Matthew 27:1-26 Crucify Him

Intro

Rodeo Queen: Micheala Jamison

It’s the morning of the crucifixion

Jesus has been up all night going through illegal trials

As soon as the sun comes up the Sanhedrin sends Jesus over to Pilate

The full intent is to see Jesus crucified

The Jews weren’t allowed to execute anyone and the Roman crucifixion was the cruelest of deaths

The religious leaders were thinking that if Jesus died this way it would scare people away from following Him and back to their control

Instead it ignited a revolution

Society hasn’t changed much.

Although they are crucified in the same way people are often crucified in the press

Take for instance the marine in New York who subdued a violent passenger on the Subway

The passenger was threatening passengers and has a history of violence, being arrested 40 times

The press is calling the marine the bad guy

They had protests in NY, AOC called him a murderer on social media

Today’s passage shows us that with all the right information people still don’t do the right thing

Read Matthew 27:1-26

Transition:

Jesus Christ makes a claim on every human heart, and every heart must decide what to do with Him.

The most important and inescapable question every human being faces is the one that Pilate asked in this passage: “What shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?”

Scripture clearly proclaims Jesus as being fully God.

Long before His birth it was divinely predicted that He would be called Immanuel, which means “God with us”

Yet Scripture also declares that Jesus was fully human.

He was born into the world just as every other infant, He was circumcised, He grew in body and mind, and He experienced hunger, thirst, pain, weariness, temptation, and death.

Scripture declares that Jesus Christ is perfectly holy, perfectly loving of His heavenly Father and of the world He came to redeem, perfectly forgiving of sins and merciful to those who come to Him, perfectly compassionate, perfectly faithful

Matthew resumes the account of Jesus’ trial, which began its secular, Roman phase when the Jewish leaders bound Jesus “and led Him away, and delivered Him up to Pilate the governor

Because they did not have the authority to exact the death penalty themselves (John 18:31), the Jewish leaders were forced to ask permission of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.

Even in the midst of Pilate finding nothing to charge Jesus with, the blood thirsty relgious leaders shouted him down, demanding him to be crucified.

I. Trial before Pilate vs. 1-2, 11-14

vs. 1-2

The Sanhedrin gave Jesus over to Pontius Pilate, the Roman appointed governor over Judea

vs. 11 Are you the king of the Jews?

History shows us Pontius Pilate was a cruel and ruthless man, unkind to the Jews and contemptuous of almost everything but raw power.

Here, he seems out of character in the way he treated Jesus. Jesus seems to have profoundly affected him.

Matthew condenses the full account, telling us only of the second appearance of Jesus before Pilate.

The first appearance before Pilate is described in Luke 23:1-6.

Hoping to avoid making a judgment about Jesus, Pilate sent Him to Herod, the sub-ruler of Galilee

When they brought Him to Pilate, the Jewish leaders accused Jesus of promoting Himself as a king in defiance of Caesar

Of course, we can only wonder what Pilate thought when he first set eyes on Jesus, when he saw this beaten and bloodied Man before him.

Jesus didn’t look especially regal or majestic as He stood before Pilate, so the Roman governor was probably sarcastic or ironic when he asked, “Are You the King of the Jews?”

John shows us a more in depth interaction between Pilate and Jesus

John 18:33–34 (ESV)

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?”

Then Pilate asks Jesus again if He is king. Jesus response:

John 18:37 ESV

Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

Jesus changes the subject

To Him it wasn’t about position, but about purpose

He was born for this moment, to die on the cross

This leaves Pilate dumbfounded

He found no guilt in him, his wife warned him, and yet Jesus wouldn’t defend himself

II. Judas’ Remorse vs. 3-10

Matthew is the only Gospel that records this scene with Judas

Judas was filled with remorse, not repentance.

Even though he knew exactly what he did (I have sinned by betraying innocent blood), Judas was more sorry for the result of his sin than for the sin itself.

There is a huge difference in being sorry about sin, and being sorry for sin.

vs. 5 Throwing Silver into Temple

By throwing the money into the temple (properly the inner sanctuary, where only the priests were allowed to go”), Judas wanted to implicate the priests in his crime. It was his way of saying, “You also are guilty of this.”

Went and hanged himself:

In his unrepentant remorse and despair, Judas committed suicide.

vs. 6 not lawful to put them into the treasury

The hypocrisy of the chief priests was transparent.

They didn’t want to defile themselves with the price of blood, even though it was a price that they themselves paid.

vs. 7-8 Potter’s field

They decided to buy the potter’s field with the money

As a good will gesture to the public and also to salve their own consciences, they hit upon the idea of buying a field where potters had collected clay to use in their trade

It was used to bury defiled strangers, a term often used by Jews for Gentiles

vs. 9 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet:

There has been much question about the quotation attributed to Jeremiah, because it is found in Zechariah

Zechariah 11:12–13 ESV

Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord, to the potter.

Matthew says the word was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, though we find it recorded in Zechariah.

Some think it could be a copyist error.

Perhaps Matthew wrote Zechariah, but an early copyist mistakenly put Jeremiah instead, and this rare mistake was repeated in subsequent copies.

Some think that Jeremiah spoke this prophecy and Zechariah recorded it – the word spoken by Jeremiah, but recorded by Zechariah

Some think that Matthew refers to scroll of Jeremiah, which included the book of Zechariah

III. Barabbas Released vs. 15-23

Next we see Barabbas chosen over Jesus

vs. 15-18 Pilate Hopes to Release Jesus

Judging there was something different – and innocent – about Jesus, Pilate hoped this custom of releasing a prisoner might help solve the problem.

A notorious prisoner called Barabbas:

Mark 15:7 tells us what made Barabbas notorious.

He was one of several insurrectionists, who had committed murder in the insurrection.

We would today regard a man like Barabbas as something like a revolutionary terrorist.

Pilate saw through the manipulative words of the religious leaders.

He knew their motive was envy, not any other concern.

vs. 19-20 Pilate’s Wife Warns

As Pilate sat in judgment of Jesus, he failed to give the accused justice.

Pilate had all the evidence he needed to do the right thing – to release Jesus.

He saw the strength and dignity of Jesus, and he knew this was no criminal or revolutionary.

He knew that it was no just charge that brought Jesus before his judgment seat – it was only the envy of the religious leaders.

He saw that Jesus was a man so at peace with His God that He didn’t need to answer a single accusation.

In addition to all of these, Pilate also had a unique and remarkable messenger – his wife’s dream.

We can only conjecture what she saw in this dream.

We know that the vision of Jesus in her dream made her suffer

She was bold to send it, and she implored him to simply having nothing to do with this man Jesus. “Let Him go. Send Him away. Don’t punish Him even a little.”

It was an influence, a warning that he tragically ignored.

All of this was God’s merciful message to Pilate; a merciful message that he rejected.

The religious leaders knew the best way to influence Pilate.

Not through his own judgment of Jesus, not through his wife, and not through the religious leaders themselves directly.

The best way to push Pilate in a certain direction was by the voice of the multitudes.

Here is a man who knows the right thing to do – and knows it by many convincing ways.

Yet he will do the wrong thing, a terrible thing, in obedience to the multitudes.

vs. 21-23 Crowd Demands Barabbas

The voice of the crowd is not always the voice of God.

The mob did not answer Pilate’s request for evidence or proof when he asked, “What evil has He done?”

They only continued to shout for Jesus’ death. They called for more than His death – they called for Him to be executed by torture through crucifixion

Luke 23:23 ESV

But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed.

If anyone knew what it meant that Jesus died in his place, it was Barabbas.

He was a terrorist and a murderer, yet he was set free while Jesus was crucified.

The cross Jesus hung on was probably originally intended for Barabbas.

IV. Pilate Washes His Hands vs. 24-26

When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all:

It was out of character for Pilate to bend this way to the religious leaders and the crowd.

He could have chosen differently.

He took water and washed his hands before the multitude:

Pilate washed his hands saying, “It’s out of my control. Personally I wish this Jesus no harm, but these things happen.

I am innocent of the blood of this just Person:

Hidden in Pilate’s attempt at self-justification is a declaration of Jesus’ innocence.

When he called Jesus “this just Person,” he admitted that Jesus was the innocent man – not Pilate.

Just because Pilate said “I am innocent” doesn’t mean that he was innocent.

His blood be on us and on our children:

They really had no understanding of what they asked for.

They didn’t understand the glory of Jesus’ cleansing blood, and how wonderful it would be to have His blood…on us and on our children.

They also didn’t understand the enormity of the crime of calling for the execution of the sinless Son of God, and the judgment that would be visited on their children some forty years later in the destruction of Jerusalem.