And as soon as it was morning, the chief priest held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate. And Pilate asked him, Are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus answered him, You have said so. And the chief priest accused him of many things. And Pilate asked him again, Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you? But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed. Now, at the feast, he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. Among the rebels in prison who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Rabbis. The crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them. And he answered them, saying, Do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews? For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priest had delivered him up. But the chief priest stirred up the crowd to have him released for them Barabbas instead. And Pilate again said to them, Then what shall I do with the man you call the king of the Jews? And they cried out again, Crucify him. And Pilate said to them, Why? What evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, crucify him. So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas. And having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace, and 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 spinning on him, kneeling down in 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. twenty verses of injustice, humiliation, and violence. Jesus receives violence. He is beaten by Roman soldiers. An innocent man, beaten, spit on. Jesus receives humiliation. They mock this claim that Jesus is a king. How could one so weak and pathetic as this guy be a king? Jesus received injustice. When a judge says, what evil has he done? There's no answer, and yet you are still sentenced to death. This is not a fair trial. Injustice, violence, and humiliation And yet the Church has said that these 20 verses are a necessary part of good news. Good news. Where did they get that from? Is it the case that the disciples said, hey, Jesus did not end well. We've got to figure something out. We've got to think of a way to turn these lemons into lemonade. But no, this humiliation doesn't catch Jesus by surprise. It's all been part of God's plan, His good plan. In fact, Jesus has been preaching to the disciples that this is going to happen to Him, as we've been going through Mark's Gospel all the way back in chapter 8. In Mark 8, verse 31, Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes. and be killed, and after three days, rise again. And he teaches them again in Mark 9, verse 31. For he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days, he will rise. In Mark 10, verses 33-34. See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock Him, and spit on Him, and flog Him, and kill Him. And after three days, He will rise." Well, here it is. Jesus has been handed over to the Gentiles, the Romans, by His own people. He has been experiencing injustice, humiliation, and Jesus embraces it. He embraces this humiliation, because He has agreed to the Father's plan that the path to the Son's glory, His exaltation, must first involve suffering, crucifixion, humiliation. Jesus takes that path, and not just for His glory, but for you. He embraces that humiliation and violence so that you do not have to face the wrath of God. He does this for us. And this immediately separates Jesus from us. I won't say you, myself. If I knew that bad things were going to happen to me in Jerusalem, where's the last place you think I'm going to go? But we see Jesus go to Jerusalem. while preaching of his death, his resurrection, his suffering. If I was traveling with disciples, and I know you think that would be scary, and I know that one of them is going to betray me, even with a kiss, who is the last person I want to be around? I don't want Judas to know about my whereabouts. I'm not going to preach to Judas. I'm going to be as far away from him as possible. Jesus goes to Jerusalem. He has the last Passover with his disciples and then institutes the Lord's Supper where he says that, my body will be broken, my blood shed. He goes to the Garden of Gethsemane and asks the Father, is there some other way? But what does he pair that with? Lord, I will submit to your will. Not my will, but your will be done. And when he sees Judas coming, he doesn't run away. But he embraces the betrayal, the humiliation. And then he gets brought before the chief priests, the elders, the council. And they ask him, Are you the Messiah? Are you the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus has to tell the truth. Yes, I am the Messiah, and you will see the Son of Man coming and glorying. And what does Jesus get in this trial for telling the truth? Well, this man deserves to be sentenced to death. So they beat him, they mock him, strike him and say, prophesy, because you're a prophet, right? But then the council kind of runs into a problem. Well, they run into a problem from a human perspective. They decide that Jesus needs to die. And so if they killed Jesus right there, particularly during the Passover festival, they're going to have a couple different problems. One, Rome would be on them. Who do you think you are? You can't take justice into your own hands. And also, if there was some anger or backlash for killing Jesus, it would be directed towards the priests, the elders, and the scribes. So they need to get rid of Jesus. They need to kill him. But they can't do it. They need Rome. Now, I started out by saying a human perspective, because from God's perspective of what was preached in Mark 10, my people will hand me over to the Gentiles. Again, when we get to the book of Acts, we see a much different Peter, not one who is denying Jesus to a little slave girl, but one filled with the Spirit. What does he say about this event? Yes, it was wicked, evil, lawless men. but it was according to God's plan for the Church's salvation. And so they bring Jesus before Pilate. And Pilate asks Jesus, Are you the King of the Jews? Now Pilate, he's a Gentile, and so King of the Jews is the best equivalent the Romans have for a Messiah figure. Now, Pilate isn't saying, are you the one who's going to come and free us from sin and bondage, the eternal Son of God. No, he's asking, are you a rival Caesar? This is why Jesus kind of gives him a bit of a vague answer. Jesus can't just say yes to Pilate's question, because he's not asking it the right way. But Jesus can't say no, because he has embraced this death sentence. He has embraced And so he says, you have said so. Which isn't a flat out yes, but it allows the trial to proceed. And so here is Jesus who doesn't get out of hot water, but who stays the course of suffering, injustice and humiliation for his people. And so Pilate asks him again, do you not have anything to say for yourself? Don't you hear the charges that are being brought against you? But again, because Jesus' suffering is according to Scripture, he is that lamb that was preached by the prophet Isaiah, who before his shearers is silent, committed to this path of suffering. Pilate has probably been before all kinds of people, And he had power to end their life. Of course, in John's Gospel, Jesus says to Pilate, you wouldn't have any power over me unless it was given to you from God. But I'm sure in all the times that Pilate has been dealing with people, he hasn't heard someone remain silent. He's heard it all. It wasn't me, Pilate, it was the other guy. How are you sentencing me to death? Those chief priests and elders and scribes, they're wicked. They take advantage of the poor and widowers. They've distorted God's Word, and all of that would be true. But Jesus doesn't do that. He embraces the sentence. He embraces the injustice. So instead of putting Jesus to death right there and then, Pilate turns to the crowd. It seems as if Pilate is not completely unaware, in verse 10, he perceives that it was out of envy that the chief priest had delivered him up. And so in verse 6, we get the custom that would make the appeal to the crowd well-timed. At the feast, he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. Now, Pilate, from other historical sources, you get a couple things that you learn about Pilate. One, Pilate is no friend to the Jewish people. He's just not. And also, Pilate is not the kind of man who would have any difficulty breaking or bending walls to get the outcome that he's after. And so, I don't take Pilate here as a man who's just desperately trying to get Jesus out of this situation. I think he doesn't want to help his enemies. Here, his enemies have brought him someone and said, this guy is causing us a headache. And he's doing all kinds of wicked and evil things. And so I think Pilate doesn't want to do any favours for the Judean leaders, so he appeals to the crowd. But in appealing to the crowd, Pilate forgets something about crowds. Crowds are a whole lot of people repeating, chanting the thoughts of one or two people. And so who would those one or two people be? Verse 11, the chief priest stirred up the crowd to have him release for them Barabbas instead. And who is Barabbas? It's interesting, Barabbas' name means son of the father. And so here is this son of the father who is also after a kingdom. But rather than having his own blood shed, well, he's going to shed other people's blood. rather than embracing the path of humiliation, where he wants to humble others. He put that humble in quotes. But he got caught. Now he's in prison with the rest of the rebels. And this crowd wants a murderer. This son of the father, instead of the son of God. And even though it's the whole crowd that's saying this, I mean, and this crowd looks vicious, they look worse than eagletraps. It all starts with the chief priest. And this is pretty fitting, because what's the job of a priest? It's supposed to influence people. And we see through the prophets that God comes and deals with the priest and says, you have no knowledge of my law. You need to know me, my character, my attributes, my word, to influence the people, to teach them, instruct them. And here the priests are influencing this crowd to unrighteousness, violence, chanting, screaming, crucify Him. As I was reading this, I couldn't even think of the last time I had yelled at the top of my lungs for anything. shouting at the top of your lungs for the death of a righteous and innocent man, and doing it as it seems like, as the text says, because the guy next to you is doing it. This teaches us something important about crowds. Simply, don't follow crowds. Crowds are sourced by some influential sinners who promote their ideas and encourage people to take the path of unrighteousness and wickedness. But you can't escape from crowds in some senses. You have crowds at school. You have crowds at work. You have social media crowds. What do you do? Well, that's why I did our call to worship this morning from 1 Peter, because he says that you are priests. You bring influence. And so as you are in crowds, proclaim the marvelous works of God. Be priests in crowds, not followers. This is what the Church is called to do, to resist the crowds that want us to adopt their slogans, their agendas, their mantras. rather to remain faithful to Christ, because a crowd wants you to sin. This crowd wanted Pilate to sin, and he agreed to satisfy them. So he hands Jesus over to the soldiers to be beaten, to be crowned in his humiliation. And so what Mark records for us is that they present Jesus like a rival Caesar. The crown of thorns is supposed to be like the wreath that would be placed on the emperor. and it's also supposed to be torturous, because the Romans are cruel. They beat him, and they say, Hail, King of the Jews, the way that they would greet Caesar. And they mock him and pay homage to him, this kind of pretend worship. These 20 verses of a humiliated Jesus are kind of confusing for us. We don't really know what to do with this Jesus. We know what to do with a baby Jesus. We make Christmas crafts and give gifts and stuff like that, have good Christmas cookies. We know what to do with a moral teacher Jesus, do good things, be nice. With Miracle Worker Jesus, I remember reading this one book where the person was arguing, no, it's not that Jesus really multiplied bread and fish. He inspired people to generosity. And so everybody was reaching in their lunch boxes, handing out bread and fish. But what about a humiliated Jesus? One whose face is swollen from abuse. One who doesn't just have sweat rolling down his face, because it's exhausting to be beat, just like it's exhausting to beat somebody, but spit rolling down his face. This is a very difficult Jesus. Because He prevents us from doing two things that we love to do. One, justify ourselves. Something to the tune of, if I was there, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't crucify Jesus. I wouldn't shout for His death. And you know what? That might be true. If you were there, it is a great possibility that you would not have shouted for His death. but you're still described here. Have you ever decided to take the path of sin and wickedness to satisfy yourself or the other people? Have you ever taken advantage of the vulnerable, exploiting them, joining in on the crowd as they are making someone little, dehumanizing them either physically or with their words? Have you ever been afraid to speak up for what is right because everyone around you shouting for wickedness and sin. We don't like this picture of the humiliated Jesus because it says, this is really the picture of humanity. Not nice people who go on walks and take pictures and have hobbies, but sinful people who shout for a murderer to be released instead of the Son of God who is blessed forever. Second thing that sex doesn't allow us to do, that we love to do, is make sin small. It was just a little white lie. Yeah, I lost my cool. I was yelling, but I mean, it's just a little bit of anger. It's not a sin that would require Jesus to be beaten and suffer for. Friends, I hope it is not the case that in this upcoming week, you will make sin small. that when you commit an act, or use your words, your body in such a way that robs God of His glory and breaks His law, that you don't just brush it off, but you remember that Jesus, your Jesus, needed to be beaten, humiliated, and suffered, so that you don't have to sit sinking in the guilt of that sin, but could run to the Lord and say, I have forgiveness. Do not treat sin lightly. The other way that we respond is remember that Jesus is no longer humiliated. This is a historical, reliable, truthful account. Jesus no longer suffers humiliation. He is exalted at the right hand of the Father, spreading his kingdom and his gospel. So we are to do, in truth and in faith, what these soldiers did as a joke. Worship Jesus. To give thanks for him. That he would be a substitute. That he would suffer this humiliation and injustice for you. In John's Gospel, Jesus says, a greater love is no one than this, that I gave you a nice car, that you had a peaceful week, that your body feels great, but that he would suffer and lay down his life for you. And this is where Barabbas is very helpful to us, friends, because what is Barabbas but a type? This man who is guilty, I mean, the description is, he's among the rebels. And he is released. He is freed. Because Jesus embraces humiliation, violence, and injustice. But you know where Barabbas is not a good picture for the Christian? What happens to Barabbas after he's freed? Does he go back to plotting the next insurrection? Does he end up being pastor in the early church, we don't know. But that uncertainty, friends, can't be true of you. If you were to worship the risen King, everyone must know that you love the Lord Jesus and you live for Him. And if the crowd were to say, what evil has this person done? They would not be able to say, he ruined his family, he lied, he stole millions, he's abusive, He's this, she's that. But rather, and of course they're not going to say this, they were faithful to their Lord. As Peter is writing to the church, he affirms that Jesus is our substitute. He's the overseer of our souls. He was afflicted and beaten so that our wounds could be healed. But he also says that Jesus' suffering left us an example. that when it comes to suffering or denying God, choose suffering. Suffering or practicing unrighteousness, choose suffering. That's a very scary thing. But we are encouraged because, as I said earlier, the Lord is not on that cross, but where is He? Present with us by His Spirit, giving us the grace and strength not only to worship Him as the risen Lord, but to join Him in that path of humiliation to glory. Friends, you do have some humiliation and suffering ahead of you. But because Christ is risen, I can say to you with absolute certainty, you have glory ahead of you as well. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you would undergo such suffering and violence for us. Because we needed to be saved. We needed to be delivered from our sin. And we thank you that you did not take an easy path, but you embraced the Father's plan so that you could be glorified. And in your exaltation, save us. Give us strength, Lord, as we live, work, and are among crowds. Grant us to be salt and light, and to be priests that spread the knowledge of God all over the face of the earth. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.