Our scripture reading this morning is taken from the Gospel according to Mark, chapter 15, verses 1 through 20. The Gospel according to Mark, chapter 15, verses 1 through 20. Mark opens his Gospel by telling us it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the identity of the Lord Jesus is a key theme in Mark's Gospel. Who is this? He never, of course, leaves us guessing, but he shows us how different people react to this question. Who is this? So Mark, chapter 15, Immediately in the morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribe and the whole council, and they bound Jesus, led him away, and delivered him to Pilate. Then Pilate asked him, Are you the king of the Jews? He asked and said to them, It is as you say. And the chief priests accused him of many things, but he answered nothing. Then Pilate asked him again, saying, Do you answer nothing? See how many things they testify against you. But Jesus still answered nothing. So that Pilate marveled. Now at the feast he was accustomed to releasing one prisoner to them, whomever they requested. And there was one named Barabbas, who was chained with his fellow rebels. They had committed murder in the rebellion. Then the multitude, crying aloud, began to ask him to do just as he had always done for them. But Pilate answered them, saying, Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews? For he knew that the chief priest had handed him over because of envy. But the chief priest stirred up the crowd, so that he should rather release Barabbas to them. Pilate answered and said to them again, what then do you want me to do with him whom you call the king of the Jews? So they cried out again, crucify him! Then Pilate said to them, why, what evil has he done? But they cried out all the more, crucify him! So Pilate, wanting to gratify the crowd, released Barabbas to them and he delivered Jesus after he had scourged him to be crucified. Then the soldiers led him away into the hall called Praetorium, and they called together the whole garrison, and they clothed him with purple, and they twisted a crown of thorns, put on his head, and began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews! Then they struck him on the head with a reed, and spat on him, and bearing the knee, they worshipped him. When they had mocked him, they took the purple off him, put his own clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him. May God bless the reading of His Holy Word. Our text this morning is found in the chapter from which we read Mark's Gospel chapter 15 and verse 12. Pilate answered and said to them again, what do you want me to do with him whom you call the King of the Jews? What will you do with Jesus Who do you count him to be? As with all the Gospels, the great climax is the passion narrative, the narrative of our Lord's crucifixion. That he came, as we have sung, for us, that his grief and bitter passion were all for sinners' gain. And each shows us Christ from a slightly different angle. Each gives us a picture. Mark speaks of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Who is he? As I said, he doesn't leave us guessing, but he confronts us with the identity of this man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah. And we see here in this narrative that we read this morning, the majesty of our Lord Jesus and the mockery of his enemies. What do you want me to do with him whom you call the king of the Jews? Pilate asks. What do you want me to do? Now, of course, these were the Jerusalem mob. These were the people of the king's own capital. And it's not that they were worse than other human beings, but rather that they joined with all humanity in rejecting him. We see first of all the charge that was brought against him. We see, secondly, the choice that the people made. And thirdly, we see the crown that the Lord Jesus wore. The charge, the choice, and the crown. And first we see the charge. He is brought to Pilate. Pontius Pilate was the procurator. He was a local Roman governor under the governor of Syria. He was normally based in Caesarea on the coast. Coast, of course, allowed for quicker communication with other parts of the Empire. It also meant that if there was an uprising, a rebellion, they could bring in troops faster and, if needed, get important people like Pilate out quicker. But at the Passover, because of the importance of the Passover in particular for the Jewish people, Pilate would go out to Jerusalem and he would be based probably in the old palace of Herod the Great. there in the centre. Pilate was a fairly typical Roman bureaucrat. They would get up early in the morning, and they would basically work until lunchtime, and then have lunch, and after lunch would be time for rest and relaxation. So he'd start work early, and knock off early as well. And therefore, when the chief priests were holding their contract, getting ready to to hand him over to pilot, they had to move quickly. And who were they? Well, they were the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes. They were the leaders of the Jewish people. The chief priests were the aristocracy, the religious leadership. They were a hereditary priesthood, and therefore they became this hereditary aristocracy. Based in Jerusalem, based in the temple, they had a great deal of power in the city. And yet they were corrupt to the core. their religion, they were Sadducees, and they had done their best to make their religion look more Greek. They didn't believe, for example, in the resurrection of the dead. And like so many entrenched elites, it had become very much about power, position, and of course money. Then you had the elders. They were what was left of the old tribal leadership. And you had the scribes, and they were the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the popular religious leaders. In the eyes of the common people, they were very, very different from the chief priests. The priests are this aristocratic elite in Jerusalem. They're distant from the people, and it's rather like Thinking about London, from the standpoint of Stoke-on-Trent, London is so far away and the people in London all seem a bit strange sometimes. Certainly the London elites. just seems so remote from our daily experience. It's typical, the capital will always have its own rarefied atmosphere, but the scribes were among the people. They were the popular religious teachers, and they taught the resurrection of the dead. The scribes were also basically legalists. They said you can be saved by living a good life. And by following all these rules that they of course were very happy to lay down for you. And they didn't really want you to be looking too carefully at how well they were doing, keeping them. They too were corrupt. They loved the applause of the people. and all of them together were the leadership. Now, Israel, of course, was under Roman occupation. The Jewish leadership didn't have the political power that they used to. Yet, the Romans liked to keep some sort of home rule going. It meant, among other things, that the Romans didn't have to do quite so much work in terms of administration. And so, they kept the existing structures going. And therefore the chief priests, the elders and the scribes, had a fair amount of power under the Romans. They'd managed to work out basically a mode of, a means of coexistence. And for them, Jesus was a threat. He threatened their power, he threatened their enjoyment, he threatened their privilege. And so they would be rid of him. Of course they justified themselves by saying things like, well, if this is the Messiah, well the Romans will come and they will destroy the nation. And so really we're helping the people. They were helping themselves. And so often people will justify their own selfishness by saying, but what I'm doing is for the greater good. I must sacrifice But they never talk about sacrificing themselves, or their own power, or their own anything. No, sacrifice somebody else for the greater good. The Lord Jesus Christ, on the other hand, sacrificed himself for his people. But there was a delicious irony here, really. Here they were talking about sacrificing him, and how they could conspire And there he was, he knew all about it, he knew what was going on, and he willingly gave himself. There are so many kings and religious leaders who call upon other people to sacrifice themselves for them, but the Lord Jesus Christ is the King who gives himself, who offers himself, who sacrifices himself for the people. Now the Jewish leaders could not sentence anyone to death and they knew that the only chance they had of getting Pilate to agree to execute Jesus was to make some kind of trumped-up political charge. The Lord Jesus Christ said, so it is recorded, not here but in John, he said, my kingdom is not of this world, that is it doesn't arise from this world. Human kingdoms come about through politics and violence, and very often violence. But the Lord Jesus Christ kingdom is a spiritual kingdom, a kingdom that comes down, a kingdom that advances through spiritual means. Still, They made up a charter, and he says he's the king of the Jews. And they assumed, they hoped that Pilate would think, well, this means he's trying to start a political, violent rebellion. And so they bring him to Pilate. And we can picture Pilate there. Now the Jewish leadership are not going to have come in where Pilate is. Pilate's house would have been viewed as unclean. Instead they hand him over, hand Jesus over out the door with a letter saying what the charges are. It may very well be that what would have happened would have been Pilate would have come to a portico so that Pilate would have been inside and the Jews outside and yet they could talk to each other and Pilate asked, are you the king of the Jews? Pilate is not going to have been uninformed, he is going to have known about what was going on and he would have looked with amazement at this man standing there, this very ordinary man in peasant clothes, this man who he's heard about, he's a religious teacher, he's a preacher, he's a rabbi But he's heard that this man has said nothing about rebelling against Caesar, he's said nothing about how the Jewish people are to rise up. The liberation he's spoken of has been a liberation from sin. And also Pilate is well informed that the Jewish leaders don't like him. And Pilate knows the reason. Pilate knew that they were motivated by envy. They were not motivated by high principle. They were not motivated by a love for the order that, of course, Pilate being a Roman, he would think this is the order that Rome has brought. No, they were motivated by the fact that they felt that Jesus was threatening their power base, that he was more popular than the scribes, and that he spoke in more exalted terms of the temple than the priests. And the chief priests accused him of many things. They would have their charge. He talks about destroying the temple and rebuilding it. He says he's a king. They even falsely said that he said that people were to pay taxes to Caesar. But in fact he has said, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's. But he answers one question, are you the king of the Jews? The answer said, it is as you say. And Pilate marvelled, what kind of a king is this? He certainly had enough sense to realise this was no political threat. Now Pilate was a Roman. The Romans, like every nation, have their self-image. And part of the Roman self-image was this, we are about justice. Roman justice was famous. In fact, you go into continental Europe and you'll find much of the legal system in continental Europe is based on Roman law. even some of our own laws are rooted in Roman law. The Romans were famous for justice and yet, of course, the Romans being human beings could be as unjust as anybody else. Because the other thing the Romans were notorious for was their brutality. Pontius Pilate could be a very brutal man. There was one occasion when there was a threat of civil unrest There were people protesting in Jerusalem and Pilate wanted to put down the unrest and so what he did was he got some of his Roman soldiers to dress up in Jewish petal clothes and to mingle with the crowd and each of them had under their tunic a wooden club. And at the signal, they would whip out the clubs and violently assault the actual protesters. And the idea was that Pilate could then say, look, the protesters started fighting one another. Several people were killed by the Roman soldiers. There's one occasion that's recorded in the Gospels where Pilate murdered or had murdered by his troops some Galileans who had come to sacrifice in Jerusalem. And he mingled their blood with their sacrifices. He could be brutal. He was a Roman. He saw himself as a staunch upholder of justice. He was a Roman. And he was a politician. That also was something the Romans seemed to have done very well. They had a great empire, of course they had many politicians. And like many politicians, Pilate thought deeply about pleasing the crowd. He thought about his reputation, because the other thing he wanted was he wanted to go on to a bigger and better job. And therefore, He was afraid to simply say, no, I don't accept these charges, because he knew that the local leaders would then write back to Rome and say, your procurator is being uncooperative, your procurator is risking the reputation and the power of Caesar, and so he hesitated. and therefore he came up with an idea, and so we come to our second point of the choice. Now it seems that at the very least as far back as when Pilate had started his job, there had been a custom that at the Passover, as a sign of the clemency of Rome, he would release a prisoner from jail. And the idea was, look how benevolent the Roman Empire is. We'll release a prisoner. And it would be the prisoner that the people requested. There was a risk in this, of course, that they'd ask for somebody who might be in danger, but Pilate would have thought, well, if they do, I can always make sure that he has an accident later on. Again, he was a Roman. And so Pilate presents the people with a choice. Two men. Will you have Jesus of Nazareth or will you have Barabbas? Now there are some old manuscripts where Barabbas is also, and Barabbas is, of course, it's Bar-Abbas, it's son of a rabbi. and he's given the name, the first name Joshua the actual name Joshua or Jesus and Jesus is simply the Jewish Joshua coming into English via Greek rather than Joshua which is just coming into English from the Hebrew and there were lots of people called Jesus Joshua in first century Israel And so we have these two men. One of them is Jesus of Nazareth, the other is Barabbas. Barabbas was chained with his fellow rebels. He was a rebel, he was a terrorist we might say. He was an insurrectionist who had committed murder. There had been some attempt to overthrow Roman power, some sort of insurrection, it had been crushed, and Barabbas and the other leaders were languishing in prison, awaiting crucifixion, because that's what the Romans did with rebellious people, rebellious non-Romans. And so here is Barabbas, And you can, to some extent, reconstruct Pilate's thought process. He's thinking, Barabbas is a failed leader. And here is Jesus of Nazareth, and I've heard the people love him. But what Pilate has not really wrapped his head around is who the people there in Jerusalem are going to be. But it's a choice that people are confronted with day by day. What kind of man was Barabbas? Well, Barabbas was a murderer. Barabbas was a man who promised salvation. He promised a liberation. A political, violent liberation. Barabbas was a man who pandered to a certain extent to human selfishness. He said, you can by force overthrow the Romans, you can by force become the rulers, you can have power over other people. And Barabbas brings a lie. Just as Barabbas' rebellion had failed and got him thrown in jail, so Barabbas' promise of power over other people leads actually to death. Barabbas says, you can have it all and you get nothing. And yet it's a choice that people are confronted with. There is a mirage, an illusion. The world says you can have it all, and you can't. You can have so little. The world says you can have salvation from want, and very few ever get even to the beginning point of that wealth. The world says you can have greatness and might, but the reality is that all must die. And the road of Barabbas, the road of rebellion, lands eventually, not simply in a Roman prison awaiting punishment, it lands in hell, in everlasting torment, in a punishment that goes on forever. that the wages of sin is death. But sin has its promises, it has its pleasures, which are for a season. Moses, by faith, chose not to enjoy the pleasures of sin in Egypt just for a little while, but chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, because he understood that fact, that sin has its pleasures for a season, and then it plunges people into everlasting torment. And that's where Barabbas eventually leads. He leads to destruction. The people in Jerusalem embraced the idea of Barabbas. And in 70 AD the city was destroyed by the Romans and put to fire and the sword. And those who were not slaughtered in its streets were carried off into slavery or they were crucified along the roads. And the city was destroyed. Barabbas promises much and delivers destruction. The Lord Jesus Christ promises peace. Barabbas says, let there be war. Jesus Christ says, I give you my peace. Peace with God and life everlasting. The choice ultimately is this. It's the choice between the world and God. Between the world's fading baubles and God's eternal life and love and joy in Christ Jesus. Who will you have? Barabbas or Jesus of Nazareth? And the world says, we will have Barabbas. Not this man, but Barabbas. With all of his false promises, his false hopes, his final destruction, we want Barabbas. Barabbas fits with the world. Barabbas promises instant gratification, or at least very rapid gratification. Barabbas promises, you will be able to look down on other people and make them do whatever you want them to do. Barabbas says, you will have power to destroy. The Lord Jesus Christ says, you will have life. And Christ doesn't say that one class of people or one ethnic group or one nationality shall have might and power and rule over everybody else but he says there shall be a kingdom made up of people from every tribe, tongue and nation a royal priesthood, kings and priests unto our God and in Christ there is no slave nor free there is no male nor female that is people are not divided up And it's not said that men are better than women or women better than men. No, there is but one brotherhood of love throughout the world. That all who are in Christ Jesus are one in Him. And whatever differences there are between us, and there are many differences, all of them do not make some people better than others. But we are all one in Him. And yet the world makes its wretched choice. Not this man, but Barabbas. What has he done? Crucify him, crucify him. Away with him. Let's get rid of him. Let us destroy him. And this is why again and again we see the totalitarian states, they want rid of Jesus. This is why we see the persecution of the Church in China, in India, in so many parts of the world today, because the Church says, Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus of Nazareth, by his very existence, judges the whole world. Here he stands before the people. Allegedly he is being judged, and yet he judges all humanity. And those whose eyes are opened by grace to see him, we fall down and indeed we say, you are righteous, we are not. But the ungodly world says, away with him, crucify him, crucify him. And so we see, thirdly, the crown. As one of the hymn writers puts it, sinners in derision crowned him, mocking thus the Saviour's claims. The soldiers led him away and the soldiers did what rough soldiers often do with prisoners. They have heard something about this man, that he says he's the king of the Jews, that he's been crucified for that, and so they decide they will mock him. He has been whipped, and so his outer garments have been removed, and he's brought into the hall. And there, there's an old red cloak, probably cast off by some Roman officer, It's old, it's faded, it's tattered and yet it's still a red cloak. And someone says, get the old red cloak and they bring it and they wrap it around this man whose back is raw and bleeding from a scourging. And then a king must have a crown. What do we have for a crown? and they twisted a crown of thorns and put it on his head. Roman coins sometimes showed the emperor with a crown upon his head out of which radiated these rays of light and it may be that they thought, well, these big thorns look like these rays of light. Roman emperors would wear wreaths plaited from laurels. And so a crown of thorns. Probably not so much the idea is that this would dig into his head and hurt him the more, but that this is something that looks foolish and ridiculous. But it is a sign of suffering. Thorns so often are used as a picture of suffering. The thorns come about because of the human fall, the fall of Adam. Before Adam fell there were no thorns upon the plants, but thorns and thistles are brought forth that sinful man may suffer. And on the head of the Lord Jesus, the sinless man, is placed this crown of thorns, this crown that declares he is the great sufferer. Come and see, was there ever sorrow like unto his sorrow? Was there ever grief or pain like his? and they began to salute him. They mocked mocking vows, mocking acts of homage. Hail King of the Jews. Someone has found what's spoken of as a reed here. May have been an old measuring rod. And they use that, we're told elsewhere, as a scepter because of course a king must have a scepter as well as a crown. but they also took it off him out of his hand and hit him on the head with it and spat on him and bowing the knee they mockingly worshipped him they did not know what they were doing it was for them our Lord prayed upon the cross Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing and they mocked him And yet he is the king, king of kings and lord of lords. And we see here his majesty and we bow the knee and fall before him and rejoice, here is our king. And he is suffering. He suffered for us, for you and for me he suffered. He chose this. At any moment he could have summoned the angels and destroyed all his foes. But he would not. He chose instead the way of suffering for you and for me. They turned him into a mockery. a mockery of himself even. They arrayed him in a parody of an earthly king's outfit. Oh, there are many today who will dress up the Lord Jesus Christ in outfits of their own, some indeed in this sort of ribald mockery, but so many more in a solemn mockery. In Hanley yesterday, I was out yesterday morning preaching in the marketplace, preaching outside Primark, and as I got started I noticed the Jehovah's Witnesses were setting up just in another corner. I thought, yes, these people, they would say, we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but you look at what they make of him and it is a solemn mockery. They deny his deity. They deny his continuing humanity. They mock him. The Muslims, they will say, oh we believe in Jesus. But they deny his deity. They say his message was just pretty much the same as Mohammed and he was a prophet just to the Jewish people. They mock him. They put upon him that tattered cloak and crown of thorns. And as does everyone who makes what one poet in the 20th century ascribed as their own personal Jesus. You cannot have your own personal Jesus. There is only one Lord Jesus Christ. And through the mockery yet there shines the truth. That's why there are people who come out of the cults with their false Jesuses because the true Jesus shines his light through the mockery, through that tattered cloak and crown of thorns and he shows himself and he shows himself the saviour for sinners he shows himself the one to whom we may come and to whom we come and we worship him What then do you want me to do with Him whom you call King of the Jews? What will you do with Him who is called the King of the Jews? There are ultimately only two things that people do. They either fall down before Him and worship Him and say, this is the King indeed, not of the Jews only, but King of Kings and Lord of Lords, my Saviour. Or, they will mock Him and reject Him in a solemn mockery or in the rubble mockery of the soldiers. But He is the King. Behold Him here, our Lord and our God. Behold that He took upon Himself our sins and our sorrows. He suffered for you and for me. Crown Him, crown Him Lord of all. Oh let us praise Him and worship Him that He took the crown of thorns, that He took the mockery and the scorn and He did so for you and for me. that we through Him might be saved, that our sin might be cleansed by His precious blood. He died for us. Oh, let us worship and fall down before the Lord, our Maker, and praise Him, and praise Him evermore. Amen.