The Final Rejection of Jesus Christ Pt. 2

Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church. It is a joyful morning and a beautiful time to be with you all and studying God’s Word together. Please take your Bibles and open them with me to Mark 15, Mark 15.

We have come to the day on the calendar that tradition holds as being Palm Sunday. The day that Christ entered Jerusalem. But in our study of this marvelous Gospel we are at the other end of that week, known as the Passion Week of Christ. Gone are the adoring crowds. The accolades of Hosanna and Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord are distant echoes reverberating through the hours that have transpired since they were uttered. Diminishing their sounds are the harsh tones of altercations that have transpired in the days since between Christ and the religious leaders of Israel. Now, thanks to the traitorous actions of one of His own disciples, the leaders have exactly what they have sought - Christ is under arrest and in their custody. The terrible tones of false accusations, the interrogations by Annas and Caiphas and the sickening sound of slaps and thuds as Christ is repeatedly slapped and beat by the Sanhedrin and then the guards He is handed over to. The sounds that had permeated the streets of Jerusalem just a few days ago must have seemed a part of another lifetime as the events of the previous evening continue to transpire.

The final rejection of Jesus Christ is a total and complete rejection. The religious elite of Israel had rejected Christ all along because His teachings exposed the sinful natures within their own hearts and stood in direct opposition to the legalistic system they had imposed on the people. This was not a rejection that surprised anyone. Yet the second rejection that takes place - albeit temporary - is slightly more difficult to wrap our minds around. Peter’s denial of his Lord and Master is both heartbreaking and enlightening for us as Christians today. We must remember that Mark is writing to a beleaguered church in Rome. He not only highlights, in his characteristically brief style, the suffering of Christ but he contrasts the steadfast and faithful witness of Christ with the weakness of Peter as he attempted to cozy up to the world, to stay close to Christ without actually standing with Him.

That is a warning that we as the church should heed today - being near to Christ and standing with Him are two completely different things. I fear there are many who are close to Christ without actually standing with Him. Today, as we examine the text in front of us this morning, search your own heart and determine for yourself whether you are merely close to Christ or you are standing with Him.

Please look at your Bibles with me as we read Mark 15:1-15.

Mark 15:1–15 CSB

As soon as it was morning, having held a meeting with the elders, scribes, and the whole Sanhedrin, the chief priests tied Jesus up, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. So Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He answered him, “You say so.” And the chief priests accused him of many things. Pilate questioned him again, “Aren’t you going to answer? Look how many things they are accusing you of!” But Jesus still did not answer, and so Pilate was amazed. At the festival Pilate used to release for the people a prisoner whom they requested. There was one named Barabbas, who was in prison with rebels who had committed murder during the rebellion. The crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do for them as was his custom. Pilate answered them, “Do you want me to release the king of the Jews for you?” For he knew it was because of envy that the chief priests had handed him over. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd so that he would release Barabbas to them instead. Pilate asked them again, “Then what do you want me to do with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Again they shouted, “Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Why? What has he done wrong?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him!” Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them; and after having Jesus flogged, he handed him over to be crucified.

They are the bane of the existence of parents the world over. They cause consternation in students in classrooms in every nation. One in particular can cause the strongest man to become weak kneed. Properly phrased or well timed they can make or break a criminal defense or prosecution’s case. Questions. This morning we’re going to see how this text, these final rejections of Jesus by the government or, more properly, the world and the populace of Israel really come down to four questions. In reality it is only three questions as one is a statement that our translators have written as a question to make the language flow better for us. One that we are going to be faced with doesn’t echo down through the halls of history, it screams to us today as the most important question ever uttered. And it is one that bears consideration and answering anew today. Let’s look into this text together and consider the answers to the questions that it asks of each of us this morning.

Jesus Before Pilate

Seeking to justify their illegal actions done under the cover of darkness the Sanhedrin along with the chief priests convene one more time as the sun peaks over the horizon to validate the decision that had already been made unanimously the night before - Jesus must die. The difficulty for the Jewish leadership was that they were not legally permitted to put anyone to death under Roman law and so they must draw the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate into their web of deceit and wickedness. They meet early in the morning because the Roman courts were held early in the morning allowing the bureaucrats to pursue leisure activities in the early afternoon. Knowing that the charge of blasphemy will get them thrown out of Pilate’s presence the chief priests devise a political controversy on which to present Christ. They tie him up and haul Him away to be handed over to Pilate.

John’s Gospel expands on this information saying that the chief priests, desiring to remain pure so that they could eat the Passover later would not enter into the Praetorium as entering the dwelling of a Gentile would have rendered them unclean and prevented them from eating the Passover. Lying, holding an illegal trial and seeking the death penalty for a man contrary to Jewish convention was apparently okay in their eyes because it met their needs but entering into the home of a Gentile was clearly off limits in light of the Passover. It is always interesting the conceptual gymnastics that people will pursue in order to advance their own agenda.

The word for handing over is the same as we’ve seen before - paradidomi - and as before it should continue to drive home for us the point that while the human agents of Christ’s betrayal and handing over to the Romans were the chief priests that everything taking place was in accordance with the divine foreordained plan of God to effect His will for His glorious purpose in the salvation of His people. Although He arrives in bonds, Christ is a willing actor in the events that are taking place.

Mark does not record for us the initial interactions between Pilate and the chief priests. He also does not include the shuttling off of Christ to Herod’s court as Pilate attempts to shift responsibility for action in this case. Mark rejoins the action in the third and final stage of the interactions that take place that morning. Christ stands before Pilate again and the Roman governor asks Him point blank - are you the King of the Jews.

Our translation here is a bit misleading as the original phrasing in the Greek is a bit different. You are the King of the Jews is the original phrasing of what Pilate says to Christ. This can hit our ears in two ways - the first is that Pilate looks on this man slumped a bit by weariness, bruised and bloodied around the face from the abuse that He has already endured and reacts as many of us would - with sarcasm. Some King You are.

The other way that it can come to our ears is that this is an unwitting affirmation of a truth that Pilate was ill equipped to acknowledge. The phrasing is the same as the question posed by Caiaphas just a few hours earlier as he interrogated Christ saying “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One.” In fact the charge that is brought to Pilate is the exact same charge brought before the Sanhedrin but from a different perspective. The question of Christ being the King of the Jews is the equivalent of the question of whether or not He was the Messiah. For Pilate though the concern is not so much whether Christ will raze the Temple only to rebuild it in three days or whether He is blaspheming the name of God. Rather it is whether He is a political threat to Rome or to the Emperor.

Unlike the way our world used to be, as it is increasingly becoming less and less this way, where we separate religious and political life, the Roman world did not make any such separation. The Romans were content in Israel to allow the continued practice of the Jewish religion without requiring the accompanied adoption of Roman religious practices and emperor worship as it did in other provinces, however they were also heavy handed when it came to perceived military or political threats. They did not arrest or crucify victims who were not at the very least perceived as political threats. It is important at this moment in our examination of this to realize that Pilate was not unaware of the events that had transpired earlier in the evening as there were Roman soldiers as part of the mob that arrested Christ. These men couldn’t have been present without Pilate’s permission.

As any astute leader would have, he had been fully briefed on the actions of this rabbi from Galilee and the ripples that He was causing among the elite in Jerusalem. The main reason he was in Jerusalem was the potential for uprising during the Passover. But the man standing before him, in the physical state that He would have been in, would not have appeared to be all that threatening. And so Pilate, probably half incredulously and half curiously, asks You’re the King of the Jews, the One I’ve been warned about?

Just as it had been with Caiaphas’ earlier charge, Christ’s answer here is instructive for us. Note the differences in His answers. In answering the chief priest He not only invokes the very name of God but also points to Scriptures that would support or at least allude to His identity as the Messiah. Now standing before Pilate, He doesn’t refer to Scripture rather He offers a simple “You say so.” You can almost hear an implied if there. If you say so. Now in saying this I am not questioning whether or not Christ knew who He was. Rather it is to throw the onus for answering the original question back on the questioner. In essence what Christ is saying here to Pilate is that Pilate would do well to consider the answer to that question and the implications of that answer if it is affirmative. The Gospel of John provides more details of this exchange

John 18:33–39 CSB

Then Pilate went back into the headquarters, summoned Jesus, and said to him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Are you asking this on your own, or have others told you about me?” “I’m not a Jew, am I?” Pilate replied. “Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?” “My kingdom is not of this world,” said Jesus. “If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” “You are a king then?” Pilate asked. “You say that I’m a king,” Jesus replied. “I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” “What is truth?” said Pilate. After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, “I find no grounds for charging him. You have a custom that I release one prisoner to you at the Passover. So, do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?”

For Mark’s purpose as he is writing to the church in Rome the purpose of both Pilate’s question/statement and Christ’s answer is important for us today - it requires us to examine our own reactions to Christ and to examine who He claims to be. We would do well to consider the famous quote by C.S. Lewis regarding the identity of Christ

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

This question is really a preamble to the question that Mark is driving us to consider - the most important question ever posed - because before we can answer that question we must answer this one. Who exactly was Jesus. Is He the King of the Jews, the Messiah and all that that entails? The way that we answer that question has great implications on how we will answer the later question. But first there is another question that Pilate asks that we would do well to consider.

Pilate Before Christ

Whether at this point Pilate takes his leave of Christ and walks back to the courtyard where the chief priests awaited his verdict or he could just hear them clamoring from outside, Pilate now hears the continued accusations of the chief priests against Christ. Luke tells some of the charges that they were bringing against Christ - that He had told the people not to pay taxes, misleading the nation and setting Himself up as the Messiah. In reality Jesus had told the people, and these chief priests, to render unto Caesar what is Caesars, had never misled anyone and had avoided or refused any attempt on the part of the people to make Him King by force.

Pilate returns his attention to Christ asking if He would make any defense against these charges. “Aren’t you going to answer?” he asks. “Look how many things they are accusing you of!” Yet Christ maintains His silence. And this amazes Pilate. He doesn’t know or can’t contemplate how to handle this. It is ingrained in our human nature to defend ourselves. Whether charges are accurate or false we rush immediately to our own defense. Oh how much we could learn from Christ here. Knowing that these charges were false He felt no compunction or impulse to defend Himself. Instead He chose to willingly suffer in silence despite the perceived injustice that was taking place against His person. Why?

Of course one answer is that He was the Son of God, destined to suffer in silence according to prophecies contained in Isaiah 53 and Psalm 38. Yet there is something more here and it is something that Mark wants his readers in Rome to recognize and we would do well to recognize as well. With the exception of the claim to Messiahship, no claim that the chief priests made against Christ impacted the Gospel, His Father or His divinity. Even the claims of Messiahship did not impact those things as the chief priests had a false view of the Messiah in view - seeing Him as a political leader rather than the spiritual leader that He was. Personal indictments meant little to Christ and they should mean little to us as well. We must always remember that even the most virulent claims that are made against us are only a portion of the depravity that our souls are capable of.

2,200 Quotations from the Writings of Charles H. Spurgeon: Arranged Topically or Textually and Indexed by Subject, Scripture, and People Depravity

306Hell itself does not contain greater monsters of iniquity than you and I might become. Within the magazine of our hearts there is powder enough to destroy us in an instant, if omnipotent grace did not prevent.

The only time that we should speak up in defense is in defense of the Gospel or in defense of our Master. We have been promised suffering in this life and part of that is accepting slights against our person. But no slight against God can ever be tolerated. And the witness of silent suffering is confounding to the world. Pilate doesn’t know what to do with Christ but can only be amazed at Him. How much more would the world be amazed at Christians if we would simply shut our mouths and only open them when there is something attacking our Master? This is not to say that we shouldn’t speak out against issues like abortion or homosexuality or gender issues or marriage - all of those impact God and threaten to remove Him from His rightful place. But there are countless other issues we get wrapped up in discussing that we have no business engaging in. And when we do engage we should engage the way Christ does - with Scripture rather than opinion. And if suffering comes your way for His name then rejoice and say along with Peter

1 Peter 4:19 CSB

So then, let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust themselves to a faithful Creator while doing what is good.

The Most Important Question Ever Asked

Some have used the next scene to paint Pontius Pilate as a weak, vacillating leader yet this couldn’t be farther from the case. Rather he was sometimes impulsive, often heavy handed yet he was also astute and had learned much during his time in Israel. He was appointed prefect of Israel by the Emperor Tiberius in 26A.D. There had been several missteps in the early days of his rule. On one instance he had sent soldiers into Jerusalem with standards bearing the emperor’s bust violating the Jewish ban on images. The result was a mass protest march on Caesarea and non-violent protests at Pilates home for five days. Pilate initially responded by ordering his soldiers to kill the Jews but when they bared their throats to accept the knives “welcoming death rather than transgression of their law” Pilate rescinded the order and withdrew the images from Jerusalem.

Another instance of misjudgment was when Pilate withdrew money from the Temple treasury to build an aqueduct that would serve Jerusalem. He was again met by protests but this time he didn’t stop the soldiers and many, exceeding his orders, killed the protesters while others were trampled as they attempted to escape. Another is the incident that Christ is asked about is when Pilate had several Galileans killed and had their blood mingled with their sacrifices.

As a result of all of these incidents Pilates tenure in Judea was tenuous at best. It makes it a little clearer for us to understand why Mark tells us that Pilate desired to satisfy the crowd. Pilate, the one who claimed to be in charge, is in reality in bondage to the crowds as he seeks to pacify them to prevent a riot.

Pilate stands now before the crowd as they implore him to perform his usual kindness and release a prisoner to them during the festival. He sees this as an opportunity as he has rightly deduced that the reason for Christ’s arrest was envy and that the chief priests were trying to use him as a scapegoat to prevent their losing face with the people. He asks them - Do you want me to release the King of the Jews for you? But the chief priests prevent this by whipping the crowd into a frenzy and calling for the release of a prisoner named Barabbas instead.

Now we come to it. Now is the question that called to the Roman readers of this Gospel and that calls to us. Pilate asks them again - “Then what do you want me to do with the one you call the King of the Jews?” Matthew phrases the question this way “What should I do then with Jesus, who is called Christ?” The crowds response that day, in accordance with God’s foreordained plan, was crucify Him. But what would our response be today? What is our response today? It all goes back to the answer that we give to the first question “Are you the King of the Jews?” Who do you consider Christ to be? Is He, as C.S. Lewis said, a liar, lunatic or Lord? Charles Spurgeon said it this way

2,200 Quotations from the Writings of Charles H. Spurgeon: Arranged Topically or Textually and Indexed by Subject, Scripture, and People Jesus, Deity Of

738If Christ was not God, we are not Christians. We are deceived dupes; we are idolaters, as bad as the heathen whom we now pity. It is making a man into a God if Christ be not God.

And if He was God - which spoiler alert He was and is - what are you going to do with Jesus, who is called Christ? Given the choice that day many in the crowd cried crucify Him - maybe that’s where you are today. But some 40 days later at Pentecost some of those same people were cut to the heart by Peter’s sermon and cried out brothers what shall we do? It is our prayer that you are there, or are getting there if you have never been brought to that point. What are you going to do with Christ? Will you submit to Him and proclaim Him as both Savior and Lord of your life? If you’ve done that do you need to rebuild a relationship that has cooled a bit? Are you maybe trying to be close to Christ but not actually stand with Him? It is not possible my friend - you are either with Him or you are not. There is no being close but not all the way in. We must be completely His or we are not His at all.