The Mockery, Yet the Humility of Jesus: Mark 15:1-20

Please turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 15.

Mark 15 · chapter mention

Be reading the first 20 verses of the text.

We are nearing the end of this sermon series in the Gospel of Mark quite some time.

And we're coming toward the end.

And these verses remind us, tell us about the trial that Jesus was undergoing.

Last week, Pastor Josh preached on the trial that Jesus had before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish rulers, but now we're finding Jesus under trial before Pilate.

Hear the word of God.

And as soon as it was morning, the chief priest held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council.

And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate.

And Pilate asked him, Are you the king of the Jews?

And he answered him, You have said so.

And the chief priest accused him of many things.

And Pilate again asked him, Have you no answer to make?

See how many charges they bring against you?

But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed.

Now at the feast that 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.

And the soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is the governor's headquarters, and they called together the whole battalion, and they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him, and they began to salute him.

Hail, King of the Jews! And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him, and kneeling down in homage to him.

And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him, and they led him out to crucify him.

This is the reading of God's holy, perfect, infallible, and errant word.

The death of the only innocent man who ever lived.

But Lord, you've given this for our instruction, for our edification.

So Holy Spirit, be our teacher.

Be our teacher.

Open our minds and our hearts.

May your truth pour into us.

And may our love and thankfulness and obedience to you flow out.

We pray in Christ's name, amen.

So yes, we are at the trial, but this is no longer a church trial.

This is now a Roman government trial.

Pontius Pilate, his name made it into the Apostles' Creed, didn't it?

Historical documentation.

Pontius Pilate, he was someone that wasn't well liked, it seems like, by anybody.

He certainly wasn't liked by the emperor back in Rome, or he wouldn't have stayed 11 years as the prefect over Israel.

This was not a choice assignment.

This was an assignment that was given to somebody you didn't like.

He had a hard time getting along with people.

He seemed like he was temperamental, capricious kind of guy.

And here we find Jesus being brought to him by the religious leaders.

Mark's account is the briefest of all the gospel accounts of these proceedings.

And that shouldn't surprise us at this point, right?

What is Mark's writing style known for?

Brevity?

Action packed.

That's how he writes after having heard from the Apostle Peter about these details firsthand.

The focus here is not so much on the brutality of the violence that was perpetrated against Jesus, which was great.

It seems as though the focus is more on the shame and the mockery that Jesus endured for our sake.

So we read in the first verse, as soon as it was early in the morning, that's when the Roman government leaders would meet early in the morning.

It is said by Josephus and others that they like to do their leisurely activities by mid to late morning.

So they got business done early.

As soon as it was morning, the chief priest held a consultation with the elders and the scribes, and they said it's time to take him to Pilate.

The Roman legal proceedings were starting.

You see, the Jewish leaders, as much as they hated and despised Jesus, they did not have the authority to put him to death.

Only the Roman government had that power for that kind of capital punishment.

So they needed Pilate to carry out their evil.

And so there Jesus comes.

And remember from last week, Jesus has already been beaten by the temple guards.

We don't know exactly what condition he's in, but he's already received blows.

And he comes before Pilate, and Pilate has a question for him.

Are you the king of the Jews?

Jesus had an interesting response.

You said it.

That's kind of like what he's saying.

Kind of an interesting answer.

Well, you said it.

I'm not disagreeing.

And Pilate really had little interest whether Jesus claimed to be the Messiah.

That was no crime in the Roman government.

Yet a claim to be a king could be a different matter.

You remember Herod the Great when Jesus was born?

Herod the Great was very threatened by the news of the birth of a king.

And I did a lot of study and I read a lot of commentaries and they're divided over this.

I really believe that.

I don't think that Pilate was threatened by Jesus.

At this point, Jesus comes in.

As Isaiah was read this morning by Matt.

There was nothing special to look at.

You know, Isaiah makes it pretty clear, Jesus, you know, he wasn't going to be on the front cover of the magazines back in the day.

He was a very ordinary-looking guy.

But at this point, he's beaten.

He's bruised.

And I have to believe that when Pilate looked into the eyes of Jesus, he saw the Jesus that's reported in the Gospel of Matthew.

Humble, meek, lowly.

He didn't see a terrorist.

I think he probably was just puzzled.

Like all this hubbub is about him.

Doesn't quite make sense.

But he had to investigate.

Mark doesn't give us the details as the other gospels do.

Some of the other gospels tell us that Pilate didn't know what to do with him, so Pilate wanted to pass him off to Herod.

Herod ruled over Galilee to the north.

It just so happened that Herod was in Jerusalem for the Passover.

And so Pilate says, Well, I'm going to get him off my back.

I'm going to send him to Herod.

Herod can figure it out.

And Herod didn't know what to do with him either.

Herod tried to question him.

As a matter of fact, Luke tells us that Herod plied him with many questions, but he gave no answer.

What to do with Jesus?

This morning we're going to look at the mockery of Jesus.

We're going to look at the silence of Jesus.

And lastly, the voice of Jesus.

The mockery of Jesus.

Well, let's just go right to verse 16.

The soldiers lead him away into the palace.

There's a whole battalion.

There's hundreds of Roman soldiers around him.

For this meek, mild-mannered, gentle human being, there's hundreds of Roman soldiers.

Talk about overkill.

And they called together the whole battalion and then they started to mock him.

They clothed him, they put a purple cloak around him.

Perhaps they got it from Pilate's closet, probably.

They put this purple robe on him and just start mocking him.

And then they twisted together a crown of thorns.

Maybe some of you have seen some artifacts like the thorns that likely were put on his head.

I've seen in museums.

Maybe you have.

And then they make a joke out of him.

They press this crown of thorns on his head, and no doubt it would have brought more blood.

They put it on him.

And then they mock him even more by saluting him.

Hail, King of the Jews! And the sarcasm would just be dripping off of their lips.

It was a parody of Hail Caesar, which would be familiar to all in the Roman Empire.

Hail Caesar! Well, this is mocking him.

Hail, King of the Jews.

Look how impressive you are.

And he was mocked.

He was mocked.

And then they struck him on the head with a reed.

That reed from the marshes probably would have been like our bamboo.

Any ever a bamboo in the yard?

It's a mess.

It's hard.

It's hard.

If they started hitting him over the head with that, that would have caused damage.

I wonder how he made it to the cross.

You know a lot of people that were scourged in those days didn't make it to the crucifixion.

Some of the emperors, we read in Roman history, some of the emperors couldn't even watch it.

It was just too violent.

And he's bleeding, and he's bruised, and he's being mocked.

And then they stripped the cloak off of him and put his own clothes on him.

And then they led him out to crucify him.

The final passion prediction we saw in Mark chapter 8, 9, and 10.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

We're going back a few months in our worship services, but in chapter 8 was the first time at Caesarea Philippi where Jesus specifically predicted this kind of end to his life.

And then in chapter 9 of Mark, we see he's even more specific about these events.

And then we get to chapter 10, which was the fullest explanation of this prediction of how he would be tortured, how he would be crucified for his people.

And now it's all playing out.

Real time.

You can only imagine taking these pieces of bone and lead and just tying them up into these leather whips.

And that's the scourging that some people never even got through.

Jesus bruised and bleeding.

But I think it's really more the emotional torture that Mark has in focus, and I believe the other gospel writers as well.

The mocking.

As they strike him over and over again, as they mock him, the torture of the trial.

And then Pilate is looking for an out.

Pilate sees, he says, Did you catch that?

Out of envy they did this.

You know, people still do a lot of sin out of envy.

You know that, right?

Out of envy.

People still commit a lot of sin.

Out of envy, Pilate looks at him and he says, This man can't be that much of a threat.

Let me get him off the hook.

It's a Jewish custom once a year at Passover to release a prisoner.

I'm going to give you Jesus.

And the crowds led by the leaders are just agitating the crowds.

Have you ever been in a crowd that got agitated?

I've been in a couple.

You ever been in a crowd?

It just gets agitated.

And the level, the decimal level, just kind of rises.

Crucify Jesus.

We don't want you to release Jesus.

We want Jesus on a cross.

Give us Barabbas.

And it's clear.

Pilate doesn't want to do this, but Pilate feels pressured.

And that just kind of is in keeping with what we know about Pilate.

You know, he's saying which way the winds are blowing.

And so Barabbas?

Or Jesus?

Barabbas.

Bar.

Abba.

Bar, son.

Abba.

What is Abba?

Father.

Son of his father.

Son of the father.

Isn't that an interesting fact?

Do you want me to give you the son of his father?

Or do you want to give me, you want me to give you the son of his father?

The father.

Well, we know the choice.

Which brings us to the second point, the silence of Jesus.

How did Jesus respond to all of this injustice with silence?

He did not speak a word in his defense.

If you happen to have a Bible with red ink, I've always liked Bibles with red ink.

This one doesn't, but those are the words of Jesus that he actually said.

If you have one of those Bibles with red ink, you'll see that there's very little red ink at the end of his life.

If you've been with us through the Gospel of Mark from the beginning, you've seen many words of Jesus.

But now when he comes to the end, it seems that he has little to say.

Why is that?

Why is Jesus silent?

Let me give you three reasons, at least three.

First of all, it seems as if he knew that their minds were made up.

Their consciences were seared.

He read their hearts.

He saw the walls and the stone of unbelief.

Secondly, Jesus was willing to submit to his Father's will.

Peter preaching the first sermon after Pentecost, with 3,000 people got saved.

We read that sermon, and he says in chapter 2 of Acts, verse 23.

This man Jesus was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge.

What does that tell us?

That tells us that this was none of this was by accident.

This was all part of God's plan.

And it kind of takes your breath away, doesn't it?

That God would plan this for his own son.

For what reason would anybody do this?

It was not the silence of defeat, as one scholar put it.

It was not the silence of defeat, but a silence of surrender to God's sovereignty in the passion of his life.

We go back to what Pastor Matt read earlier from Isaiah 53.

He was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted.

Yet he opened not his mouth.

Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent.

So he opened not his mouth.

What would we have done?

Hey, this is not me.

This is not because of me.

I just want everybody to know I'm perfect.

I'm the Son of God.

I've never said he didn't do that.

Aren't we all so quick to defend ourselves?

Sometimes at the drop of the hat.

We can be so thin-skinned.

Just want, you know, defend ourselves.

He didn't do that.

He was perfectly quiet when it mattered most.

I want to read something to you.

It's a little bit long, but hang in there.

Theologian J.

Gullett.

This article is the consciousness of Jesus, on the silence of Jesus.

Jesus most certainly does not cut himself off from men.

During the whole passion, we shall not find in him a single word of condemnation, a single gesture of aloofness, a single movement of withdrawal.

And this attitude, at once so natural and yet so incomprehensible, says more eloquently, then Father, forgive them.

How vast is the forgiveness that fills his heart.

But what he has done is to stop speaking to men, since he no longer has anything more to tell them.

Now he is turned toward God.

But no longer needing to bear witness to him or asking to be champion before men, this is very different from the apostles and the prophets and the martyrs in Scripture.

They died to give testimony.

They invoke him for whose name they suffer.

They proclaim his excellence and his grandeur.

But Jesus is no longer speaking about God, but now he's speaking to God.

In a painful dialogue it is.

All we know of it till his last breath is the anguished supplications in the Garden of Gethsemane and the cry that came up from the cross into the void.

But it is also a dialogue in which the Son of God truly does reveal himself.

For Jesus to cleave to God amid all the horror and the emptiness and to keep his eyes fixed on him through the torture of all this, all the protection and all the joy, there has to exist between God and Jesus a bond invulnerable to any attack.

An unshakable trust that he had in his Father.

Now at the end, exhausted and crushed, Jesus does not need to turn toward God.

For until now he has not left him.

Because he's the Son.

There's a third reason why Jesus.

Jesus was silent, and this is really just a more amplification of what I just read.

Jesus was silent in order to fulfill his mission to save us.

If he had spoken up to defend himself, which we would have understood.

He could have called out twelve legions of angels, right?

And he said that.

He could have said, I don't need to stay here.

I could snap my fingers, and in a minute I could be rescued.

You have no power over me.

The only power you have is whatever my father planned for this mission.

Jesus was silent to fulfill his mission to save us.

Isaiah 53, so he opened not his mouth.

And like a sheep before its shears is silent.

So he opened not his mouth.

He did not defend himself so that one day he would defend you.

You see that?

And this brings us to the last point: the voice of Jesus.

You won't find the voice of Jesus in this text.

You will find the voice of Jesus in the Bible for sure.

Jesus did all of this.

He suffered in silence so that one day he will speak in our defense.

One day we all will appear before God at the judgment.

You will.

You will.

I will.

Every person is going to appear before God on that day of judgment.

What are you going to say?

Have you thought about that?

What are you going to say?

This is no longer the kangaroo court of Pilate.

This is the real court of God Almighty.

I'll tell you what you say.

Something like 1 John chapter 2.

1 John 2 · chapter mention

You just point to what the Bible tells you to say.

That would be the most foolish thing you could ever do.

Don't speak for yourself.

To speak and explain your life why you should be in heaven, why your sins should be forgiven.

Don't you dare speak for yourself.

This is what you do.

1 John chapter 2.

1 John 2 · chapter mention

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father.

Jesus Christ the righteous.

Let Jesus be your advocate.

Let Jesus be your defense attorney.

Don't open your mouth.

You won't really need to.

You know why?

Because Jesus is right there.

And Jesus would say, Father, the crimes that they committed are true, many of them are true.

The sin.

You know, your sin is real.

My sin is real.

But our Savior is just as real.

It's just as true.

Jesus is our defense attorney.

Jesus is the one who says, Father, that for them, for them I died.

For them I remained silent.

So that today I could speak.

Have you thought about that?

You think about that.

For them, for you, I remain silent.

And I was tortured and I was mocked.

So that one day I will defend the very people I love.

That's why we sing thank you, Jesus.

That's why we sing songs like, It is finished.

You did look into the crucible that burned with agony.

You did humbly choose the Father's will and climb to Calvary.

Your blood was poured out for all my sin, your final breath that shook the ground, and you said, It is done, and your scars bear witness, it is finished.

What does that mean to you today?

What does that mean to me today?

That one Greek word that's used underlies the phrase which refers to somebody who speaks in court on behalf of a defendant.

In God's court, the defender must be sinless.

Praise God, he is.

He is.

His name is Jesus of Nazareth.

And he lived the perfect life that you could never live.

And he died the death that we deserve to die.

And he was raised from the dead, proving that he had victory over the power of sin and death.

And he calls you brother.

And he calls you sister.

This is why the gospel is good news.

This is why we must preach this gospel to ourselves every day.

So we don't forget it and start thinking and living like orphans.

No, we are sons and we are daughters.

What do we know about this?

Again, I want to go back to what Pastor Matt read from Isaiah.

Because of what he did, because he could say it's finished.

Oh, I can't, I, you know, it's going to happen.

When we enter paradise, come and rest.

On that day, you're going to rest from all of your labor.

You're going to put down all of the burden.

You're going to put down all the heaviness that comes in living in this world.

And he's going to say, come and rest.

It's finished.

There's nothing more to be done.

Oh, I love Isaiah 53.11.

Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied.

Is there a more precious verse in the Bible?

I don't know.

Out of his anguish, he will see.

He will look at what he's done.

And he will say, just like it was when they created the world, it is good.

He will say, It is good.

It is finished.

Now come and rest.

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.

So here it is.

God the Father is fully, completely satisfied with the finished work of his Son Jesus Christ on your behalf.

Jesus Christ is completely satisfied with all that he did to save you.

Here's the question Are you satisfied?

I do a lot of counseling.

I meet with a lot of people.

I have found over the years many Christians say, I'm not sure I'm satisfied.

I'm not sure I can really rest.

It just feels like there's more I should be doing.

It just feels like there's more good things I have to do.

There's more ministry I have to serve in in the church.

There's more.

No, there's not.

We should be satisfied with the only perfect atoning work that Jesus Himself could do.

Put down your doing.

Come to Jesus as you are.

Like now.

I mean it.

I don't know all you.

Have you found this?

Have you received his offer of his gift?

And frankly, I don't care if you grew up in the church.

That doesn't make any difference.

Just because you grew up in the church doesn't mean that you've received Jesus' love and sacrifice.

That's the only way you're going to be satisfied.

The only way you're going to be satisfied is to look at the cross and look at the Savior who went to that cross.

So that you could be satisfied, so that you could find real rest.

That's the only place I find it.

If that were not enough, we see in Zechariah chapter 3 of the Old Testament, the high priest, Joshua, the high priest.

Zechariah 3 · chapter mention

He gets picked on by the accuser of the brother Satan.

Satan comes to Joshua the high priest and he says, You're not all that.

I know your stuff.

I know your sin.

Do you know God?

You know Satan has access to your sin?

Not all of it, maybe.

He's not omniscient.

But Satan has access to our files.

All he has to do is pull out a file and say, hey, wait a minute.

You did that, didn't you?

You did that.

What are you going to say?

You're going to say what the Lord told Joshua the high priest when he was attacked and tempted and accused by Satan.

You're going to look and listen to the word of the Lord.

See, for my people I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.

What more beautiful words could be spoken in our language than Jesus saying, I have taken away your sin.

And I will put rich garments on you.

I will put on you the robe of Christ's spotless, perfect life.

Have you done that?

Have you ever done that?

You do that today if you haven't.

The accuser of the brothers, sometimes all he has to do is tell the truth.

The truth is damaging enough.

Don't speak in your defense.

You invite, you point to your high priest, you point to your defense attorney, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And you say, Jesus, you are my defense.

Jesus, you are my only cover.

Jesus, you are my only hope for salvation.

And he will receive you.

He will receive you.

But you must come and you must believe and receive.

And then the Lord said to Satan before Joshua the high priest, the Lord rebuke you, O Satan.

Let your defense attorney speak for you.

Though Jesus was silent in his defense, his own defense, he will not be silent, silent in your defense.

Jesus will point to his own sacrifice.

One day he will say, Father, don't give them, don't give them what they deserve.

You give them what I deserve, Jesus says.

And that is what melts my heart.

What about yours?

That's what melts my heart.

That makes me want to love Jesus and live for Jesus and serve Jesus.

I don't know anything else that can motivate like this.

The voice of Jesus.

Pray with me.

Lord Jesus, we hear your voice now because you're speaking through your word.

By your spirit, from your word, we hear your voice, Jesus.

We hear your voice.

Keep speaking.

By your spirit, speak to those who don't know what I'm talking about this morning.

By your voice, speak, Holy Spirit, grant new life, give a new heart, give faith, grant faith, repentance.

Oh Lord Jesus, thank you.

That you were willing to be mocked, you were willing to be tortured, ridiculed, and silent, so that you would achieve the victory that only you could.

And Lord Jesus, we just want to thank you now that you're gonna be, you are the only defense attorney that any of us need.

You are more than enough.

You are more than our sin.

And we thank you.

We praise you.

We receive you.

Amen.