00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Well, there are probably many
contenders for which verses in the Bible could be rightly labeled
as the saddest verses in the Bible. The passage that we're
studying this morning in Mark 15 are some of the saddest verses
in the Bible. And I think they're made even
sadder when considered in connection with something such as John chapter
1 verses 9 through 11. If you turn there in your Bible
just briefly, and as you're turning there, I'll say that not my goal
to just make everyone sad this morning, to get an emotional
response, but if we are going to understand the depth of Jesus'
suffering, we should try to understand the context of His suffering. Who this is that is suffering
to this extent. In John 1, verses 9-11, As there
was the true light, which coming into the world enlightens every
man. He was in the world, and the
world was made through Him. I want to emphasize that phrase
right there. The world was made through Him. And the world did not know Him. In verse 11, He came to His own. And those who were His own did
not receive Him. I want to emphasize that again. He came to His own. The people
of Israel. who He had blessed so much, He
had worked with so much, He had shown so much patience and love
toward. And those who were His own did
not receive Him. So think of Jesus. Willingly,
graciously came into a world that has been darkened because
of sin. And He is the true light the
light who came to shine into this darkness, to give the light
of life. Every intention He had was for good. To show grace and
love in His coming. The world that He came into was
the world that He created. He owns it. Everything that it
produces to support physical life, it's His. He has provided
graciously the air that we breathe. the food that we eat, the water
we drink, all the materials that are necessary to make the clothes
we wear and the shelter that we dwell in. It's all His. Graciously on loan to the inhabitants
of His world. Those inhabitants are also His
creation. He made people. He therefore
owns all the people. And because it's all His and
we are His, He is owed gratitude. He is owed obedience. He is owed honor and praise. And not only does He own it all,
He is holy. He is perfect. He is eternal. He is God. He is worthy of all
those things I said in every way. And yet, as we read there
in John chapter 1, from what we know in Scripture, He came
into His creation, and the reason He came into His creation was
because His people, the humans, were in trouble because of our
own sin. He came to rescue us from the
consequences of our own sin. When He came, no one knew Him. As we read on through the Gospels,
as He made Himself known, most of the people didn't want to
know Him. Most of the people rejected Him. They didn't want
Him and even killed Him. And when we consider who Jesus
is, God in human flesh, holy, perfect,
loving, gracious, when we consider the fact that everything rightfully
belongs to Him, when we consider the reason He came, It makes
the verses that we're looking at this morning in Mark 15 all
the worse, even sadder. There was a Puritan, I don't
know who it was. It was recorded in the Valley
of Vision. It's a book of prayers prayed
by Puritans, but it doesn't say which ones or who it was. He
prayed this, let me never forget that the heinousness of sin lies
not so much in the nature of the sin committed as in the greatness
of the person sinned against. The severity of sin, not so much
because of just how severe the sin is, but because of who is
sinned against. Now what we see in these verses
we're looking at this morning would be bad if they were done
to anyone. anyone who is innocent of the
crime they were accused of. But this wasn't just anyone.
This is Jesus. Perfect, holy, creator, Messiah,
Savior, the owner of everyone and everything. This was Jesus. Again, as we look at these verses,
this is another piece in understanding what it cost Jesus to forgive
your sin. If you are saved by grace alone,
through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, that salvation
was given to you at no cost. A free gift. But it came at a
very high price to Jesus. Now, because that salvation,
that gift is given freely to all who repent and believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, sometimes we might start to have the idea
that sin is not really that big of a deal. We can sin freely
because our sins are freely forgiven. We may sometimes begin to think.
We can begin to think that obeying God is not really that big of
a deal. Our relationship with God is not really that big of
a deal because we came by this relationship freely. It didn't
cost me. Now if you were wearing your
favorite shirt, you get a stain on it, we'd probably find it
easier to say, oh well, no big deal, if it was a free t-shirt
that was your favorite shirt that just got a stain on it,
compared to one that you maybe spent a lot of money on. Sometimes
the gospel and salvation and our relationship with God can
be treated like that free t-shirt It's just not that big of a deal
And that's why some have wanted to Put some cost in there on
it You need to do a little something for your salvation. So that means
something to you You've got to do something to earn it so that
you appreciate it. You can take it so lightly We may see salvation, because
it's given to us as a free gift, as something that will come in
handy one day when we die, but it's not all that important for
today. When we consider and see in God's
Word how much our forgiveness, our salvation, cost Jesus, it
should be a very big deal to us. Our relationship with God
through Jesus Christ should be of utmost importance to us. Our
thankfulness, our obedience toward God should be a top priority
because of how much it cost Jesus to provide our salvation. So
we've been looking in these later parts of the Gospel of Mark at
the ways that Jesus humbled himself as part of that cost to pay for
our sin. From all the glories of heaven,
the perfect relationship that he had enjoyed with God the Father,
unhindered in any way from all of eternity, he needed nothing
that was completely sufficient in himself. But then coming into
this earth as man, taking on all the weaknesses of human flesh,
humbling himself, all the way to the cross. As we've been seeing
Him walking that path toward the cross, we've been seeing
Him humble Himself more and more with every verse we read. We're
in Mark 15, and we looked last week at Jesus on trial before
Pilate. We made it through verse 15,
and Jesus has been sentenced to death. But before He gets
to the cross, He's going to be humbled and humiliated even more. So far, just to recap a few of
those steps that Jesus has taken in His humiliation. He's been
betrayed by one of His friends. Pointed out one of the twelve,
one of the closest people to Jesus, Judas. He's been forsaken
by the other eleven disciples. They all left him. One of his closest friends, Peter,
has denied him three times. Peter swore oaths. He called
God as his witness. He didn't even know who Jesus
was. Jesus has been tried by the religious
leaders of Israel illegally in all kinds of ways. He's been
charged with a crime of blasphemy. He's been spit on. He's been
beaten. He's been mocked by the Sanhedrin
and then brought to Pilate, the Roman governor of that region.
He was there during that time, during the Passover, to try to
maintain peace during that feast. Well, the leaders of Israel and
the representative cross-section of the nation of Israel, who
was all there that day at the palace where where Pilate was
staying. They've made the rejection of
Jesus official. They want Him dead. But not just
dead. They want Him to suffer and be
cursed by God. And so they want Him to be crucified.
Scripture says, cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree. They want
that for Jesus. Now Pilate, as we saw last week,
he found no real reason to do this. He wasn't guilty of anything. But the people who had rejected
him were persistent. And Pilate thought his job was
more important than saving Jesus. And so he and they, everyone
who was present that day, chose the world over Jesus. Now Jesus is standing there alone. He's been beaten. He's bloody. He's bruised. He's condemned
to die by crucifixion. We read about this in verse 15
last time. We didn't really have time to
get into it. We saw that Pilate had Jesus scourged. Some commentators
point out, and it seems to be consistent with the narrative
of the Gospel of John and the order that he arranges things
there, that the scourging was probably immediately followed
by what we're looking at today in verses 16 to 19. And then
Pilate brings Jesus out once more to give the people one more
opportunity to let Jesus go. And yet they reject him again.
And then he's sentenced to the cross. And we'll look at that
a little more in a while. So that's scourging in verse
15. You may notice there in verse
15, there aren't really any details
or description about what happened there. That's actually consistent
with all of the ways that Jesus suffers physically. It's kind
of just stated, as he did, there's not a lot of emphasis that's
put on the physical suffering. And part of the reason for that
is because there was so much more to Jesus' suffering than
just the physical. Physical is bad, but there's
so much more to it than just that. As torturous as that physical
suffering may have been, That's not what bothered Jesus so much
in the Garden of Gethsemane. That He almost died from knowing
what was coming. It wasn't the physical suffering
that bothered Him so much. It was drinking the cup of God's
wrath. It was facing God's wrath that bothered Him so much that
He almost died knowing it was coming. This physical suffering,
that's facing man's wrath. That's bad. It's not nearly as
bad. as what was to come in facing
God's wrath. Another part of the reason that
the physical aspects of Jesus' suffering don't get a lot of
explanation is that Mark's first audience, the believers in Rome
that first received this letter, they already knew. They've been
there. They've seen it. Scourging people
was not uncommon. They knew how it worked. They've
seen people die on crosses before. They knew. It was bad. To scourge Jesus, they would
have taken at least his outer garments from him, bent him over
a beam to stretch out his skin and his muscles of his back.
And then two soldiers with short whips made of several strips
of leather with sharp pieces of bone or metal in the ends
of the strips of leather took turns whipping Jesus across the
back with all their might. Now the Jews had laws about how
many times that could be done. Or the number of lashes a person
could be given in that way. It couldn't be more than 40.
So they would go to 39 and stop there just in case they miscounted
somewhere. The Romans did not have such a law. They stopped
when the soldiers wore themselves out or the prisoner died. That happens sometimes from this
scourging. They didn't survive it. Jesus
did. He lived through it. This kind
of scourging with these whips, with these sharp pieces of bone
or metal or whatever it was at the ends, it would tear the skin.
It would expose the bone. Jesus was bleeding. profusely
by this time. But since Jesus survived it,
then we go on in verse 16. The soldiers took him away into
the palace, that is the praetorium, and they called together the
whole Roman cohort. Now a whole Roman cohort would
normally be 600 soldiers. Now there's a possible interpretation
that would make it just 200 soldiers. But either way, we're talking
about hundreds of soldiers. From 200 to 600, the whole cohort
took Jesus away. Now these were some of the best
and the mightiest who were there to protect and serve this Roman
governor. Now something we have talked
about often is how the Jews hated the Romans. Something we haven't talked about
quite as much is that the Romans returned the favor. The Romans
hated the Jews. So to these hundreds of soldiers,
Jesus was just some Jew that they had no use for. He was a
problem for them. And He was one who made them
earn their pay that day. So they didn't like Him very
much. His claims of being a Messiah,
Son of God, that didn't really mean anything to them. They had
their own religion, they had their own gods that they worshipped
and served. All that considered, they're
just going to have some fun with Jesus. by mocking Him, by humiliating
Him, along with causing Him a lot more physical pain. They did
this for fun, to Jesus. Verse 17, they dressed Him up
in purple, and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it
on Him. Now remember when Jesus had been
tried before the Sanhedrin and found guilty of blasphemy, they
mocked Jesus' claims of deity by commanding him to prophesy. Who was it who hit you? Or if
you're God, you should be able to see these swings coming. You
should be able to duck and miss them. Prophesy if you are who
you say you are. Prophesy, God. Well, these soldiers
are playing games with Jesus. They're using props. to mock
his claim of being the Messiah King. So they have this purple
robe they put on him. Purple was the color of royalty
and luxury in that day. It was a very difficult dye to
come by and it was very expensive. If you're reading the parallel
account in Matthew, you'll see that Matthew says it was a scarlet
robe. Well, the word for purple as
Mark uses here, it was a broad enough word or color that it
could include shades of kind of reddish, kind of purplish. This is an inspired word of God. God used the author's personalities. Matthew and Mark are men. Men see colors differently than
women, right? Something a man would describe
as kind of red or purple. I don't know. One of those, somewhere
in that area. Some ladies might want some more
specific details. Every shade in between has a
different name. But to Matthew and Mark, well,
to Matthew it was reddish. To Mark it was purplish. We're
talking about the same robe, same color. seeing it a little
different. It's likely what they used was
an old faded worn out robe or a cloak that had been worn by
a Roman soldier. A piece of their uniform was
a red robe or a cloak. Over time, they would fade, become
more of a purplish color. So there again, that's probably
what they were using, what they referred to. It was kind of reddish,
kind of purplish. And they're saying, oh, so you're
a king. Well, here's your royal robe,
your majesty. And they make a crown and put
it on his head. Now this would have been to mimic
the golden laurel wreath you've probably seen in pictures of
Caesar. This gold leafy thing he has
on his head. Well, they made this crown for
Jesus from a thorn bush. Now, we don't know exactly which
kind of thorn bush it was, so we don't know exactly how long
the thorns were. When you think about this being
on his head, the skin on everyone's head is very thin. Everyone has
a lot of pain receptors on your head, and you've noticed that
when you've bumped your head on something You tried to walk
under and forgot to duck. Any crown of any thorns is going
to hurt. And any crown of thorns will
make you bleed. And you will bleed a lot when
it's beaten onto your head with a stick. Which is what happens
in verse 19. There was a new song that came
out this past Christmas season. The Gettys were co-authors and
seniors of it and it was called Thorn and Thistle. The song is
about Jesus, the perfect son of God, coming into the world
that he created. But then he cursed the ground
to grow thorns and thistles because of man's sin. That song has got
me thinking about how Jesus came into this world and how he suffered
during the time that he lived here because of the curse that
God had to put on his creation because of man's sin. And Jesus
put himself under that curse to come and identify with us.
He suffered all of that. Well, this past Wednesday, there
was a song that was requested. We sang it Wednesday. We sang
it again this morning. Number 300, the last song we sang. I
wasn't real familiar with it before Wednesday. The same kind
of idea in that song and relates it more so to this crown of thorns
that Jesus wore on that Friday. The first verse, My Jesus fair
was pierced by thorns, by thorns grown from the fall. Thus he
who gave the curse was torn to end that curse for all. You think
about the reason those thorns were there growing in that courtyard
so easily available because of the curse. They probably weren't
planted there. They were weed that grew there
because of the curse. Those soldiers could use those
thorns for this wickedness because of man's sin. Because of the
curse that was put on the ground. And Jesus is here because of
man's sin. All the suffering that Jesus
had to go through, including that crown of thorns, it was
our fault. It's our sin that put that crown
of thorns on Jesus. And yet He came to take that
curse for us. That crown of thorns is a part
of that curse because of our sin. It wasn't supposed to be that
way. God didn't create the world to be that way. They cursed the
ground because of our sin. The mocking continues in verse
18. They began to acclaim Him, Hail
King of the Jews. Remember I said how much the
Romans hate the Jews. This was so much fun for these
soldiers because this was exactly the kind of king they thought
the Jews should have. A king with no army. A king with
no power that they could see. A king with no respect and a
king that's been rejected by his own people. A king who they
could do whatever they wanted to with. That's exactly the kind
of king the Jews should have. But considering everything that's
going on here, this is so much more than just playground teasing. They were mocking everything
that was true about Jesus. but everyone had rejected about
Jesus. They were rubbing this in Jesus'
face and mocking Him because, you've been rejected by everyone.
You say you're a king, everyone has rejected you. What a loser
you are. Some king you have turned out
to be. Verse 19, they kept beating His
head with a reed and spitting on Him and kneeling and bowing
before Him. Of this, after the scourging
that he's already received, the physical pain would have been
almost unbearable. Some people wouldn't even be
alive by this point. You consider the culture that
these Roman soldiers lived in, what they were used to. For entertainment,
in that day, people in Rome, they'd go to the Colosseum to
watch people fight to the death. That was a fun afternoon event
for them. They would watch prisoners get
torn to pieces by wild animals. They did that for enjoyment.
This was nothing to them, doing this to Jesus. This was great
fun. No big deal. It's interesting that the soldiers
who were with Herod did the same kind of thing to Jesus when Pilate
sent Him to Herod. They mocked Him by dressing Him
up and pretending to treat Him as a king. pilot soldiers did the same.
I came across another account where there were some bored children,
they were probably teenagers, and they were out roaming the
streets. This was back during that time, somewhere in the first
century or close to, I think. They came across a homeless man.
He was just out on the street and he apparently had some kind
of a mental disability. He was someone who in that day
was considered a fool. These children did the same thing
to that poor man. They dressed him up with a robe,
they made him a crown, and they mocked him, playing as though
he was Caesar. Apparently, these children got
in trouble for what they did, not because it was such a mean
thing to do to that poor man, but because they disrespected
Caesar. Now that tells us that this was
the kind of thing that sinners did for fun back in that day. You see that kind of thing happening
in the news still today in cities at times. This didn't just happen to Jesus,
but this was Jesus. Let me never forget that the
heinousness of sin lies not so much in the nature of the sin
committed, as in the greatness of the person sinned against.
This is Jesus. And He really is the King who
should be revered by all. He is a loving and benevolent
King who came to save the lost. He really should be praised. But they treated Him just as
they would treat someone who they considered a fool. They
thought Jesus was a fool. He lost his mind. Just think about them doing this
to Jesus. Driving those thorns deeper into
his head. Just along with the pain of being
repeatedly beaten in the head with a long stiff stick. And remember this is hundreds
of soldiers. They take their turns coming by to bow before
Jesus. They spit in His face. Hundreds
of them doing this. There's probably no greater way
of showing disrespect to someone you hate than to spit on them. You think about these hundreds
of soldiers doing this to Jesus. Now it was probably somewhere
around here then that what John records happened in John 19 verses
14 and 15. It says, Now it was the day of
preparation for the Passover. It was about the sixth hour.
And he said to the Jews, Behold your king! So they cried out,
Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him! Pilate
said to them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests
answered, We have no king but Caesar. Pilate brought Jesus back to
stand before the people of Israel. And this time he was wearing
this crown of thorns. He was wearing this purplish
robe. The blood was running down his
face even more than it had been before. He probably could barely
stand at all after the scourging and the beatings. He was probably
almost unrecognizable as he came back out to barely stand before
the people of Israel. And Pilate is basically saying
there in John, is this the guy you are trying to tell me is
such a threat to the throne of Caesar? Is this the guy you are
trying to tell me needs to be crucified because he is such
a menace to society? Just look at him. He is nothing. He is of no consequence. This
is how much Jesus has humbled himself so far. He has made Himself
nothing before men's eyes. He has allowed these sinners
to do this to Him. He didn't fight back. He didn't
say a word. I remember a more innocent man
has never walked this earth. A more undeserving man of this
treatment has never lived. But Jesus let this happen without
fighting back. He didn't defend Himself. Because
this is why He came. As we read in 2 Corinthians 5,
verse 21, He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf,
so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. All this suffering
that we are seeing is what we deserve for our sin. But Jesus
identified Himself with our sin. He became sin for us so He could
take the suffering that we deserve. And so that we, by His grace
through faith in Him alone, could identify with Him and His righteousness
to be made right with God. Through His suffering, we contributed
nothing but deserving that suffering. 2 Corinthians 8, verse 9 says,
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though
He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you,
through His poverty, might become rich." Now we've been talking
about this, how poor did Jesus become for us? And we still haven't gotten to
the bottom of just how poor He became. We're getting closer. He humbled Himself so much, so
that we who believe in Him could share in the riches of salvation
the glories of heaven with him by grace. None of it deserved
at all. After this final rejection by
his own people, we read this in Mark 15 verse 20. After they
had mocked him, they took the purple robe off him and put his
own garments on him and they led him out to be crucified. They thought They had power over
Jesus. They thought Jesus was a problem,
and this was going to get rid of the problem. But remember
who they're doing this to. This is Jesus. And while this
is so sad, remember what is being accomplished. Remember what will
be the outcome of this suffering of Jesus. Paul explains it to
us in Philippians 2 verses 5 through 11. Have this attitude in yourselves,
which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the
form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being
made in the likeness of man, being found in appearance as
a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point
of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also God highly
exalted him, and bestowed on him the name which is above every
name, so that the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those
who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that
every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the
glory of God the Father." Now remember those mocking soldiers.
They will bow to Jesus for real one day. if not as their Lord and Savior,
because they believed in Him before they died, they will bow
before Him as their Judge. Everyone will bow. The Jews who
were there that day that rejected Jesus will bow. Pilate will bow. Herod will bow. Everyone from
any time period will bow before Jesus. At this point here in Mark, it
looks like Jesus is losing. And it's going to get even worse
as we go on. But the victory is coming. Jesus
wins. Everyone will bow. We'll continue
on with that, Lord willing, next week.
Mocking the Messiah (Mark 15:16-20)
Series Mark
| Sermon ID | 72325185051256 |
| Duration | 37:34 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Mark 15:16-20 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.