The Suffering King

Mark 15:16-32

16 And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters), and they called together the whole battalion. 17 And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. 18 And they began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 19 And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. 20 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.

21 And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. 22 And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull). 23 And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24 And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. 25 And it was the third hour when they crucified him. 26 And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” 27 And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. 29 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, 30 save yourself, and come down from the cross!” 31 So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32 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.

Pray

This is Mother’s Day. I am thankful for my mother and my grandmothers, my wife, the mother of my children. When you become a mother, there is sacrifice and suffering that must take place. Mother’s suffer in the pain of childbirth. Even with an epidural, I have witnessed two births and all I can say is God, bless you. Mother’s sacrifice sleep the first few years at least and some of you haven’t slept a good night since before kids.

You give up yourself for your kids, your time, your social life, your resources go to your children. The children that will not understand your love, they will take you for granted, they will resent you and some days, if you are like my mom, you will say, “I brought you into this world and I can take you out.” But the love never goes away. It is worth it.

Thanks to all of the mothers that love their children well. It is a blessing to have a wonderful mother and an example of great sacrifice. It is Christ like. He knew sacrifice and the biggest sacrifice of all is what we are talking about this morning.

In today’s text, it is a Friday morning. All of the trials have been concluded. Three unlawful trials during the night and three lawful trials during the day. The first three were carried out by Jesus’ own people, the Jews. The chief priests and the scribes wanted Jesus dead. They had the punishment of death in their hearts and in their minds. Jesus, for his final trial that we spoke about last Sunday, was put before the crowd of Jews at Passover and Pilate let them decide if they wanted to put Jesus to death or release Him. The crowd screams, “Crucify Him!” With that Pilate turns Jesus over to be scourged and then on to be crucified.

There was a word that we passed by last week that I would like to define and help you to visualize in order to paint the picture of what the rest of this story looks like.

A Roman scourge is a punishment inflicted on those that were about to be crucified. The process for this horrific punishment was to tie the condemned man to a large post with his hands wrapped around the post above his head and his feet bound together making the back fully exposed and taught. Then the Roman official would take a whip that had leather strands with weights on the end and pieces of bones above the weights to rip into the flesh.

The Jews had a similar punishment but it was a bit different in that, the instrument could be any number of things from a whip to a reed to a cat of nine tails, but one distinguishing factor from the Jewish flogging was it had a maximum number of times you could hit someone. The highest number was 40 for the Jews but just in case they miscounted they always did 40 minus 1 so 39 as to not break the law.

The Roman scourging had no such limit. In fact, many condemned people died from the beatings that took place before they even got to the crucifixion. Our friend, the historian Flavius Josephus, even said in his Wars of the Jews that, he himself had some of his opponents in Galilee “scourged until their entrails were visible.”

This is the kind of beating that Jesus received before the agony of the cross. It was after this that we find ourselves in the passage today.

16 And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters), and they called together the whole battalion.

Again this is Jesus being led, not saying a word, to fulfill the prophecy in Isaiah we mentioned last week.

Isaiah 53:7 (ESV)

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.

This whole battalion they called together could be up to 600 soldiers to come and mock Jesus.

17 And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. 18 And they began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 19 And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. 20 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.

Imagine a man that has almost been beaten to death and the agony of his whole body hurting, then to have a crown of thorns pushed down on his head and as the blood pours into his eyes it obstructs what he can see and react to. So they hit him on the head, spit in his face and mock him.

At this point, if you are paying attention the Isaiah 52:14 passage starts to come into view.

As many were astonished at you—

his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,

and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—

He is physically altered by the beatings. His friends and family likely would not have recognized that it was Jesus. These Roman soldiers mock his Kingship and put on him the purple cloak. That color was very expensive and only reserved for the rich or the kingly. They bowed down to him in jest for the first time not knowing that they would bow again on their last day.

Because Jesus was so beaten and so weak from his torture,

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

We could do a whole sermon on Simon and what his service can mean to us, but there is something peculiar still in this passage that we should address. This Gospel of Mark is written to the believers in Rome which leads us to believe that Alexander and Rufus, Simon’s sons, had to be part of the church in some capacity that the readers in Rome or at least the church leaders would have known them. Simon must have been a witness to Christ’s death and then became a believer or he was a believer that was there with Christ during the crucifixion. We don’t know when Simon and his children came to the faith, but somehow seeing the torture and physical abuse that Jesus took did not have the intended effect that the Romans meant it to have on Simon. The Romans carried out such barbaric punishments to deter people from going against the Roman government. They would put these men on display so that those passing by would see that Rome was serious about their laws and you better not step out of line. For Simon and his sons, they must have seen that despite what was done to their bodies, the treasure of Christ was of more value.

Simon was not asked, he was conscripted to take this cross for Jesus. He served the Savior in helping with the device that would bring about our redemption. It is similar, and scholars have found similarity, to Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22. God tells Abraham to take his only son, Isaac, and sacrifice him in the land of Moriah. Isaac goes with his father and helped build the alter in which he was to be sacrificed on. He brought the wood up, he took the instructions from his father, he helped make it happen. When Abraham was about to give his only son to God, God provided a substitute. This is what happens in our story today. Simon carried the cross but God provided the sacrifice.

22 And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull).23 And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.

This mixture that was given to Jesus was a type of narcotic that was used to deaden the pain of those enduring capital punishment. Jesus refused it because he wanted to drink the cup of wrath that God had for Him with a sober mind. He knew the heights of glory and he knew the depths of suffering. When He asked the Father in the garden to take the cup from Him and the Father didn’t, Jesus knew what was meant for Him to do. He had to drink the cup. He had to plumb to the bottom of suffering. He didn’t turn to drink or drugs when things got tough but leaned into the purpose of the pain. He wanted all of the cup that the Lord poured out for the son. He wanted to be the perfect sacrifice. Taking the full measure of punishment on Himself is what the sacrifice does.

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

The text just says “they crucified him” and it moves on. This is a driving of spikes into your hands and into both of your feet as you lay on a wooden beam. Then they lift the beam up and the weight of your body falls on your feet which are resting on the spike that was driven in them, all the while pulling on your hands that are held on the cross by the spikes. The only way to breath is to push up on the spike that is in your feet. In agony you are taking every breath and eventually you get tired and you stop pushing up and then you suffocate and die. We see pictures of the crucifixion and people where them around their necks and on their clothes and in their houses, but this was not an ornament for the home in the first century. This symbol was feared and no one wanted anything to do with it. Deuteronomy 23 says, “Cursed is any man that hangs on a tree.” This punishment was for criminals and if it happened to you, you were cursed.

Dividing His clothes was also prophesied in Psalm 22:18

they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.

We will deal with Psalm 22 next week, but if the chief priest and the pharisees had eyes to see and ears to hear, they would have known that the prophecy of the Messiah was unfolding before their eyes.

25 And it was the third hour when they crucified him. 26 And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” 27 And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.

The time signature in this text shows us that Jesus is nailed on the cross in the third hour. The Jewish day starts at 6am. The third hour is 9am. There was a Jewish law that a person who recieved the death penalty had to be kept 24 hours before the sentence could be carried out. It just shows how quickly they wanted this to be done so the crowds would not find out.

Pilate had inscribed a sign that said King of the Jews and placed it above Jesus’ head. We see this in John’s Gospel. This title is written in Latin, Greek and Aramaic so that all people could see it. “King of the Jews” could have had a double meaning for Pilate. One is that he found no fault in Jesus and knew that the chief priest and Jewish leaders wanted Jesus dead out of envy, so Pilate inscribed the title as an insult to them. Second, Pilate probably wrote that title in the three languages to show people that if you try to take power away from Rome, this is your fate.

29 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, 30 save yourself, and come down from the cross!” 31 So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32 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.

It was a shameful thing to be crucified. Jesus would have been stripped naked, exposed. He was ridiculed by people that have no idea what would happen during his upcoming death and his resurrection. They couldn’t and they didn’t and they did not want to understand. So they did like most people do, they hated what they didn’t understand and they reviled him.

Being a preacher is one thing. Trying to pray and let the Lord speak through me and not letting my ego or my thoughts get in the way is quite another. The preachers that have been called to preach and have no other agenda than to properly herald the Word of God are trying to give to the congregation the purest, most unadulterated version of the Gospel, what it means and how they can apply it to their lives, but the preacher here is also an overseer. I, along with 5 other men, are elders and we all have different callings and gifting. One of my gifts is to be able to preach, but my, and the elders, main job is the pastor.

Pastoring is much more complicated than preaching. Pastoring is getting to know the members of the flock individually. Getting into their lives and helping them with their walk. It is a spiritual guiding. As a shepherd leads his sheep, so the pastors lead their congregations. This area of ministry is really where my heart is. Preaching allows the majority of you to get to know me so you can trust me enough to open up to me so that I can help in areas of your life. Preaching allows me to say things that make you think and to challenge your beliefs about God and yourself in an effort to have you leave here thinking about your life with Christ. Sometimes I hope it bothers you enough to where you will reach out or talk to me or one of the elders after church or during the week.

I have been honored by many of you that you let me into your struggles so that I can share the hope of Christ, give you a better understanding of the Gospel or just be a friend. What I have found is that there are a lot of people that are hurting. My goal in this sermon today is to let you know that you have a God and a King that is well versed in pain and heartache.

Are you in pain? Do you petition the Lord to take it away? Do you question His goodness because He hasn’t? Jesus knows that pain. From our text today, the pain was excruciating. It was such a terrible punishment that according to Cicero, the Roman statesman, said that the mention of the word “cross” should be away from thoughts and minds and ears of anyone. Jesus is there in your pain. He is using it to bring you closer to a reliance on him.

Do you have family troubles? Do you have family members that do not like you or do not understand you? Jesus did too. In Mark 3, Jesus’ family came out to seize him because they thought He was out of His mind. If you continue to read the rest of the New Testament, somewhere along the way, some of His brothers follow Him and they become leaders in the church.

Is work hard for you? Are you doing your dead level best and things are not working out? Jesus knows labor. He was a carpenter. Really He was a wood worker or a stone mason or both. He knows what it is to work hard every day with your hands. When he was in his ministry, He also knew what it was like to do all that the Lord had asked Him to do and not be fruitful. In Mark 6, Jesus goes to his home town of Nazareth and though he healed sick people, they did not believe.

Are you struggling financially? In Luke 9, a man came and said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Jesus knows what it is like to be human and not be comfortable. To be thirsty, to be hungry.

Are you lonely? Jesus knew the pain of loneliness and the heartbreak of losing friends. He knows the pain of losing a close friend to death, even though Jesus knew that He would raise Lazarus again, He wept.

Are there people that think poorly of you or spread rumors about you that are not true? Jesus was accused of all sorts of things throughout His ministry, one time being accused of being of the devil.

Do friends or family or people you don’t know call you names? Jesus knows that pain. We just read that even though He was walking to His death, He was mocked, spit on, slapped, beaten, ridiculed.

Are you struggling with temptation? Jesus knows that struggle. The devil tempted Jesus with all of the power and riches he could ever want in this world when Jesus was at his weakest after he had no food or drink for 40 days and He turned it down.

Do you question if God really wants you where you are? If you are walking in Him and trying to live the life He has for you and you are not content, do you question? In Mark 14, Jesus praying in the garden asks the Father for another way. He was asking, “Are you sure?”

In your pain, heartache, loneliness, fear, doubt, in any discomfort that you are living in right now, Jesus knows and has experienced it. He is the great sympathetic high priest. That means that He knows your highest highs and He is with you in the lowest of the lows. He can do that because He has also been there. You are never truly alone. This Christ that we serve bore all the punishment so that our pain stops here. The wrath of God is satisfied here for all who believe.

The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 11 lists the problems that He faced, “24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.”

That same Paul, because He knew the glory of Christ and what was taken care of for us on the cross said this in Romans 8:18

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

No matter what you have gone through, what you are going through or what you will go through, Christ was, is and always will be there. The suffering is temporary, but because of this glorious tree, we have a blessed hope. Look to the one that took the curse for you and guide the eyes of those around you to Him as we rejoice and suffer together.