Please open your Bibles to Mark chapter 15 for our sermon today. We're in verses 16 through 32. Mark 15, 16 through 32. I'm gonna read the passage and pray, and I'll jump right into the sermon. Hear now the word of God. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is, the governor's headquarters, and they called together the whole battalion. And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him, and they began to salute him. Hail, king of the Jews! And they were striking his head with a reed, and spitting on him, and kneeling down and homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, and put his own clothes on him, and they led him out to crucify him. And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who is coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. And they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull. And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, and decided what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him. And the inscription of the charge against him read, the King of the Jews. And with him, they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, aha, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. So also the chief priests and scribes mocked him to one another, saying, He saved others? He cannot save himself? Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe. Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. Thus ends the reading of God's holy, inerrant word. May its truth be ever written on our hearts. Let us pray. Dear God, we thank you that you are a God who speaks and that we are able to see you in your word. Lord, help us to see what it is to follow you and what it is to be faithful to you and to love you and to know you. Lord, help us to see Jesus more clearly and love him more completely. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be ever pleasing and acceptable in your sight. O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. Christians love the cross. We wear crosses, we put them on our walls, we use them as decoration, we put them on social media posts. They're a symbol that identify us as a Christian. I did some quick looking around earlier this week and counted about 17 crosses in our sanctuary alone. And if you count the few of you probably wearing cross necklaces right now, there could be close to two dozen in here at this moment. Christians love the cross. It's long been the symbol that reminds us what Christ has done for us. But do any of you actually know what the first depiction of Jesus on the cross is? The first painting of it? Or something like that? I'm assuming not. It's called the Alexa Minos Graffito. I set aside, so we'll put it up for you to see. This is perhaps the oldest known image of Jesus on the cross. It's called the Alexa Minos Graffito. Graffito is Italian for graffiti. It is literally an etching into a plaster wall. that dates back to the second or third century AD. It could even be as early as 70 AD, just 40 years after Jesus. But this is like some guy took keys into a bathroom and etched this into a bathroom stall kind of thing. And it depicts, as you see, a man hanging on a cross with what looks like a donkey's head. And he's got the wound on his side, like when he was stabbed through. when Jesus was stabbed by the centurion. And it has another man with his arms raised beneath him. And it reads this in Greek, Ἀλεξίμανος καβάται Θεός, which means, Ἀλεξίμανος, worships his God. Or, defender of strength, worships his God. This is perhaps the oldest picture of the cross we know about in human history, and it is making fun of a Christian for worshiping a crucified Savior, for believing that God was able to die on the cross. You see, that is what they're making fun of. that whoever did this, some punk kid probably, some 1800 years ago, was making fun of the cross. He was mocking the cross. You see, even in the earliest days of Christianity, unbelievers mocked the cross of Christ. In fact, in the very beginning, in our passage, unbelievers mocked the cross of Christ. but true born-again Christians worship at its feet. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1.18, for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God for salvation. If there's a verse to pair with this sermon outside of the Mark text, it's that one. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God for salvation." 1 Corinthians 1. You see, Christians love the cross. It is the primary symbol of our faith. A great preacher of past years named Jane Montgomery Boyce says, quote, the cross stands as the focal point of the Christian faith. Without the cross, the Bible is an enigma, and the gospel of salvation is an empty hope, end quote. You see, the heart of the Christian faith is the cross of Jesus Christ. And let me tell you the message of the cross real quick. Jesus died for your sins. That is the heart of the Christian faith. Theologians call this penal substitutionary atonement. Just think about what that phrase means real quick. We owe a penalty for our sin. Because of our sin, because of our wrongdoings and rebellion against God, we actually deserve an eternity in hell. But Christ came and lived a perfect life and offered himself on the cross as a substitute for us. He took the penalty we deserve upon himself so that we might be atoned for, so that we might be counted righteous by God Almighty. That is the message of the cross. That is the hope of Christianity, that we are made right because Jesus died for our sins. You see, the cross is at the very heart of Christianity. Christians love the cross. but unbelievers don't quite understand that. Non-Christians, people who do not believe in Jesus, people who do not believe in the resurrection, see the cross as something to be mocked. You worship a God who died? You worship a Savior who couldn't save himself? You see, in our passage, Mark highlights mock the cross of Christ. Look at verse 20. It says, and they, the soldiers, had mocked him. Which means everything before it, 16 through 19, is about mocking Jesus on his way to the cross. And if you look down at 31, it says, so also the chief priests and the scribes mocked him to one another. also implies that the stuff before it was also mocking Jesus. You see, this whole passage is about Jesus being mocked on the cross, because unbelievers mock the cross of Christ. And in this passage, I think we see five reasons why unbelievers mock the cross of Christ. five reasons why people who are not convinced of who Jesus is and his resurrection and what he's done to save us look at the cross as a joke instead of something to be taken with the most amount of seriousness. And the first reason we see in verse 16 through 20, it's because they think the cross means Jesus is not king. In verse 16 through 20, they think Jesus is not king. You see, this is where the soldiers mock him by putting a purple cloak on him and weaving together a crown of thorns and yelling out, Hail, King of the Jews! You see, they're making fun of him because he is being punished as the Christ, the King of the Jews. So they act like he's a king. But while doing it, they're striking him with reeds and spitting on him and beating him. They're making fun of him. They're acting like he's a false king. And it makes sense. Just for a second, when does a king end his reign? When he dies, right? The end of a king's reign is when they die. So if Jesus is heading to the cross, what does that mean about his reign? Well, to these Roman soldiers, It means he's not really king, because he's dead. He's going to die. He has no ability to rule anymore. To be fair, this is this side of the resurrection. You see, Christians don't believe the cross is the end of the story. We think it's just the beginning. Jesus rose from the grave, and so on the cross, he was crowned an earthly king, In the cosmic realities, he is now an everlasting king seated at the right hand of God. But to the unbeliever, the cross is the place where Jesus died. To the unbeliever, they mock the cross because it means Jesus is not king. The second thing we see in verse 21 through 24 is that people mock the cross because they think it means Jesus is weak. In this passage, we see that the soldiers divide up his garments and bid on them, showing that Jesus is so weak, he cannot even control the personal possessions of clothing on his own body. He is so weak that they're able to take it and beg for it in front of him, and pass lots, and figure out who's gonna get what, because he has no power to fight them. He is so weak that they offer him wine mixed with myrrh. This is something often done in ancient times as a gift for royalty. Fine wine mixed with myrrh. But instead of fine wine, they give him sour wine. And they mix it with this myrrh as a kind of mocking his kingliness all over again. But Proverbs also teaches us that when we're ill, when we're hurting, it is good to have a glass of wine to take some of the pain away. And in Jewish culture, often when great torture like crucifixion was about to occur, they give you a little bit of wine to ease the pain. Just like someone, Civil War, being given a shot of whiskey before having a bullet removed or something like that. They give a little bit of wine to ease the pain. You see, they're assuming Jesus is weak. Notice, though, that Jesus doesn't take the line. That's a separate point, but important. And we also see that this man, Simon of Cyrene, carries the cross for Jesus. Simon of Cyrene is mentioned in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but John's version of the story actually says Jesus carried his own cross. Now, the main way that most Christians have harmonized the two, have put these together and tried to make sense of it all, is we often think that Jesus started carrying his cross and being so weak after being beaten and whipped by these soldiers, he was unable to carry it very far and fell down. And so the Roman soldiers grabbed Simon of Cyrene out of the crowd and forced him to carry Jesus' cross. This shows something of Jesus' weakness, if this is true. He's so weak, he cannot carry his own cross. He is so weak, he's not able to make the journey on his own. You see, this whole passage shows something of the weakness of Jesus. And if you're an unbeliever and you don't believe Jesus really is God, if you don't believe that the cross is the fullness of Christ, then you look at that as a sign of weakness. But if you know your Bibles, you might remember that it also says that Jesus could hail down a legion of angels to protect him. He could have gotten himself off the cross. He could have hailed down a legion of angels to wipe out all these enemies and take control. And if that is true, then it means that there was an abundance of strength. At any moment, Jesus could have fought back and won. But Jesus was not weak. He was strong in bearing the cross for us. The third thing we see is that people associate the cross with criminals. Because they mock the cross, because they think it means Jesus is amongst the criminals. We see this in verse 25 through 27. This is where they crucify him and it says, an inscription of the charge against him is above his head. The word charge is like this is the verdict that he is guilty of, being king of the Jews. It's a criminal charge. And on his left side and right side, they hang robbers. You see, to the ancients, they would have seen Jesus on the cross as a criminal. And when that happens, rather it is true or not, it is hard to get away from being designated a criminal. One of the sad truths about the justice system, rather it be in our country or anywhere else in the world, at any point in history, there has always been the problem If someone is falsely convicted of being a criminal, if they are ever released and the charge is dropped, they can never fully let go of that accusation. If someone is in prison because they're guilty for a murder, they never did, and after 25 years they're released because they find out they had nothing to do with it. They often can never escape the social issues that come with once being labeled a criminal. Jesus, to these people, will always be designated in the category of criminal. And so some people mocked the cross because they saw Jesus as a type of criminal. That being said, I have never heard anyone today deny Jesus as Lord because he's a criminal. I've heard a couple of Jewish rabbis and one particular atheist debater bring this up as a way to try to discredit Christianity a little bit. But the thing I see an awful lot that's actually really sad is a lot of so-called pastors and so-called Christians who say that Jesus didn't really die for our sins, that that was made up later. That's something that Paul came up with and what the church in Augustine worked on. And they try to get back to what they call the historical Jesus. And they'll say Jesus only died as a oppressor against Rome, as someone who was trying to lead a revolution. He was a political death, which means to die as a criminal. You see, those people who downplay what Christ actually was doing on the cross looked at the historical Jesus as someone who only died as a model for social justice, as a model for revolutionary tactics, instead of seeing him as the one who died for our sins to make us right with God. You see, some people even today still mock the cross of Christ as if he were a criminal. The fourth thing we see in verse 20-30 is that they mock the cross of Christ because they think the cross means that Jesus is unable to save. This is in 29-30. They deride Him. They wag their heads at Him. They say, you said you could destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Save yourself and come down from the cross. You say you could do that great thing of rebuilding the temple, but yet you can't even get down from the cross? Save yourself to show us that you can save others. Look at verse 31, the chief priests in the skies mocking one another saying, he saved others, he cannot save himself. They're making fun of him because he said he's able to heal people, he's able to fix people, he's able to change people's lives. He claimed to be the Christ. He's able to save others, but he can't save himself. You see, these religious people look at the cross at a point where Jesus cannot fix it. Remember, as we said earlier, though, Jesus could have hailed down a legion of angels. But that being said, they don't realize that in doing this, Jesus is saving everyone. They think that Jesus saving people has to be Jesus healing people's physical ailments. or it has to be Jesus getting rid of the Roman oppressors. They don't realize there's something much greater happening in this passage. And so, unbelievers mock the cross of Christ because they think it means Jesus cannot save them, because Jesus is dead. And lastly, we see in verse 31 what is probably the thing that wraps all of these together. They think the cross disproves Jesus as the Messiah. They say, let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe. They basically say, prove it to us. If you're actually the Christ, if you're actually the King of Israel, get down off that cross so we know for certain. Because they think someone on a cross, someone who dies, cannot be the Messiah. It's been said that in the 100 years before Jesus to the 100 years after Jesus, there were hundreds, plural, hundreds of messianic movements amongst the Jewish people. Different people rose up claiming to be the Christ, claiming to be the Messiah. And note, only one of them really continues, and that's Jesus. You see, almost every messianic movement died out when the messianic figure, the supposed king, died. A few of them transferred their focus to some other leader or some relative, but then when they died, the movement died out. But Jesus' movement, though, did not die out. Why? Because Jesus rose from the grave. Because in the resurrection, Jesus shows that his messianic kingdom never ends. You see, they think the cross means Jesus cannot be the Messiah. He died, he didn't defeat Rome, he didn't make things right, he didn't bring together the tribes of Israel, the list can go on. But ultimately, they are seeing only the cross without the resurrection that comes next. You see, as Christians, we don't look at the cross as the end of the story, but we look at it as the beginning. We look at it as the place where Jesus died before he rose again to make everything right. But in our passage, this shows us the mockery of unbelievers. Next week, we will see how believers look at the cross in verse 32 through 39. But before we do that, hidden in our text, we actually find some confidence for believers about the cross. Time doesn't allow me to go into a lot of detail here, but this passage actually draws on many Old Testament promises. And if you know your Bibles well, you actually read this not as mocking Jesus, but as someone who sees that Jesus really is the Christ of some God. Let me just show you a couple of things real quick. Remember, Isaiah 53, the song of the suffering servant, says that the Messiah would be stricken, smitten by God and afflicted by man, pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. More so, Psalm 23, or that Jesus quotes on the cross and he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Later in that psalm, Psalm 22, six, David writes this. I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They make moth in me. They wag their heads, saying, he trusts the Lord, let him deliver him. And a few verses later, in Psalm 22, 16 through 18, it says this. They have pierced my hands and feet, I count all my bones, they stare and gloat over me, they divide my garments among themselves and for my clothing they cast lots. Isn't that exactly what happens in our passage? You see, this passage is written away, where Mark shows us that all these unbelievers are mocking Jesus, but he's also showing us, if you know your Bible, within all of this, they're fulfilling the Holy Scriptures, which say that the Messiah would suffer and die for his people, that say that they would pass lots for his clothing, You see, it's written in a way to give you, who believe the Bible, who love Jesus' confidence, instead of mocking Jesus, you can know that Jesus really is his Savior. You see, believers love the cross because the cross reveals our Savior. But unbelievers mock the cross. They still do it today. You can see mocking the cross all over the place, in artwork and in music, in people who wear cross necklaces while they go out partying and living ungodly lives. People act as if the cross is just a picture. It's just a cute little thing. There was a thing going around TikTok a few months ago of people being like, why are people wearing tea necklaces? Not realizing even what the cross was. You see, people who do not believe in Jesus will mock the cross of Christ because deep down they don't understand what it means. And I'll say this, though you cannot know for certain, you can't read someone's heart, You can't know if someone's saved or not saved. If someone mocks the cross of Christ, you can be about 99% certain that they're not really a Christian. that they're not really born again, because Christians don't mock the cross of Christ. They wouldn't. I'm not talking like they made a joke or they're saying some silly stuff that doesn't make sense. I'm talking about people who act like the cross of Christ is meaningless. That all it points to is death. That it means that Jesus is not who he claims to be. You see, true born-again Christians never mock the cross of Christ. Let me say this as well. Any pastor who downplays the cross, and any preacher who avoids talking about substitutionary atonement, the fact that Jesus died in our place on the cross, they are a wolf in the pulpit. They are an unbeliever trying to lead people away from the truth of Christ. Any preacher, any Christian who does not see the sacrificial atonement as a major part of what it is to be a Christian is actually turning away from Jesus and leading others astray. Like, they're mocking the cross of Christ and showing themselves to be an unbeliever. When we look at our lives, are we people who mock the cross of Christ? Or are we people who worship it? You see, in the cross, we should see ourselves doing something different. But it's easy to see ourselves amongst mockers. As we'll sing in the hymn we're about to finish with, there's a line that goes like this. Behold the man upon the cross, my sin upon his shoulders. Ashamed I hear my mocking voice call out amongst the scoffers. Jesus died for our sins. which means all of us are amongst the mockers who called out to Jesus saying we don't believe because we rebelled against him. At some point in our life, we have chosen to mock Jesus by doing what we want, by worshiping ourselves, our own vision of God. Unbelievers mock the cross of Christ, but true born-again Christians never do. Let me close here by changing paths for just a moment at the end. You see, unbelievers mock the cross of Christ. We got this now, right? You all agree with me? That's a normal thing to see? Okay. But Jesus calls us to pick up our cross and follow him. Follow him as he did. Which means you should not be surprised if you are mocked for following Jesus. You should not be surprised if you are mocked for carrying the cross of Christ. In fact, you should expect it to happen. There's really only three reasons why you would not be mocked for following Christ. One is because you're so new to Christianity that no one really knows you're following Christ. Two is because you're so private about your faith that you're probably in sin because no one knows you're a Christian. Or three, maybe you're not following Christ as well as you thought you would. Because if you were following Christ, people would mock you just like they were mocking Christ. Just like they mocked Paul and mocked Peter, and just like that guy who drew that thing of Jesus 1,800 years ago or so. Mocking the worshipers of Jesus for worshiping a crucified Messiah. You see, to the unbelieving world, the cross doesn't make sense. Unbelievers mock the cross of Christ, but the cross is more than a symbol. The cross is the power of God for salvation. And so we look at the cross with worship and praise. Amen? Let's pray. Dear Lord God, we thank you for this time, and we thank you for the cross, where we can see Christ more fully and love him more completely. Lord, guide our hearts and minds to you. We thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.