What Are We Going To Do With Jesus?

Mark 15:1–15 (ESV)

And as soon as it was morning, the chief priests 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 priests 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 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 priests had delivered him up.

But the chief priests 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.

It’s Palm Sunday. Next week is Resurrection Sunday. So I have to close this series.

I want to close with climax of the story.

The climax is not the Triumphal Entry

The climax is not the crucifixion

The climax of Mark’s gospel is not even the Resurrection.

If you were with us about a month ago for the Bible intensive, you’ll remember how important it is, when we approach scripture, that we identify the type of writing we have before us.

Mark is not a theological work.

If you force a theological reading onto the text, you will prioritize theologically significant events like the Triumphal Entry, The Crucifixion, and the Resurrection.

And it might feel good, but you will miss what God is doing through the evangelist.

But, if you make room for the fact that Mark is narrative drama, then you will give priority to the narrative climax, and draw the theological significance from that.

This courtroom scene at palace of the Roman Governor Pilate is clearly the narrative climax.

This is where all of the storylines collide

The disciples who follow Jesus

The crowds who wonder about Jesus

The religious leaders who oppose Jesus

The Roman establishment who fear Jesus

Even the demonic spirits who flee from Jesus

This where All of the principle characters are on the stage at the same time.

Peter is on the stage (hiding in the crowd)

The priests are on the stage.

The crowd is on the stage.

The Romans are on the stage.

Jesus is on the stage.

This is our climax.

And mid-scene, Pilate utters a question that might actually be a good title for the entire drama, “What shall I do with the man you call King of the Jews?”

This question has driven all of the storylines

In the beginning of Mark’s gospel, Jesus bursts onto the scene as John is Baptizing

And from that moment on, everybody is trying to figure out how to respond to

This miracle worker

This confrontational teacher

This compassionate violator of norms

Ghetto carpenter who claims to be the Son of God

Beloved, If you want to know what Mark is trying to say with his Gospel, you have to understand what happens in this climactic scene.

And so I have made the prevailing question of Mark’s Gospel the title of our closing sermon for the series: What We Going Do With Jesus?

PRAYER

This trial that takes place is not to be heard before a judge or a jury of Jesus peers. The case will be decided by popular vote.

As we watch the trial unfold, there are three key elements that court watchers will agree contribute to Jesus’ conviction.

There is a strategic (albeit false) ACCUSATION

There is a popular ALTERNATIVE

And there is a conspicuous ABSENCE.

The Accusation that the priest bring against Jesus is that He has gone around presenting Himself as “The King of The Jews”

The charge is false in its intent, but not in its content. (A half truth…a bit of misinformation)

Jesus has been presenting Himself as the prophesied Messiah

The priest translate that Jewish term into a technically allowable idiom that Pilate would both understand and be offended by: KING OF THE JEWS

Pilate would not care if they said Jesus was presenting Himself as

The Root of Jesse

The Seed of David

The Hope of Israel

The Rose of Sharon

The Lion of the Tribe of Judah

The Son of God

But KING…that sounds like Jesus is appropriating for Himself some governmental authority that has not been approved by Rome…and that is a problem.

That’s why the exchange between Jesus and Pilate goes the way it does.

Pilate says: “Are you the King of the Jews”

Jesus Responds: If that’s how you want to look at it.”

But, the priests and elders know that they can’t just get people to vote against Jesus of Nazareth. They need to give them somebody to vote for. They needed an ALTERNATIVE.

There was this custom by which the Roman Governor would release one prisoner every year at the time of the Passover.

This was a tacit nod by which Rome could say, “we acknowledge your little Jewish holiday”

The people would release Jesus before they give up that custom

It was a matter of national pride

How many know that when you don’t have much political power, you will go to great lengths to cling to little that you’ve got.

So the priest organized an influence campaign to garner support for the release of this guy Barabbas.

His full name is Jesus Barabbas.

Barabbas means “Son of the Father”

He is pushed by the priest as an alternative of Jesus of Nazareth.

Barabbas was in jail because he was part of crew that had tried to overthrow the Roman government.

They clearly had not overthrown the government.

And he had killed somebody in the process.

And the priest are pushing him as the alternative to Jesus.

And wouldn’t you know it, they got a bad idea to go viral.

They convinced people that if they were going to put their hope in a revolutionary figure, don’t chose the guy who

challenges religious hypocrisy and calls out sin...

who heals the sick and raises the dead

Chose the guy whose got it out for the Romans…even if he clearly has no power to accomplish his objective.

Beloved, we’ve got to understand that the virality of an idea is not evidence of it veracity.

Just because it’s viral does not mean its been verified

The hottest thing is rarely the healthiest thing

Lies somehow seem to spread faster than truth

Dumb ideas are usually easier to adopt than wisdom

Beyond the ACCUSATION and the ALTERNATIVE, there is this Conspicuous ABSENCE.

It is often taught that the crowd from the Triumphal Entry turned on Jesus.

I have taught this myself.

On Palm Sunday they were crying out “Hosana” and by Good Friday they were crying out “Crucify Him”!

And while that makes for good preaching, I don’t think it jibes with the narrative.

I don’t think the crowd from Palm Sunday turned on Jesus.

I think they abandoned Him.

Jesus had a following from the Judean countryside that had come to Jerusalem. That was crowd on Palm Sunday.

But Jerusalem was the home turf of the priests and the elders.

They had people too.

When you read the text, the night before this trial, the priest had rallied their people.

People who loved the existing order.

People who hated that Jesus was challenging the authority of the priest.

These people are the ones who made up the crowd that condemned Jesus to die.

The priest had been plotting to kill Jesus, but they never laid hands on Him because they afraid of the people who believed that Jesus was the Messiah

They chose Passover to make their move because they knew that Jesus’ people would be too busy practicing their piety to get involved in politics.

They had come to Jerusalem to share in a ritual, not to stand up for righteousness.

They were concerned with practicing the faith of Judaism not participating in a fight for justice.

And because Jesus people were lost in a private worship experience, nobody showed up to defend the cause of justice.

No one comes to say...Yes, he allowed the unclean woman touch Him, but she was cleansed by the act, so was she ritually unclean or cleansed at the moment of the touch?

No one comes to say...Yes, He worked on the Sabbath. He worked miracles that gave rest relief to the people of God. And is that not the purpose of the sabbath?

No one comes to say...Yes, He says that He is the Son of God. But, the man has receipts.

He causes the lame to walk.

The deaf to hear.

The blind to see.

And the dead to be raised to life again.

No one came as a witness for Jesus

And So the tragedy unfolds.

Jesus is handed over to be crucified.

And I use the word tragedy on purpose.

Tragedy is a formal style playwriting (especially within Greek Drama, a style that Mark’s Roman audience would have been familiar with).

A tragedy is a dramatic poem or play that has a sorrowful, unhappy ending

Typically the main protagonist of a tragedy unwittingly commits some terrible moral atrocity not realizing how foolish he or she has been.

You see, In this climactic scene, we get the plot twist of Mark’s gospel.

It has been Jesus’ followers, not Jesus Himself who have been the protagonists of the drama.

And here they have tragically missed their opportunity to save the good man, Jesus who had done so much for them.

And if you have any doubt that Mark has written his narrative as a tragedy, just look at the way it ends.

The earliest manuscripts of Mark’s gospel end at 16:8

Here’s how Mark ended the story:

Mark 16:1–8 (ESV)

When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.

And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.

And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?”

And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—it was very large.

And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed.

And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.

But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”

And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Mark’s Protagonists Never Recover

They fail to save Jesus in chapter 15

And the narrative ends with the protagonists gripped with fear and disobeying the direct instruction of the angel to go and tell the disciples that Jesus has risen from the dead.

The audience is left holding the question: What are these women going to do with Jesus? With the news of His resurrection?

Mark scripts the end of this Gospel account beautifully...he causes the audience to feel the burden of the failure to show up for Jesus the way that Jesus had showed up for others; and then quickly he gives his audience the experience of a superseding concern…to spread the news of the resurrection.

And that is the message of Mark’s Gospel. The church must have a burden to do what Jesus did and an even greater concern to proclaim that Jesus lives!

Mark writes his gospel as tragedy. But, his audience is the church in Rome.

The audience knows that somewhere along the way, the followers of Jesus learned to do what Jesus did.

Because somebody visited them in prison.

Because somebody fed them when they were hungry.

Because somebody stepped in rescued them from oppression.

Because somebody laid hands on them and they were healed.

The audience knows that somewhere along the way, the followers of Jesus learned to proclaim that Jesus lives.

Mark writes his gospel as a tragedy. But, the message of the is not tragic.

This tragedy is only tragic if the present day followers of Jesus let the story end with the final curtain.

We don’t read it in the script, but Mary didn’t let the story end there.

Peter didn’t let the story end there.

From the day Mark opened this play around A.D. 60 until today; Palm Sunday 2024, the church has NOT allowed Mark’s gospel to become a real tragedy.

And now this Gospel has come down to us.

And with it the question of Mark’s gospel has come down to us: What Are We Going To Do With Jesus?

Will we embrace the burden to do what Jesus did?

Care for the poor.

Bring in the outcast.

Stand up for the oppressed.

Relieve the hurting?

Will we embrace an even great concern to proclaim that Jesus lives?

Let’s make this our declaration:

We will not let light of Jesus go dark in my lifetime.

We will not let the gospel of Jesus go quiet in our lifetime.

INVITATIONS