The Ultimate Rejection of Jesus Pt. 2

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Well, in Mark 15, where we find ourselves, we've been on a journey through the gospel of Mark, looking at each word that the Holy Spirit has inspired through this gospel.

And we find ourselves now just on the precipice of the crucifixion event itself.

By way of just reminder and review for those who maybe have missed a couple of Sundays or who maybe knew with us, Jesus, the night before His arrest and crucifixion, was in the upper room as He was sharing a meal with His disciples.

It would be the last Passover and the institution of the Lord's Supper. They leave the upper room, cross the valley, go up to the Mount of Olives, and go to pray in a very familiar place.

It's a garden owned by a wealthy person who followed the Lord and allowed Him to use it, known as the Garden of Gethsemane.

Those who have been able to go to Israel with Marcy and myself, a couple of trips that we've done, we've been in the Garden of Gethsemane. And from there, you're overlooking and see all of the events there at the temple.

It's just right up the mountain over the valley there. And while you're there in the garden, you are at a place where an amazing event happened.

It's just before midnight on that Thursday, and Jesus is praying. The disciples are sleeping. They're having a hard time staying awake. Jesus three times goes and encourages them to wake up and pray, to stay alert and be watchful.

Judas, who had left the upper room, now comes with the mob arresting Jesus. They take Him and have Him bound.

The other followers flee away, and they take Jesus to begin His trials. If you've been with us the last several weeks, this hopefully is becoming very familiar to you.

I want it to be. Jesus goes through six trials. The first three are three Jewish trials that are religious in nature, meaning it deals with a charge brought against Him based on their religion.

The charge is blasphemy, that He is a false teacher, a false prophet claiming to be the Son of God. That's the charge. He undergoes three trials.

First, in front of Annas, the former high priest, at the time still the most influential religious man in the land. And then in front of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin.

They break briefly. They reconvene early morning on Friday. It's his third trial. It's the second trial in front of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin.

At the end of that third trial overall, they declare Him to be guilty of blasphemy. The problem, as you know, is that they do not have the freedom to put a man to death.

They wish that they had that freedom. It had been removed from them by Rome, who is their authority at this point. If the Jewish people would have been able to put Him to death at the time how they wanted to, He would have been stoned because that's how the Jewish leadership would take the life of a false prophet.

But they're not allowed to do that, and so they've got to take Jesus to the Roman authority. So, after three Jewish trials, Annas, Caiaphas, and the Sanhedrin, and again Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, he's going to now go over and begin the trials same night, just taking him from one place to the other to the three Roman trials.

These Roman trials are more political in nature. The three Jewish trials dealt with the religious charge of blasphemy. The problem is, Rome does not care about the charge of blasphemy.

Rome may not believe that Jesus is a true teacher. In fact, they wouldn't. But they don't really concern themselves too much with the religion of the Jewish people.

Their thought is, if he's a false teacher, you take him, you try him, you do whatever you want to do to a false teacher. The problem is, what the Jewish people want to do to the false teacher is to put him to death.

They've got to have Rome sign off on this. So, early the morning hours on Friday, they're going to take Jesus to begin the trials in front of the Roman authorities.

The man's name is Pilate. We looked at his life and who he was last Sunday morning. He is a man who is known to be quite cruel.

He is a man that is known to be arrogant. He is someone who is essentially traded in his integrity to just simply try to salvage his career.

The Jewish leaders take Jesus to him and he says, essentially, I find no fault in him. I don't see anything here deserving of death. You take him.

You're the Jewish leaders. You take him and you evaluate him. And they say, we've done that and we find him guilty. And Pilate says, what has he done? And the Jewish leaders say, we wouldn't have brought him to you if he were not guilty.

They're not interested in a trial. They just need Pilate to agree to their scheme because they need Rome's permission to put Jesus to death.

And they're trying to get this done. Pilate says, I don't see anything here worthy of death. And besides that, Pilate really doesn't care too much about the charge of blasphemy.

Saying that he claims to be the son of God to Rome may mean this guy's, you know, a bit out of it or that he is a liar or that he is maybe has issues in his mind.

But they're not real concerned with that charge. Knowing they're losing ground, one of the leaders here from the Jewish group says to Pilate, this man claims to be a king.

And so, right in the midst of the trial, the charge is going to be changed from blasphemy, claiming to be the son of God, to treason, claiming to be the king of the Jews.

And the reason for that switch in the charge is, number one, Pilate's not biting on the blasphemy charge. Number two, the Jewish leaders know that Pilate may have been able to push aside the charge of blasphemy.

But there is no way as a Roman governor that he can let it just slide by if someone is claiming to be a king. Because Rome will tolerate no one who is a threat to their power.

And so, the charge is changed from blasphemy, claiming to be the son of God, to treason, claiming to be a king.

And you just watch their strategy unfold. Pilate's going to take Jesus and question him. Pilate sees himself as the one in authority.

The truth of the matter, though, is that while Pilate is going to do what his heart is set to do, he still is not the one in control of the scene.

The Lord himself is the one in control of what's happening. It's going to come down to a key question when Jesus says to Pilate that right here in front of him, Christ himself is the very embodiment of truth.

And Pilate will, with exasperation, famously respond back to Jesus, what is truth? He asks that because Pilate has long ago given up worrying about what is right and wrong, truth from error.

It's just at this point in his career, all about trying to salvage his own skin. Frustrated, Pilate will again announce to the crowd that's gathered there, I find no guilt in him.

Pilate will again announce to the crowd that's going to be the one in control of the Lord. He sees no threat that Jesus poses to Rome. And if the charge is blasphemy, that's not a concern to him.

The charge has been changed to treason. That is a concern to Pilate. But having examined Christ, he finds no credible threat that Jesus is trying to lead any kind of overthrow of the government.

So he'll say again to the crowd, I find no guilt in this man. For the second time, the crowd senses that they are about to lose.

The first time was when Pilate said, you take him and try him yourself. They change it to treason. They now sense once again, they're about to run out of time and out of ammunition.

And so somebody steps forward and says, you can't let this man go free. He stirs up trouble all the way to Galilee.

At this point, Pilate thinks he may have just found an out. We're going to come back to Mark 15. But before we can get back to Mark's gospel, I need you to go to Luke 23.

I want to show you this fifth trial. As I keep telling you, you've got to read all four gospels and put them together to be able to get all the details because none of the four gospel writers by themselves record all of these details.

And so we read all the gospels and we synthesize them, put them together in what we call a harmony of the gospels to be able to see the chronology. Luke 23 verse 5, they were urgent saying, he stirs up the people teaching throughout Judea from Galilee even to this place.

Verse 6, Now zoom out with me.

Let's go back big picture for just a minute. Okay? Jesus is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. He's now put on trial. Three Jewish trials, three Roman trials.

The three Jewish trials, Annas, Caiaphas, and the Sanhedrin. The charge is blasphemy, claiming to be the Son of God. They want to put him to death by stoning.

That's how they did it. They're not allowed to do it. Rome has removed that freedom from them. So they've got to go over to the Roman side and get permission to put him to death. So we go from these three trials to the next set of three trials.

First over here with Rome is Pilate, who finds no fault in him. The people say though, he stirs up trouble to Galilee. That's Herod's jurisdiction.

Remember Herod the Great, who was the king when Jesus was born, who was the king of the whole area. When he dies, his land gets divided up. The land of Galilee now falls to a man known as Herod.

This is not Herod the Great. This is a different Herod. This is the Herod that had John the Baptist beheaded. That Herod has been wanting to talk to Jesus, and so they're going to take Jesus from Pilate to Herod because Herod's in charge of Galilee.

And the people say, Jesus is causing trouble from Galilee even to this place. So they're going to take him to Herod. Verse 8, When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him.

Now, in the palace that Herod the Great had built, this large area, at this time, because of the feast which brings everyone into Jerusalem, on one side of the palace is where Pilate is staying.

On the other side of the palace is where Herod is staying. So it just takes a brief moment to get Jesus from Pilate, trial 4, to Herod, trial 5.

Herod is not interested, again, in truth or justice. He just wants Jesus to perform. He's heard about his miracles.

He's heard that he does these amazing, astounding things. And Herod, who has already had John the Baptist beheaded, who was himself a wicked, immoral man, just wants Jesus to perform.

perform. Verse 9, so he questioned him at some length, but he made no answer. Jesus stays silent. Jesus is a savior, not a circus.

and he's not going to perform for somebody who's just playing a game. Verse 10, the chief priest and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him, and Herod, with his soldiers, treated him with contempt, and mocked him, and then, arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate.

And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day, for before this, they had been at enmity with each other. The fifth trial does not take long.

Jesus answers nothing back in return. At this point, Jesus has been roughed up.

He's been blindfolded and punched. He's been essentially up the entire evening going through these trials.

And now, at the conclusion of this fifth trial that we just, I just read to you from Luke's account of Herod, he's going to go back to the sixth trial, which is the second trial in front of Pilate.

Annas, Caiaphas, and Sanhedrin. Again, Caiaphas, and Sanhedrin. That's one, two, three. Then the three Roman trials, Pilate, Herod, and now back to Pilate.

It's our sixth trial. Let's go back to Mark's gospel. Mark 5, or Mark 15, verse 5, ends with the fourth trial.

Verse 6, picks up with the sixth trial. That's why we went to Luke to show you the fifth. Mark 15, verse 6. 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.

What's going on here? This is a part of the story you need to understand. Rome, who has taken the authority of the Jewish people, they've taken the authority away for them to put someone to death.

As a concession to the Jewish people, knowing how much the Jewish people despised Rome's authority over them, Rome had made a concession to the Jewish people.

And the concession was that each year at Passover, Rome would release a Jewish prisoner. Just as some form of a gesture of goodwill back to the Jewish people in recognition of how much the Jewish people hated the situation.

Pilate's wife has had a dream that he should have nothing to do with Jesus. Pilate is bothered by this.

Pilate's not really what we would call a religious man, more of a superstitious man. Pilate figures that while the crowd here hates Jesus, that they would at least be sympathetic toward him and because it was the custom to release a prisoner and they're asking for that custom to take place, Pilate's thought is, I finally have a way out now.

His thought is, I can give him a guilty verdict and then as is customary at Passover, release a prisoner from the Jews back to them and we can release Jesus.

In Pilate's mind, this accomplishes three things. One, is it gives Jesus a guilty verdict so the Jewish leaders are happy.

Two, Jesus would be released back to them to freedom because it's Passover and the followers of Jesus would be happy and three, Pilate can wash his hands of Jesus and he won't have to deal with him anymore.

So in Pilate's mind, what this allows him to do is the opponents of Jesus, he thinks, will be satisfied because he was found guilty. The followers of Jesus are satisfied because he's set free.

Pilate is satisfied because he can be done with the whole thing. chapter 15 verse 7. Among the rebels in prison who had committed murder in the insurrection there was a man named 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?

That's the charge of treason. For he had perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priest had delivered him up.

It's quite an interesting statement. Pilate understands that even from the Jewish leader's perspective, this isn't about truth.

This isn't about justice. This isn't about blasphemy and treason. He senses this is all about envy. Verse 11, but the chief priest stirred up the crowd to have him released for them, Barabbas instead.

This is not working out for Pilate. They are falsely accusing Jesus of treason, of claiming to be a king, essentially of desiring to lead an insurrection.

they don't want Jesus released. Instead, they say, give us Barabbas, a man who is known to have committed murder in the insurrection.

In fact, it's most likely that that center cross that Jesus was crucified on was intended for Barabbas.

Pilate is stunned by this. Barabbas himself was an insurrectionist. And it's altogether possible that the reason why the crowd demands that Barabbas be set free is because they want him to try to finish what he had previously started.

In other words, they are accusing Jesus of something he did not do and demanding to have Barabbas freed for them to truly do what they falsely said Jesus would want to do.

Something about all of this, Pilate says, this is all about envy. This isn't about blasphemy, this isn't about treason, this isn't about truth, this isn't about justice, this is about a group of envious leaders.

The choice set before the people is Jesus or Barabbas, a king or a killer, a righteous man or a murderer.

And given those two options, the crowd demands, give us Barabbas.

This is a picture of the absolute depravity of humanity on display. Do you want truth or lie, light or darkness, life or death?

death. And the mob says, give us death. Give us darkness.

There are times when you watch our world unfold and you're just thinking to yourself, what is wrong with humanity? This is it. sin.

It's people who love the darkness instead of the light. Verse 12, 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. This is an amazing scene.

Pilate thought he was going to be finished with this when he said to them the first time, I find no fault in him, you take him and deal with him as a teacher. That didn't work. Then he thought he was going to be out of it and finished with it when he says, take him to Herod, let Herod deal with it.

That didn't work. Then he thought he was going to be finished with it when he said, how about this? How about we count him as a prisoner and then I release him back to you as is our custom at Passover?

And that didn't work. Pilate is quickly learning it's going to be costly. to deal with the truth of the claims of Jesus.

He's not going to be able to opt out. The same is true for you. It's going to be costly for you to deal with Jesus.

Jesus. The cost is you can believe him and love him and follow him and serve him and deal with the rejection of this world while you're here on this earth.

Or you can get the favor of the world, reject the gospel, not be known as a Christian and save yourself some persecution and some heartache and then when you die, stand in front of the very one you rejected.

It's costly to deal with Jesus. you can keep Mark 15. Let me show you one other place though.

Go to John 19. I'm going to show you one other part of the story. John 19 verse 1.

Right after the people have demanded give us Barabbas and crucified Jesus. John 19 verse 1. Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him and the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe and they came up to him saying hail king of the Jews and struck him with their hands.

And Pilate went out again and said to them see I am bringing him out that you may know that I find no guilt in him.

And you say now wait a minute Pilate why why are you having him scourged if you find no guilt in him? Well the answer is that Pilate is not interested in Jesus or truth.

Pilate's interested in Pilate. Pilate's And so his last ditch strategy is let me take him, let me have him scourged, let me have him beaten and whipped and he will be so utterly physically beaten and bloodied that the people will see this man is no threat to Rome.

they would take a stick, wrap it in leather, you would get pieces of brass and lead and bone and you'd file it to a sharp point.

That stick known as a flagellum had three ropes to it. They would add hooks on the end of the rope and the purpose was that you would take your victim and either lie them down flat or stand them up with their arms wrapped around a pole of some kind and then you would take this strap and you would throw it into their back and those sharp pieces grab parts of the flesh and literally just rip a person alive.

it was common that prisoners during this part would pass out. Some even died just from the abuse of the scourging and if that weren't bad enough if a prisoner were to pass out from the pain they would have a bucket of salt water that they would pour over the back of the person.

You've had a small paper cut from an envelope on your hand and maybe got something in it or if you had rubbing alcohol you're cleaning your hands with hand sanitizer or something with a small paper cut and you instantly think oh that was a bad idea.

They would throw salt water over the body of someone whose entire flesh has been so ripped apart that they would have arteries and veins and organs exposed.

Pilate's going to lead him back out and say behold the man. Look at this guy. Do you really think we are afraid of this guy?

They've mocked him, they've beaten him, they've taken a mock robe and put upon him just to embarrass him.

they've slapped him in the face and he brings him out to the crowd and says behold the man.

It's verse 5. John 19 verse 6 when the chief priests and the officers saw him they cried out crucify him crucify him.

Now it's a fair question to say how did we get here? This is Friday morning 7 o'clock 730 in the morning.

It was just five days ago that Jesus rode into Jerusalem for an event we know is what we call the triumphal entry and the crowds were chanting Hosanna Hosanna the Lord saves blessed be the name of the Lord.

How is it that just a few days later the crowd has gone from the Lord saves blessed be this man the Christ to crucify crucify.

Well there are a few things you should know about that question. One the crowd of the triumphal entry that were offering praises to the Lord that crowd was largely made up of his followers.

It's a largely different crowd than who we find here right before the crucifixion. The people chanting Hosanna were people who were with Jesus who were following with Jesus who were aligned with Jesus the people who were chanting and shouting crucify crucify are people who are friends of the Sanhedrin friends of the religious leaders people that are connected to those who have been a part of these bogus trials.

It's also likely that this plan that Judas had been working on with the other Jewish leaders it's likely that there's been a group that's been involved knowing what they were trying to do and I think what the goal was is not only to have Jesus put to death but to have Barabbas the leader of the insurrection set free so they can see if he can be more successful the next time and so you've got people sympathetic to Barabbas the insurrectionists who are there they're part of the crowd chanting crucify crucify and then also to be sure there are some who probably were there at the triumphal entry that believed that Jesus was the Messiah but fast forward five days later and the one they had pinned their hopes on now stands so beaten he's barely even recognizable he's not fighting back he's not defeating Rome he's not going to lead them into the golden age of what they thought was coming and there are some no doubt who thought we believed in you at the start of the week what we now see you doing is evidence to us we just must have been wrong and then the text tells us the religious leaders were going throughout the crowd stirring up the people no doubt threatening intimidating and bullying the people to join in with their chorus you put all of that together and that's why you've gone in just a matter of a few days from

Hosanna blessed be the name of the Lord to crucify him crucify him at this point when you put the gospels together five different times Pilate has come out and said I find no fault in him John 18 38 Luke 23 22 John 19 4 John 19 6 five times I find no fault in him verse 7 the Jews answered him we have a law and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the son of God what charge is that that's blasphemy we start with blasphemy we change it to treason in one final desperate act they refuse to let go of this now they've gone back to the first charge Pilate at this point in verse 8 has heard it and he was even more afraid that's a staggering phrase the one who's in charge at least humanly speaking

Jesus in front of them Jesus who has absorbed every single blow they have to lay upon his body undeterred unafraid and now it's Pilate who is trembling in fear verse 9 he entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus where are you from and Jesus gave him no answer so Pilate said to him you will not speak to me do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you and Jesus answered him you would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above therefore he who has delivered me over to you has the greater sin from then on

Pilate sought to release him but the Jews cried out if you release this man you are no friend of Caesar's everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar just a quick word about that to be a friend of Caesar was an honorable imperial title given by the emperor to certain individuals and the crowd says if you don't do what we demand we essentially are going to report you back to Rome I shared with you last week several things Pilate had previously done through the years to make the Jews feel hatred toward him and they say if you let this man go we will see to it that you lose every privilege you have and now everything has been distilled to crystal clarity will

Pilate choose truth or his own interest it all comes down to that will he choose truth or the world verse 13 so when Pilate heard these words he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the stone pavement there's your answer Pilate chose the world and what good is it if a man were to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul back to Mark 15 verse 15 so

Pilate wishing to satisfy the crowd release for them Barabbas and having scourged Jesus he delivered him to be crucified and with the official decree of ebus and crusum to the cross you shall go Pilate says I choose the world over Jesus and he's not the first one or the last one to do that and perhaps there are some even in this sanctuary this moment who up to this point you've made the same choice before you truth and lie light and darkness life and death perhaps your rejection has not been as public or as well documented and maybe not even in your mind as deliberate after all you still come to church on

Sundays but in your heart every time you hear the gospel is an invitation for you to deny yourself and follow Jesus and perhaps to this point silently in your heart where only you and the Lord know you keep choosing the world God in his grace and kindness in divine patience and forbearance has this day brought you back again back to the truth and back to the light once again to hear the words of scripture that we are sinners worthy of death and judgment but

God demonstrated his love this way that while we were still sinners Christ died for us that whosoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life for the one who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved so here you are with the truth of the gospel given to you and just as it was for Pilate so it is for you what will you do with Jesus you could just completely reject him you could stand up right now and walk out of the sanctuary and in so doing say

I want nothing to do with the truth or you could sit respectfully and just once again in the silence of your heart choose self over salvation or or you could say God be merciful to me a sinner I know I've sinned I know you took my place on the cross I know that the death you endured is one I deserved and Lord would you forgive me and in so doing we see the truth that we are saved by grace through faith not of our works lest any man should boast but only because of grace

I implore you this morning I beg you this morning I call you this morning to repent to believe and to follow the one who himself is the way the truth and the life our father in heaven we praise you today and thank you for your word we are stunned at your grace and amazed by your mercy we pray that even this moment your holy spirit would move in power and in freedom convicting hearts of sin and even this moment drawing people from spiritual death to life the more we understand of what your son endured for us the more amazed we are the more of our own wickedness exposed for our hearts the more broken we are and we give you praise that you are the

God who sees our sin and our weakness and yet in love and grace has made a way that we could be called your own truly you are the only one deserving of our worship in Christ's name Amen if we can help you to know more what it means to follow Christ if we can help you to learn more of how you can put your faith in action if we can help you to know how to better articulate the gospel to someone in your life who needs to know Jesus would you please let us know how we can serve you you can use the guest or member drop that in the giving box on the way out we would love to serve you any way that we can by helping you to put steps into action from your response to the truth this evening we've got our evening service at five o'clock we'll be back in first

Thessalonians we've been studying through first this semester! last several weeks we've had other things going on but tonight we jump back into our study of first Thessalonians we're in chapter four invite you to come back to be a part of that at 5 p.m.

this evening love you church family deeply you guys have a great afternoon you're dismissed for god the justice satisfied to look on him and part you you