Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets. --Luke 6:22-23
Human nature is cruel. From our childhood we crave acceptance from our peers, yet we learn early on to tease one another and mock each other, trying to make ourselves feel superior to others. This universal human trait of verbal abuse is honed and sharpened through adolescence into early adulthood, when it is used as a weapon of choice for separating ourselves from someone strange and different, for ostracizing the out group while seeking approval from the in group.
In our passage today, Jesus is vilified and disparaged by three different groups of people. We will take a look at those people, and see what Jesus went through in the hours leading up to His crucifixion.
And the soldiers led Him away inside the palace (that is, the governor's headquarters), and they called together the whole battalion. And they clothed Him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on Him. And they began to salute Him, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And they were striking His head with a reed and spitting on Him and kneeling down in homage to Him. 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. 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. And they brought Him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull). And they offered Him wine mixed with myrrh, but He did not take it. And they crucified Him and divided His garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified Him. And the inscription of the charge against Him read, "The King of the Jews." --Mark 15:16-26
The first group of people we see mocking and deriding Jesus are the soldiers. Now most professional soldiers are supposed to keep their thoughts to themselves. They are supposed to follow orders without inserting their own ideas or words into the scene. These Roman soldiers, however, had a heyday with persecuting Jesus. Perhaps some of them had been assigned to crowd control whenever Jesus came through the streets with throngs of followers behind Him. Maybe they had tried to keep order when Jesus had taught in the local synagogues or from someone's home.
The followers of Jesus did not respect order--remember when Jesus was teaching and the crowds were so large that a group of four men climbed up on the roof and tore it open so they could lower their paralyzed friend down to where Jesus stood? Hoodlums. Vandals. Heathens. These were the types of people who followed this lunatic called Jesus.
And now the soldiers were given a the order to crucify Him for crimes against Rome, and the placard they were supposed to post above His cross said, "The King of the Jews." It was all too much. They thought they might have a bit of fun at His expense. They stripped Jesus, and put a purple robe on Him. "You think You are a king? I'll show You what a king looks like." They fashioned some thorns into a crown and placed it on His head. They picked up a reed and shoved it toward Him. "Here's your scepter, your Majesty," I can hear them smirking. When He did not take the reed, they beat Him with it.
When all the fun was over, they led Him out to be crucified. When He fell under the weight of the cross, the soldiers grabbed a random man out of the crowd, an out-of-towner and father of two, to carry His cross. The procession went down out of Jerusalem (which was built on a hill called Mount Zion) and up another hill called Golgotha. They nailed Jesus to the cross, along with the inscription, then continued to mock Him. "Wine, my liege?" Jesus turned away from the noxious blend they offered Him.
And with Him they crucified two robbers, one on His right and one on His left. 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, save Yourself, and come down from the cross." So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked Him to one another, saying, "He saved others; He cannot save Himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe." --Mark 15:27-32a
The second group of people to mock Jesus that day were the religious leaders. They were the ones who passed by in front of the cross, hurling insults up at Him. They had heard Him teaching and had seen His miracles. They thought that His comments about the Temple were nothing but heresy, so they tried to throw His own words back in His face. These were the religious leaders who saw Jesus healing the sick and raising the dead, and then demanding more signs from Him whenever they confronted Him. Nothing was ever enough for them, and even now they demanded another sign, another miracle. "Show off Your divine power," they were saying, "and rescue Yourself. Escape the nails holding Your hands and feet, and heal Your own wounds, if You're so high and mighty."
Those who were crucified with Him also reviled Him. --Mark 15:32b
The third group of people to mock Jesus were the thieves who had been convicted to die with Him there that day. Now we know from other gospel accounts that one of the condemned repented, and sought mercy from Jesus. Mark doesn't mention him, but this account may indicate that there were perhaps more than three crosses on that hill that day. We don't know for sure, but we do know that at least one of the robbers ridiculed Him. In his human condition, the robber saw Jesus as no better than himself--a mere human, condemned to die, outcast from society and convicted of a crime. After all, why else would He have been there hanging from his hands and feet, slowly bleeding out and dying of exposure?
These three groups of people represent lost people even today. There are those who believe Jesus to be merely human, no better than themselves. They seek to elevate their own humanity above Jesus' divinity, and ridicule any attempt to humble themselves or to elevate the Christ. There are also those who were raised in the religious community who are always seeking signs and wonders. They elevate Jesus to celebrity status as long as He entertains them, feeds them or meets their physical needs. When Jesus is silent, however, they seek out other false teachers who uphold their own orthodoxy and meet their emotional needs in other ways. Finally there are those who absolutely abhor all that Jesus stands for. They kick Him and spit on Him whenever they can. They hurl verbal abuse at Jesus and all who follow Him, trying to make themselves feel superior.
A few years after Jesus was crucified, we hear about a man named Paul. He himself was a religious leader, a Pharisee who would have ridiculed this man who called Himself the Christ. Not only that, Paul had been a zealot, physically persecuting and putting to death any and all who followed Jesus. After Paul's miraculous conversion to Christianity, however, Paul preached Jesus to all three of these groups. He preached to religious leaders, to commoners, to prisoners, and even to Roman prison guards. You see, no matter which group you fall into, you are not beyond forgiveness.
Maybe you are an adult who has made fun of other people to make yourself feel better. Maybe you have made fun of Christians for their beliefs, for their blind faith. Perhaps you have physically persecuted someone for his or her religious beliefs, or perhaps you think of Jesus as just a man, no more than a myth or a legend. I pray you would consider the evidence, and humble yourself. I pray you would come to Jesus and learn from Him. When you hear His voice, I pray you would respond positively to His calling. It could change your life.
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