Jesus Suffered Under..

We are here to gather and pursue being a people of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the gospel, that word, it really means good news. And as we think about what it means to be people of good news, we have to recognize good news needs context. The gospel, the news of Jesus Christ, is only good when we recognize there's a problem. And we're that problem. We need forgiveness. And as we live our lives seeking to be a people of that good news, the context still continues to teach us. In our week, we've had two mass shootings in our country. Closer to home, we're grieving and mourning with our brother and sister, Ed and Artie, who's lost three children and a grandchild. I look out and I see, I know people are wrestling with health and anxiety over health and difficulty and fear of raising their children and troubles in marriage. All this context, it helps us understand the good news of Jesus Christ and that where our sin abounds is grace abounds. It's important to realize that there's always good news in the midst of our context because as we're looking at today, Jesus appears to not be doing anything. He's literally silent. And in the midst of some of life's most difficult trials, the shootings, the meaningless, what appears to be meaningless deaths, the difficulties we go through in our own families, in our own hearts, God might appear to be silent. Be assured, His will will be done. His plan is perfect. As we just reflected, and as we just heard the passage read, Jesus doesn't give any answer. And sometimes it feels, it appears, that Jesus is not giving an answer. And I think one of the great takeaways of this passage is, regardless of him not even giving an answer to Pilate, his plan is unfolding perfectly as he designed. As we look at our passage, we're gonna be seeing three points. The king's silence, the king's silence, the king's substitute, and the king's suffering. The king's silence, the king's substitute, and the king's suffering. If you're new with us, we're walking through the Gospel of Mark. We are coming to the end. We are here in the Passion Narrative, the height of the Passion Narrative, where Christ has been on, he's been denied. Now he's on trial, and he will die, and then rise again. I want to go back to the Gospel of Mark, and just kind of trace what's been happening, just so we can really appreciate what's going on. If you, if you want to pick up the Gospel of Mark, it's one of the most clear, straightforward, short, it is the shortest Gospel. He's constantly pressing in two things. Who Jesus is, and how you should respond. And over again he tells us how people respond. We see it here with, with Pilate. He's amazed. Over and over again you see the crowds and how they respond. If you look at Jesus' ministry as Mark presents it, there's stages. And the first part of Mark is Jesus' popular ministry. Everybody loves Jesus. He's healing the sick. He's teaching with authority. Everybody likes that Jesus. He's giving us wisdom. He's a great sage. He is healing the, everyone's bringing their sick out. There's a great crowd and everyone is excited and amazed. And then there's a transition change. Mark two, he starts making new claims. Your sins are forgiven. He starts confronting religious leaders. The people start recognizing he teaches not like our scribes and Pharisees and priests. And you see in Mark 3, 6, a response of the religious leaders. The Pharisees, they start plotting with the Herodians. Two groups that were completely opposed to each other, but now they are committed together to destroy Jesus. Mark 7, Jesus confronts these religious leaders. They teach their traditions, not the Word of God. He teaches the disciples in Mark 8, 15. He warns them of the leaven of the Pharisees, that the things they're adding to the law are corrupting their entire teaching. There's been this progressive tension throughout Mark. What we see here is God, Jesus has gone from being amazed by the crowds, Endeared by the crowds. Even just a week ago from our own passage, the crowds were crying out, Hosanna, blessed be the son of David. And then the crowd begins to yell, crucify. How quickly things can change. How important it is to be recognizing who Jesus is and how we should truly respond to him. Let's look at our passage. That's the context Jesus has been teaching for three years. The crowds have continued to come to him and rejoice for the most part. The leaders are against him, and he's been training his disciples. And here we come to the last few days. The king's silence. Judas has betrayed Jesus with a kiss. The armed guard has brought Jesus to the council. They try to get as many false charges as possible, and now they bring him to Pilate, and notice they've decided on one clear charge. And as soon as it was morning, the chief priest held a consultation with the elders and scribes of the whole council, and they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate. Pilate is the governor of this region under the Roman emperor. He is only in Jerusalem occasionally. He is in Jerusalem right now because the number one job of the governor is to make sure that Pax Romana, the peace of Rome, is held intact. And the way that you hold the peace of Rome intact is you crush any insubordination. So Pilate is there to be an authoritative figure whenever all the Jews have gathered in Jerusalem for this feast, and the chief priests bring Jesus to the highest authority in Judea, government, Pilate. And Pilate asked him, Are you the king of the Jews? Now this is very interesting because most of everything else we saw last week about the the tacting and the trying to figure out what kind of false accusations they could bring against Jesus, it had to do with the temple. It had to do with the religion of Israel, but here it appears that the chief priests and scribes of Sanhedrin, the religious leaders, they decided to go a different route with Pilate. Let's make it clear that Jesus is insubordinate to the crown. That Jesus is a radical who's claiming that he has an opposing kingdom to you, Pilate. Pilate and the Romans, they wouldn't care if he's going to tear down the temple. They don't care about the temple. They're pagans. I mean, whatever you want to worship, as long as you're in the peace of Rome and not upsetting the things of Rome, they don't mind. But they strategically challenged Jesus to Pilate, he's a political threat. He is claiming to be the king of the Jews. And notice the one thing Jesus answers, Pilate asked him, are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answers, you have said so. Now that's not some kind of passive-aggressive, oh it's what you say. It's an affirmation. Yes, I am the king of the Jews, Jesus says. He's declaring that, it's very clear, I am the one who has come to rule by people with righteousness and peace and goodness. Now we need to kind of pause and capture a significant theme that ties all the scripture together, and that is Jesus is the King. That's the one clear declaration He has made about Himself. So if there's one thing we should recognize as we walk away and ask, who is Jesus? He's the King. Now that's significant. Mark hasn't really emphasized that kind of royal power of Jesus. Mark has been emphasizing the suffering servant Jesus. If you want to look more at his kingship, the Gospel of Matthew emphasizes that. But I just want to step back for a moment and trace what we call a scarlet thread through Scripture. A scarlet thread being there's a promise And Jesus fulfills that promise. There's a redemptive theme that is all built around the idea of king. Genesis 1 and 2, this is where God puts Adam in the place of his image bearer. He gives him work to do as an ambassador. There actually appears to be a royalty there with David. He's in charge. But more so, I think, when you get to Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve have sinned, God comes and pronounces a word of judgment. He declares that a son will be born of Eve, who will crush the head of the serpent. There's a glimpse, a glimmer of a warrior, a champion, who's going to undo all the sin, all the death, and the power of Satan. There's a warrior king that they're waiting on. And then Genesis 12, you see the first promise to Abraham. The one line, the one nation and people that God is going to create. And God says to Abraham, many nations will come. You will be a great nation. Well, a nation needs a king. There's a glimpse. We stop seeing glimpses and we start seeing the focus. In Genesis 49 verse 8, we see a blessing for the tribe of Judah. Abraham gave birth to, Abraham's son Isaac. Isaac was the father of Jacob. Jacob is renamed Israel. Judah is the tribe from which the Son will come. The scepter will not leave your hand. A promise is clearly made. There's going to be a ruler for the people of Israel. He's going to come from the tribe of Judah. So God made this promise to the entire world in Genesis 3, and he keeps narrowing it in. He's going to come from Abraham, from Judah, and then remarkably, There's 500 years without a king. For 500 years there was no king. They had Moses. They had Joshua. They had great leaders because God gave them those leaders. But it's not until you see in the book of Ruth a foreigner widow coming and marrying into the line of Judah that you start seeing the promise of David. Now Saul's the first king, Well, Moses told us in Deuteronomy 17, here's the kind of king you're looking for. He's the kind of king who, who loves the Word of God, who writes out his own copy of the Word of God, who reads it, meditates upon it regularly to rule God's people according to the Word of God. And Saul is not that kind of king. Why was Saul king? Because that's the kind of king that people ask for. And God sometimes gives us what we ask for, rather than what we really need. David ends up being king, and if you want to meditate and study kingship, 2 Samuel 7 is, is one of the high point hinges when it comes to kingship. God has promised a king. David is now on the throne. And David says, in the midst of peace, he's conquered his enemies. God, you have built me a great house. Now I want to build you a house. I want to build you a temple. And God says, your hands are too bloody. but I will build you a house, I'll build you a dynasty. I will put on the throne of Israel one of your sons forever. And I will be like to him a father, he'll be like to me a son, and he will establish a throne forever. And then you see Solomon, and you're like, wow, God fulfilled that very quickly. Solomon seemed so wise. When asked, what's the one thing you'd like to have? I would like wisdom to lead the people. And he leads in righteousness, and he expands the boundaries and borders, and he looks like he's going to be this king that's going to rule forever in greatness. And then he does something that God said not to do. He took hundreds of foreign wives, and his heart turned away from God and turned to those gods. So God judged Israel. He split the nation. And then over and over again, you just see this frustrating pattern. And this king reigned for this many years and did evil on the side of the Lord. This king reigned for this many years and did evil on the side of the Lord. This king reigned for this many years and did evil on the side of the Lord. And you start to wonder, can God keep his promise? How long, oh Lord, will you wait to keep your promise? They're supposed to be an intentional build-up because this is hundreds of years, and we can look back and we can see God might appear to be slow to keep His promise, but He keeps His promises. There's two brief prophecies. Isaiah 11. A shoot will come from the stump of Jesse. The Spirit of the Lord will be upon him. The Spirit of wisdom and understanding and counsel and might and knowledge and the fear of the Lord. He will alight in the fear of the Lord. This kind of king is going to come in the midst of all these bad kings. Isaiah promises the right king is still going to come. Ezekiel 34 is even more clear. God looks at all the different kings and rulers of Israel. He says they're just fattening themselves on the people. They're devouring the flock for their own self. So God says, I myself am going to come and be their king, their shepherd. I will not let my sheep be devoured. I will come and I will gather you. I will heal you. I will feed you. I'll be your shepherd. And in John 10, Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. God has fulfilled His promise. God Himself has come to help us, to heal us, to free us from guilt, to forgive us of sin, to provide for us, and protect us in every way. We have a good shepherd. The King has come. And so when we read Psalm 23, there's just a glimpse of what that means. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ is the one good king. He has all authority. And that authority is good. Think about how that changes everything. Whenever He has all authority and power, we can walk through what feels like the valley of the shadow of death, and we can know His rod and His staff. They're, they're comforting. He's in control. He is the King. We're, we're to be of good courage. We're not to be afraid. Our faith has to be built up and to have courage that He is the King. who has laid down His life for us. If you're not a believer today, you should be afraid. If you're not a believer in Jesus Christ, He is the King. He has come once with all authority to lay down His life for His sheep, and He will come again, and He will come with all authority to judge everyone who has not believed in Him. It still makes Him good. We want a God. We need a King who punishes sin. There are only two different kinds of people. Those who believe in Jesus and our sin has been punished in Him on the cross, and those whose sin is still waiting to be punished when we face God on our own. He is a king. He's to be trusted. Let's get back to verse three. Pilate asked him, are you the king? He says, I am the king. And by doing so, he's saying he's fulfilled all those promises from Genesis 3 to Genesis 12 to Genesis 49 to Deuteronomy 17 to 2 Samuel 7 to Isaiah 11 to Ezekiel 34 and so much more. And the chief priests accused him of many things. And Pilate asked him, have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you. And Jesus made no further answer. He's just declared his reign as king, and now he's reigning. The chief priests, they bring all the false charges, all the different things that they've twisted and corrupted. They're seeking to ruin him and his reputation. And it appears he's just going to be weak and not have anything to say. But his power is being displayed. His perfect reign is being displayed. He's silent before the accusations. He submits to the shame. He submits to the slander. Who he is has not changed. Why answer these fools in their folly? He is not the one. They're not professing him properly. He's already given the profession. He's the king. He's not distracted by their purpose. He remains on task. Now this is not trying to capture some sticks and stones philosophy. You know, sticks and stones break my bones, words will never hurt me. That's not true. Words are devastating. Words, words from others can, can destroy. Words matter. I mean, God Himself says you cannot curse man and bless God with the same tongue. His power is, is not that this doesn't bother Him, or that it doesn't hurt Him, or it doesn't affect Him in some way. His power is that He knows our lives. He remains powerful in silence. this is, this is amazing. He, he's there in front of the, the king who he rules over, hearing all these accusations, and remains silent, according to plan. He sits quietly, but I want you to understand, he is not going to remain silent. On the cross we hear the sweet words, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. On the cross we, we see Him starting to feel the full weight of our sin and what we deserve. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He feels the weight of our sin and being torn apart from the Father and not just separated, but now being judged by His wrath for sins He didn't commit, but we committed. With a cry of agony, He submits His soul to death. but he does not remain silent. With a shout of victory, he rises from the dead. He is risen. He is risen and he's still speaking. That silence that appears like he's not in control, that silence that appears he's not going to really give an answer, that's all according to plan. He's not a silent God. He stood there. and receive those accusations in order to fulfill the plan so that he could speak the good word. Father, this one I've purchased with my own blood. Father, this one is ours. Father, they're forgiven because I've paid the price. Father, they're us, and then he speaks to us. Brother, sister, come home. join me at the table. My rod and staff is good for us. We should be comforted by this silence because it leads to a submission to death, but we also should be comforted that he continues to speak. Are we listening? Now as we consider what's going on here, I do want to give a bit of a side here. Mark is writing to Christians in the time of Nero. Nero is one of the nastiest anti-christian rulers. And I believe Mark is giving the church instruction for how they are to persevere in the midst of persecution. I believe Jesus is a model for how to persevere in the midst of persecution. Mark doesn't demonstrate or model the other... Jesus interacts with Pilate more than Mark presents. We know this from Luke and John. He gives one answer. I am the king. And there's silence. There's no seeking to overthrow the government. There's no seeking to, to change the government. It's fully trusting in the plan of God as he has ordained. Christ is a model here of learning God's plan is perfect. And God's plan oftentimes means we sit silently. One of the great promises in Scripture, God says, Jesus says, whenever you face the trial, whenever you are in suffering, whenever you're in the midst of a, of persecution, I will give you the words to say. And sometimes He might not give us anything to say at all. In confidence, we know that He is just and perfect. So the first thing we see here is that the King is, Jesus is King and, and He remains silent. And, and that is, that is part of the perfect plan. Second thing is that the king's substitute. Our second point is the king's substitute. Verses six and seven are our background information just so we understand what's going on. Mark writing most likely to Romans needed to understand there's customs and be introduced to a figure. Now at the feast, that is the Passover, Pilate used to release for one of them a prisoner for whom they asked. Kind of a way of appeasing the people and showing a good and merciful rule, which doesn't always fit Pilate's personality, but we trust the Word of God is accurately declaring what the custom was. Josephus also does mention this. So there's a custom a prisoner is normally released. And among the rebels in prison who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas. Okay, now we're getting more specific. A man named Barabbas, he undermines the government, he's been leading rebellion, and he's murdered as part of that rebellion. Okay, that's the background. Okay, now we get the action. The crowd came up and began to ask Powell to do as he usually did for them. He's declaring to, Mark is recording, the crowd comes and they're asking, who are you going to release? So the crowd actually initiates this, which is interesting. Pilate answered them, do you want me to release the king of the Jews? Now notice we get a little bit of an insight. For Pilate perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priest delivered him up. We know Pilate, he ends up saying, of this whole matter I wash my hands. Pilate tries to get out of trying to be the one who determines judgment on Jesus a number of ways, and here we see he doesn't believe these charges are accurate at all. He can see through the chief priest's plan, but he's also there to make sure he keeps the peace. He is more bound to Rome than he is to the truth. So he has the crowd. He's trying to lead them. Would you like for me to release your king? Israel. People of Judea. Verse 11. But the chief priest Those who have been appointed by Christ, or appointed by God, to lead people in worship, instead of stirring up their hearts to love God, they stir up the people to have Barabbas released instead. Verse 12, Pilate again said of them, then what shall I do with a man you call the king of the Jews? And they began to cry, crucify. And Pilate said to them, why? What evil has he done? He, he's trying to reason. He's trying to bring forth truth. But, but, but they shadow them more. They're in a frenzy. They've been worked up. Crucify him. So Pilate was wishing to satisfy the crowd, to, to, to keep the peace, not the truth. He handed him over to be crucified. Now, imagine this. And, and, and I, I do believe the picture is, Jesus is probably an earshot. Even if he can't physically hear, he's God who knows what his people are saying. He has come to save his people, and his people have turned on him. He's been denied by his disciples. He's been beaten by the chief priest and their counsel and guard. He's been falsely accused, and now the people are crying out, crucify him. There's so much to consider when we're thinking about what's going on at the cross. We could think we're like Pilate. Right? An agnostic. He's an observer. He's curious about Jesus. He's perplexed. He's not anti-Jesus. He's just kind of, he's got to keep his own kingdom intact. He tries to see there's something special about Jesus, but he's merely interested. There's a mere agnostic interest in Jesus, if you think, maybe I'm like Pilate. Maybe you're like the religious leaders. Many would be like the religious leaders. There's evil intent. I want to destroy Jesus. There's people like this. They want to go out and destroy the reputation and name of Jesus. Could be like the crowd. I don't want to stand out from the crowd and look kind of weird by promoting somebody who everyone else doesn't like. That might feel real. I'm afraid of standing up and being identified with Jesus because of the way people hate Jesus. There's one person we all should relate to at the cross. It's Barabbas. We can relate to all these different folks in different ways, but there's one that is inevitable. We should seek to relate to Barabbas. He was guilty, he murdered. He was in prison, sentenced, but he did not pay it. He knows that he is a convicted, guilty sinner who deserves to be on the cross, dying in shame and agony, but yet when he looks up, he sees somebody else in his place. Everybody sees the beautiful doctrine of Jesus as our substitute. He takes our place. Barabbas, he gets to go free a murderer because an innocent man stood in his place. Now, most of us, when we think about the word substitute, we think about school. We have a substitute teacher. What does a substitute teacher do? They stand in the place of the teacher. They do the teacher's job that day. When Jesus is our substitute, He does our job. He stands before God as if He's committed all of our sin and takes the full penalty so that we will never have to give an answer for the sins we've committed. He submits to the judgment for us in our place so that we can go free and live. If you're not a Christian this morning, there is nobody else who's ever existed who can stand in your place. There's lots of religious leaders who can say some things that seem wise, but they're ultimately going to try to point you away from Jesus. He is the only one who can stand in your place and take the punishment for your sin so that you can be forgiven. If you're believing in anything else, you're denying the only one. that this Lord's Supper is reminding us as a church, those who believe in Jesus, that he is the one who has stood in our place. If you're just going to watch that bread and cup pass by in disbelief, you're letting the only hope of salvation go by you. Today, you don't need that bread and cup, you need a belief. Your invitation is to believe that you're a sinner and that Jesus has paid the price for your sins so that you can be forgiven. Do not leave here without wrestling with that and talking with somebody nearby with you about that. We see Jesus' silence. We see His substitute. Finally we see His suffering. Verse 16. The King's suffering. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is the governor's headquarters, and they called together the whole battalion. That's about 600 troops. He's a robot! They've come out to arrest him with clubs, and Jesus pointed out the irony. Now they brought on, they're going to put them underneath the whole battalion, 600 Roman trained, prepared soldiers. And probably the finest because they're palace guards. And these soldiers, 600 of them, they clothed them with a purple cloak. Now dimes were expensive. Purple was rare. Purple was oftentimes held for a king or a royalty. It was that color symbolic of a royal figure. So they're mocking him with a purple cloak. They twisted together a crown of thorns. We're not talking about, you know, rose thorns. We're talking long, harsh, piercing-your-skin-to-the-nerve thorns. They put it on him. They began to salute him. Like they would their own ruler. Hail the king of the Jews. They're mockingly pretending that he would be the king, but obviously wanting to rub in his fate. And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. When we look at this, we see before, verse 15, before this even happened, he's scorched. That's a cat of nine tails. That's rope with bone and glass in it. So he's already had his back completely torn apart. Now he's going through this other suffering. The disciples have abandoned him. He's alone. He's been beaten by the chief priests and their soldiers. He's been scourged by Pilate. And now the elite Roman guard are beating him and mocking him. We're gonna see the power of the world here. There's a certain power and strength being displayed. God has made this His image. There's a strength being displayed here that is, well, classically Rome, might to destroy. We see here the might to destroy. We see here really sin on display. There's 600 men created in the image of God. Seeing God. Not knowing this is God, but it's amazing. They're going to mock Him and beat Him. It's amazing the power that's displayed here and now, what sin really looks like. If you want to know what sin really looks like, this is us, despising God's righteous reign, despising God's good authority. This is what sin looks like. There's also another power being displayed here. It's God's love. Christ takes it. He endures. He's a God of all universe who could simply make a simple signal and there's myriads of myriads, there's legions and legions of angels who were just eager to come down and crush these Roman guards. He himself could speak the word and they would be destroyed. But that's not the plan. His plan and purpose is to suffer for us. So he remains silent and submissive. We see here the power of Christ's love. Martin Luther is known for many things, the Reformation, and one of the key doctrines is the theology of the cross. Because he says in the cross, we see who the Savior is and how he saves us most clearly. We see His love and being willing to endure. We see His power that, that, that He Himself cannot be destroyed, but He gives us a life over. We see His great plan of salvation, and we see it most clearly in the cross. And then He applies that. The theology of the cross also means that in our own suffering is where we see Christ in His love for us the most. We want a theology of glory. We want a theology that says, God, show me how much you love me by how easy and comfortable and nice and pleasant my life can be. But that's not how God has revealed himself in his salvation, and it's not how God reveals himself today, in just that way. Christ is most clearly seen in our suffering. The context of the good news matters in the midst of the difficulties. Christ is wanting to speak. Christ is speaking. Are we listening? He may appear silent, but is it because we're refusing to see that suffering is His plan, and it's good, and it's right, because it's going to sanctify us and help us see Him more? Christ's suffering was necessary for our salvation. We must embrace our suffering is necessary to see Christ. As we conclude, we can see a king who sits in silence, but with great power. We see a king who is a substitute. He dies for sins. He does not commit to give us great security. And then he suffers. He suffers so that we can know him and his goodness. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that your plan is perfect. We thank you that your ways are so much higher than ours, even though we really wish you would agree with ours. Lord, in the midst of great suffering, you've sent your Son, so that we can know you, we can trust you. And Mr. Great Suffering, I pray that you would help us to look to you, to see how good and powerful and loving you are. Lord, build up our faith in Christ rather than what we want our circumstances to be. Help us, Lord, to be thankful that Christ suffered for us so that we might know you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.