ways. How does God want us to react? So Christ is mocked. Christ is abandoned. And then. What's the right response? May God bless us as we look at his word this morning. First, look with me at the mockery of Christ, the mockery of Christ. Matthew devotes 18 verses to describing how Jesus Christ was ridiculed. Clearly, God wants us to learn something from it. Think about mockery. Mockery happens when it usually happens, when a person oversteps his limits and opens himself up to be made fun of. If I try to teach you about computer programming this morning, I would certainly be opening myself up to be made fun of, teased. Now, teasing is kind of the that's definitely the mild end of the scale of mockery. The other end of the scale, of course, is just brutal humiliation. Now, our Lord Jesus, when he was mocked. It was not because he had overstepped his bounds or because there was any real defect on his part. What was happening there is that Jesus, for our sake, was laying aside his power. He was not exercising his power and he was not displaying his glory openly on the cross. And so he was mocked, and this was a brutal mockery, just about as brutal as mockery gets when people kill you. and then essentially laugh in your face and tell you how worthless you are as you die. That is the mockery our Lord Jesus Christ underwent. There is a long standing discussion over why Jesus died in this way. With such suffering. Some people think that Jesus suffered so that we could learn to do likewise. And it is true that the death of Christ teaches us to deny ourselves. It teaches us to do likewise, to follow him in the sense of walking in his steps as redeemed people. But it's not true. It's not true that the significance of the cross is merely in the suffering. As an example, I don't think when we read this text that it makes any of us want to run out and die on a cross. That's not that's not the deep meaning of the text. There is something else about Christ's suffering that actually changes people and turns them into committed followers of Jesus Christ. What is the deep meaning of what's going on here? The deep meaning of the cross is that Jesus was taking the place of his people. He was taking the place of his people. He was suffering the penalty that their sins deserved. There are many scriptures that talk about this. And our passage itself contains a hint of this in the notice that was nailed above his head. This is Jesus, king of the Jews. Jesus did not die as a private individual like those on his right and on his left. No, he died as a king. He died representing those under him. Now, did the leaders think that was an appropriate title? No, they didn't believe in him. Why did Pilate cause it to be hung there? It may have been his jab at the Jewish leaders. Behold, your king. And yet God in his providence ordained that Jesus Christ would die with that sign over his head. King of the Jews, not a private person, but a public person, a representative, a leader. This helps to explain the mockery Jesus was taking that ridicule on the cross as the leader His people, he was taking the mockery that we deserve, the mockery that we deserve. The Bible says that we're born with an inner twist against God. Psalm 51 5. We like we're like tiny little rebellious ants next to our infinite creator, and yet as sinful men and women, we keep brushing God aside. We keep disobeying him and going against his word, going our own way. What does that deserve? Well, our pride is contemptible. Our pride calls for mockery, and yet Jesus loved us and Jesus came to take derision for us. He came to take derision for us so that we could receive honor through him. The things that people said to Jesus as they mocked him were very sad and also a very good illustration of the human condition. of people's rebellion against God. Four groups mocked Jesus. First, there were the soldiers. On Pilate's order, they had already scourged Jesus. You can read about that in verse 26, which we didn't read this morning. Roman scourging was a brutal business. It could lay a person open to the bone. It itself was sometimes fatal. But not content with the scourging, The soldiers proceeded to humiliate Jesus as a powerless king. That's the message here, isn't it? A powerless king. They dress him up in a robe. They put a crown on his head. They put a reed in his hand. And then they start this obsequious bowing in front of him. Hail, King of the Jews. Then they spit at him and they beat him on the head. Then they take off the robe and lead him away to be crucified. At this point, apparently so weak from loss of blood that they have to recruit another man to carry his cross. With all that loss of blood, Jesus would have been terribly thirsty, and what did they offer him? They offered him wine mixed with gall, a bitter substance. Now, the Gospel of Mark says that this was myrrh, and some people have speculated that myrrh was a painkiller. But this is not it's not true as far as I've been able to learn. The purpose of the gall seems to be that it made the wine undrinkable. Oh, he's thirsty. Let's give him a drink. Oh, he spit it out too bad. It's just another part of the mockery, the joke that they're trying to make out of Christ. Then they stripped him, nailed him to the cross and gambled over his clothes. Brutal, brutal. So the soldiers mock Christ. Next, even the common man gets in on the act. Matthew says that passersby called out, yelling at Jesus to save himself if he had any power, and then the Jewish leaders call out. They mock Jesus for being unable to save himself. What? He saved others. He called himself the son of God. Let him now save himself. That's the leaders. And then even the lowest of the low get in on the act. The robbers on each side of him, Matthew says, reviled him in the same way. The Gospel of Luke does tell that at some point one of these robbers believed in Christ. Matthew is making the point the people of all stripes joined in humiliating Christ, Jew, Gentile, high and low, all joined to mock him. Listen to that chorus of jeering. and see the common thread that runs throughout. You have no power, you're a false king. That spotlights the main issue, really, in Jesus ministry, does God have authority over us? Is Jesus his savior? Must we bow the knee to Jesus Christ? This is the very issue. This is the key issue in Jesus life. And the mocking crowd seems gleeful that Jesus seems to have no power at all. And yet, and yet, as Jesus was dying to redeem us, what was he doing? He was bringing us under the power of God. He was dying for our sins so that he might change us inside and make us willing to follow God as our king. Jesus is allowing himself to be mocked for our sake, to pay the price. We might naturally think about this mockery and discouraging and the crucifixion as that which caused Jesus the most pain. But that's not what the story seems to say. Jesus suffered most in his relationship to God. Consider with me next the abandonment of Christ, the abandonment of Christ. That's our second point this morning. Commentator Matthew Henry said Christ being forsaken of the father. was the most grievous of his sufferings. He did not say, why am I scourged and why spit upon and why nailed to the cross? Nor did he say to his disciples when they turned their back upon him, why have you forsaken me? But when the father abandoned him, Christ cried out to his father, my God, why have you forsaken me? To come to grips with what Jesus is undergoing, Overlay what he suffered on normal human experience. When a loved one dies, normally their friends and family, if they're able, will gather around the bedside. They want to support and love that person all the way to the end. But at the height of his suffering, Jesus felt alone. Normally, Christ enjoyed the father's good favor to agree to a degree we cannot possibly understand. He was the beloved son of God, and he knew it. Jesus said in John 4, 34, My food and drink is to do the will of him who sent me loving and serving. God was like eating and drinking to Jesus. He loved his father. The father loved him and approved of him, and Jesus knew it. Jesus never felt guilty before God, something we can't even imagine. He never felt ashamed. But all of a sudden, With the weight of the sins of the world on his back, it was as if the father turned his back on his son and walked away, leaving his father's his son's side so that Jesus cried out, quoting Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why did God leave the son's side? Again, Jesus was standing in our place. What do our sins deserve? They deserve to have God withdraw all sense of his comfort and peace from us. In fact, that is how scripture describes hell, a place of torment away from the light of God's face, away from all marks of God's favor. Jesus was undergoing the abandonment of hell for us. At that time, the sky grew dark from about noon till three in the afternoon, the sixth of the ninth hours. The best I can understand that darkness represents God withdrawing the light of his favor from his son. There's darkness in the sky, but there's an even greater desolation in Jesus heart. And in that profound moment, human stupidity intrudes. Some of the bystanders hearing Jesus cry out, thought he was calling to Elijah to come help him. At that time, I imagine Jesus' tongue probably felt like a piece of leather in his mouth. It was probably hard to understand him as he cried out. So someone gave him a little sour wine. This is different from the wine with gall mentioned earlier. The soldiers at this time would commonly had, they commonly drank a sort of vinegary drink as part of their provisions. So apparently somebody gave some soldiers wine to Jesus. Now, when someone's dying, it's a common act of kindness to moisten that person's mouth. It helps to relieve the person and help them as they're passing from this life. But it doesn't seem like they're trying to help Jesus here. It seems like they're trying to moisten his mouth so he can keep calling out and so they can see what happens. Wait, let's see if Elijah is going to come and help him. This might be interesting. And at that moment, Jesus cried out with a loud voice and he yielded up his spirit. He died abandoned by God, misunderstood and laughed at right up to the end. It was pathetic, but it was the way that a rebel against God deserves to die. It was our death that he was taking on himself. Jesus died abandoned for us. But here's the point to balance it out. Even though God withdrew the sense of his comfort from Christ, he was still very much present with Christ in his last hour. Jesus had said back in John 1410, the father who dwells in me does his works. So here's a mystery for you. Even as the father abandoned the son, the father was still in the son doing his works, for God had long ago planned that Jesus would suffer abandonment for us. If you look at the bottom of your sermon outline, you can see a long list of prophecies fulfilled in the death, the suffering and death of Christ. We can't read all these this morning. There are too many. Clearly, God planned all of this long ago. Jesus was doing the father's will. You know, some people talk about this abandonment in terms of there being a division or a rift opening up in the Holy Trinity where the father turns his back on the eternal son. For a time, we shouldn't speak that way. It is not biblically accurate, but the Bible says that God is one. God always acts with one will and one power. What happened on the cross was not that one member of the Trinity was turning its back on the other, but it was that God withdrew all comfort from Christ, according to his human nature. As our sin bearer. He did it so that Christ could suffer that pain and the bitterness of death for us. God, let us know that he approved of the death of Christ by making three statements after Jesus died. Sometimes when people do something or accomplish something, they prepare a statement. God prepared three statements. First. First was that the temple curtain was ripped in half from top to bottom. exposing the way open to the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was, that picture of God's throne. God is saying through the death of Christ, the way to my presence is now open and all the ceremonial law represented by that temple has been fulfilled. God's first statement. Then God makes a second statement, a mighty earthquake. The ground shakes, rocks fly apart. In the Old Testament, the mighty earthquake was that often happened when there'd be a visitation of God, like on Mount Sinai, when God would come to earth, the ground would shake. Here, God wants us to see that this is a visitation of God. He wants us to see the finger of God in the crucifixion. Third statement, many tombs came open in the course of the earthquake. You can imagine the stones rolling away from many doors as the earth shook. And Matthew says that upon the resurrection of Christ, many saints came out of their tombs and appeared to many in Jerusalem, a very amazing event, a mini resurrection. And in that event, God showed that there is power in Jesus death and in his resurrection to benefit many. Now, where these saints went afterward, presumably to heaven, we're not told. That's part of the mystery of this passage. So there's a mockery of Christ, there's the abandonment of Christ. Let's move to the third point, how people respond to the crucified Christ, how people respond. The three groups responded differently. We'll think about them and then think about how we respond. First, the death of Jesus Christ left some people quite impressed, quite impressed. And you can see that. In verse fifty four, when the centurion and those who were with him keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, truly, this was the son of God. They could see that this was no ordinary death. Rousseau once remarked, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, The life and death of Jesus are those of a God. This is such a remarkable death. It sets it apart far apart even from every other remarkable death. This death. With the darkness and with the earthquake, this is clearly in a class by itself. And so the centurion and those with him had a good response, but did it go far enough? Did the centurion come to understand that Jesus was dying for sin? Did he trust in Christ as the one who died for him? We don't know. Next response. There was a group of people devoted to Christ versus 55 through 61. There's a group of women who followed Christ and they kept watch over his grave. There was a man named Joseph. Who honored him and believed in him, even in his death. Now, the Gospel of John tells us an interesting fact about Joseph. Joseph, it says, was a secret believer of Jesus up to this point for fear of the Jews, for fear of the Jewish leaders. But what Joseph saw on the cross had an effect on him. You would expect a fence sitter like Joseph to keep sitting on the fence until there was a clear winner, but that's not what he did. He was so struck with a crucified Christ that he chose to side with a dead man. How remarkable is that? Joseph risked alienating all those powerful people who had Jesus put to death. Joseph was a rich man. He had much to lose. And yet somehow in this event, God opened his eyes to the worth of Jesus Christ. And so it is that you must side with Jesus Christ no matter what it may cost you if you want to benefit from him. More on that in a minute. There's a third group of people here, and those are ones who fear Christ, not in a good way, but in a negative way. The chief priests and the Pharisees remember that Jesus said he would rise again. They asked Pilate to set a guard over the tomb to prevent the disciples from stealing the body and saying that he had risen. Pilate said, set the guard. And in doing so. They provided proof that the body was not stolen. They provided proof that Jesus really did rise from the dead because the body could not have been stolen with the guards there. They feared and how do we understand their fear? I don't think they feared the disciples. The disciples had already shown that they were not really a force to be reckoned with, but they did fear the ongoing power of Jesus reputation. If a rumor arose that he had risen, People might actually believe it. Even though he was dead, they still feared him. You know, many people today are the same. They want to keep Jesus safely locked away, so they lock him up. They lock him perhaps behind the bars of unbelief. They'll seize on any anything that's presented to them as far as criticism about Christ or about scripture. They seize on it and believe it. Anything to discredit Christ. no matter how implausible or half thought through it may be. They love anything that proves they don't have to submit to the king, Jesus Christ. Other people lock up Jesus behind a metaphor. They say Jesus represents a human potential. Jesus represents who we could all be if we only started believing in ourselves and got in touch with ourselves, whatever that means. But they want to keep Jesus safely locked away Anything but allowing him to be a real living person and a true king. Some people lock up Jesus behind a philosophy of non-judgmentalism. They say the Jesus I know and believe in would never call people sinners or would never say that anyone deserved to go to hell. And Jesus, they say, affirms us just the way we are. And so they try to keep Jesus safely tucked away where he means what they say he means they don't want a real king. Now, as we think about those various responses and the way people still respond today, the question for us is, how do you respond? How do you respond to Christ? Where do you fit in the progression we see in this passage? Many laugh at him at first and then. A few people say he is awesome. And then you have one man coming out in the open and saying, I, I believe in this man. I'm going to honor him even though he's dead. If you want to side with Jesus crucified for us and now risen, then you must also identify with the cross. There's no way to get around it. You must identify with a deep meaning of what Jesus was doing here. You must recognize that the point of issue is your sinfulness before God, and you must say to God. I'm a sinner, I hate that fact, and I turn from my sin, I renounce all allegiance to sin and to self. I turn to you, God, would you forgive my sins for Jesus sake? I trust in him and in him alone. That's the only way to be saved and be reconciled to God. And that's the deep meaning of the cross. If you don't get anything else from this message, get this. The message of the cross is that Jesus Christ died to save sinners and you need to trust in him. Maybe you do trust in Christ, but as you listen this morning, you realize that your affection to him has grown thin. The cross, you believe in it. But it's not really at the center of your life in the way it should be. If there are a group of people in this passage who are staring off at the sky or looking at something else, that would be kind of where you are right now. Distracted. Not really centering your life on Jesus Christ, believing in him and serving him, if so, I hope that this story this morning is a reflect on what Jesus did for you. his suffering and what he went through to deal with the issue of your sin, that that will stir up your faith in Jesus Christ, that the Holy Spirit would use that to stir up new obedience in your heart. Jesus Christ is a great king. It is so important that you respond to him in the right way. We deserve mockery, abandonment and death. Jesus came to take that for us and to give us honor. communion with God and eternal life turn to Christ. He has more than enough power and grace to save all those who come to him. Amen. Let us pray. Our dear father, we thank you for the precious gift of your son. We thank you that Jesus underwent ridicule for our sakes. And we thank you that he suffered abandonment for us. And we acknowledge that we are the ones who deserve to be treated this way. So we rejoice that Jesus came to pay the price. Our father, would you please help us to center our lives on the cross of Christ? Grant that we may never forget what he's done for us, but it's never forget that we've been redeemed and set apart. How we thank you that you have washed us clean and restored us to your good favor. Father, we give you all honor and glory, together with your Son, who was crucified for us, and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.