Jesus Mocked & Beaten

Is from the Book of Mark, chapter 15.

Mark 15 · chapter mention

So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released them for 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 be to be crucified.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

We always try and have an engaging light show.

Puts you on the edge of your seat.

So thanks for joining us.

My name is James Rathwin.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

It's wonderful to gather with you all each Sunday and to move through God's Word.

And today we continue our series through Mark, which is coming to a close here pretty soon on Easter Sunday when we'll celebrate the resurrection and our and our last sermon in Mark as well.

So we are uh in those final moments leading up to the crucifixion.

And today we are seeing those moments before the crucifixion in which Jesus is mocked and humiliated by the Roman soldiers.

So let's pray and then we'll move through our text today.

Father in heaven, you have bound your grace towards us with your glory.

And so we see the wonder of your glory in the humility that you demonstrate in going towards the cross on our behalf.

Father, today as we witness the humiliation of our Lord Jesus Christ, we pray that you might give us an understanding of the humility that you call us to.

That you might show us the wonder of the depths of your love towards us in Christ's sacrifice.

As we see the wonder of that love and that forgiveness that you've given to us, that it might inspire our hearts to forgive and to love in a like manner.

Lord, I pray that you would, as we see it laid out in your word this morning, teach our hearts to trust the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ, and that we might learn just more completely to trust your faithfulness and your love towards us.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So at this point in our story, the negotiations are over.

And Jesus is officially handed over to the Romans, and from now on, it's just uh it's just policy.

It's just uh the Roman order of events takes place.

He's been handed over by the Jews to Pilate, and they have cornered Pilate in such a way where he, in order to appease the crowds, delivers Jesus over.

And so what we're seeing today is a uh ritualized humiliation, which is what comes right before the crucifixion.

And this is ordinary in the practice of crucifixion.

Now, what we know about crucifixion is mostly explained in the Gospels.

They are our clearest insight of all ancient texts with regards to what the practice of crucifixion entailed.

And I think uh a lot of this is you'll see that even under Roman administrations in which they often practiced crucifixion, nobody would write about it.

You don't see emperors writing about it, you don't see uh poets or or storytellers writing about crucifixion.

It was something that was used more like a curse word than it was an event that people would describe.

There's something about the terror of crucifixion and all the events that it that it entailed that nobody would look very closely at, and you wouldn't want to look closely at for a long time.

And yet, here at the center of our faith and at the glory of our Lord, we see that our scriptures stare directly at crucifixion.

So there is something here which most of culture and most of for all of time has desired to look away from, and yet our scriptures call us to look directly at it and to see something more wonderful here.

So I hope that we can see that this morning.

Now it is a ritualized humiliation, and we can see this in one of the texts that's outside of scripture, which does describe crucifixion to us, and this is out of Josephus, who is a Jewish historian in the first century.

And we've referenced him before as we were going through Mark 13, and Jesus was prophesying the destruction of the temple, which would take place in 70 AD, 40 years after the events that we're reading about this morning.

And in so Josephus was a historian of that account, and he was an eyewitness to the events of Rome laying Jerusalem under siege and conquering and destroying the home of the Jewish people.

And he recounts this with regards to the Jews who had escaped from the siege of Jerusalem and were trying to escape the Romans.

And he describes this event as having happened.

He says, When they, that is the Jews, were going to be taken by the Romans, they were forced to defend themselves.

And after they had fought, they thought it too late to make any supplications for mercy.

So they were first whipped, and then tormented with all sorts of tortures before they died and were then crucified before the wall of the city.

Now we see that the ordinary pattern of events for crucifixion was first being whipped and then being tormented and tortured.

We'll see later that there's a humiliation aspect to the pattern of crucifixion, and that the torture in this case was so bad that that's actually what would kill them.

And so this was the in the crucifixion then, after they were killed, was really just a means of display.

It was just to further the humiliation and to further demonstrate the absolute power of Rome.

So they would hang on crosses these bodies which had been tortured to death outside of the siege walls to show that if you were to try and escape Jerusalem while it is under siege, that this is the fate that awaits you.

Now, that very pattern that we see Josephus recounter is the very pattern that Jesus goes through.

Although Christ is not killed by the torture, his life in no sense is taken from him, but he is hung on the cross, and then the Lord gives his life for us.

So today we look at the torture of Christ, how he is mocked and beaten as a part of this ritualized humiliation on the way to the cross.

And the question that I want us to ask is why?

Why was Jesus mocked and beaten?

Why was this necessary?

That's the question that I want us to linger on.

So, Mark 15, 15 says, So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas.

And having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.

Now, last week we actually finished with this verse, but I didn't talk about the Roman scourging at all.

We just looked at the exchange for Barabbas.

But since we covered that, we won't talk about this that this week.

What I want us to see here is that right when Jesus is handed over to the Romans and Pilate condemns him to the cross, that the first thing that takes place is a scourging.

Now, a Roman scour is a technical term.

It refers to a particular event.

And a Roman scourge is actually a weapon.

It's a short handle with threads of leather that come off of it.

It's not a cat of nine-tails.

That's like an uh 17th century, 18th century European uh weapon, but it's but it's like that.

Not that any of us have experience with those either, I don't think.

But it's a phrase that we hear.

And so it was used in in what would it have uh uh lead weights sewn into the ends of the leather straps uh so that it would have a momentum for the for the whipping, and two people would whip the bound victim.

And they would be scourged from we think when we think of a whipping like that, we we picture somebody being bound and then their back being whipped.

But it would not just be their back, he would uh whip from from their back, like the top of their neck, uh, and it would go all the way down their legs, the back of their legs as well.

And they would likewise be whipped on their front as well, uh uh taking turns as they are they were bound to a post.

Within the leather straps, there would be sewn in uh bits of bone or shards of sharp objects, uh, so that the uh whip itself would tear the flesh of the person who was being scourged.

This was the Roman scourge.

In Deuteronomy 25, 3, the Jews are instructed.

It says, 40 stripes may be given him.

This is for a criminal who's uh receiving a similar punishment.

Forty stripes may be given him, but not more, lest if one should go on to beat him with more stripes than these, your brother be degraded in your sight.

So under God's law, there is a limit in place on the corporal punishment that may be offered to a criminal.

And the limit was 40 stripes.

And the reason for the limit was that if you were to go beyond this and just continue venting your rage, or perhaps even going into a place of enjoyment of your rage over against the one being punished, then your brother will be degraded in your sight, meaning you will no longer think of them as your brother.

In fact, they will be degraded to such a point where you will no longer think of them as a fellow human being, but they will be just an object onto which you may vent your rage.

Now, the Romans had no such limit.

You can think of the punishment of the Romans, the very shape of it is to provide a space in which the unlimited rage of the Roman people might be vented.

And there's this one space in which to this person you may do whatever you want.

You can finally give absolute and full vent to whatever heinous and wicked desires you carry within yourself.

They may be placed upon this person.

And so Jesus, we must assume, received far more than 40 lashes.

From what we can understand about crucifixion and the event of crucifixion, we must understand that there nothing that we read can we assume any limit to.

It is the very purpose of this ritualized humiliation and degradation to go beyond the limits of what we could possibly imagine any human being treated like.

The degradation was the limit for God's law, that we might not be degraded in one another's eyes.

The degradation was the point in Roman law, so that they might be shown to be subhuman, something not worth considering, just an object upon which the fullness of rage might be vented.

So immediately upon being turned over to the Romans, the first thing that Christ experiences on the way to the cross is a Roman scourging.

So that means that for the rest of the story, we must imagine that his body is covered from head to toe and front to back with countless stripes.

This is the first experience that Jesus faces on his way to the cross as he is bound.

Mark 15, 16 says, and the soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is the governor's headquarters, and they called together the whole battalion.

So it now, after the scourging takes place, the event is underway, and the whole battalion is called together.

Now, it is likely a whole battalion of 600 soldiers.

It is probably not all 600 soldiers.

It would have been a smaller battalion at this time, which Matthew describes to us, but it would have been uh around 200 to 600 soldiers.

So you should picture a crowd has gathered around.

And it's a crowd of soldiers as well as a crowd of onlookers who had been chanting for Jesus to be crucified.

The purpose of this event is for it to be very public, that there is a public humiliation that's taking place.

And we will see that their passions will be absolutely let loose on the Son of God.

Humiliation is essential to the crucifixion practice.

It is not ancillary to crucifixion.

It's not that crucifixion and the rituals leading up to crucifixion happen to be humiliating.

It is the very purpose is to utterly humiliate the person who is being crucified.

We can see this in Josephus' recounting of the way that the Jews were crucified during the sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

He says, so the soldiers, listen to this, out of the rage and hatred they bore the prisoners, nailed those they caught in different postures to the crosses by way of jests.

So that means that the tortured bodies, which they had killed, when they gathered them together outside the city walls of Jerusalem, they would nail them in funny positions.

Why?

Out of the rage and hatred they bore the prisoners.

They're jesting.

What we should picture is of the event leading up to the crucifixion.

I think when we tend to picture it, we picture a solemn endower event.

Like a funeral march.

But if we were there and we were witnessing it and allowed ourselves to be given over to the experience of the crowds, we would not be witnessing a solemn endower event.

It would be a carnivales-esque parade with laughter.

The abuse of our Lord is surrounded by laughter and shouts of encouragement.

We picture winces and shielding your eyes.

This is not what it's like.

This is a carnival environment.

And you can picture, it's like, why do we why why you know?

Um there used to be the show on Nickelodeon called Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Do you remember it?

Some of you.

Some of you are, you know, we're right the same age, and saying, Are you afraid of the dark, it just puts you in a place.

You're picturing the swing set swing on the intro, the fire being thrown out on the thing.

And it uh like half those episodes take place at carnivals.

There's some we know intuitively that there's something about a carnival and horror that are like they they're like on the same spectrum somehow.

And I think the reason for this is because they are places where we give vent to our passions.

The passion of the carnival is just what whatever brings me pleasure, I will enjoy.

And I will give full vent to whatever it is that brings me pleasure.

And here's the environment in which I can enter into it, and I can drink whatever I'd like to drink, and I can take whatever I'd like to take, and I can experience any of the pleasures, bear witness to any of the things that I want to bear witness to.

I can pay a nickel and go see something that I'm not supposed to see.

That's the way I've, you know, now I'm preaching to the 1920s.

But you can see the parallel.

You can see the parallel.

And so this place where we give full vent to our passions, it's it's borderline horror.

Because we know that all of our passions are not merely for the pleasure of ourselves, but they are for the abuse and torment of others, that they are for the vengeance that we store in our hearts, for the hatred that we hold closely.

Because when we consider the ones that we hate, there's a pleasure in its consideration.

And when we think of the ones that that have something to hold against us, and we imagine them finally receiving what they're deserve, that there is a deep pleasure that Schadenfreud that we seek to experience.

And so this is a carnival.

A carnival of ritualized humiliation.

And if you were to look into it, you would see just the environment of passions being set free.

But if you were to look at the middle of it, you would see that at the center of this carnival is one victim.

One.

And that the humiliation of this one victim is the whole po the whole point of all the celebration.

There is one object upon whom all of the rage and hatred is vented upon.

At this carnival, the object upon which all of the rage and hatred is vented upon is the Son of God.

So at a carnival, we should expect to see theatrics.

And that's precisely what we see.

Mark 15, 17, and they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him.

So they bring the man to the center and they take a purple cloak, and it would have been some sort of faded color, because this is a purple is very expensive.

So it would have been something like a mock purple, because Matthew calls it scarlet.

And there's you you can imagine, remember, as Christ is going through this, that what we see when the cloak is laid upon him, it's it's imagine the pain of the cloth touching his his body, which is flayed.

And they lay this cloak upon him, and they took together and they twisted together a crown of thorns, and they place it on his head.

And they're making a mock king, is what they're making, because the condemnation of Jesus is that he was the king of the Jews.

And so to the Roman soldiers, he's just an insurrectionist of the sect that we hate.

That we have to manage and have any sort of peace with.

And so they place this cloak painfully upon him, as though it's a kingly robe, and they take a crown made out of thorns.

This is the type of thing where, as a preacher, you're like, what were the thorns?

I'm sure there's some insight in what particular plants were the thorns, and I'll be able to say something about that, but I we don't know.

Strangely, uh I did read that in this area of the world, there are perhaps more thorny plants than any other area of the world.

So it could be all kinds of a mixture of thorny plants that are woven together.

And remember, we when we're imagining this, if we understand it rightly, we should not imagine it with any restraint.

In fact, if you consider the carnival type of environment, if someone in there were to show restraint, they're disrupting the whole event.

If someone were to say, okay, I'm going to take the crown of thorns, but I'm going to lay it gently upon its head, and there were to be a sense from the other soldiers that there was some restraint being shown, that there was some mercy being demonstrated.

There's something like a like that in itself would be a humiliating event.

It would throw off the whole culture of the experience.

And so we must imagine that the crown of thorns is placed upon his head and pushed down.

And once he is clothed and dressed as this mock king with these horrific images of a king, they began to salute him, it says in 18 and 19, began to salute him.

Hail, king of the Jews, they would say, and imagine the shouts of laughter that would go up.

Because look at him.

Look at the king.

Compared to the might of Rome.

You think that there is a power here?

We can show you plainly what power looks like.

And so they would shout, Hail King of the Jews, and we can hear the laughter, the uproar that would come when it was proclaimed, that each soldier, that when they would go up, the one who had the most clever routine, as they would try and impress one another as they saluted or one would kneel.

The first one to say, Hail, king of the Jews, the whole crowd roars in laughter.

What cleverness.

What irony to stand and kneel.

What irony to stand and kneel.

Excuse me, that's a I guess it's a contradiction.

What irony to kneel before Jesus Christ.

What irony to kneel before Jesus Christ and proclaim him King.

What hilarity to kneel before Jesus Christ and proclaim him king.

And then in Mark 15, twenty.

Oh, uh I skipped a part I skipped a s I skipped a step.

And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him.

Matthew tells us that the original posture that they had put Jesus in was that he was clothed with the robe and he was kneeling down, and then they put the reed in his hand.

Because that's the image of a king.

He holds the scepter of power.

What irony that the Lord of all creation would hold the scepter of power.

What irony.

And then in Matthew it describes, in Mark it just says that they hit him on the head with this reed.

In Matthew, it describes that they took the reed out of his hand and they hit him on the head with it.

What irony that humans could reach out and take the scepter of power from the Son of God, hold it in their hands as though it was their power, and hit the Son of God across the head with it.

What irony that such a thing could take place.

And when they hit him on the head with it, remember that he is wearing the crown of thorns.

And I don't think they would try and miss it.

So that there would be a blunt impact which would cause incredible pain, as well as the slicing of the thorns into his head.

And it is odd, isn't it, that it's a crown of thorns.

Because in Genesis 3.18, when Adam is having his punishment explained to him by the Lord, it is described that the earth will no longer bear fruit for us, not without labor, and it will be cursed with thorns and thistles.

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

At the climax of the ritual humiliation, there has to be a moment.

There has to be a climactic moment.

And you would think that what's taken place so far would be sufficient, but the climax of this is the cross.

There is no weapon that has been so particularly designed for torment and humiliation in all of world history as the cross.

And so after all of this, once Christ has endured all of this ritualized humiliation and physical abuse, once that has finally come to an end, what it is that he looks forward to is hanging on the cross.

So here's our question for this morning.

Why?

Why so gratuitous?

Why the mocking and humiliation?

Why the spitting?

Why then why the the the gaining laughter on his behalf as the as they kneel down in homage to the king?

Earlier this month in South Carolina, a man was executed.

He was a murderer, and he was executed by firing squad.

Did you guys hear that news?

It was news because it hadn't taken place in 15 years.

It's been 15 years since we had a firing squad execution.

Now that man was executed by firing squad because he chose it.

He had three options for his execution.

And we we in South Carolina, you get to choose.

And you can choose lethal injection, electric chair, or firing squad.

And he chose firing squad.

He was given a last meal.

He was let out, given the opportunity to speak his last words.

A uh uh you know, cover was put was put over his head so he couldn't be seen, and then three volunteers uh stood with rifles 15 feet away and aimed at his heart and fired.

And he died moments later.

I don't think that was painless, but it is not ritualized humiliation.

And at the end, he was dead.

And the state counts this as payment.

A punishment due for the sin which he had committed of murdering his in-laws, which is actually what he did.

Some of you are like, doesn't seem like it deserves punishment, but take it up with the state, South Carolina.

Why would that not have been sufficient?

Zach read this morning, after our confession, for the wages of sin is death.

Well, that would have been sufficient.

The wages of sin is death.

Why the mockery?

Why the torture?

Why the abuse?

Why the stripes?

Why the humiliation?

Well, one way to answer that is, oh man, wrong place, wrong time.

You know, this incarnation thing, he should have done this, if he did this like 2,000 years later in South Carolina.

And we all were reacted the same way, and he was handed over to the ruling authorities, then it would have just been firing squad.

He could have chosen firing squad.

So it was just happenstance, it was just Rome was just this particularly decrepit culture, is why Christ subjected himself or was subjected to such torture and abuse and humiliation.

But this was not outside the plan of God.

No aspect of it was.

Christ himself, in Mark 10, 33 to 34, says to the disciples, 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 they will spit on him, and flog him, and kill him, and after three days he will rise.

Jesus himself prophesies that he will be mocked and spit on and flogged and killed.

This is part of the hand and the plan of the Lord.

All aspects of this are according to Christ's prophetic word.

But as we look at it, we think this it seems gratuitous.

It seems like too much.

It is not gratuitous.

It is sufficient.

Sufficient for what?

Sufficient to atone for the sins of his people.

We have underestimated the cost of sin.

We have underestimated the humiliation that is due for those who have committed high treason against the God of all creation.

We have thought of sin and suffering as unrelated to one another.

And we have thought of ourselves, we know we want to avoid suffering.

You don't have to be taught that.

But we have not connected in our minds that the wages of sin is suffering, humiliation.

Sin can be understood plainly as the pride of humanity over against our Creator God.

That when at the first sin, when one limit is put in place by God upon us, although all of the world and its blessings is given to us, when the one limit is put in place, we say to God, You will not be God over me, I will be God over me.

You will not determine the boundaries of my life or my existence, I will determine the boundaries of my life and my existence.

And so we treat ourselves as God over God.

And in that sense, we seek to humiliate the God of all creation.

And this is fundamentally what human pride is.

It is a seeking to humiliate the God of creation, to say, you are beneath me.

Now, what is the answer to the pride of humanity?

It is the humiliation of our God.

In Philippians 2, 5 through 8, Paul commends us to have this mind among yourselves, he says, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

What did our disobedience demonstrate, but the pride of man?

And what does Christ's obedience demonstrate, his absolute humility?

You must recognize that ours is the only faith which has at its center the humiliation of our God.

There is no other faith which has at its center the humiliation of our God.

Now, why would we place the one who is most glorious to play the role in the story of humanity as the one who is in the center of the carnival being mocked and beaten.

How could he be cast there?

He emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, born in the likeness of men.

The first step in Christ's humiliation consisted in his being born.

And that in a low condition.

And he goes to the cross.

What is the antidote to the pride of humility?

It is the humiliation of our God.

We rejected God as God as though that was a thing that could be done.

In our sin, this is what it means.

We have rejected God as God, as though we had the power to do that.

You know the image of that?

It's as though God had a scepter in his hand, the power of which he uses to maintain your very existence.

And it is as though we took that scepter out of his hand and hit him across the face with it.

Where did we even get the power to do such a thing?

Only if it was given to us.

This is our Lord.

And as one from whom men hide their face, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

What were those griefs that he was experiencing?

What were the sorrows which were being hurled upon him?

Not theoretically, not in some unreal to you spiritual way.

You could look and see it.

What griefs was he experiencing?

Ours.

They were ours.

When we look and we see the man in the center and we see what grief is he experiencing, it was our grief.

Why did he come and humble himself to take on our grief?

To take on our sorrows.

In verse five of Isaiah fifty-three, it says, He was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

And with his wounds, we are healed.

Why does he go to the cross like this?

Why does he go to this ritualized humiliation like this?

Why does he go to such depths?

It was to plainly manifest and accomplish in actuality the bearing of our griefs and sorrows and sickness, the bearing of the fullness and completeness of the wages of our sin, so that on our behalf it would be paid.

You do not sin theoretically.

Your sins happen out here.

At yourself, at others.

Here in the real world.

Christ did not bear your grief theoretically.

Our Lord did not bear our sorrows.

Theoretically.

Isaiah fifty three, verses ten and eleven says, Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

He has put him to grief.

When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring.

He shall prolong his days.

The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

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

By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous.

And he shall bear their iniquities.

It is not gratuitous.

It is not over the top.

It is not passions that were just given vent to and things got out of hand.

And remember the carnival last night, and you can't look your friends in the eyes because of the carnival that you participated in last night.

It's not just that things got out of control.

It is not gratuitous.

It is sufficient.

It perfectly meets the just requirements of our sin, so that we in him might be forgiven.

Have you ever wondered if he would forgive you?

Then remember this scene.

What wouldn't he do that you might be reconciled to him?

If the Father can look at Christ's suffering on the cross and say, enough, it's enough.

He can surely look at you and your sin.

See what Christ has accomplished on your behalf, and say, it's enough.

It always seems to be always coupled with our forgiveness.

You know the Lord's Prayer?

Our Father in heaven.

I don't, I can't get to the part that I'm trying to get to without saying the whole thing.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our debts.

We also forgive us debt for us.

The receiving of it and the giving of it.

Now, in this room right now, you're dispositionally, or because of the things that are happening in your life, you're probably, of course, we all are struggling with both aspects of that, but but you need to hear both sides of this.

For some of you, you need to look at the man who is crushed and finally recognize that was sufficient for my forgiveness.

And for others, for those that you will not forgive, you need to see Jesus crushed.

And when you have taken the scepter from his hand so that you might join the Romans in giving full vent of rage against the person that you don't want to forgive, and you must hear Christ say, strike me instead.

See that he has been struck on your behalf.

The justice is accomplished in him.

And if the Father can look at it and say it is enough, so can you.

The suffering and the humiliation of Christ on his way to the cross, you must see this is the final thing I want to leave you with was not gratuitous.

It was sufficient.

All of the requirement of sin was paid.

Not in theory.

If you were there, you could have looked and seen it.

Any questions today, Matthew?

Our culture relishes ritualized humiliation.

Well, maybe you do.

Who said that?

Let's bring them to the front.

Cancellation, online flagellation, etc.

How does the Christian stand in the midst of this?

The pattern of Christ is twofold humiliation and exaltation.

So here's how the Christian stands in the midst of a culture which is ordinary in world history.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he might exalt you at the proper time.

What can humble you more than seeing what Christ has done on your behalf?

Who can you look upon in pride and arrogance?

Do you think, yeah, but I that type of identification with Christ, if I were to confess this way to my wife, I might lose her respect forever.

If I were to offer forgiveness to this person, isn't that just a betrayal of the people that I'm trying to be protective of?

And so as you're about to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, trusting that he'll exalt you at the proper time, you might feel in yourself all these anxieties start to come up.

Well, Peter thought so too.

Because the next part he says, casting, how do you humble yourself under the mighty hand of God?

Casting all your anxiety upon him because he cares for you.

So something like that.

Try something like that.

All right, let's take communion.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

You know, that's one of the reasons we do it every week.

Because as often as we do it, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

But look what we're proclaiming when we proclaim the Lord's death.

His grace to us.

The humiliation of our God is the wonder of his glory.

Because what love could possibly be demonstrated beyond this love that the Father would give his own son so that we might be saved in him.

And so on the night before he was betrayed, he took the bread and he broke it.

He says, This is my body which is broken for you.

For you.

And he took the cup and he said, This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins.

Not theoretically.

You could have seen it happen.

Just like your sins aren't theoretical.

It means his atonement really happened.

And it's a new covenant.

That means he enters into a relationship with you, a covenantal promise with you, a promise of eternal life and glory with in fellowship with him, and he does not break his covenants.

So let's come eat this meal that he invites us to at great cost to himself, but that is freely given to us.

And understand that the sacrifice that he made, celebrate now, not a carnival, a feast, a celebration.

We celebrate now.

It was sufficient.

It was sufficient.

Holy Father, I pray that you would bless this meal.

The high price that was paid for it, Lord, let us indulge in that, the wonder of that.

And Lord, the freedom with which we receive it, let us pour forward our gratitude to you.

Father, we praise you because you didn't spare your own son.

And he who didn't spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also, with him, freely give us all things?

Let us see your forgiveness.

Strengthen us to forgive.

Work in our hearts the grace that you have shown to us.

In Jesus' name, amen.