Mark 15:1-20
(No video this week due to technical difficulties)
I’ve endured a lot of physical pain in my life. I could tell you endless stories of ER visits growing up. I probably have so many stories that I can’t even remember all of them. I broke my nose so bad that it was almost under my eye. I got hit in the head with an aluminum baseball bat when I was a kid, still have the bat with a huge dent in it. Dropped a hollow broom handle on my eye, cut the white of my eye, thought I was going to go blind in that eye. Broke a piece of kneecap off, can feel the notch where it used to be. Almost cut my finger off with a butcher knife in college, could pinch it and see the bones and tendons inside. Tore my ankle open jumping over a metal chest in my friends attic, his Mom put NuSkin glue in it. Next day, went to the hospital and they scraped it out and stitched it up.
Point is this: I’ve been through a lot of physically painful things in my life, but in the midst of the cringing and embarrassment of the stories behind these injuries, not a single one even comes close to the pain that Jesus endured at the hands of His oppressors. More than the physical pain that He endured, however, is the story behind the pain. The WHY behind the pain.
Big Idea: Everything Jesus endured, He endured for us.
Ever since Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, we’ve seen Him endure incredible things. He endured the psychological agony of knowing what was coming, that He would become sin and be forsaken by His Father. He endured betrayal by those who were closest to Him, Judas of course, but also the disciples that scattered during the arrest. He endured persecution and a physical beating by the Sanhedrin. This morning we see Him continue to endure. He endures in a few different ways.
Read Mark 15:1-5
1.. Jesus Endured an Unfair Trial
We aren’t exactly sure why they bring Jesus before the full council in verse 1, but the thought would be that they needed to formalize the charges before bringing Jesus to Pilate.
Pilate is essentially the Governor in Jerusalem, so he would be the one to decide the fate of Jesus. When they finally arrive, the whole council of religious leaders announce the charges against Jesus. In Luke 23:2, here’s what they say:
“We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.”
And this last part of the accusations is really what Pilate is most concerned about. “A king, you say?” He is looking at Jesus, bloody and swollen, and asks this question. A better translation is, “You?! The King of the Jews?!” It wasn’t adding up. This man standing before him was no king.
In John 18, we see the full conversation in which Jesus explains to Pilate that he is in fact a King, but His kingdom is not of this world. If it were, his followers would be fighting to free Him and overthrow Rome. That isn’t the case of course, and after this conversation Pilate finds no guilt in Him.
Pilate walks back out, tells the crowds that he finds no guilt in Jesus, and they start yelling and screaming wild accusations against Jesus. One commentator says “It was a veritable ‘cacophonous chorus’ of maliciously fabricated false charges against Jesus, the blameless, innocent Lamb of God.” Pilate, bewildered, goes back to Jesus, and he’s like, “alright man, how can you just stand there while they accuse you of all these things? Don’t you want to defend yourself? Any rational human being would stand up against false accusations!” But Jesus remained silent, and the end of verse 5 tells us that Pilate was “amazed,” amazed at the restraint that Jesus showed. Amazed at the calm resilience that was standing in front of him. Amazed at the whole situation.
At this point, Pilate doesn’t know what to do, so he sends Jesus to Herod, the man who murdered John the Baptist. Herod questions Jesus, but Jesus remains silent, so he sends him back with Pilate.
Read Mark 15:6-14
What a beautiful picture of the gospel we have before us. The name Barabbas means “son of the father.” Jesus is the Son of the Father. Barabbas is a murderer awaiting his death sentence, Jesus is an innocent man guilty of nothing. Jesus took the place of Barabbas, and Barabbas is freed and absolved of the charges that brought him death. It’s incredible.
Let’s dig in a little bit here. Pilate is wrestling big time with this decision. He isn’t wrestling in any spiritual way, but he is wrestling with the politics of the situation. The crowd is unsettled, almost riotous. Pilate could convict an innocent man to appease the crowds, or he could release an innocent man at the risk of insurrection. But a solution is presented. The crowds ask Pilate to release a prisoner. This had become a gesture of goodwill from the Romans during Passover, a nod to the freeing of the Jewish people from Egypt. It had become a custom, and now the crowds are asking Pilate to continue the tradition. Perfect! The religious leaders want to convict Jesus, but maybe the crowds will overcome and ask for the release of Jesus. The man is innocent after all!
This backfires very quickly, as the chief priests get into the middle of the crowd to stir them up. Mob mentality takes over, and the crowds scream for the release of a murderer. I mean think about it, Barabbas had been arrested for trying to overthrow the Romans, he might have been somewhat of a hero to the Jewish people!
“Ok, you want the murderer. Then what are we going to do with the one you call the King of the Jews?” Kill Him! Crucify Him! “But he is innocent. What evil has he done? None of your accusations stuck. He is innocent.” And at this, the bloodthirsty mob screamed all the louder, “crucify Him!” Crucifixion. The Roman historian Cicero called it a “cruel and disgusting penalty.” Josephus, the Jewish historian called it the “worst of deaths.”
Read Mark 15:15
2.. Jesus Endured Scourging
Pilate continued to wrestle even to the very end. We see in Matthew that at this point, Pilate washed his hands in front of the crowds, symbolizing his innocence in convicting Jesus. In fact, Matthew also tells us that the crowds yelled, “His blood be on us and our children!” Such a horribly sad scene. But it will get worse, as Jesus is led away to be scourged.
Jesus was stripped of his clothes and had his hands tied high to a post. Often times they would secure the criminal with their legs dangling to make the body taught. The Romans took a whip called a “flagellum” that had leather straps hanging off the end. At the end of those strips were pieces of metal and bone. The soldiers stood on either side of Jesus, and one after the other whipped his back, each time the metal and bone pieces would rip away his flesh. Eventually muscles would be lacerated, veins cut, internal organs and bones exposed. The Jews had a limit of 39 lashes, but the Romans had no such number, often leaving the person dead from their wounds.
Jesus, swollen and bloodied face, back torn open with his inside exposed, was not yet done enduring.
Read Mark 15:16-20
3.. Jesus Endured Mockery
The whole battalion of Roman soldiers would have equated to about 600 men. I always pictured just a few men doing this to Jesus, but 600 men! This man is the King of the Jews, let’s show him the honor He deserves! Let’s dress him up like a king! Now, taking excruciating physical pain and coupling it with an emotional and psychological beating. A purple robe, the color of royalty, wrapped around Jesus’ body. Remember, Jesus has just had his back ripped open, and now he has this robe draped over him, soaking up the blood from His back. And what would a king be without a crown? So they take thorn branches and twist them together to make what resembles a crown. They place it on his head and beat it down with wooden sticks. The thorns embedding into his head. Now that he looks like a king, they begin to bow down to him and mock him with praise. All the while they are spitting on him, and kneeling down before Him. Jesus, takes it. Jesus lets it happen!
In the gospel of John we see that Pilate brings Jesus back out to the crowd, dressed in the purple robe and crown of thorns. Maybe Pilate thought this would finally appease the crowds. But they continue to scream, “Crucify Him! It isn’t enough. We aren’t satisfied until He is dead!”
They take Him back and rip the robe off of his body and put his own clothes back on him. The time has come to crucify Jesus.
Application
Man this is hard to read. It’s hard to say. It’s hard to picture. It’s hard to comprehend why Jesus would endure all of this! I gotta be honest with you guys, these last couple of weeks of prep and preaching, coupled with reading through our Lenten Devotional, has been really, really sobering for me. I feel like I’ve been looking in the face of Jesus over and over, just contemplating this statement that Pilate makes: “Behold, the King of the Jews.”
Not a conquering King. Not a victorious King. A man that has been beaten so badly that He is unrecognizable. A man who has had his flesh ripped off His bones. A man who is covered in other people’s spit. A man who has been mocked, had His spirits crushed. And I think about the truth of these details, and put that together with, “Behold, the King of the Jews,” I am filled with deep gratitude, with amazement, with humility, with brokenness, with sadness, with joy, I mean all of the deep seeded emotions that can only be felt on a spiritual level when we consider what Jesus endured. But it’s not just about what He endured, it’s the reason why He endured it.
He endured it because there was no other way to finally and completely redeem humanity back to the Father. There was no other hope that humanity had for salvation. “For God so loved the world, humanity, that He sent His only Son, Jesus, that whoever believes in Him will NOT perish, will not die and be eternally separated from God, but will instead gain eternal life in heaven with God.” We are born into sin, therefore born destined for eternity apart from God, hell, but Jesus BECAME sin and died so that we wouldn’t have to. To get there, He had to first go through the mock trials, beatings, scourging, and mockery.
And this is where I want things to kind of sit in our hearts and minds this morning. “Behold, the King of the Jews.” Look at what He did for us.
