Now at the feast, he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. And among the rebels in prison who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas. And 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 release 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. Read that far in God's Word. In the previous passage, Jesus was accused of being a revolutionary type of king. That was the accusation. He's this king of the Jews who claims to be the Messiah, who is a threat to Rome, Pilate. He's like a military general. causing Pilate to be concerned about him giving a Jewish uprising against the Roman Empire, and that's the auspices under which he would be arrested and tried in Pilate's court. But now in this passage tonight, we contrast Jesus with a A real rebel, the supposed rebel Jesus with a real rebel, the real threat to the Roman Empire. So our main point tonight is our king suffered in our place when he was beaten and handed over to be crucified. First we'll see this question, this unfair, absurd question which was chosen to be released for Abbas or Jesus. We'll study that in verses six through nine. Our second point will be the dark driving force of envy, verses 10 and 11, and lastly the conscience deadening effect of the sin of crowd-pleasing, verses 12 to 15. Verse 6, we start our passage with the fact that each year during the Passover celebration this Roman governor over the area of Judea named Pilate would always release one prisoner for the Jews, whichever prisoner they requested. And in verse seven we're told about a certain prisoner named Barabbas who was a murderer. So then in verse eight, a crowd suddenly entered the scene. And we read this way in verse eight, and the crowd came up, well, they literally came up. I mean, in order to reach Pilate where he was in the governor's palace, the crowd would have had to climb the hill to literally come up in elevation since the governor's palace was built on the high point overlooking the lower parts of the city in the temple area. Well, what did the people, the crowd do when they arrived in verse eight? Well, the crowd asked Pilate to do as Pilate usually did for them to release a prisoner. In verse 9, Pilate seems to agree, right? And then he asks, in verse 9, whether the crowd would want Pilate to release the king of the Jews. Now, pause for a minute and think about this. The whole point of releasing one prisoner during the annual holiday, a religious feast, would be what we today call a pardon. and the driving goal behind a government official issuing a pardon is to gain the crowd's approval for that government official, for Pilate. If Pilate were interested in the true defense of the Roman Empire and squashing or preventing any uprisings, Pilate would release Jesus to them and keep the violent Barabbas under lock and key, in fact, accuse him of revolution and crucify him. Barabbas was more of a threat of a violent uprising to Rome than Jesus ever was. But Pilate wasn't interested in doing his job, protecting the Roman Empire from uprisings. Pilate was more interested in pleasing the crowd. How do I know that? Because this passage in God's Word tells us that. Pilate thought Jesus had been popular. Well, he had every right to think that Jesus had been popular. You know, Palm Sunday? That was only six days earlier. And so on Palm Sunday, here's Jesus riding a colt full of a donkey, and the crowd is laying down palm branches and coats on the road in front of him and shouting things like, Hosanna, right? O save, O son of David, right? The crowd seemed to be very favorable towards this Jesus rabbi fellow, and Pilate's observing this, right? So Pilate knew that. All this is behind Pilate's suggestion in verse nine, that the crowd select Jesus to be the one to be released. Let that be the prisoner who's released. And Pilate's suggestion to them comes across in verse nine like this. And he answered them saying, do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews? Hint, hint, wink, wink, I assume that will be your request? Right, am I right? Pilate's suggestion was not taken. We learn that Pilate is not controlling this scene. Nor was Pilate determining what would eventually happen to Jesus. As we know from other parts of scripture, it was God who was orchestrating every one of these events. Let me read Acts 2, 23 to 24. This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by death. Acts 2, 23 to 24. It's not Pilate who's in charge of the scene. And back to our scene then, to choose. To choose between Jesus and Barabbas. Like today we would say, seriously? I mean, if both stood before them as supposedly condemned criminals, both prisoners, both accused of revolution, one of whom would now become the object of Pilate's mercy, this was some outrageously unfair scene. The fact that Jesus submitted himself to this outrage rather than, for example, I don't know, calling down from heaven more angels to report for duty than this earth has ever seen in one place at one time. The fact that Jesus didn't do that and submitted himself to this outrageous choice between Jesus and Barabbas, who would be released, shows us with what devotion Jesus was committed to the task that his father had assigned to him to go ahead and suffer in our place, which was to be chosen Barabbas or Jesus. It's under the will of God. We move to our second point. What's fascinating is the envy is identified by the pagan Pilate, the dark driving force of envy, verses 10 and 11. It was obvious to Pilate that the chief priests were not acting out of loyalty to Rome. How did you guys all of a sudden get really loyal to Rome and you're going to turn over one of your own so that we don't have an uprising against Rome? You've always wanted Rome to get off your back. You're not all of a sudden loyal to Rome. You're not fooling anybody, right? It's obvious to Pilate. So if you're not acting out of loyalty to Rome, then what are you trying to do? Why would you be trying to kill this Jesus, one of your own rabbis? And in verse 10, we see Pilate make a very obvious observation and conclusion that did not require a lot of special wisdom on Pilate's part. Verse 10 says this, for he, Pilate, perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered Jesus up. Envy. Pilate discerned envy. Envy is displeasure aroused by seeing someone else having what you do not want him to have. That's exactly what was motivating the chief priest to deliver Jesus up. Pilate had learned that what makes people do what they did in order to appear in Pilate's courtroom was all sorts of dark things. It could be greed, it could be envy, it could be lust, He, in his courtroom duties, had a way of figuring these things out. But in this case, envy explained the response of these religious leaders to the popularity of Jesus with the crowds. Why had he had these many people in the crowds laying down palm branches and coats on the road just six days earlier? Why was Jesus so very popular with so many people in Jerusalem? Well, we were told that. I'll just give you a quick review. Back in Mark 11, verse 18, we read, the chief priests and the scribes heard the teaching of Jesus and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. End quote. That's Mark 11, 18. The crowds were astonished at Jesus' teaching. That's why he was popular. Again we read in Mark 12, 12, they were seeking to arrest Jesus, but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them, so they left him and went away. Again and again we're told in the Gospel of Mark that the crowds were amazed and astonished at the teaching of Jesus. He taught like no one else, they said. So back to our passage in Mark 15 here in verse 11, we now read that the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release for them Barabbas instead of Jesus. The chief priests were behind this. The chief priests were influential in the scene, more influential than Pilate was, and Pilate was in charge. The chief priests used their influence over the crowd so that the crowd would ask for Barabbas to be released. Why would they need Barabbas to be released? Because it would mean that Jesus would stay in their custody of the Romans. These steps would move the chief priests ever closer to their goals against Jesus, and we have been told again and again that their goals are murderous toward Jesus. They wanted to kill him. Brings us to our third point now, verses 12 to 15. The conscience-deadening effect of the sin of crowd-pleasing. Moving ahead now to verse 12. And since the Jewish crowd did not want their own king to be released, they wanted Barabbas to be released, Pilate asks the next logical question. Well, you brought me this fellow Jesus. He's now in my custody. And you used your coin to release one prisoner. I still have him. What do you want me to do with the fellow that you call your king? the king of the Jews. You turned him over to me. He's now under Roman custody. You want me to release this other fellow. So what is to be done with Jesus? And in verse 13, the crowds who had previously shouted for Barabbas to be released now shouted again. But this time when the crowd shouted, they shouted their answer to Pilate's new question. Pilate's new question is what to do with Jesus. The crowd shouted Imagine Pilate for a moment. What a surprise it must have been for him to hear that answer and to hear it shouted no less. Again, just six days earlier on Palm Sunday, he probably was in town and heard the shouts of Hosanna. He certainly heard his spies reporting about it. And now on Friday, first thing in the morning, the crowd is shouting to him, crucify Jesus. How do you go from Hosanna, praise him, save us Lord, to crucify him? Pilate had to be shocked. And even though it was Pilate's only realistic option as the standard Roman penalty for violent political rebels to crucify him, it was still disconcerting to hear a shouted demand for crucifixion coming from a Jewish crowd towards one of their own rabbis who was himself, and the crowd was agreeing, and the rabbis were agreeing, he claimed to be their king. I think Pilate was truly stumped as to why they would be shouting, crucify him. Death under official auspices of the Roman occupation of Jerusalem could only mean death by the full rigor of the Roman cross. He couldn't just allow them, wink, wink, go run back and stone him to death or beat him until he bleeds out. He couldn't allow them to strangle him or any other manner. He was under Pilate's custody. The only form of execution contemplated for Jesus in this passage or any other It's crucifixion. Crucify him, they literally shouted. Verse 14, now the surprised Pilate, still wondering why a Jewish crowd would ask for their own rabbi to be crucified, being no less than the king of the Jews, now asks the crowd why they would like Pilate to convict Jesus and why they were shouting for Pilate to give the order to crucify Jesus. And Pilate put it succinctly here in verse 14. Why? What evil has he, Jesus, done? But the crowd, rather than fielding that question, rather than stating the one, two, three, or five things that are evil that Jesus had done that caused them to call for his crucifixion, ignored the legitimate question of the pagan Pilate and shouted all the more what to do with him. namely to crucify him, verse 14. Now we have a pagan man more concerned about justice than the entire Jewish nation, a crowd of people. The fitting questions by Pilate about crimes and wrongs are questions that serve to provide us as readers of Mark's gospel, one of the reasons this passage is here for us, additional confirmation through the voice and mind of the third-party Pilate that the execution of Jesus was a tragic, perhaps the most tragic, the most colossal miscarriage of true justice to happen in the history of the world. That's what we're talking about tonight. Pilate became guilty of making what was literally the worst action of injustice the world has ever seen. Why would Pilate do such a thing? Verse 15 gives us the reason. Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd. Pilate desired to please a crowd of people. That's why he did it. Pilate let the opinion of a crowd of people rule his own mind and therefore his own actions flowing out of his thinking. Pilate no longer followed his own conscience, his own sense of right and wrong, his own sense of whether there was something evil that this fellow had done that would warrant that order to be given. It would have led to the opposite verdict if he let his own conscience lead him, but Pilate let his conscience die. That's why my third point is the conscience-deadening effect of the sin of crowd-pleasing. He let his conscience die through the sin of prioritizing a group of people over what Pilate knew was right. Pilate actually caved twice, remember? The first time he caved was when the crowd demanded that Pilate release Barabbas. The second time he caved was when the crowd demanded that Pilate find Jesus guilty and send him over for Roman execution by crucifixion. Pilate caved twice. Just as certainly as pardon from Pilate meant Barabbas would be released, So a guilty verdict from Pilate meant that Jesus was certainly to be handed over to be crucified. There's no saving him now. And here again, the verb handed over is common in our study of Mark, isn't it? One more time we find this in verse 15, translated with the phrase delivered him, just as it had been previously already in verse 10 when the chief priest had delivered him into Pilate's hands. Back in verse 10, it was for envy. that the priest handed Jesus over. Now here in verse 15, it was for wanting to satisfy the crowd that Pilate also turned Jesus over, this time to be crucified. And Jesus now, officially a Roman prisoner, on formal accusation of treason, having been found guilty, and now being turned over to be crucified, reminds us of the words of Jesus who predicted this all. Listen carefully, Mark 10, 33. We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and hand him over to the Gentiles. Even the same verb was used, to hand him over. Jesus predicted it all, the double handing over. It was used throughout Mark's gospel, the same word actually for the action of Judas. We call it betray, but Judas handed him over Same verb Mark used repeatedly to signal the progressive fulfillment of the predictions of Jesus and turning them over to suffering after suffering for our salvation. Now invariably, the Roman Empire always gave a beating before every crucifying. And so here at the end of verse 15, there came an additional statement. An additional statement in the middle, almost like these commas tell us that Mark added that in there. And having scourged Jesus, he delivered him over to be crucified. And there came an additional beating of Jesus. Over and above the beating Jesus had received overnight that previous night by the chief priests themselves in chapter 14, verse 65, remember? And this was a beating now fit for an enemy of Rome. These Roman soldiers were trained and dedicated to the Roman Empire and they would fulfill their work and they accomplished that with whips of leather, sometimes with weights on the ends or pieces of metal or pieces of bone. The flogging of Jesus, like I said, I promised I wouldn't go into the goriness of it, but it was a brutal process which inflicted severe injuries on Jesus It was a beating so injurious to a person's back that the Roman flogging itself would often prove fatal. Our innocent Savior was now severely injured, suffering immensely, and it's no surprise he had no strength left to carry his own cross in our next passage. He would be bleeding profusely and coming close to the point of losing consciousness. And at that point, we come to the end of our passage. At that point, we're told the very last thing in our passage, the last thing we're told is that Jesus, what? Rather than receiving first aid treatment by the best medical professionals that ancient Rome had to offer. Rather than Jesus being released into the custody of the Jews to see whether he would survive his injuries if he received perhaps excellent, loving care from his own. Rather than Jesus being released to his own family for them to care for him in his last moments offer him some convalescence or final wishes, for it was now nearly irreversible for him to die soon. No, no, no, none of those. The last thing we're told in our passage what actually happened to Jesus was that Pilate delivered Jesus, then next, to be crucified. Pilate would later, as you know, wash his hands quite publicly in the full view of many as a symbolic gesture, but oh, Pilate. It did not cleanse you, sir. In fact, the only thing that would cleanse Pilate of his guilt is the only thing that would cleanse us of our guilt. The blood of Jesus. Irony for Pilate, isn't it? After the wrong verdict, the world's worst verdict, and the obligatory beating, Our bleeding Jesus was handed over to be crucified by this Pilate. This too, part of Jesus' prediction, and Jesus had prophesied he'd be rejected by the Jews, handed over to the Gentiles, and yes, killed. That's exactly what happened. And Jesus also predicted that he would rise again. And that is exactly What happened? What have we seen tonight? Our king suffered in our place when he was beaten and handed over to be crucified. A choice between Barabbas or Jesus. Unfair, colossally stupid choice. The dark driving force of envy and the conscious deadening effect of a sin of crowd pleasing. Let me ask you this before we close. When you stand back and look at aspects of the suffering of Jesus like we've looked at tonight, what do you see? What should we see as Christians? What should we think about it? Why is it in the Bible? Why do I have a whole message on this thing? Was this just some ancient man who irritated the wrong people? Was he just the victim of circumstance, wrong place, wrong time, or the pragmatism of Pilate to try to get rid of him and please the holiday crowd? Lucky day for Barabbas, sad day for Jesus. Is that what you see? or is this really actually the sinless Son of God who suffered in our place? Are we studying the greatest story ever because the greatest king who ever lived showed his greatness best in the moments when he became the sacrifice for us sinners? We put ourselves in the place of Barabbas. What did Barabbas see? Now we don't know if Barabbas actually saw his beating, if Barabbas actually saw Jesus' crucifixion, but even if he didn't see it, What did Barabbas think when he came to know that he himself would not have to go through the Roman torture, whipping, and crucifixion? Remember, that was his road. That was next for him. Did Barabbas ever think, that should be me, not him? Isn't that exactly our place? We should think, that should be me. Not him. That's the only right way to look at the sufferings of Jesus. Actually, the name Bar-Abbas comes from Bar-Abbas, son of the father. You know Abba, his father? Son of the father, that was his name. He didn't live up to his name, he was sinful and guilty, but he had been set free now. Jesus became the substitute for Barabbas, the true son of the Father, killed so that this son of the Father could be released and rescued. That's us. We're in the position of Barabbas. Guilty, deserving of condemnation, but when we were without hope in the world, Christ became our substitute and the innocent one died for us. Now Pilate, he was unjust, but God the Father's always just. And God the Father was right to justify us because our sins were already paid by Jesus' death in our place. As surely as Jesus suffered, it's equally certain that he did it for us. As surely as Jesus suffered, it's equally certain that we have been set free by it. The death and resurrection of Jesus has cleansed us from all of our sins of envy, all of our sins of injustice, all of our sins of wishing to please people, all of our sins of wishing to harm people, all of our sins of handing people over, all of our sins of condemning the innocent or releasing the guilty or sins of beating an innocent man, sins of following a murderous crowd, sins of murder and hatred and anything else. Jesus has cleansed us from all our sins. That's what we should think when we study the suffering of Jesus. We're fully released, becoming true sons of God the Father. 1 Peter 2.24, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. That's what we should think. Father in heaven, we've considered how our king was beaten for us.