What Will You Do With the King of the Jews? Mark 15:21-32

I'm reading this morning from Mark chapter 15, verses 21 to 32.

Mark 15:21–32

And they compelled a pastor by Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.

And they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull.

And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.

And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them to decide what each should take.

And it was the third hour when they crucified him.

And the inscription of the charge against him read, The King of the Jews.

And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.

And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross.

So also the chief priest with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, He saved others, he can't save himself.

Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.

Those who were crucified with him also reviled him.

This is the reading of God's infallible, inerrant word.

Let's pray for the Spirit's enabling.

Father, as the Apostle Paul said to the church in Thessalonica, our gospel came to you not simply with words, but with power, with the Holy Spirit, and with deep conviction.

May that be true this morning.

Amen.

So we are moving in this sermon series in the Gospel of Mark.

We've been in this sermon series for quite a while, and now we're down to Jesus' final days.

We are going from the trial that we've seen the last two weeks from the trials to the cross.

This morning we're going to look, continue to look at his suffering.

We're going to look at his saving, and we're going to look at the sign that was affixed above his head on the cross.

First of all, we continue to look at his suffering.

Jesus is now beaten, tortured, exhausted.

So exhausted that he could not carry the cross beam on the cross, which normally they would do.

If you were condemned by the Roman government, you would have to carry your own cross beam.

Put it on your shoulders.

Jesus couldn't do it.

He physically was not able or capable of carrying it because he, at this point, was so painfully suffering.

So one of the Roman soldiers saw a man coming in.

His name was Simon Cyrene from Libya today.

He sees him.

He says, You, you take that man's cross.

And so they led him to a place called Golgotha, which means the skull, the place of death, just outside the city's wall of Jerusalem.

It's interesting, Mark tells us that he was the father of Rufus.

Rufus is named in the book of Romans at the end of the book.

Rufus was well known to the Christians in Rome, and probably why he's mentioned like that.

Jesus is crucified on the cross, and we're going to talk more about this this Friday night, Good Friday service.

I hope you can join us this Friday night at 7.30.

We're going to take of Holy Communion, but we're going to talk more about his suffering on the cross.

Mark doesn't give us a lot of details at this point.

He says quite simply, verse 24, and they crucified him.

And as was the custom to offer some small modicum of relief, they offered him some wine mixed with myrrh.

A very, very, very faint kind of sedative, narcotic, just to ease the pain a little bit.

Jesus refused it.

Such he did.

The death for someone who was crucified by Rome, the death usually came by shock or asphyxiation.

It wasn't, it was a painful, lingering death.

Some people never even made it after the beating and the torturing with the whipping.

But Jesus was hanging on the cross.

And as he did the soldiers, by the way, there were 600 Roman soldiers that were assigned to this case.

Does that seem like overkill?

For this man?

And the centurion who oversees.

And the centurion with all these soldiers, and the soldiers made a game of this.

They would take his garments, his clothing, whatever clothing he had, they would take it, and they would now cast lots to see who gets what piece of clothing.

And by the way, they stripped him naked.

In Roman crucifixion, he was humiliated with everything else, with stripping him of all of his clothing.

The Jews didn't like that.

The Jews would hope that there was a loincloth, but this was a Roman crucifixion.

Likely he was stripped naked.

They divided his garments, and it was the third hour, 9 a.m.

in the morning, when this started, these proceedings started to take place, Mark tells us.

And the mocking continues, and the mocking is growing, and the circle is getting wider.

As we've seen, the mocking started with the chief priest, the Sanhedrin, the elders, and then it spread to the Roman soldiers.

And now at this public spectacle, now there's a large crowd.

There's a large crowd jeering, mocking him.

Even the two criminals on either side.

They were more than robbers.

Robbery didn't get the execution sentence.

They were probably insurrectionist, these two robbers.

On either side of them.

And there's Jesus in the middle on the cross.

It takes us back in this sermon series in Mark chapter 10, a few months ago, where James and John, two of his closest disciples, asked, do you remember what they asked Jesus?

Mark 10 · chapter mention

They had the audacity to ask?

Jesus, when you come into your glory, would you please let us sit on either side of you in your glory?

Let one of us sit on your left and let one of us sit on your right.

Such an arrogant request at that time.

That was right after Jesus had prophesied of his suffering.

I think it's more than ironic that here one is on his left and one is on his right, and they are suffering as they were crucified.

The shame that Jesus endured, this public spectacle, being crucified on the cross, he was shamed for us.

Jesus not only died for us, but he was shamed for us.

He was humiliated for us.

The story is told by Corey Tenboom that some of you know about.

Corey Tenboom was a Dutch woman.

Her family was arrested in World War II.

And she was taken, she was taken by the Germans to a Nazi camp, concentration camp.

And there she was with her sister Betsy.

She was, well, they were they were tortured.

One day, and every Friday it seems, according to what she writes in her book, The Hiding Place.

Every Friday they would go for medical inspection and stripped naked.

And it was as humiliating as you would imagine it was.

Do you know what Betsy said at that moment?

As her sister reminded her that he has shared in all of our sorrows.

Oh, Corey.

And I never thanked him.

I never thanked him.

Have you thanked him?

Have you thanked him not only for saving you from all of your sin, but for entering into the state of humiliation.

For you, he did.

For his people, he did.

Oh, his suffering continued.

But secondly, I just want us to look briefly at the saving.

And the ridicule and the mockery that's going on as Jesus is crucified on the cross.

All these people jeering and mocking him.

And we read in verse 30, they're shouting, save yourself, Jesus.

Save yourself and come down from the cross.

You say, you said you saved others.

It appears that you can't save yourself.

They thought they were putting him to the test.

This taunt assumes that saving himself would be the greatest good.

You follow that, right?

They're taunting.

If you really are who you say you are, the Son of God and the Savior of the world, save yourself as though that would be the ultimate test to show your power.

The truth is he could have.

He could have cried out to God Almighty, and twelve legions of angels would have come and given real justice at that moment.

This taunt is similar to the same temptation Jesus endured we saw a few weeks ago when he was in Gethsemane, the garden, to avoid the cup of suffering.

At this moment, at this moment, Jesus found the courage to pray, just like he did in the Garden of Gethsemane.

You know the best thing to do when you're losing it is to pray.

The best thing you can do when life doesn't seem to make sense, when the suffering is hard or harsh, is to pray.

I love what J.C.

Ryle, the bishop, said.

As soon as the blood of the great sacrifice of Jesus began to flow, the great high priest began to intercede.

You know what he said from the cross.

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

How could he pray that prayer after all he'd been through?

At that moment, Father, forgive them.

Interestingly, the Bible doesn't specify who them was.

And I think that's intentionally.

You know why?

To leave it is widespread as needed.

Forgive who?

The Roman soldiers who crucified him?

Surely that he was speaking to them.

The priest who were in the crowd?

Would he ask God to forgive the priest who condemned him?

Would God actually forgive them?

You know what we read in the book of Acts?

We read in the book of Acts, chapter 6, that many of the priests became believers in Jesus Christ.

Acts 6 · chapter mention

And no doubt some, or perhaps many of them, came to faith in Christ on Pentecost Sunday when they heard Peter preach about this Jesus Christ whom you crucified, God raised up from the dead.

Apparently, some, perhaps many of them, became Christians.

Now let me tell you this.

If God can forgive them, He can forgive you.

There's nothing that you are guilty of that He cannot forgive.

You must hear that today.

Father, forgive them.

Them?

That includes a lot of people.

I like the way Charles Spurgeon, the preacher, put it.

He said he loved this prayer by Jesus, quote, because of the indistinctness of it.

In other words, Jesus prayed for them without ever exactly saying who them included.

Therefore, even through this prayer, though this prayer undoubtedly refers to the people I just mentioned, it is not limited to them in its application.

When Jesus said, Father, forgive them, he was giving the hope of mercy to every lost sinner, to every lost sinner who would ever come to him and pray to be forgiven.

And that includes today.

And that includes here.

We too are among the them that Jesus prayed for God to forgive.

Spurgeon said this in his sermon when he preached on this text.

He applied this personally when he said, listen to this, now into that pronoun them, I feel that I can crawl.

What a way with words Spurgeon had.

Is there a place for me, sinner that I am, is there a place for me into which I can crawl into the them?

And the answer is yes.

That space is not too small for you to crawl into.

And then we read in the book of Hebrews, chapter 5, these amazing words said about Jesus.

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

Hebrews chapter 5, verse 7.

Hebrews 5:7

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death.

And he was heard because of his reverence.

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.

And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal life to all who obey him.

And right now, as I read that, you might be thinking, well, wait a minute, he didn't save him.

He did.

He's referring to the resurrection.

On the third day after his death, God the Father raised him from the dead.

And he's still alive.

He's so alive that he can take you from death to life.

He's so alive that he knows exactly what to do with you, inviting you to crawl into that space.

Father, forgive them.

What about you?

Why not you?

But you must come in faith.

You must understand who he was, this real king.

You must receive this real King, Jesus.

You must say, Father, forgive me because of Jesus.

And he will.

He will.

The saving.

The saving is precious.

If you're new to this church, that's why we sing like we do here.

If you're new to this church, that's why we pray like we pray here.

Because this is truly good news.

We have joy.

And we have peace in this church.

It's not ours, it's what Jesus gives us.

It's what Jesus gives to his people.

Many of you have experienced that just recently.

Many of you have experienced that years ago.

If you've experienced it years ago, do you have it now?

Are you living out of his joy?

Are you living out of his peace?

Do you understand that he cried out with a loud voice and with tears?

He cried, he interceded for you.

He interceded for you not only the day that he was on the cross, but he intercedes for you every day.

Who else do you know in your life that does that for you like him?

Nobody.

This is why we worship him like we do here.

And it's good that we do.

So this is the question I want to leave us with this morning.

What kind of king is this?

Who lived like this?

The humility of Jesus, like nobody else.

The one who said, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

That promises is true for today.

Are you weary?

Are you burdened?

There's lots of things in this world that can leave you burdened.

That can leave you weary.

Jesus says today, if you're weary and if you're burdened, you come to me and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and I give rest to all who come.

He's doing that today, all over the world.

And he can do that for you today.

What kind of king lives like this with such humility?

And yet also the humiliation.

It's the humility he lived with, it's the humiliation by which he died, and they come together.

Only a truly humble person would allow himself to be humiliated as he was, stripped, beaten, tortured, crucified.

It took a very humble king to subject himself to that.

And so here's the question: why did he?

Out of love.

Love for you.

Why else would he do it?

The father didn't make him do it.

He didn't do it for himself.

He had nothing to prove to himself.

The only reason he did this was for you.

Let that sink in this holy week.

Out of love.

And that's why I worship him.

And that's why I love him.

What kind of king gets killed like this?

Pilate could not have possibly understood the full ramifications of the inscription that he ordered the king of the Jews.

Pilate did not understand the full implications of that.

But you do, don't you?

The full implications?

No, we have more to learn, but we understand who he is.

We understand what he did.

And we're here this morning to praise him.

The Son of Man came down, and the Son of Man is going to return.

That passage that we read in our call to worship this morning, he's coming back in clouds.

He's coming back in full glory, full power.

Will you be ready to receive him?

Will we be waving those palm branches that day?

I don't know what we're going to have in our hands that day.

But I think our hands are going to be palms up to him.

I think our hands are going to be palms up.

We surrender to you, Jesus.

We glorify you, Jesus.

We praise you, Jesus.

And it's going to be a good day.

But you need to be ready for that day.

Because if you're not, you're going to miss that day.

And you're not going to be forgiven.

You're not going to be forgiven.

Now is a day of salvation.

Today is the day of salvation.

You come to Jesus while you can.

You come to Jesus while you have time.

You come to Jesus because he's Jesus.

And there's only one like him.

As we close, I want to go back to something we looked at a few months ago in our sermon series.

The last time Jesus made this prediction.

Mark chapter 10, verse 32.

Mark 10:32

And he and his disciples were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus is walking ahead of them, and they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.

And taking the twelve again, the twelve disciples, he began to tell them what was going to happen to him, saying, 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.

How did Jesus know exactly what was going to happen?

Because he's fully God.

He knew.

He prophesied.

And all of that came true.

But you want, let's go back to Mark chapter 10.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

Right after he said this, listen to what Mark records.

And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.

Jesus said, Well, what do you want me to do for you?

Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory.

Preposterous.

So self-centered.

So absorbed with self.

Jesus said, You don't know what you're asking.

Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism I'm baptized with?

They said so ignorantly.

Yes, we can.

They had no clue.

You know what that says to me?

I see myself.

I can see how quickly I can be drawn to my own self-interest.

I see how quickly I can be drawn into my own suffering, where my suffering seems to be more important than his suffering.

And that's not a good place for any of us to be.

Let's stop praying and asking for our glory.

Let's stop asking and praying for exalted positions of authority in this world.

It's just not what it's cracked up to be.

Today, on Palm Sunday, let's give all the praise and let's give all the glory to Jesus.

Let's say, Jesus, it's not about my position.

It's about you.

So my last question to you this morning is this What will you do with the King of the Jews?

You must answer that question.

No answer is an answer.

If you say, I'm just gonna hold off on that, I'm gonna just put that aside, that's an answer.

The answer is no.

The answer is no until the answer is yes.

May the answer be yes.

Would you pray with me?

Oh Lord Jesus, we want to thank you again for saving sinners like us.

We want to thank you that you lived the life of perfect humility and you endured the ultimate humiliation.

What other person has ever walked on this earth like you?

None.

With graciousness and humility you lived, subjecting yourself to the worst humiliation possible.

And you did it out of love.

And we will never stop thanking you.

But the first step is to receive you, to cross over from death to life.

I pray by the power of your Holy Spirit that there might be some even in this room right now that would do that by faith, that they would see your sacrifice like they've never seen your sacrifice before.

That they might be struck by your humility.

Lord, that they might understand the humiliation.

That they would look up to the cross and say, Father, forgive me.

Because you will.

Because you're a God of love and you're a God of mercy.

God of mercy, receive us this morning in Jesus' name.

Amen.