Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Book: Mark

  • How Will You Understand All the Parables?

    How Will You Understand All the Parables?

    About this sermon

    Jesus teaches the parable of the sower, of seed falling on the path, rocky ground, among thorns, and on good soil. Parables have a twofold purpose: they reveal the secret of the kingdom to disciples and conceal it from outsiders. The parable checks sowers: they sow the word broadly and leave the results to God, since much seed will not take root. It also challenges hearers to examine what kind of soil they are. The thorny soil, where the cares of the world, deceitful riches, and desires for other things choke the word, may be the most common in today’s distracted churches.

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    Sermon transcript

    If you would remain standing, our scripture text for this evening is taken from the Gospel of Mark. Mark chapter 4, verses 1 through 20. We’ll be doing a new sort of topical series based on the parables, so we’ll have a selection of different parables. We won’t always be reading consecutively through. This evening, we’re gonna be in the gospel of Mark. Mark chapter four, verses one through 20. This is the word of God.

    Again, he began to teach beside the sea, and a very large crowd gathered about him. So they got into a boat and sat in it on the sea. And the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. And he was teaching them many things in parables. And in his teaching, he said to them, listen, behold, a sower went out to sow.

    And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path. And the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil. And immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched. And since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. Other seeds fell into good soil, growing up and increasing and yielding 30-fold, 60-fold, and 100-fold.

    And he said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And when he was alone, those around him with the 12 asked him about the parables. And he said to them, to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God. But for those outside, everything else is in parables, so that they may indeed see, but not perceive, and may indeed hear, but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven. And he said to them, Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word, and these are the ones along the path where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.

    And these are the ones sown on rocky ground, the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. and they have no root in themselves but endure for a while, then when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit 30-fold and 60-fold and 100-fold.

    This ends the reading of God’s word. Let’s pray. Our great God and Father in heaven, you who have breathed out this word. inspired Mark long ago to record these words of our Lord Jesus Christ. And you preserve them that we may read them. And now, Lord, we ask for your spirit, that your spirit might give us life, that we might be awakened, made alive to the truth that is within your word. be blessing to us and might be glory and praise to you. We pray that you’d be with the preaching and the hearing by your spirit for Jesus’ sake. Amen. You may be seated. I’ve titled this message, How Will You Understand All the Parables, which is a quote, as you may have seen, from Jesus asking his disciples, And for the children, you can be listening for the words unexpected, reality, and warning.

    Well, what is your favorite sandwich? One of my favorite sandwiches is called a Reuben, a Reuben sandwich. But have you ever heard of a Markin sandwich? Well, a Reuben is something you can eat. It’s got corned beef and sauerkraut. But a Markin sandwich is not something you can eat.

    It’s a term that theologians use to describe one of Mark’s favorite literary devices. Mark doesn’t like to… On the side, the way John does, of parenthetical remarks. Instead, Mark shows us things in his gospel by where he places them in connection to each other.

    Mark will take two passages which are clearly related, the bread of the sandwich, at the beginning and the end, and then stick a third passage in the middle, which is the meat and cheese, or PB&J if you prefer. in order to highlight something that is going on. Just like how in a sandwich the bread is necessary, but it’s not usually the most exciting part of the sandwich. The outside passages are there to help highlight the part that is in the middle.

    Another thing that you might sometimes hear scholars talk about is called a chiasm. This comes from the Greek letter chi, which looks like the English letter X. Now one way to look at the letter X is to see it as two arrows that are pointing towards one another, that get bigger, that get smaller towards the center.

    So that the main point of a passage is right in the middle. And the scripture does this all the time. The main point of a chiasm or a Marken sandwich is what’s going on in the middle of a passage. And it can sometimes be highlighted by putting parallel or at least similar stories on either end to highlight the middle part. Now that’s a long way of explaining that we can tell by the setup in this passage that Mark is showing us that these middle verses in our passage are the most important.

    Verses one through nine, we get the telling of the parable. This is the first slice of bread. And then we get the meat in verses 10 through 12. And then verses 13 through 20, the explanation of the parable. And this is the second slice of bread. Now the meat of the sandwich is meant to help us understand the whole of the passage.

    As I said, I thought it would be helpful to do a mini-series here at Grace on parables between now and when I leave for the Boardwalk Chapel of the last week in May. When I get back, I hope to do a series on the book of Samuel in the fall. And so even though we’re looking at, I’ve chosen a series of parables, many of them from Matthew’s gospel, which reveal important things about the kingdom of God. But to start off our series in parables, I think we need to start with this, even though it may be a familiar parable, because Jesus says it’s the Rosetta Stone. in verse 13.

    It’s the key to all the other parables. Key to understanding. So it’s got something in here which is important for us to understand the rest of the parables. So this evening we’re gonna look at our passage and we’re gonna find three lessons from this passage. Number one, the unexpected purpose of parables. Number two, a reality check for sowers, and number three, a warning for soils. Number one, the unexpected purpose of parables. This parable is explained by Jesus to be the code breaker for his other parables. Verse 13, he says, if you don’t get this parable, how will you understand any of the others?

    We often think about parables as good illustrations. A good illustration engages the listener. It makes the idea more interesting and better understood. Sometimes pastors are taught to look to Jesus as the model for using good illustrations, particularly in his parables.

    But there’s a little bit of a problem with that advice. Because when Jesus explains in our passage his reason for speaking in parables, It doesn’t fully line up with that. Verses 10 and 12. Verses 10, 11, and 12, Jesus says to his disciples, to you has been given, but to those outside, so that they may not see, they may not perceive. Jesus gives a quote from Isaiah chapter six, verses nine and 10, which is why we read the whole chapter earlier in our service.

    And he said, go and say to this people, keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes. Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn, and be healed. Isaiah was hoping for a hopeful message. He said, hear me, and send me to your people. And God told him, your message will make them harder, will make them not respond. In fact, it will lead to the exile when houses will be uninhabited. And then notice Mark’s version in our passage in verse 12, so that they may indeed see and not perceive. They may indeed hear, but not understand, lest they turn and be forgiven.

    The Gospel of Matthew also includes this same parable in Matthew chapter 13. And in Matthew chapter 13, when we find this same parable, we find Matthew quoting it slightly differently. Matthew chapter 13 verses 14 and 15. In this case Matthew quotes Jesus saying, indeed in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says, you will indeed hear but never understand, you will indeed see but never perceive.

    For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear. And their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them. When Matthew quotes this passage, he highlights the emphasis on the hardness of heart already present in the hearers. While our passage in Mark, highlighting the sovereignty of God in hardening the hearers. And this has led many people to be uncomfortable.

    Some commentators have even tried to say that there must be a mistranslation or faulty manuscripts with Mark. But there’s no reason, there’s nothing to suggest that we have anything less than what Mark actually wrote. There’s nothing to suggest that the words here are any different than what Mark intended to write, inspired by the Holy Spirit. And so what we have before us in the Gospel of Mark is what Mark, inspired by the Spirit, intended to write down for our instruction today. One commentator puts it, he says, Mark is unwilling to relax the tension between divine sovereignty and human will in the accomplishment of God’s will.

    Rather, he holds them in juxtaposition. Juxtaposition, of course, is a word that simply means to place side by side. It’s usually done to highlight a comparison or a contrast between two things. A black silhouette might be juxtaposed on a white background. Picture of a tree in winter might be juxtaposed against a picture of that tree in full leaf in summer.

    So the commentator is saying that instead of completely resolving the question of how God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in the hardening of hearts relate to each other. Instead of explaining that completely, Mark is simply placing them side by side.

    Scripture takes both of these two truths and asserts them. God is sovereign and in charge of all that exists and comes to pass. And simultaneously, Scripture asserts the man bears responsibility for his thoughts and words and actions. And Jesus tells his disciples, after he tells the parable to the crowds, that the parables have a kind of weeding out effect on purpose. The crowds come and hear Jesus.

    They hear him speak about earthly realities with perhaps above average insight, but nothing more. Their curiosity is not piqued. Have you ever talked to someone who’s very polite and nice, but never asks a single follow-up question? You tell them about your life, your recent struggles, your interests, and they offer a few affirmations or platitudes, but they don’t ask you any questions about what you just said, and it can feel like they don’t care. That’s what this crowd is like for Jesus. Very well told. Glad that was on your heart. Smart guy. And they walk away. They utterly lack a hunger to know more. That is part of the problem. It’s only Jesus’ followers who come asking, what do you need?

    So Jesus explains the twofold purpose of parables in this passage. He says, the parables, they will remain an impenetrable barrier to those who content with their sin and with their way of life without a concern for God. For them, it will be an impenetrable barrier. They can’t hear the echoes of eternity which ring through the parables which Jesus tells. But for others, the parables will be like appetizers, prompting greater hunger, spurring them to seek out answers, to find out what those echoes of eternity mean, which is why the disciples came and asked Jesus afterwards. There’s a sense in which parables put eternal truth just out of reach. And for some, this prompts seeking Jesus out, But for others, that’s an insurmountable barrier.

    When my dad was just a toddler, he is told this story. His parents would put food in front of him that he didn’t want to eat in his high chair. And he would feign inability to reach it. Holding his elbows back against his back, he would cry out, can’t reach, can’t reach. And this is what those who do not have ears to hear are doing. They can understand the words. They refrain from seeking further meaning. In the face of eternal truths, they yawn and move on.

    So this is why Jesus concludes his parable with this exhortation. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Let’s take a look at the meaning of this parable as we move on to number two. I believe this parable has two audiences in mind. It’s meant to be heard by those who are sowing seed and also by those who have been planted in. So first, number two, a reality check for sowers. The parable begins with a sower.

    Now, sowing is slightly different than planting. We have plenty of gardeners here in our congregation that are doing lots of planting right now. With planting, you dig a hole or hoe a furrow, and you place the seed directly onto the soil and carefully cover it back up with soil. But sowing is much faster, which is what you do over large areas. you simply scatter it over a wide area.

    I worked in landscaping for six years, and twice a year we would put grass seed down. We would put it into these large rolling buckets, and we would roll them around, and they would be scattering the seed all over the ground. In order to get to the very edges of the sidewalk and the road, we always ended up scattering some onto the sidewalk and the road. Otherwise, you wouldn’t get to the edge. But when we would transplant flowers, we were much more intentional. We would dig out carefully and plant each plant in a particular spot.

    But when you’re sowing grass seed, for instance, or other crops, the goal is simply to make sure you get all the ground covered. And the parable is simple. A sower is sowing. He’s throwing seed out, and inevitably, not all of it is hitting perfect soil.

    The first soil doesn’t even show a hint of germination. It might as well be concrete. The second soil shows immediate promise with rapid growth, but it turns out to be too shallow to even withstand sunshine. And the third soil is deep enough to withstand sunshine and is growing well, but it can’t take the competition, so it doesn’t make it to harvest either. The fourth soil described avoids all three problems, and the grain makes it to full harvest, with the caveat that results may vary.

    Jesus explains that the seed in the parable is the Word of God. And the soils are different groups of hearers. Now, in some ways, this parable might be a little bit meta, as they say. What I mean by that is that the parable is portraying the reality of which it is a part. Jesus is telling the parable while he’s acting the parable out. Jesus is clearly a sower. He is sowing the word of God among the crowds. And we’re meant to see that Jesus teaching the crowds is like him casting seed indiscriminately on all kinds of ground.

    And we know that he had a variety of responses from his hearers. So the first application that we could make from this parable is to understand that when Jesus teaches, there’s going to be all sorts of different responses that are a reflection not of the word that he is teaching, but of the prior state of the hearts of the listeners. The word is what grows, but it only grows in certain contexts. And the different responses are not a reflection of the word, but of the hearers, which are not all equal. But I don’t think, of course, we’re meant to restrict the meaning of the parable to Jesus as the only sower. Jesus was telling this parable to his disciples, whom he would send out very shortly to go preach as well.

    And I think we can safely extend this to all the followers of Jesus, even us today who are called to sow the word. And what does sowing the word look like? Well, I think it means taking opportunities that you easily have. and even looking for more opportunities that arise to speak the gospel truth into people’s ears. That might be preaching on a street corner for some people, but it might be discipling your children at home, encouraging someone at church with the truth or the promises of God’s word. being ready to share the most amazing news, that sinners can be reconciled to God through Jesus’s death and resurrection, even to the cashier at Walmart.

    It’s the truth of God. It’s the word of God, which grows into a harvest, producing fruit in people’s lives. They don’t just need good advice, a comforting ear. They need to be born again by the living and abiding word. So don’t be bashful about sharing the news that could completely transform someone’s life. But I think Jesus is also giving us a reality check in this parable.

    It’s interesting that it’s four different kinds of dirt. The active character is a sower who sends something life-containing into different kinds of dirt. The sower does his part to make sure the dirt gets the seed. But there’s no call for the dirt to change itself here or to fix itself. The dirt just is the way it is. And the sower doesn’t control whether the dirt is good or not. His role is to simply make sure all of the dirt gets some seed on it.

    This is the sad reality of evangelism. We can’t change people. Our role is to give them the seed. As far as it depends on us to make sure the seed lands on them. But we aren’t in charge of the growth. And the difficult reality is that only some people who hear the gospel will respond in faith. But in this sad reality is a hidden encouragement. The sower isn’t doing anything to the ground. He’s not plowing it, he’s not gathering rocks, or even weeding it. He’s just sowing the word and leaving the results.

    With eternity at stake, for those who don’t know Jesus, it’s easy to feel undue pressure. about our role in evangelism or sharing the word with others. We can think it all depends on us and how we perform. Did we use the best technique? Were we eloquent enough? Did we relate to them? Were we clear enough? All of those are fine questions to ask and ways to improve.

    But they shouldn’t overshadow the reality that in the right soil, God’s word will grow. It’s not your job to fix the soil. It’s merely your job to sow the word. Even on the good soil, it doesn’t all produce extraordinary results, as we saw. Some 30%, some 60%, and some 100-fold. You don’t have control over what condition the soil is in. You should care about people, of course, but at the same time realize that when sowing the word, there will be all kinds of different soil. In some people, the word will grow in surprising ways. While others, it will flounder and die. Don’t be discouraged. And don’t be burdened with a responsibility that isn’t yours. You do your part. Sow the word and trust God to do his.

    And having looked at the reality check that this parable gives to sowers, thirdly, we’ll now consider what it says to hearers. Because I think there’s an additional application for hearers. Jesus said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. So number three, a warning for soils. Although the only active character in this parable is the sower, I think we should consider it to be a secondary application to those who hear the word. In verse nine, we have Jesus, his concluding exhortation, he who has ears to hear, let him hear.

    And furthermore, the focus of the middle of this passage, the meat, as we saw of the Marken Sandwich, is about different kinds of hearers, those that hear but don’t understand. So I think we’re meant to hear Jesus’ teaching here and ask, is it I? It’s meant to provoke introspection. What soil am I? Verse 15 explains the first soil. The sown word lands on this soil, but it’s hard and packed down. Before it has a chance to germinate, the seed is snatched away by outside evil forces.

    Just an example, I’ve had times at the Boardwalk Chapel where I’m sharing the gospel with someone and their friends will suddenly come up and just literally drag them away out of the conversation. And sometimes that’s all they need to get out of the conversation and they’ll cut and run. Don’t discount the role of spiritual warfare in your sharing the word. whether it be to an unbeliever or someone within the body. Don’t discount the role of spiritual warfare in sharing or hearing the word. There’s an expression, in one ear and out the other.

    This hardened soil doesn’t keep the seed long enough to even mull over it. These people paused for a second for the words to enter, but before they can even think about it, they keep moving. and they don’t think about it anymore. Verse 16 and 17 explain the meaning of the second soil. This soil actually sounds the most promising at first. None of the other soils are said to receive the word with joy.

    I’ve had experiences of sharing the gospel with people who were very appreciative. They excited, they seemed to be tracking with everything that I was saying. I got their number. I texted them to help them get them into a church. And after a couple of responses, they ghosted me. There’s nothing wrong with receiving the word with joy. That’s a good thing. But for these people, their emotional reaction to the good news didn’t go any deeper.

    And when the emotion changed, when action was required, or when difficulty appeared, these people are out. There are some churches today that are just trying to achieve that initial spark, believing that the initial emotion is enough to sustain people all the way for life. People need deep, difficult truths from God’s Word to sustain them through the difficulties of life. They need to be told that following Christ is hard, but it’s worth it. Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of heaven. That’s what Paul told all new believers in the churches that he was planting.

    18 and 19 explain the meaning of the third soil. This soil is different from the others because there’s nothing wrong with the soil itself. It isn’t packed down and it isn’t full of rocks. The problem comes from what else is trying to grow. in that soil alongside the good word. These people aren’t phased by the difficulties in the Christian life. They know following Jesus will be hard, but worth it. They know church, Bible reading, and prayer are important. They’re just really busy.

    They’ve got a lot of other things going on. There’s a lot to be worried about. It says, the cares of the world. and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things. I think this third soil is the most scary and the most common within churches today. We live in a busy world. We’re surrounded by, more than ever, things that keep us distracted. Cares of the world.

    This keys us into the fact that worries and fear is one way that God’s word can be prevented from bearing fruit in our lives. So we need to be careful that worrying about our own or others’ problems doesn’t take our eyes off of Christ. Keep yourself close to the word and to those that can sow it into you. The deceitfulness of riches.

    When my wife and I were first talking about buying a house, our first house, a number of years ago, my wife had a high concern that it not become a distraction from Christ and ministry. I was eventually able to persuade her that owning a home doesn’t necessarily conflict with our ability to follow Christ. But I think it would be good if more of us were asking that kind of question. What are we doing if we have these concerns?

    The Bible never says that money is inherently evil, but it has terrible warnings that the desire for it and the pursuit of it can easily derail Christians’ lives. If we’re always convinced that we don’t have enough money, then we’ll be worrying about will be deceived by riches. And if we are convinced that we don’t have enough money to worry about being deceived by riches, we may be deceiving ourselves. Because Jesus doesn’t specify the amount of money, just that the pursuit of it can be deceitful. Paul warns Timothy, that in pursuit of wealth, some church members, fellow ministers that he had served alongside with, had pierced themselves with many pangs. And then Jesus says, desires for other things is a thorn in this soil. It chokes out the word.

    I remember when I was in middle school, maybe starting high school as well, I remember being completely obsessed with these Lord of the Rings miniature models, tabletop gaming, for some of you that may know that. And my brothers and I, we would buy them, we would paint them, we would craft different terrain and set up battles with each other and with our friends. And I also remember in middle school distinctly realizing one Sunday in church that during the whole sermon, my brain had been constantly thinking what I was going to do with those models. I was envisioning the paint colors I would use, running over the rules and the strategy that would work best and be able to win the battle that time. All I could think about was what I would and I realized I had a problem. Jesus knew that many good things can be a distraction. Satan’s favorite way to keep us from praying is to remember all of the good things that we need to be doing.

    So don’t let the competing weeds in your heart get bigger than the Word of God. Either the plant of the Word of God will dominate, or the weeds will dominate. Keep an eye on the weeding, on the weeds that try to grow in your heart, because you cannot afford to neglect the weeding.

    Then verse 20, Jesus lays out a posture that characterizes the good soil. He says, the good soil hears the word and accepts it. God’s word bears fruit in the hearts of those who don’t just let it pass through their ears, but they embrace it into their hearts. When the word of God is received and embraced, it’s powerfully fruitful. Just as we notice the application to sowers, we see the juxtaposition, the laying side by side, God’s side by side and man’s responsibility in this. It’s God’s Word, the seed that bears the fruit, that grows into maturity. He sovereignly oversees the growth in the good soil. But the good soil, it embraces, it accepts that powerful seed. Our role is experientially active. We actively choose to embrace the Word of God in our lives. And yet what is planted and what grows is of God. And even the condition of our soil is granted to us by God.

    And this gives us good reason to rejoice, to see that God would have given us grace to be that good soil. to not only hear the Word of God, but accept it and believe it. That acceptance, which we would call faith, is not something we can produce by our own desire, but it is something in which we are experientially active. The Bible commands us to believe. Logically, God must give us the faith to believe and embrace God’s Word in our lives, and as a result, We find God to be believable and trustable.

    So let’s be the good soil. Let’s do that with the word from God even this evening. Listen, hear, accept, and bear fruit. And if you want to bear fruit, of course, there’s only one way to do that. You embrace the word of God sown in your heart. And then he will cause the life of Jesus, the righteousness of Jesus, and the holiness of Jesus to be a reality in your life.

    Amen. Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for being the good sower and the sovereign God who cultivates the good soil. Lord, we thank you for the grace you have given that we might receive and accept your word, receive and accept you as our only savior, as our life. Lord Jesus, we ask that if there are any, tonight, or who hear this message, that you might grant them to be that good soil that might bear much fruit from hearing and believing your word. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. In response, let’s turn now to Psalm 273. Break thou the bread of life. Let’s stand and sing M273.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Do Not Hinder Them!

    Do Not Hinder Them!

    About this sermon

    When people bring children to Jesus and the disciples rebuke them, he is indignant: “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.” He takes them in his arms and blesses them. Children of believers have a place in Christ’s kingdom, as God’s covenant has always included them, and parents are to teach them God’s ways, as Deuteronomy 6 commands. The church should therefore not hinder them but give them the covenant sign of baptism and welcome them in worship, even when they are noisy.

    More sermons from Mark · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Well, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word and for my sermon text this morning we turn to the Gospel of Mark, a very short passage in the Gospel of Mark appropriate to the occasion this morning of being able to witness a baptism in just a little bit. Mark chapter 10 verses 13 through 16, Mark 10 verses 13 through 16, you’ll find that on page 1006 in your Pew Bible. This is the Word of God, hear it with reverence and awe. And they were bringing children to Him that He might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, He was indignant and said to them, let the children come to Me, do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.

    And He took them in His arms and blessed them, laying His hands on them. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God to bless the preaching of His Word today. Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you and praise you that our Savior has taken us into His mighty arms, that He has embraced us with His saving love. And we thank you, O Lord, for this reminder of that in this portion of your Word. We ask, O Lord, as we approach this portion of Holy Scripture, we ask that your Spirit would illuminate our minds and our hearts. We pray that you would indeed open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your Word. And we ask that you would grant me the grace to speak forth your Word with clarity and power and faithfulness to the edification of your people and the glory of your name.

    In Jesus’ name we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen. Amen. You may be seated. Well, children, if you have your sermon outlines this morning, there’s a lot of words you can be listening for in my sermon today, and I’d encourage you, you can maybe choose one word or a couple words and count the number of times that I say those words. But here’s the words to be listening for in my sermon today. The words covenant, children, bless, kingdom, faith, humility, and salvation. Well, dear friends, what is the place of infants and young children in the Church of Jesus Christ? Are the children of believers to be regarded as full members of the covenant community who are just as capable of receiving the grace and blessing of Christ as our older children and adults?

    Or are children in the church to be viewed as little pagans whom the church must relegate either to the nursery or to children’s church or something like that, at least until they’re old enough to make a mature decision for Christ on their own? And most important of all, what is our Savior’s attitude toward the young children of God’s children? Well, dear ones, our passage for this Lord’s Day morning gives us some very clear and helpful teaching on these controversial matters. These matters that shouldn’t be controversial, but sadly in the history of the church they have at times been controversial. Now the importance of this account that we are considering this morning is highlighted by the fact that this account shows up three times in Holy Scripture. The Spirit, the Holy Spirit who breathed out the Scriptures saw fit to make sure that this event, this occasion in the life of our Lord’s earthly ministry is repeated three times in His inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word.

    This account is recorded not only here in Mark’s Gospel, but it is also recorded in Matthew’s Gospel, in Matthew 19, verses 13 through 15, as well as Luke’s Gospel in Luke 18, verses 15 through 17. The fact that this account is repeated by the Holy Spirit three times helps to underscore just how important to our Lord Jesus are the children of His followers. In terms of the context of this passage and the placement of this account in Mark’s narrative, it’s interesting to note that Mark records Jesus’s teaching on marriage and divorce earlier in this chapter in chapter 10, verses 1 through 12, and then following this account that we read of, he touches upon issues of money and possessions in the account of the rich young ruler which follows our passage for today in verses 17 through 31 of our chapter.

    So the subject that our Lord addresses here in Mark chapter 10, the subjects of marriage and divorce, children and possessions, these are obviously subjects that naturally connect and intersect one with another. And so it makes sense that Jesus gives this teaching when He gives it and that Mark records the teaching where He records it here in the flow of His narrative. So with all of that in mind, let’s approach our passage for this passage. The first thing we note here in this passage is Christ’s determination to bless covenant children, Christ’s determination to bless covenant children. Now if you’re around OPC and Reformed Circles, you are probably familiar with that terminology of covenant children, but if you’re unfamiliar with that, when we refer to covenant children, we’re basically talking about the children of God’s children, the children of professing believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

    And we see here in this passage Jesus’s determination to bless such children. Let’s take a look. Let’s dive into verse 13. It says, and they were bringing children to Him that He might touch them. Who’s the they? Well, the implication in this context is that they are those who believe in Jesus. They at least at some level are His followers. They trust Him. That’s why they’re bringing their children to Him. Says they were bringing children to Him. Why? That He might touch them. And the disciples said, welcome. So glad to have you. So glad you’re bringing your children to Jesus. No. What do the disciples do? It says the disciples rebuke them. Get those children away. Jesus is much too important to be bothered with those little ones. Now, some might say, well, OK, they’re bringing their children to Jesus, but maybe these were slightly older children.

    Ah, but when we compare this with the parallel passage in Luke’s gospel in Luke 18 verse 15, it is clear that these children were very young children, even infants. Turn with me if you would to Luke chapter 18 and look at verse 15, Luke 18 verse 15. In Luke’s account of this event, this occasion, this occurrence in our Lord’s earthly ministry, it says this, now they were bringing even infants to Him that He might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. So clearly, even infants who are incapable of making any kind of decision, mature or not for Christ, are being brought to the Lord Jesus. And why are they being brought to the Lord Jesus? Well, Mark tells us these parents brought their infant children, their young children to Jesus that He might touch them.

    Why do they want Jesus to touch them? Well, the parallel passage in Matthew 19 verse 13 says that He might lay His hands on them and pray. They don’t just want Him to just kind of like touch them. They want Him to bless their children, to pray for their children, lay His hands on them as a sign of blessing and pray for their children. Clearly, these parents wanted the Lord Jesus to touch their children so that their children might receive His blessing. And what kind of a blessing are they looking for? Are they looking for Jesus to bless their children so their children will grow up to be wealthy and successful by worldly terms? No, it’s clear from the context of our passage, beloved, that the blessing these parents want for their children is obviously a spiritual blessing.

    For they want the Savior to touch their children. And He lays His hand on them. He lays His hands on them and He prays for them. As John Calvin writes, there is no room therefore to doubt that they ask for them, the parents ask for their children, a participation in His grace. They’re bringing their children to Jesus so that Jesus might bless them with His saving grace. What Calvin is claiming is that these parents, again, were bringing their children to Jesus so that He might bless them with the gift of salvation. And what does that indicate? Well, that indicates that they understand that even their infant children are sinful and need God’s saving grace. They’re sinful children. We all inherit a sin nature from Adam. We all receive the corruption of original sin from the original covenant head and representative of humanity, namely, Father Adam.

    And we are born in Adam’s fallen image. And therefore, even from the moment of conception, we need the intervention of divine grace in order to enjoy the gift of salvation from the Lord. But not only in bringing these children to Jesus, not only do these parents recognize that their children are sinful and need the Savior’s cleansing, they also by implication trust the Lord Jesus as the source of salvation. That’s why they’re bringing their children to Jesus and not to someone else. And not only that, by bringing their children to the Lord Jesus, they believed that He had the power, the authority, and the willingness to bestow the wonderful gift of salvation upon their dear covenant children, even though their children were not yet old enough to consciously believe in Christ or respond to the gospel call.

    But why do, how do, again, how do the disciples respond? It says the disciples rebuke them. Why? Why were the disciples behaving like such jerks on this particular occasion? Why did they say, get those kids away from Jesus? Well, perhaps they considered little children to be too unimportant for Jesus to waste his, to quote, waste his time on. Their values were still informed by a worldly mindset. They were still imagining the Messiah to be a great and mighty earthly king, and certainly no mighty earthly king wants little infants, screaming, crying infants to be brought before him. Perhaps that’s why they rebuke these parents who desire to bring their little ones to the Lord. But how does Jesus respond to the way that his disciples have treated these parents bringing their children to Jesus? It says when Jesus saw it, he was indignant.

    He wasn’t just mildly annoyed. He was indignant. It’s a strong word. Notice that Jesus wants his followers to bring their children to him so that he might bless them. And he is indignant toward those who would hinder such parents from, such children from receiving his blessing. Now, friends, there are many truths that we can learn from this passage that we are considering today. But one important truth that we should take away from this passage is that we who are blessed to be Christian parents, we should seek to bring our children to Jesus Christ so that they might receive his blessing and salvation. But that raises the question, how do we do that today? How do we do that today since Christ is no longer with us in his bodily presence? He’s with us by the Holy Spirit, but he’s no longer bodily present with us.

    So as he had been with the disciples on this occasion, so how do we bring our children to Jesus? Well, the scriptures indicate that there are a number of ways that we do so. For example, we bring our children to Jesus as we teach, catechize, and educate them in the faith. That was the point of the passage from Deuteronomy that I read earlier. And let’s go back to that passage. Let’s look at Deuteronomy 6 and let me again read verses 4 through 7 where the professed people of God are given this instruction. As in verse 4, here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, that’s the basic confession of faith of God’s people, Yahweh our God is one, we worship one God. We are monotheists, this one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as later revelation would make clear.

    But nonetheless, he is one in being, one in essence. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Total, complete loyalty and allegiance is what is required of us. And notice what he goes on to say in verse 6, and these words that I command you today shall be on your heart, but not only shall the word of God be on your heart, it goes on to say, you shall teach them, you shall teach these words how? Diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Look for teachable moments, look for opportunities to teach your covenant children the ways of the Lord and the truth of the Lord.

    And then Moses envisions a time when covenant children will come to their fathers and say, well what does all of this mean? Look at verses 20 through 25 of Deuteronomy 6, it says, when your son asks you in time to come, what is the meaning of the testimonies and statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you? Then you shall say to your son, we were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. In other words, let me pause there, and he’s saying basically review redemptive history with them, teach them the word of God, teach them the story with a capital S, the true story of God’s amazing redeeming grace as expressed under the old covenant in the rescue of the Israelites from their physical slavery in Egypt, and expressed now today by the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

    We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. We were enslaved to sin and Satan, in other words. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. The Lord has redeemed us through his son by Jesus’s death on the cross. And the Lord showed signs and wonders great and grievous against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household before our eyes. And he brought us out from there that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good always and so forth. And so you bring your children to Jesus, and we, whether we have children or not, we help to bring the covenant children of the church together, we help to bring them to Jesus as we instruct them in the ways of the Lord, teaching them, catechizing them, educating them in the faith.

    Parents can do this in their family life through looking for teachable moments. You can also do this, parents, through having family worship together, family devotions, and that doesn’t have to be complicated. Just sit down together, pray with and for your children, read some scripture, maybe pray for some missionaries. Family devotions, family worship, it’s very important. And also seek to ground your children in a biblical worldview, perhaps through homeschooling or Christian schooling or what have you. And keep your children grounded in the wisdom and word of God. The Proverbs, by the way, are a great resource for Christian parents in raising their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. So we bring our children to Jesus through teaching them. But we also bring our children to Jesus by praying for them. Pray regularly for your children that Christ might bless them with his saving grace.

    That’s what these parents in our account for today. As they bring their infant children to Jesus, he lays his hands on them and he prays for them. They want him to pray for them. Let us bring our children to Jesus that he, as our great high priest and intercessor, may pray for them before the Father. You know, we can’t save our children. We can ground them in sound doctrine, and we should. We can teach them the word of God, and we should. But unless the Spirit blesses the word to their souls, it will fall on hardened soil. So in praying for the salvation of our children, we are recognizing before the Lord, Lord, I can’t save my child. I can’t manipulate them into the kingdom of God. I can’t even educate them into the kingdom of God.

    Your Spirit needs to work in their hearts. And that is how another way that we bring our children to Jesus is by praying for them, bringing them into his presence, pleading his covenant mercies for them. Also be active in your church involvement and have your children actively involved in the church, even from their youngest years. Model for your children the fact that church attendance, church membership is important. It is a grief to me and to many pastors to note that there are many professedly Christian families who will, you know, attend church maybe semi-regularly, but when other things come up, like sporting events. Oh, little Johnny has football practice this Sunday morning. I guess they can’t, I guess we can’t make it to church. I once saw a little tract that said, that had the title, don’t let ball become bale.

    And sadly for many, even professedly Christian parents, sports or school events, theatrical events, concerts, whatever, takes priority over being with the Lord’s people. This is the Lord’s day, brothers and sisters, we need to be with the Lord’s people on the Lord’s day. And that needs to be a priority and our children need to see that that is a top priority in our lives. But perhaps you’re here today and you’re thinking, well, pastor, I don’t have any children. I’m a single person. So what does this have to do with me? Well, we are all in this together, brothers and sisters, whether or not we ourselves have children, we in the church should be very welcoming toward families with young children and we should also praise God for the covenant children in our midst and seek to support them and support their parents in the effort to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

    Let us not be like the disciples who viewed these covenant children and their parents as annoyances. Again, our passage says that the disciples rebuked these parents, but let that not be our attitude. May our church be a place where Christian families feel welcomed as they come to bring their children into the presence of Jesus through his word. And that raises the next issue and that is the place of children in Christ’s kingdom. We see Christ’s determination to bless covenant children. But what is the place of children in Christ’s kingdom? Well, Jesus makes that very clear in verse 14. And this is why Jesus was so indignant. He said to them, let the children come to me. Do not hinder them. That’s a command. Don’t hinder them from coming to me. How dare you hinder these little lambs from coming to me?

    Jesus is saying. Why? For to such belongs the kingdom of God. Now it’s my understanding that some would view Jesus’s statement here as if he were saying look, the kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. Not that it belongs to these children themselves, but to those who are like them. I mean, children are very trusting. They trust authority figures. In fact, if you’re a parent, you know that you have to teach your young children to be cautious around strangers. You know, don’t talk to strangers. Don’t take candy from strangers, especially don’t get into, don’t accept a ride from a stranger. Because children are naturally trusting towards authority figures. But no, is Jesus saying not the children themselves, but those who are like them? No. William Hendrickson, the great Reformed Bible commentator puts it this way.

    He says, the reason Jesus gives for ordering the disciples to allow the little children to come to him and to stop hindering them is, quote, for to such, that is, to them and to all those who in humble trustfulness are like them belongs the kingdom of God. Our Lord’s comment here clearly seems to indicate that he viewed children as having a place in his kingdom. And his kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. It’s the reign of grace and salvation. It is when he speaks of entering the kingdom, he means entering salvation, entering eternal life. And if these children belong to his kingdom, then they ought to be welcomed as members of his visible covenant community, the church. Think about it, friends. If covenant children belong to the kingdom and church of God, then it is certainly proper to infer that they ought to be received into the membership of the church through the sacrament of holy baptism.

    Again, to quote from Calvin, Calvin says, we employ this passage, we, meaning Reformed, we the Reformed employ, use this passage as a shield against the Anabaptists. The word Anabaptist means the rebaptizers, those who rejected infant baptism and required people to get rebaptized. Calvin says of them, they refuse baptism to infants because infants are incapable of understanding that mystery which is denoted by it, by baptism. We on the other hand, maintain that since baptism is the pledge and figure of the forgiveness of sins and likewise of adoption by God, it ought not to be denied to infants whom God adopts and washes with the blood of his son. Their objection, he’s talking about the Anabaptists object to this, why? Their objection that repentance and newness of life are also denoted by baptism is easily answered. And I want you to listen to Calvin, how he answers them.

    He says, infants are renewed by the spirit of God according to the capacity of their age till that power which was concealed within them grows by degrees and becomes fully manifest at the proper time. Calvin goes on to refer to verse 16 where it says, and he, Jesus took them, these little children in his arms, they were small enough for him to embrace in his arms. And what does he do? He took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. In response to that, Calvin says, in short, by embracing them, Jesus, our Lord, testified that they were reckoned by Christ among his flock. And if they were partakers of the spiritual gifts which are represented by baptism, it is unreasonable that they should be deprived of the outward sign. But it is presumption and sacrilege to drive far from the fold of Christ those whom he cherishes in his bosom and to shut the door and exclude as strangers those whom he does not wish to be forbidden to come to him.

    So friends, since our Lord Jesus wants to bless the children of his children, and since covenant children have a place in Christ’s church and kingdom, and since by implication covenant children should not be deprived of the covenant sign of baptism, what then should be our attitude toward the children of the church? That brings me to my next point. Let’s consider the proper attitude toward children in the church, the proper attitude toward children in the church. Brothers and sisters, when you hear a little one vocalizing in the middle of the worship service, maybe vocalizing rather loudly, do you turn and look with annoyance at that child or at his or her parents? I hope not. I hope instead you smile and you praise God that the little lambs of Christ are little brothers and sisters in Christ.

    That’s how we are to view them, that they are here in the covenant assembly. Covenant children are not to be viewed as the disciples view these children as annoyances, as hindrances, no. Covenant children are to be valued and highly esteemed, not demeaned or viewed as annoyances. But pastor, children should be seen but not heard, right? Well, believe it or not, that’s not in the Bible. The Bible does not say children should be seen but not heard. That doesn’t seem to be Jesus’ attitude at all. Jesus says, let them come to me, do not hinder them. Covenant children also should not be viewed as little pagans but instead we should view them as Christian children until they prove themselves to be otherwise. Now let me make an important clarification here. Some might, especially some perhaps from a Baptist background might say, well wait a minute, are you guys saying that the children of God’s children, that they’re saved, that they’re automatically and necessarily saved by baptism?

    Now friends, understand, we in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, we do not accept the false teaching of baptismal regeneration. The idea that every child who receives the covenant sign necessarily and automatically receives the inward grace that is symbolized by that sign. Of course, being the child of godly, believing parents does not automatically guarantee salvation. Covenant children must themselves grow up to believe and repent just like everyone else is called to repent of sins and to believe in Christ as Lord and Savior. That is what they must do if they would be saved by the grace of God. However, they are to be regarded as covenantally holy as the Apostle Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 7 14. And therefore they are to be regarded as part of Christ’s visible church even before they can make a mature profession of faith.

    Even though not all covenant children are saved or will be saved, nevertheless God does not view them as little pagans and neither should we. But that raises the question, what is required for receiving the kingdom of God? Jesus says, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. To receive the kingdom of God, to use this language of Jesus, Jesus is talking about receiving the gift of salvation. For his kingdom is a kingdom of grace and salvation. So what is required for receiving the kingdom of God? Jesus says, truly I say to you, verse 15, truly I say to you, in the Greek it’s amen, meaning take this seriously, this is important. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. William Hendrickson writes, receiving the kingdom of God as a little child means to accept it with genuine, trustful simplicity, with unassuming humility.

    He goes on to say that here Jesus is talking about the simple, humble, unquestioning, trustful manner in which a child accepts what is offered to him. How about you, dear listener? Have you received God’s gift of salvation offered to you in the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ? Have you received that good news as a child? He’s not calling us to have a childish faith, but a childlike faith, a faith that trusts God just as the child of a loving father trusts what his father says. When God makes a promise, he doesn’t make it with sort of a fine print that kind of cancels out the impact of the promise. Do you take God at his word like a child takes his parents at their word? Have you trusted God in Christ? When God says as he does in John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

    Do you take him at his word? Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you trust him, the one who died, to pay the penalty for sin and rose from the dead so that whoever trusts in him for salvation from sin might not perish but have everlasting life? If you do with a childlike trust, then God’s word says you will be saved. You have eternal life. May God grant that even as we mature in Christ, that we would always have not a childish but a childlike faith, a faith that receives the kingdom as a little child would. Amen. Let’s pray. Our Lord and Father in heaven, we praise you and thank you, Lord God, that you save folks from at every stage of life, that your grace is at work in the lives not only of the elderly and the grown and the matured and maturing, but even in the hearts and lives of your elect covenant children.

    We would pray, Lord God, that you would help us as those whom you have shown your covenant mercies to help us, Lord, to appreciate those mercies and to welcome the little lambs in our midst. And we pray even as our Savior welcomes them, we pray these things in His name, and all of God’s people said, Amen. Well, friends, we come now to the portion of our service where we’re going to begin

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  • What To Do When You Lack Faith

    What To Do When You Lack Faith

    About this sermon

    A father brings his son, seized by a spirit, to Jesus after the disciples could not cast it out, and pleads, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us.” Jesus answers, “If you can! All things are possible for one who believes,” and the father cries, “I believe; help my unbelief!” Jesus casts out the spirit and raises the boy. The father thought everything depended on the strength of his faith, but it depends on Christ. Even weak faith that clings to him receives his power, and everyone needs his cleansing from sin more than physical healing.

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    Sermon transcript

    Please remain standing and turn in your copy of the Scriptures to Mark 9. We’ll be looking at Mark 9 this morning. So here now is God’s Word is read beginning in verse 14, Mark chapter 9. And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, it’s Jesus, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. And Jesus asked them, what are you arguing about? And someone from the crowd answered him, Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.

    Jesus answered them, O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me. And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, how long has this been happening to him? And he said, from childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. Jesus said to him, if you can, all things are possible for one who believes. Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, I believe, help my unbelief. When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, you mutant death spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.

    And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out. And the boy was like a corpse. So then most of them said, he’s dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not cast it out? And he said to them, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. Let’s pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word that you have given to us. And we ask, Lord, that you would give us hearts and minds to understand what has been preserved for us. That we would accept it, we would believe it, we would take it up in our hearts and treasure it. And that we would obey it in our lives.

    Lord, we ask that you would send your spirit and make your word alive to us this morning. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. You may be seated. Have you ever witnessed a seizure? It can be absolutely terrifying. I remember one evening I was in high school. A mother in our home school family, our home school group, she stopped by to visit my parents and she found herself struggling with a whole host of health issues, including occasional seizures. And after visiting with my parents, my dad and I walked her out to the car and she suddenly stiffened. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she started shaking. I panicked inside. My dad ran forward and caught her before she hit the ground. With careful, calming words, my dad continued to reassure her that she would be okay.

    I wasn’t even sure if she could hear anything he was saying, but he kept speaking to her as if she could. He carefully sat her down on the seat of the car, tilted her head back so she could breathe without biting her tongue, and then quickly searched for her EpiPen in her purse as she had cautioned him to do if ever a seizure happened at our house. Due to my dad’s quick action, she was back in the realm of consciousness within a few minutes. But I’ll never forget the way that she just seemed to leave her body. The father in our story has been dealing with demon-induced seizures in his son for years. Even regular seizures can have this otherworldly quality to them that make me think of spiritual oppression, so I can only imagine the strain that this father in our passage was going through.

    While this in high school was the first time that I witnessed a seizure firsthand, I’m not a stranger to them. My older cousin, Isaac, has had very severe autism since childhood, which has given him extreme seizures most of his life, so my aunt and uncle are also rather sympathetic to this father’s plight in our story. But I think Mark included this story in his Gospel because he wants us to see what faith looks like in the face of great doubt and difficulty and how it can show up in unlikely places. Because Jesus is a patient and powerful Savior, we can put our trust in him. I think Mark shows us we see three different kinds or stages of faith in this passage. First, we see no faith from verse 19, O faithless generation, and from no faith to what we might call fake faith in verse 23, if you can, and from fake faith to true faith, I believe in verse 24, help my unbelief.

    So let’s look at the first stage is no faith. Our passage opens to a chaotic scene. Jesus has just descended the Mount of Transfiguration in the beginning of the chapter, and he finds that the nine disciples that stayed behind are in a big argument with the scribes. There’s a crowd watching. We don’t know what the argument is about, but as Jesus approaches, the word spreads like wildfire. Jesus is here. Jesus asks, what are you arguing about? It’s not clear exactly who he’s asking specifically. It could be the scribes, the crowd, or his disciples. But a man steps up. Teacher, I brought my son to you. He has a demon. I asked the disciples to cast it out, your disciples, and they were not able. In verse 19, we see Jesus respond to the man, O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you?

    Now, we might at first be taken aback with Jesus’ apparent exasperation, but if we had been reading through Mark, this would not be the first time that we encounter it. In fact, if we look at the previous chapter, chapter 8 in verse 12, just before our passage today, we find Jesus similarly disappointed by a lack of faith. Verses 11 and 12 of chapter 8, the Pharisees began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation. Jesus flat out refused to prove himself to the Pharisees who were skeptically demanding a miracle. Jesus doesn’t do miracles to create faith. He does miracles in response to faith.

    See, the Jews, especially the Pharisees of all people, should have known better than to try to test God. I mean, in the Old Testament, we find passages like this in Numbers 14 and 11. The Lord said to Moses, how long will these people despise me? How long will they not believe in me in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? For Isaiah 65, verse 2, the Lord says, I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices. Jesus didn’t come to do miracles so that people who have no faith would believe in him. Miracles do not have the ability to create faith in the person that sees them. See, people who see miracles will always have alternate explanations that they can create and believe.

    Miracles themselves don’t have that power. Jesus knows that. And he’s unwilling to do magic tricks for the Pharisees who are arguing with his disciples. Now, we don’t know exactly what the Pharisees were arguing with the disciples about, but the subject of miracles appears to be pertinent. You see, the disciples had just failed to heal this demon-possessed boy. And the Pharisees probably have in a heyday. The disciples probably would have been discouraged already by this failure itself, without the mocking Pharisees. But now on top of that, they’re plain baffled. You see, in chapter 6 of Mark, the disciples had been sent out to do this very kind of thing already. They had spent days, weeks, even months, casting out demons, healing the sick, all without Jesus. So why should this be any different? We know that the disciples are stumped because if we look in verse 28, when they’re back at the house alone with Jesus, they ask him, What went wrong?

    And Jesus’ answer has puzzled many. He said to them, This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. Are we meant to interpret this as a special reference to a special category of demons that are vulnerable to prayer? Well, what about Jesus? Was he secretly praying in preparation, or does he just not need to pray? Well, I think the answer is far more simple and straightforward. A lack of prayer on the disciples’ part demonstrated a lack of faith. Prayer is not the secret vulnerability to seizure-inducing demons. It’s a demonstration and fruit of the faith present in the heart of a believing disciple. Prayer not only shows God and others that you believe you need him, but also it’s an expression of that faith. If you believe that you don’t have the resources you need, and you believe there’s someone who has them and can give them to you, then you’ll ask him.

    It’s that simple. But we see in our passage a movement from no faith to fake faith. The next stage of faith is what we might call fake faith. The Father asked Jesus to help if he can. Look at what happens in verse 20. The crowd brings a man and his son who immediately begins convulsing at the sight of Jesus. It’s worth noting that this reminds us that sometimes the presence of God actually brings a storm before it brings the calm that we seek. Job found himself talking to a whirlwind when God first showed up. As the seizure is happening, Jesus asks the Father a question. How long has this been happening? When Matthew and Luke recount this story, they don’t even mention this. But Mark does, because Mark wants you to see Jesus in his patience, in his compassion.

    See, Jesus is not here to just get another healing done and out of the way. Jesus is patiently connecting with the Father of the boy, asking him, how long has this been happening? One commentator notes that for Matthew and Luke, the point of this story is the miracle. But for Mark, the miracle is the penultimate, or we might say second to last, to faith and faith to discipleship. See, for Mark, the significance of Jesus cannot be fully conveyed by what he does, but by who he is. One can be amazed by a miracle, but one can only trust and believe a person. How many of us would jump in, just get the task over with? Did Jesus have to ask this question? It doesn’t appear relevant to the healing. Jesus knows people’s thoughts, so surely he knew how long this boy had been suffering.

    Jesus is not seeking new information for himself. He’s patiently connecting with his troubled father. This man is ravaged by stress, probably at his wit’s end, quickly losing all hope of a cure. But this story is a perfect example of the patient kindness of the Lord Jesus. And then verse 22, the Father explains, ever since the boy was little, he’s been tormented by this evil spirit with murderous intentions. And then he says, if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. I think Mark wants you to see yourself in this man’s shoes, subtly asking if Jesus is able. But Jesus would turn that question back around on you. Jesus would turn that question back around on you. It’s not a matter of God’s ability, but a question of your faith. Now, if you’re anything like me, you find yourself doing this all the time.

    Is God able to provide a job for me, a car for me? Is God able to provide a spouse for me? Can he really help me pass that class? Can God really help my mother, grandmother, sister, brother, child, grandchild? Doubt can start to creep in at the edges, prompting us to ask if God really is able to remedy that situation, to provide for our needs, or truly satisfy our desires. But look at Jesus’ response in verse 23. He repeats the man’s words back to him. If you can, all things are possible for the one who believes. One commentator says the statement, everything that’s possible to one who believes, must appear to the Father as an elusive hope. For the faith that he needs to heal his son is a faith he does not have, or so he thinks.

    You see, the Father had gotten things mixed around. He had gotten in his head that it was a question of whether Jesus could. He thought the object of his faith was in question. But Jesus corrects him. There’s no question to my power. The question is, do you believe? In Mark 1-40, Jesus encounters a leper with faith who sees things very differently. In Mark 1-40, a leper came up to him, imploring him, kneeling, said to him, If you will, you can make me clean. He moved with pity. Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him and said, I will. Be clean. Jesus says, my ability is not the question. The question is, do you believe that I can? And prayer is the primary way that we trust in the promises of God. In prayer, we come and ask God to do what he has promised.

    You shouldn’t come merely asking, suggesting, if you can. By the way, I think that sometimes we may inadvertently try to disguise a lack of faith with the phrase from Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane when he said, not my will, but your will be done. It’s a good phrase. It’s humble. We don’t want to be ordering God around, telling him to do our will. But how many times is it merely a cover to not be too invested of the outcome or to not be too sure whether you should pray it, subtly implying, if you can. What did Jesus mean when he prayed in the garden, let this cup pass from me, but if not, not my will, but your will be done. We need to make sure that we get clear on what we pray for when we pray for God’s will.

    Look at the Lord’s Prayer that we just prayed this morning when Jesus tells us to pray, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. What are we praying for? Is this a call for God to just do what you’re going to do? Why would we need to tell God to do what he’s going to do? No wonder people wonder why we should pray if God’s already going to do what he’s going to do, ordered all things according to his will. We need to understand what we mean by the will of God. See, there are two ways, actually, to use the will of God. The one people think of often is what God intends to do. By that they mean the fixed, immutable plan that God has foreordained from all eternity everything that comes to pass.

    This can be called the will of God. But that’s actually not usually what the Bible is talking about when it uses this phrase. For instance, 1 Thessalonians 4.3 when it says, this is the will of God, your sanctification. The Bible speaks of God’s law as God’s will. Why would we need to pray that God was going to do what he’s going to do? We don’t. God never tells us to pray that just whatever’s going to happen will happen. God tells us to scour his word for his commands, his promises, find out what he loves, what he hates, and then ask him to do what he’s promised, to make us holy, to judge the wicked, to bring salvation to lost sinners, to provide for our needs. Our only leverage with God is what he’s promised he wants to do.

    So what was Jesus praying? He was expressing his own will as a human, shrinking back from facing the wrath of God for our sin, but then submitting himself to and asking his father to conform his desires to what his father desired, to want the glory that came from the salvation accomplished for sinners more than anything else. Christ’s prayer to his father, your will be done, was not a resigned whatever will be prayer. It’s a bold wrestling in which he was honestly expressing his human withdrawing, yet requesting that the father would unite their desires and accomplish what was promised. The father in our passage started out asking with fake faith for Jesus to do something if he was able. But when Jesus corrects him, he responds with true faith. From fake faith to true faith in verse 24.

    Verse 24, immediately the father of the child cried out and said, I believe, help my unbelief. Right here we see Mark’s favorite word showing up again, immediately. See this man, he doesn’t wait around in introspection to double check his feelings. He doesn’t search his own heart trying to test whether his feelings are genuine or not. He simply looks straight at Jesus. Friends, this is true faith. One commentator says, true faith is always aware of how small and inadequate it is. The father becomes a believer not when he amasses a sufficient quantum of faith, but when he risks everything on what little faith he has, when he yields his insufficiency to the true sufficiency of Jesus. I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief. The risk of faith is more costly to the father than bringing his son to Jesus.

    He can talk and explain about his son, but he must cry out for faith we see in this passage. True faith takes no confidence in itself, nor does it judge Jesus by the weakness of his followers, but it looks to the more powerful one who stands in the place of God, whose authoritative word restores life from chaos. True faith is an unconditional openness to God, a decision in the face of all to the contrary to believe that Jesus is able. Perhaps you’re here this morning, you realize you’ve been doubting God. You’ve not been living in belief that God is able to fulfill all his promises for you. You’ve been doubting. Or maybe you’re just starting to get concerned that the lack of things happening on your timetable is a reflection of your own lack of faith.

    This man is your example. Don’t look at your faith. That’s a recipe for failure. That was the disciples’ problem, and that’s why they found themselves unable to cast out the demon. Look at Jesus. Jesus intends for this interaction to be a lesson for his disciples, who by this point were thinking that their ability to overcome evil spirits and heal people was based on their own faith. That’s why they failed. But Jesus drew out the response that he was looking for. The man, the father, he stopped looking at himself. He looked straight at Jesus, and he asked for faith. Remember, faith itself is a gift from God. So we have to look at God. Look to God and ask for it. In the request, he received what he had asked for. By depending on Jesus’ provision of faith, he was demonstrating his possession of that faith.

    Now in response to that man’s faith, Jesus turns to heal this man’s son. He rebukes the spirit, forbids it from ever entering the boy. But then something troubling happens. The boy begins shaking with another seizure, falls limp to the ground. Jesus was supposed to be able to heal the boy, but it looks at first like the evil spirit might have the last word after all. Jesus rebuked the spirit, but maybe it managed to kill him on the way out. Imagine the despair creeping into the heart of the father. The doubt filling the hearts of the disciples. The boy’s dead. The crowd begins to whisper. The father doesn’t want to believe it, but maybe it’s true. What is Jesus doing? Is this really part of the plan? Just then, Jesus reaches down and grabs the boy up.

    Take a look at the language in verses 26 and 27. You notice the words corpse and dead in verse 26. And then in verse 27, he arose. Mark’s language is very intentional here. Did Jesus have to perform the miracle this way? Couldn’t Jesus have just cast out the demon without a final seizure? This method seems to call into question Jesus’ power rather than affirm it. That’s how I used to read it when I would read it in the past. But to answer this, I think we need to remember that Jesus’ purpose to do miracles was not just to go around healing people. Physical healings were beautiful demonstrations of Christ’s power and compassion. But every single person that Jesus healed eventually died. He used his healings to teach lessons. So you notice the language that Mark used explicitly.

    Dead and arose. That language is not accidental. It’s the same in Greek. If we look at just a few verses before our passage, the beginning of chapter 9, and a few verses after, we find this account is sandwiched by Jesus telling his disciples, he’s got to die and rise again while they still don’t get it. See, just like the disciples, we’d be inclined to think that the greatest demonstration of Jesus’ power would be for him to just show a force, make a show of force, cast out the demon without allowing it one last chance to kill the boy. Yet as Jesus had been telling his disciples and would tell them again, his power would be on greatest display in laying down his own life. In just a few weeks, it would look like Satan, his demons, the Romans, the unbelieving Jews, had won as Jesus hung on a cross.

    Only Jesus didn’t just appear dead. He was dead. Yet that was not the end of the story. Jesus rose and ascended into heaven. See, Jesus allowed the demon to have this one last shot in this instance so that he could show that his greatest power is displayed in his own death and resurrection. Jesus’ greatest demonstration of power occurred in his own laying down his life, to bear our sins, be executed for them, rise again from the dead, accomplishing a salvation that must be received by faith. Without faith in Jesus, we have no part of his sacrifice, but with faith, it becomes ours. You see, we all need more than physical healing. We need the spiritual cleansing from sin and the new life that Jesus accomplished and gives us by his death and resurrection. Every other religion in the world offers a maybe.

    And if you can, maybe if you do enough prayers, maybe if you say the right words, maybe if you do enough good deeds, we need more than a possibility of salvation. We need certainty, certainty that only can be found in Jesus, in his accomplishing our salvation. But as we close, I want you to think about why Mark would close out his story with these words on prayer. Well, think about who Mark was writing this gospel to. See, Mark wasn’t writing this gospel to the apostles. He was writing to average, ordinary Christians just like us. We haven’t been specially empowered like the apostles were to cast out demons and heal in the same way that they were. But what did ordinary Christians have then that we have today? Prayer. Yes, I believe that Mark has included these words from Jesus specifically to encourage ordinary believers to pray, to exercise their faith in this way.

    See, when Mark wrote his gospel, he consulted heavily, most heavily, with Peter more than any other disciple. So I think Peter’s perspective is pertinent to what Mark is doing here. If we look in 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter 1 actually, Peter includes an account of the transfiguration, which has just happened in the beginning of Mark 9. And in that same letter that Peter recounts that story, he begins 2 Peter in this way. And I think that Peter is reflecting on Mark’s point in our story today. 2 Peter 1, 1 opens this way. Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Christ Jesus. To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. See, even the apostles with all of their gifts needed Jesus just like everyone else.

    And when they didn’t pray, they couldn’t do anything. We’re in the same boat. If we have faith in Christ, we have a faith on equal standing with the great apostles because it’s the object of our faith that matters. When Jesus emphasized the need for prayer, he was explaining what faith looks like in action, making it accessible to all those that would come after those first disciples. We have a faith as an equal standing. We have prayer. Well, what if you aren’t sure that you have true faith or enough faith? Come to Jesus anyway. Remember the Father in this passage. I believe, help my unbelief. All of us have unbelief. Come to Jesus with your unbelief and ask him to turn it into belief. As you come, you will find a tender, compassionate Savior who’s patient and powerful.

    My cousin, Isaac, who I mentioned earlier, he’s unable to speak because of his severe autism. His only means of communication is painfully slow. He has to spell out each word, letter by letter, pointing to them on a special keyboard with a helper to steady his hand. Yet, a few years ago, after attending church faithfully with his family, he was determined to make a public profession of his faith. So at his church in Maine after meeting with the elders, he stood in front of the congregation and gave his affirmative response to the pastor’s questions about his own sense of his sin, his need of a Savior, his trust in Jesus Christ as that Savior he needed. He and his parents have faith that one day his loosened tongue will be employed in singing beautiful praises despite his current inability to talk.

    He’s in his late 40s today and his parents’ favorite hymn is Oh for a Thousand Tongues to Sing. And it ends in verses four and five. Jesus, the name that charms our fears, that bids our sorrows cease, tis music in the sinner’s ears, tis life and health and peace. He breaks the power of reigning sin, he sets the prisoner free, his blood can make the phallus clean, his blood availed for me. And especially verse six as it ends, hear him, ye deaf, his praise, ye dumb, your loosened tongues employ, ye blind, behold, your Savior come, and leap, ye lame, for joy. Amen. Let’s pray. Father in heaven, we thank you that we can come even with unbelief, even with wavering faith, even with small faith. We can come with eyes fixed on our Savior, who we know is powerful to save.

    Lord, we thank you that you have made him clear in your word, you’ve revealed him by your spirit to our hearts. Lord, we would ask that you would strengthen our faith, not as we build up something within ourselves, but as we see Jesus able to come through as we face all of life’s difficulties, and you bring them on one by one, on top of one another, in order that we might keep gazing at our Savior. Lord, we ask that you would give us eyes to see in the midst of all the storms and difficulties, all of the challenges that you bring our way. We know that in all of these, you are a faithful, compassionate, powerful Savior. We ask that you would keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

    Well, in response, we shall sing Hymn 455, I Need Thee, Precious Jesus, and if you would join in standing as we sing Hymn 455.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Good News of the Empty Tomb

    The Good News of the Empty Tomb

    About this sermon

    Mark’s Gospel reaches its climax at the empty tomb. Three women come early on the first day of the week to anoint the body, and a young man in white, an angel, tells them, ‘He has risen; he is not here.’ Trembling and astonished, they flee. Death claims thousands every hour, and the resurrection of Christ is the only answer to it, because he has conquered sin, death, and hell for all who trust in him.

    More sermons from Mark · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    standing for the reading of God’s Word. My sermon text this morning is Mark chapter 16, verses 1 through 8, which is the shorter ending of Mark’s gospel. I’m going to read through verse 20, which is inclusive of the longer ending, but our focus will be on Mark chapter 16, verses 1 through 8. Let’s hear God’s holy word. When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices so that they might come and anoint him. Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. They were saying to one another, who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? Looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large.

    Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right wearing a white robe, and they were amazed. And he said to them, Do not be amazed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene who has been crucified. He has risen. He is not here. Behold, here is the place where they laid him. But go tell his disciples and Peter, he is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him just as he told you. They went out and fled from the tomb for trembling and astonishment had gripped them. And they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid. Now after He had risen early on the first day of the week, He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons. She went and reported to them who had been with Him while they were mourning and weeping.

    When they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they refused to believe it. After that, He appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking along on their way to the country. They went away and reported it to the others, but they did not believe them either. Afterward, he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table. And he reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen him after he had risen. And he said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved, but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. These signs will accompany those who have believed, In my name, they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues, they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them.

    They will lay hands on the sick and they will recover. So then, when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word by the signs that followed. Amen. May God add His blessing to this reading of His holy word. Let us pray. Our Lord and Father in heaven, sovereign and eternal God, we pray that by your spirit you would once again open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word and we ask that you would grant me wisdom and grace and clarity of expression as I proclaim your word today. This is the glorious good news of the empty tomb. May we be attentive to it and may we stand in awe of this good news.

    We pray these things through Christ our Lord and all of God’s people said. Amen. You may be seated. Once again, I want to direct the attention of the children to the key words that you’ll find on your sermon outline. I’d encourage you to follow along and count the number of times I say these words if you find that to be helpful in following along in the message. Well, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, our tour through the Gospel of Mark is about to come to an end. Mark had begun his gospel account by informing his readers that he was going to be writing about the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As he says back in chapter 1, verse 1, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

    That has been the main thrust, the main theme throughout this gospel account. And as we’ve worked our way through this particular brief gospel account, we’ve noticed that Mark’s gospel is primarily a gospel of action. That is to say, Mark places his main emphasis on the mighty deeds, the mighty acts of the Lord Jesus, more so than on the teachings of Jesus. Although, of course, Mark’s Gospel includes samplings of our Lord’s teachings, some extensive samplings, such as the Olivet Discourse. But again, the main focus is on the mighty works of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Mark teaches us important truths about the life and the ministry and the atoning death of our Lord Jesus Christ, all culminating in Christ’s glorious resurrection from the dead. Now, in our passage for this Lord’s Day morning, we will be considering this climax, this pinnacle of this gospel account in particular.

    Indeed, it is the climax of the good news about Jesus Christ in general, namely the good news of the empty tomb. The glorious message that the crucified Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God incarnate, is indeed risen from the dead. As Bible scholar Dr. Walter Wessel writes in his commentary on Mark, he says, the climax to Mark’s gospel is the resurrection. Without it, the life and death of Jesus, though noble and admirable, are nonetheless overwhelmingly tragic events. With it, Jesus is declared to be the Son of God with power, Romans 1, verse 4. And the disciples are transformed from lethargic and defeated followers into the flaming witnesses of the book of Acts. The good news about Jesus Christ is that God, by the resurrection of Jesus, defeated sin, death, and hell. It was this message that lay at the heart of the apostolic preaching.

    And you’ll find that if you read samplings of the apostles’ preaching of the gospel in the book of Acts, you will see that they placed heavy emphasis on the resurrection of Jesus and the fact that they had been eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus. So as we approach our text for this Lord’s Day morning, as you’re following along in your sermon outline, the first thing I want us to consider is the unexpected and astonishing message of the empty tomb. The unexpected and astonishing message of the empty tomb. As we will see The disciples of Jesus were not expecting Jesus to rise from the dead. It was totally beyond their expectations, and they were astonished by it. Now, remember the context here, friends. Remember that Jesus was crucified on that Friday, what we call Good Friday. And remember that the Jews reckoned their days from sundown to sundown.

    Many folks have pointed out, skeptics will sometimes point out that, well, Jesus wasn’t really raised on the third day. He wasn’t really dead for three days. He was crucified on Friday. He died about three o’clock Friday afternoon. And he was, according to the Christian proclamation, he was raised early in the morning on Sunday morning. So again, Jesus had died around three in the afternoon Friday. However, by Jewish reckoning, Jesus was dead for three days. He was dead part of Friday, all day Saturday, and part of Sunday morning. So even though Jesus had not been dead for a full 72 hours, which would be three full days by our technical reckoning of days, nevertheless, he was dead for three days by Jewish reckoning. And so it is, the scriptures are not in error when they proclaim that Christ rose from the dead on the third day.

    So keep that in mind as we make our way through this passage. Now, if you have read the gospel accounts, and especially if you’ve compared the resurrection narratives in the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, one of the things that you will notice is that while the general storyline is the same, there are differences in perspective, differences in detail. Some would even say that there are contradictions or discrepancies. Now, I don’t believe, friends, that there are genuine, actual discrepancies, but there are surface-level tensions, if you will, between the gospel accounts. And so how do we explain that? What are we to make of the slight differences in details and perspective and alleged minor discrepancies that exist between the four gospel accounts in their recordings of the details surrounding the resurrection of our Lord Jesus?

    Well, I like what one commentator writes about this. He says, the accounts of the resurrection differ in details as all genuine eyewitness evidence does. But the main outlines of the day’s events are clear. And just to give you an illustration that I found helpful, let’s say that there is an accident that occurs at a particular intersection. Let’s say that there are four eyewitnesses to this particular accident. each witness is standing at a different corner of the intersection. Let’s say that you’re one of those witnesses and you’re standing, say, on the south side of the intersection. Well, you’re going to see the accident from your particular vantage point or point of view. And when the police come and ask you for your eyewitness testimony to this to this event that you’ve seen, this accident that you’ve seen, you’re going to highlight perhaps particular details that you saw from your perspective.

    But the other eyewitnesses standing on the different corners of that intersection may report slightly different details. There’s no contradiction between your eyewitness testimony to the accident that you’ve all witnessed. There’s just different perspectives, different things that each of you might have seen. So I think that’s helpful when it comes to some of the minor differences that you might notice in the gospel accounts in the resurrection narratives. And by the way, if you struggle with this, if this is a struggle of faith, I would strongly commend to you Dr. Gleason Archer’s excellent article where he harmonizes the four gospel narratives on the resurrection in his helpful volume, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties. He does an excellent job of showing that there’s not contradiction or disharmony, but that all of the accounts can be harmonized together very well if you study it carefully and go beyond the surface.

    Well, anyways, dear ones, here we are at verse one of our passage. We read this. It says, when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices so that they might come and anoint him. Now, verse one of our passage mentions three women, three women who were devoted and committed followers of the Lord Jesus. These women were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. We’re told in verse one that after the Sabbath was passed, they bought spices, why? So that they might come and anoint him. This was customary, it was a Jewish custom to show honor for the dead by anointing the dead body. And this didn’t have any kind of embalming purpose to it. It may have served the purpose of helping to counteract the stench of a rotting corpse, but nonetheless, it was done to honor the dead.

    Now sometime after 6 p.m. on Saturday evening, that would have been when the Sabbath would end by Jewish reckoning. Sometime after 6 p.m., that Saturday evening, these women go and they buy spices. Now why did they buy these spices again? Well, the answer, dear ones, is that these devout women who had so faithfully loved and followed the Lord Jesus during His earthly ministry, they were preparing to carry out one final act of love and devotion to the Master whom they had loved so dearly. They had bought these spices so that they might go to the tomb in order to anoint the dead body of Jesus. Now, let me again, let me ask you, were these devout women expecting Jesus to rise from the dead based upon their actions? Were they expecting Jesus to rise from the dead?

    Were they preparing for the resurrection of their master? Well, the answer, of course, is obviously not. After all, here we read of these three devout women purchasing spices with which to anoint the dead body of Jesus. Now friends, for a moment, I want you to put yourselves into the sandals of these three devout women. Imagine how they must have been feeling that Saturday evening after they had purchased the spices and made their plans to go to the tomb of Jesus early the next morning. Remember, Jesus was in a borrowed tomb, the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, which we considered on the last Lord’s Day. How must they have felt? How would you have felt if you didn’t know that Jesus was going to rise? They must have been terribly despondent just a little over 24 hours ago, from their perspective, just a little over 24 hours ago, the master in whom they had placed all of their hope, all of their trust, had been brutally crucified before their very eyes.

    And friends, in the first century Jewish mindset, a crucified Messiah would be a failed Messiah, no Messiah at all. So their hopes were dashed. Their hopes were dashed. The flame of joy in their hearts had been snuffed out. The most righteous man who had ever lived appeared to have been defeated by the ultimate enemy, the enemy of death. His cold, dead body lay still in a borrowed tomb. Oh, how unimaginably depressing all of this must have been to them. But even though their hopes had been dashed, even though their joy had been snuffed out, and their faith had all been sunk in the mire of it all, their love for Christ persists. And so, as we’re told in verse 2, they arise very early on Sunday morning, the first day of the week. And they arrive at the tomb when the sun has risen.

    Look at verse two. It says, very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. Now, I believe one or more of the other gospel accounts indicates that these women headed out to the tomb while it was still dark. So when we compare scripture with scripture, apparently by the time they came to the tomb, the sun had risen. And they come very early in the morning to perform this act of devotion and love. Again, they’re determined to carry out this one final act of love. However, apparently in their confused and grief-stricken state of mind, they had forgotten just a little detail. Actually, a very important detail. You see, the tomb in which Jesus had been buried had a very large circular stone rolled in front of its entrance.

    Perhaps you’ve seen pictures of the type of tomb that Jesus was buried in. Very large circular stone rolled in front of the entrance. This stone was set in a groove, a sloped track, and once such a stone was put in place in these ancient tombs, it was very difficult, not impossible, but very difficult to remove these stones. And certainly, it would have been beyond the strength of these three women to remove it by themselves. And so this detail that they had overlooked doesn’t dawn upon them until they’re on their way to the tomb. Look at verse 3. It says, they were saying to one another, who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? Now you might look at that and say, well why didn’t you guys think about this the night before?

    Well again remember their state of mind. They’re grieving And if you’ve been through a time of deep grief and depression, you know that you don’t always think clearly. You don’t always think logically and so forth. And so they’re in a state of deep grief, but they realize as they’re going to the tomb, oh, by the way, who’s gonna remove this huge stone so that we can have access to the body of Jesus and perform this act of devotion? But then as we read on the plot takes an astonishing turn, an unexpected turn. Look at verses 4 and 5 once again. As they head to the tomb it says this, looking up they saw that the stone had been rolled away. Mark doesn’t tell us how it had been rolled away. Matthew’s Gospel tells us that a mighty angel rolled away the stone and that the guards that had been posted saw the angel roll away the stone and became like dead men.

    They were so terrified of this mighty angel. But it says They saw the stone rolled away, although it was extremely large.” Again, Mark emphasizing the largeness and heaviness of the stone, but it had been somehow rolled away. And then verse 5, entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right wearing a white robe, and they were amazed. They were amazed. The New English Bible translates that word amazed as dumbfounded, the N-E-B being a sort of a British English translation of the scriptures. They were amazed, they’re dumbfounded. What’s going on here? Wow, what a turn of events. Now who is this young man wearing a white robe that is mentioned in verse five? Well, beloved, In Matthew 28 verse five, Matthew indicates that he was an angel. See, on numerous occasions in the Bible, we read of angels having the ability to take upon themselves, temporarily take upon themselves human form and appear in human form.

    And so that is what we are to understand of this particular young man clothed in white. This, in fact, was angel. No wonder these poor women were alarmed or dumbfounded. Here it was Sunday morning. The stone had been rolled away. The body of Jesus was nowhere to be found and sitting there inside the tomb was this young man clothed in a white robe and sitting on the right side. But then this angelic being, in the form of a young man, announces the greatest good news that these women could ever hear. The good news of the empty tomb. The good news of the risen Lord. Look at verses six and seven. It says in verse six, and he said to them, do not be amazed. The angel knows what they’re thinking. He knows they’re dumbfounded. He knows they’re amazed.

    He says, do not be amazed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth. who has been crucified. He has risen. He is not here. Behold, here is the place where they laid him. But go, then he gives them a charge. He says, but go, tell his disciples and Peter. Notice he mentions Peter. Why? Because Peter had denied the Lord three times. but the Lord had not abandoned Peter. The Lord in his mercy was going to restore and forgive Peter in spite of Peter’s denial of the Lord. Go tell His disciples and Peter. He is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see Him just as He told you.” Now why are they directed to tell the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee? Galilee was where our Lord conducted much of His earthly ministry.

    Why not in Jerusalem? Why not meet Him in Jerusalem? Well, there may be many reasons for that. Jesus had many followers in the region of Galilee, and perhaps that’s where Jesus had appeared at one time to more than 500 eyewitnesses at once, as the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15. But I would suggest to you that another reason why our Lord appeared to his disciples after his resurrection in Galilee instead of in Jerusalem is because, again, remember, that our Lord’s disciples, like many of the Jews in the first century, were expecting a military, political Messiah who would reign from Jerusalem. So perhaps our risen Lord Jesus, through this angel, is directing them to go to Galilee because he doesn’t want them to imagine, oh, finally, now the Romans are gonna be defeated. Now our risen Savior is going to set up a political kingdom in Jerusalem.

    So perhaps that’s what’s going on in his mind. But in any case, How did these devout women react at first to this glorious announcement? Well, we’re told in verse 8. They went out and fled from the tomb for trembling and astonishment had gripped them. And they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid. Now I will clue you into that there is a textual issue here. In many ancient copies of this gospel, verse eight is where Mark’s gospel ends. Other copies include the longer ending in verses nine through 20. And there’s debate among the Bible scholars as to whether or not verses 9 through 20 were originally part of Mark’s gospel. Wherever you might come down on that particular issue, the church has traditionally regarded the contents of verses 9 through 20, whether written by Mark or added later by a later scribe, the church has traditionally understood this longer ending to be part of the canon of Holy Scripture, but in any case, if in fact, Mark’s Gospel ends with verse eight, it’s kind of a dramatic ending, isn’t it?

    The women go out, they’re trembling, they’re astonished, and at first at least, they’re speechless, they don’t know what to say, they don’t know what to say. No doubt their hearts were racing. They tear out of the tomb, dashing away their emotions, a mixture of terror and joy. Why? Because these turn of events were totally unexpected on their part. They weren’t expecting a resurrected Jesus. And so they are so afraid by this unexpected and astounding news that at first at least they are afraid to tell anyone about it. They’re terrified and amazed by this message, so much so that at first they don’t know what to make of it. The events of that resurrection morning had defied all of their natural expectations. They stood in awe. Now when we compare scripture with scripture, we read that at least in the case of Mary Magdalene, it seems that Mary was focused on the fact that the body of Jesus wasn’t there because John’s gospel tells us in John 20 that Mary goes and finds Peter and John and says, they’ve taken away our Lord.

    We don’t know where they’ve put him. And then Mary goes back to the tomb, and it isn’t until later that our Lord Jesus reveals himself to her. So apparently Mary had heard the part about he’s not here, but the part about it that he has risen hadn’t really sunk in. And again, how do we explain that? Well, we explain it by the fact that, again, imagine the state of mind that these women were in. They’re confused. they’re still taking it in, they’re still processing it during all of this. But what do we learn from this? What are some lessons that we can learn from what we’ve observed in this passage? Well, my dear listeners, let me ask you, does the message that the angel proclaimed to these women on that resurrection morning, the message of the empty tomb, the message that Jesus is not here, he is risen, Does that message fill you with amazement?

    Does it astonish you and cause you to tremble as it did these female witnesses to the empty tomb? When you affirm in the Apostles’ Creed that the third day he rose again from the dead, is your heart stirred with awe and wonder as you publicly confess along with the rest of the Christian Church this vital central truth of our common Christian faith? See, the danger of being church people is that we’ve heard this all our lives. And when you hear something over and over again, it can have a tendency to lose its awe, its sense of awe and specialness. But think about it. We serve a Savior who was stone cold dead, but who rose from the dead. God literally, supernaturally raised the Lord Jesus from the dead, proving that our Savior has conquered death, proving that death, which is an enemy to all of us, death will not have the final say.

    Dear ones, let us stand in awe of the glorious gospel truth that Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, is indeed risen from the dead, and let us proclaim the good news that Christ has conquered sin and death and hell. Dear listener, do you believe this good news? Have you embraced by faith this risen, resurrected Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, as your very own Lord and Savior? Well, we’ve gone through this passage, but I have a couple other brief points to make from this passage before we close our time in the Word today. And this is the second point in your sermon outline if you’re following along. Beloved, understand that the resurrection of our Lord was a literal historical event. The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ was a literal historical event. Now friends, it would be a fascinating and faith-strengthening study to examine all of the historical evidence for the physical bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

    And I would present to you or suggest to you that there is indeed much evidence that we could consider. But we simply don’t have the time to work through all of that today. But for now, let me simply state that there are few historical events that are more powerfully supported by the evidence than the historical fact of the physical, bodily, glorious resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead. Contrary to what the skeptics and the modernists and the rationalist Bible critics often claim, the resurrection of Jesus Christ was not a myth invented by the early church. The early church would have no motivation to invent such a story because what did that story get the early Christians? Did it get them money and fame and power? No, it got them persecution. It got them ostracism.

    They were rejected. They were cast out, often persecuted. It was not a myth, no dear ones. The resurrection of Jesus was a genuine historical event that took place in real space-time history. It’s not just a metaphor for the rise of new hope within our hearts. It’s not some subjective thing. This was an objective historical event witnessed. The risen Christ, the resurrected Jesus, was witnessed by multiple eyewitnesses after his resurrection. As the late evangelical theologian John Stott wrote in his popular book, Basic Christianity, Reverend Stott writes, the body had disappeared. The grave clothes remained undisturbed. The Lord was seen and the disciples were changed. There is no adequate explanation for these phenomena other than the great Christian affirmation, the Lord is risen indeed. And biblical scholar, Dr. C. E. Graham Swift, puts it well in his commentary when he writes, evidence for the resurrection is unimpeachable.

    The tomb was empty and no one could produce the body. His friends could not have stolen it and his foes would not have done so. If further evidence is needed, we may find it in the very existence and survival of the Christian church. And then to offer another witness, While the late Scottish New Testament professor William Barclay, the author of the Daily Bible Study series, was certainly not entirely orthodox or Bible-believing or sound in all of his theological views, he was very correct and spot on when he wrote the following about the resurrection in his commentary on Mark. Barclay writes, one thing is certain. If Jesus had not risen from the dead, we would never have heard of him. There were all kinds of pretended messiahs in the first century among the Jews. And Barclay is correct.

    If Jesus had not risen from the dead, we would never have heard of Him. He would just be another one of those false failed messiahs. But Barclay goes on to say, the attitude of the women was that they had come to pay the last tribute to a dead body. The attitude of the disciples was that everything had finished in tragedy. By far the best proof of the resurrection is the existence of the Christian church. Nothing else could have changed sad and despairing men and women into people radiant with joy and flaming with courage. The resurrection is the central fact of the whole Christian faith. Amen. Dr. Barclay. Dear ones, let us confidently believe and proclaim the good news of the empty tomb, the good news of Christ’s resurrection. But this leads me to my final point.

    Why is the resurrection of Jesus such good news? Well, beloved, the resurrection of Christ is good news because it demonstrates that Christ has conquered man’s greatest enemies, sin, death, and hell. Let me repeat that. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is good news indeed because it demonstrates that Christ has conquered man’s greatest enemies. And our greatest enemies, your greatest enemy is not financial distress or job loss or the threat of a pandemic or whatever the case may be. Our greatest enemies are the enemies of sin, death, and hell. The British evangelist John Blanchard in his book Whatever Happened to Hell, in that book he quotes from a theologian who says the following, death is the most democratic institution on earth. It allows no discrimination, tolerates no exceptions. The mortality rate of mankind is the same the world over, one death per person.

    And then in that same book, a few pages later, Reverend Blanchard presents some sobering statistics, and these are statistics of, worldwide statistics. He says this, three people die every second, this is worldwide, three people die every second, 180 every minute, nearly 11,000 every hour, about 260,000 every day, 95 million every year. Now think about that, brothers and sisters. Statistically speaking, in this brief hour of worship that we’ve spent together, worldwide about 11,000 people have passed into eternity, either an eternity in heaven or an eternity in hell. And in just the last minute, statistically speaking, at least three people have passed into eternity. Dear ones, it is the universal, constant, and grim fact of death that makes the message of the empty tomb such astounding and glorious good news. You and I do not have the power to conquer death.

    If the Lord tarries, you and I will all one day breathe our last. But if you, by the grace of God, if you have faith in Jesus Christ, the risen Lord, as your very own Lord and Savior, God’s word promises that death will not have the final say in your life. Indeed, you need not fear death or hell, because Christ has conquered sin and death and hell by his obedient life, his sacrificial death, and his glorious resurrection. And the empty tomb, the risen Lord Jesus, is proof of that. Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him might not perish, but have everlasting life. Put your faith and trust in Christ, the perfect, all-sufficient Savior who died to save His people from their sins and rose for our justification.

    Put your faith and trust in Christ, and you, by the grace of God, will live forever in the new heavens and the new earth. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, We do thank you and praise you for this central tenet of our faith, but it is not simply an abstract doctrinal point. It is the very lifeblood of your people. This is the very pulsating life of the church, the good news that Jesus our Lord is indeed risen from the dead. Grant us the grace, Heavenly Father, to have the awareness in our walk with Christ that we serve a risen Lord, that death is not the victor, that Christ is the victor, and may we live our lives by faith in his victory. We pray these things, Heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name, and all of God’s people said, Amen.

    Let’s respond to what we’ve heard from the Word today by rising and we’ll sing together number 365, thine be the glory, 365.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Rich Man Who Gave Jesus His Tomb

    The Rich Man Who Gave Jesus His Tomb

    About this sermon

    Joseph of Arimathea, a rich member of the Sanhedrin and a secret disciple, gathers his courage and asks Pilate for the body of Jesus. Pilate confirms that Jesus is already dead, and Joseph wraps the body in linen and lays it in his own rock-hewn tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses watch where he is laid, witnesses of the real death and burial of Christ. When the cause of Christ looked lost, Joseph clung to his faith, and he was not disappointed.

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    Sermon transcript

    Amen. Dear friends, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. We continue in our study of the Gospel of Mark as we near the end of our time in Mark’s Gospel. My sermon text today is at the end of Mark chapter 15, Mark 15, verses 42 through 47. Mark 15, verses 42 through 47. Let’s hear God’s holy word. Mark chapter 15, beginning at verse 42. When evening had already come, because it was the preparation day, that is the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea came, a prominent member of the council, who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God. And he gathered up courage and went in before Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate wondered if he was dead by this time, and summoning the centurion, he questioned him as to whether he was already dead.

    And ascertaining this from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph. Joseph bought a linen cloth, took him down, wrapped him in the linen cloth, and laid him in a tomb, which had been hewn out in the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Joseph, were looking on to see where he was laid. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God’s blessing upon the preaching of his word. O Heavenly Father, we thank you for your great and amazing love for us. We thank you that you demonstrated your love for us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Out of love you sent your Son to die for our sins, to be buried, and to rise again from the dead, so that we might be raised to newness of life in Him.

    We pray that by your spirit you would open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word this day. We pray that your spirit would so bless the proclamation of your word that it might find a lodging place in our souls. And once again, Lord, we ask that you would set a guard over my lips that I might speak only that which is faithful to your word, edifying to your people, glorifying to your name. In Jesus’ name we pray and all of God’s people said, amen. You may be seated. Title of my sermon this morning is, The Rich Man Who Gave Jesus His Tomb. And children, there’s six words you can be listening for in my sermon today. The words burial, tomb, gospel, faith, fear, courage, and disciple. Well, dear friends, in our passage for this Lord’s Day morning, we have Mark’s account of our Lord Jesus’ burial.

    The account tells us about a man who was instrumental in arranging for the proper burial of our Lord Jesus, a man known as Joseph of Arimathea, Arimathea being the place where he was from. Joseph was a rich man who was also a prominent member of the Jewish ruling council, the ruling council known as the Sanhedrin. My friends, Almighty God in His sovereign plan and providence used this man, Joseph of Arimathea, to secure a proper burial for our Lord after he had died by crucifixion. As we will see, Joseph’s actions in obtaining jurisdiction over the body of Jesus from Pontius Pilate, and in burying Jesus in what Matthew’s gospel tells us was Joseph’s very own new family tomb, as attested by Matthew 27, verse 60. All of this was part of God’s sovereign plan of redemption.

    It was a very important aspect of God’s plan of redemption, as I hope to show you today. Dear ones, it was part of God’s perfect plan that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ would be buried in the tomb of a rich man. And the man whom God ordained to fulfill that plan was Joseph of Arimathea, the rich man who gave his tomb to Jesus. Now, as we embark upon our study of this passage on this Lord’s Day morning, first of all, beloved, and if you’re following along in your sermon outline, this is the first point. Understand, beloved, that the historical truth of our Lord’s burial is an essential part of the gospel message. Let me say that again. The historical truth of our Lord Jesus Christ’s burial after his crucifixion is an absolutely essential part of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

    We, of course, rightly, when we share the gospel and bear witness to the gospel to others, we rightly focus on Christ’s substitutionary atonement on the cross. That is at the heart and center of the gospel that Jesus died for our sins. He was our sin bearer, our substitute. He took the punishment upon himself that we deserve. And we also rightly emphasize his physical bodily resurrection from the dead for the resurrection of Christ, among other things, demonstrates that the father has accepted his son’s sacrifice. But we tend to gloss over or skip over the burial of Christ. Now often the burial of Christ is assumed when we refer to his death and resurrection. We assume the burial of Christ. But the importance of the burial of Christ is underscored by the fact that the events connected with our Lord’s burial are recorded not just in one or two gospel accounts, but in all four gospel accounts.

    And also by the fact that the Apostle Paul included the truth of Christ’s burial in his summary of the gospel message recorded in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. And I know I’ve said this probably numerous times before, but God only has to say something once for it to be important. If something is recorded only once in Scripture, well, it’s God’s Word. The Holy Spirit inspired, breathed it out, and we are to take it to heart. But when the Holy Spirit repeats Himself, not just once or twice, but repeats Himself four times, then we are really meant to pay attention. This is really, really important. Turn with me also, if you would, I refer to Paul’s summary of the Gospel recorded in 1 Corinthians 15. Let me just read some of the verses there at the beginning of 1 Corinthians chapter 15 to drive home what I’m saying here.

    Paul writes in that passage, now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel, the good news, in other words. Gospel means good news. I make known to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which you are being saved. This gospel message that Paul is giving a summary of, the elements of that message are necessary for our salvation. He says, by which you are saved if you hold fast the word which I preached to you unless you believed in vain. And then he goes on giving sort of a creedal, a creedal summary of this gospel message. Verse three, for I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scripture, number one. That, what comes next? and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

    He goes on to talk about our Lord’s multiple resurrection appearances after he rose from the dead and so forth. But I want you to notice that in that creed-like summary of the bare bones of the gospel message, one of the items that is mentioned is the burial of Christ. Yes, Christ died for our sins. Christ rose from the dead in chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, focuses mostly on the doctrine of the resurrection, but notice he explicitly mentions the burial of Christ. Okay, pastor, I mean, yeah, so what? Of course, we know after Jesus died, he was buried. What’s the big deal? Well, I hope to show you it is indeed a very big deal and vital to our eternal salvation. Let’s go into our text, let’s dive in. It says in verse 42, when evening had already come, because it was the preparation day, that is the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea came and he asked for the body of Jesus.

    Now let’s focus on verse 42. It says when evening had already come, Now about when did Jesus expire on the cross? When did he actually die? Given the information that we have in the gospel accounts, it appears clear that Jesus died around three in the afternoon. And so we need to understand by this wording, Mark is reflecting on a Jewish reckoning of the day. In Jewish reckoning, of course, a full day was counted from evening to evening, from sunset to sunset. But in terms of the daylight hours, the daylight hours of the day were counted from basically 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Jesus died around 3 p.m. in the afternoon. And so the Jews, it’s important to understand, the Jews counted the late afternoon hours from about three to six in the late afternoon as first evening.

    And so that’s what Mark is reflecting when he says, when evening had already come, it doesn’t mean it was pitch black, pitch dark outside. It’s like, no, this is first evening. This is somewhere in those hours, between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. at night. Because it was the preparation day, what does he mean by preparation day? Well, the preparation day, this is language for the day before the Sabbath. This was the day when you were supposed to get ready to worship the Lord and rest from your labors on the Sabbath day. Now, Deuteronomy 21 verses 22 to 23, which I read earlier in the service, required that the bodies of executed criminals not be left hanging on a tree overnight. So, if Jesus was going to get a proper burial, Joseph was going to have to act swiftly to make sure that our Lord’s body was not kept overnight.

    And it’s interesting, go back to Deuteronomy 21, I know I read that earlier in the service, but Deuteronomy 21, verses 22 and 23, it says this. If a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree. Jesus was hung on a tree, that’s what crucifixion was. His corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, But you shall surely bury him on the same day, for he who is hanged is accursed of God.” And that’s very, by the way, that’s a very vital gospel truth as well. Christ took the curse of the law upon himself on the cross that we might receive the blessing of forgiveness and grace and salvation. But the reason that the corpse is not to be left overnight within the promised land is because it says at the end of verse 23, so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

    Under the old covenant, the land of Israel was a holy land. It was consecrated and it was set apart unto God. So there was also a ritual concern that these bodies not be kept overnight and thus defile the promised land, the holiness of the promised land. But again, friends, why was it so important that Jesus be given a proper burial? And why is Joseph of Arimathea, who we read is a follower of Jesus, a believer in the Lord Jesus, why is he so motivated to secure the body of Jesus to give it a proper burial? Well, friends, if our Lord’s body had not been given a proper burial, do you know what would have happened to it? Well, it would have been defiled by being cast, either cast into a shallow common grave for criminals, which was very common for crucifixion victims.

    They were taken down, they were thrown into a common grave with criminals, or it would have been left to be destroyed by scavengers. oftentimes victims of crucifixion. Once they died, the Romans would sometimes just leave their bodies up there and the vultures and the wild dogs would consume the corpse. So if Jesus had not received this burial, If that had happened, then no empty tomb would have been pointed at to confirm the truthfulness of our Lord’s resurrection. Also, as we will see, if our Lord’s body had been destroyed by vultures and wild dogs, then the prophecy of Isaiah 53 verse 9 would not have been fulfilled. And we’ll look at that in a moment. But furthermore, the messianic prophecy of Psalm 16, verse 10 says this. It says, For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or the grave, nor will you allow your Holy One to undergo decay.

    Dear friends, Psalm 16, verse 10 predicts that the body of the Messiah would not experience corruption. It would not rot in the grave. But how could this messianic prophecy be fulfilled if our Lord’s body had been exposed to be torn to shreds by wild animals, by vultures and wild dogs? And again, how could the prophecy of Isaiah 53 verse nine be fulfilled? Let’s take a look at that prophecy very briefly. Isaiah chapter 53, this wonderful messianic prophecy predicting the sufferings of our Lord Jesus. It says this. in Isaiah 53 verse 9. His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet he was with a rich man in his death. because he had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth. So one of the reasons why a proper burial was so important was so that God’s plan as predicted, as prophesied in scripture for the Messiah’s burial would be fulfilled.

    And so dear ones, I hope it is clear why it was vitally important in God’s sovereign plan of salvation that our Lord be given a proper burial. Now let’s move on, getting back to our passage for today, to verse 43. Here in this verse we are introduced to Joseph of Arimathea. And again it says this, Joseph of Arimathea came. And what is he like? What kind of a man is he? It says that he was a prominent member of the council who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God. In other words, he was looking for the messianic kingdom. He was a man who was steeped in the scriptures, longing for the spiritual kingdom that Christ had come to bring. And so it says, he gathered up courage and went in before Pilate, Pontius Pilate being the secular authority that had condemned Jesus to death by crucifixion, and he asked for the body of Jesus.

    There is a lot here, so bear with me, my friends. But as we compare scripture with scripture, John 19 verse 38 tells us that Joseph of Arimathea was a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews. And Luke chapter 23 verses 50 to 51 tells us that Joseph was a member of the council of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious ruling council, a good and righteous man. And we are also told that he did not consent to the council’s decision to condemn Jesus, as Luke 23, 51 makes clear. The rest of the council, except for Joseph and also apparently Nicodemus, the rest of the council had condemned Jesus to death, but Joseph of Arimathea had not consented to that decision. Now, again, friends, it appears that in his heart, Joseph believed in the Lord Jesus and therefore he is described as a disciple of Jesus.

    However, for a time, Joseph was a secret disciple due to fear of the Jews. What does that mean? Well, in other words, it appears that he had been afraid of losing his esteemed reputation among the unbelieving Jewish leaders and of being excommunicated from the synagogue. Now you, it’s very easy for us as armchair Bible scholars and theologians, it’s very easy for us to look at Joseph and be critical of him and to think, oh, you know, this guy, he finally got up the courage. What a wimp. What a coward. What a spineless dude. He finally gets up the courage, but you need to understand, beloved, what Joseph was facing. I’m not excusing Joseph’s fear of man or his lack of courage up to this point, but nevertheless, you need to understand the ramifications that Joseph faced if he aligned himself or identified himself with Jesus.

    You see, if Joseph had identified himself with Jesus, if he had been open about his belief in Jesus, what would that have cost him? Not only would that have likely cost him his position on the Jewish ruling council, but he would likely have faced excommunication from the synagogue. Now, in our day and age, I mean, let us say, hypothetically, that you’re a member of a Bible-believing church, but let’s say that your church unjustly excommunicates you. What do you do? What are your options? Well, in our situation, you can go down to another Bible-believing church down the road and join that church, in many cases. But back then, it wasn’t like that. If you were cast out of the synagogue, you were cut off from your community. You were cut off from the religious community. You were an outcast.

    And very likely, Joseph may have lost his family, his community. He would have been a total outcast, like a leper. He would have been an outsider. So no doubt that weighed heavily upon him. And furthermore, by coming forward to Pilate as someone who was not one of Jesus’ immediate family members or good friends, coming before Pilate as a member of the ruling council and thus identifying with Jesus, What would that have looked like to the Roman authority? What was the civil charge brought against Jesus? Jesus, in the civil charge, was charged with basically trying to overthrow Rome. Basically, Jesus was charged, unjustly of course, falsely of course, but he was charged with being a political insurrectionist, seeking to overthrow Rome. Now, just imagine if Pilate actually believed the charge against Jesus. Imagine Joseph coming before Pilate asking for the body of Jesus.

    Pilate or any other Roman authority in Pilate’s position who believed that Jesus was in fact a traitor against Rome. Pilate, if he really believed the charge, would have said, oh, why do you want the body of this traitor? Are you in line? Were you sympathetic to what this traitor did? Are you trying to overthrow Rome and so forth? So Joseph could have gotten into deep trouble with the Roman authorities as well, at least hypothetically speaking. So let’s cut Joseph a little slack here. He faced severe consequences for identifying with the Lord Jesus. And so again, it does appear that Joseph struggled with the sins of the fear of man and with cowardice. But praise God, in the end, his God-given faith overcame his sinful fear. And he gets up the courage to go before Pilate and to ask for the body of Jesus.

    A request, as I mentioned, that had the potential to destroy his reputation and position among the Jews and even potentially put him in danger before the Roman authorities. Well, Joseph comes before Pilate with this request. He gets up courage, he comes before Pilate. Look at verse 44. Pilate wondered if he, if Jesus, was dead by this time, and summoning the centurion, he questioned him as to whether he was already dead. Now, remember, Jesus had been crucified about 9 a.m. that morning, good Friday morning, and he expired around about six hours later, three in the afternoon. That seems like a very long time to suffer such horrible torture. And yet, my friends, the records show that victims of crucifixion did not usually die so quickly. In fact, from what I understand, sometimes victims of crucifixion could linger for two or even three days before finally expiring.

    It was a horrific way to die, a horrific form of torture. And if you were a crucifixion victim, the moment you were crucified, from that moment to the moment you died, there was no rest, there was no nourishment, you died from slow exhaustion and asphyxiation. But Jesus was dead in six hours, and pilots like this doesn’t usually happen. And so Pilate wondered and he asks, he summons the centurion and it says in verse 45, after ascertaining this from the centurion, ascertaining that Jesus in fact was dead, he granted the body to Jesus. After checking with the centurion to make sure Jesus was dead, Pilate granted the corpse to Joseph. And by the way, the centurion that is mentioned in our passage for today is probably the same one mentioned in verse 39. The same centurion who had confessed Jesus to be the Son of God, to be a righteous man.

    As he witnessed how Jesus died, Jesus cried out with a loud voice and gave up the ghost, something that crucifixion victims never did because they were too exhausted to do that. And so, now again, usually the bodies of executed criminals were only granted to their family or close friends. The fact that Pilate consented to this very unusual request from a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin probably is an indication that Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent of the charge of high treason. I mean, Pilate’s skepticism is clear from the gospel accounts. He knew that the Jews brought these accusations because of jealousy. And so therefore, by granting the body of Jesus to Joseph of Arimathea, Pilate is essentially declaring Jesus to be an innocent man. And not only that, he is also by his actions essentially giving evidence that he had consented to crucify Jesus merely out of political expediency, out of self-interest.

    In other words, by granting the body of Jesus to Joseph of Arimathea, Pilate was essentially admitting, yes, I am a spineless scumbag politician. That’s essentially what he was saying. Joseph is granted the body of Jesus. What happens next? Look at verse 46. Joseph bought a linen cloth, took him down, wrapped him in the linen cloth, and laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out in the rock. You’ve perhaps seen pictures of such tombs hewn out into the side of the rock at the side of a hill and so forth. It’s my understanding that such tombs were only available to those of some means and they tended to be family tombs. You had to be a wealthy person to be able to afford such a tomb. Joseph had little time to spare before the beginning of the Sabbath.

    So he has Jesus taken down and prepared for burial. Now you may wonder, well, how did Joseph do this all by himself? You know, it’s after three o’clock. It’s probably around four, maybe 4.30. It’s starting to get towards dark. How is Joseph gonna get Jesus prepared for burial before the end of the day? Well, John 19, verses 39 to 40 tells us that Joseph had help from a man named Nicodemus. You remember Nicodemus? He’s the man who came to Jesus that one time saying, you know, where Jesus said to him, you must be born again, John chapter three. This man Nicodemus apparently had also been a secret follower of the Lord Jesus. So Nicodemus and Joseph are working on this together. We’re told that they prepared the body of Jesus for burial according to the burial customs of the Jews.

    This implies that our Lord’s body was properly washed and spices were put on it. It was wrapped up in the linen and placed in the tomb. Now it’s important to understand they were able to do this relatively quickly because it’s very likely that Joseph and Nicodemus both had servants to assist them in these tasks. But then verse 47 is especially powerful and we really need to take note of this. It says, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph were looking on to see where he was laid. You say, so what? There’s a couple of these women who had followed Jesus noticing the place where Jesus was buried. So what? Ah, friends, the ever-faithful women are mentioned again. This verse is so important because it undermines the theory of the mistaken tomb. See there is this skeptical theory out there which claims that the reason the disciples came to believe that Jesus rose from the dead is because they accidentally went to the wrong tomb and therefore they came to the mistaken conclusion that Jesus had risen from the dead.

    But here Mark lists two eyewitnesses to the burial and according to the law of God every fact is established by what? two or three witnesses. And so these women serve as witnesses to the burial of the Lord Jesus. Here Mark lists these eyewitnesses to the burial of Christ’s body and the location of the correct tomb. Now, one of the things that’s interesting about this, I think I’ve shared with you before that, at least in the first century Jewish context, the testimony of women in the court was not admissible. If you were a woman, you were not trusted as a valid witness. And yet Mark tells us that two women were witnesses to the burial of the Lord Jesus. And so some might say, well, look, if the burial of Jesus really happened, and thus the resurrection which followed the burial, then why weren’t there some male witnesses to this?

    Well, again, it’s interesting. The presence of these women What it does is it actually enhances the evidentiary value of Mark’s account. Think about it this way. If Mark was making all of this up, he would most certainly have as witnesses to Jesus’ burial a couple of Jesus’ male disciples. The reason he mentions the women is because they were actually there. And so we see God’s almost ironic sense of humor. Remember, God’s ways are not our ways. And by God’s standard, the testimony of two women is sufficient to confirm these facts. So again, in conclusion of this first point, I’ve got a couple brief closing points to make. Why is the burial of Jesus an essential part of the gospel message? For a number of reasons. First of all, Christ’s burial in a rich man’s tomb was a fulfillment of Old Testament Bible prophecy as Isaiah 53 verse 9 predicted that the Messiah would be with the rich in his death.

    Secondly, Christ’s burial shows that he identifies with his people not only in his life, but even in his death. We, according to Romans chapter 6, we are united to Christ in his death. We are buried with him in baptism, raised with him in newness of life. Our baptism is a sign and seal of our union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. Christ identifies with his people in all of these stages of his life. Christ’s burial also demonstrated the fact that he was actually dead and therefore that his work of atoning for our sins was complete. The burial of Christ enhances and bears testimony to the truth that Jesus cried out on the cross before he expired, the truth that it is finished. Some might say, well, you know, maybe the centurion and the soldiers got it wrong.

    Maybe they thought he was dead, but he wasn’t really dead. No, that didn’t happen, friends. These Roman soldiers, these executioners, they knew when a crucifixion victim had finally expired. They knew how to tell the signs of that. Christ was absolutely dead, dead as a doorknob. The centurions knew it, the burial of Christ demonstrates it, proves it. And Christ’s burial, of course, anticipates his resurrection and it underscores the supernatural, miraculous nature of his resurrection from the dead. Dear friends, Jesus Christ did not merely revive from a near-death state or from a comatose state. He actually rose from the dead. He was not merely revived. He was supernaturally resurrected. The burial of Christ underscores this truth. Dear ones, as we seek to confess and bear witness to the good news of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, let us not neglect to emphasize his actual burial in a rich man’s tomb, even as we also rightly stress his atoning death and his glorious resurrection.

    Now, what are some of the applications that we can glean from all of this by way of conclusion? Well, notice, and this is the second point in your sermon outline, it’s a brief point, but notice that faith overcomes fear, leading to faithful action. Faith overcomes fear, leading to faithful action. Dear ones, it is easy to do the right thing when the right thing is popular and admired and will earn you virtue points in the eyes of the public. But when doing the right thing might expose you to costly consequences, consequences such as damage to your good name and personal reputation, or popularity, or exposure to ridicule or even persecution, damage to your career, job loss, rejection by family or close friends, or even possibly loss of life. If doing the right thing might expose you to those kinds of consequences, as was the case with Joseph of Arimathea, as he thought of these possible consequences, then doing the right thing requires courage.

    Verse 43 tells us, he gathered up courage and went in before Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. It did indeed require God-given, faith-filled courage for Joseph to do this, to identify himself with a savior who had been crucified. A man who, at least according to the civil charge, was a traitor against Rome. That required courage. True courage is not merely conformity to popular trends or going along to get along. We often see today examples of people who are brought to the public eye because they are going along with the crowds and their popular figures, and people will say, oh, what a hero this person is, or how courageous this person is, and that’s just a bunch of bunk. True courage means standing up for what is right and true even if it isn’t popular and even when it might cost you that which you hold most dear.

    Remember that Joseph of Arimathea had been a respected member of the Jewish Sanhedrin. He had an honored reputation in the community and apparently he had great wealth to his name as well. He had a lot personally invested in his public reputation as a member of the Sanhedrin. He had a lot of skin in the game when it came to having incentives to just play along with the popular opinions of the other Jewish leaders. It would have cost him nothing to just go along with the council’s decision to condemn Jesus. At least it would have cost him nothing this side of the eschaton. But he became convinced in his heart of the truth that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the Messiah. And by the grace of God, his heart finally moved him to do the right thing in seeking to provide our Lord with a proper burial in spite of the consequences.

    He finally identified, openly identified and confessed his affiliation with the Lord Jesus Christ. By way of application, what does this teach us? Well, friends, true faith leads to faithful action and faithful living. Now our faithful actions and our faithful living don’t save us. The works that are the result of true faith do not add to or contribute to our salvation, but they are the necessary fruits and evidences of that saving faith. Dear listener, does your professed faith in Christ overcome your fears and lead you to faithful living? We also learn in the scriptures that true disciples of Jesus do not remain secret disciples. Again, Joseph for a time was a secret disciple. He was a true believer, he believed in the Lord Jesus, but he kept it under wraps for a time. But true disciples, sooner or later, will openly identify with the Lord Jesus.

    I’m thinking of passages such as Matthew 10, verses 32 to 33. Matthew 10, verses 32 to 33, the Lord Jesus says this, therefore everyone who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven. And then it says in Romans 10 verse 9, that if you confess with your lips the Lord Jesus, or Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. Heart, belief, and mouth confession go together. We are justified by faith alone apart from works, including the work of confessing Christ, but that confession of Christ is an inevitable fruit and evidence and an inevitable partner with that true and living faith that embraces Christ and Christ alone for salvation.

    And all of this leads me to my final point. Observe, beloved, that true discipleship involves honoring Jesus even when his cause appears to be a lost one. True discipleship involves honoring Jesus even when his cause appears to be a lost one. A crucified Messiah? That was inconceivable to the Jews of our Lord’s day. Even his own open disciples didn’t really seem to get it during his earthly ministry. Remember when Jesus said the Son of Man is gonna go to Jerusalem and he’s gonna be crucified and then raised from the dead on the third day? He told this to them before it happened and it just went over their heads. It didn’t register with them. They didn’t seem to get it when Jesus had predicted that he would be crucified and raised from the dead. But here was Jesus hanging on the cross, dead from having been brutally crucified.

    To all human appearances, the devil and the wicked men who had plotted our Lord’s death were the victors. The Son of God had been slain, the Messiah had been murdered, and God had not intervened to prevent it. To all appearances, it looked like Jesus was a loser. It looked like Jesus had been proven to be a failure and a fraud and just another cursed messianic pretender. And there were plenty of those among the first century Jews. There were plenty of would-be messiahs and Jewish zealots seeking to overthrow the rule of Rome. That’s what it looked like in the eyes of the world. To all appearances, his cause was a defeated and lost cause. His disciples were fools, and he was a cursed and condemned man. But in spite of how bleak and hopeless the situation seemed, in spite of all appearances, Joseph of Arimathea clung to his faith in Jesus Christ.

    And in the end, he was not disappointed, for Jesus our Lord rose from the dead. And I’ll be talking more about that on the next Lord’s Day. Dear ones, let us continue to walk by faith, not by sight. Let us seek to do so even when the gospel seems to be a lost cause. And doesn’t it seem today like the gospel is a lost cause? But let us remember, God is sovereign, Jesus is Lord, and we are on the winning side. Remember, brothers and sisters, we are on the winning side. And in the end, our resurrection victory in Christ will be displayed for all of creation to see. Amen. Let us pray.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Forsaken One, the Victorious One

    The Forsaken One, the Victorious One

    About this sermon

    Darkness falls over the land from noon until three, and Jesus cries out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ He bore the Father’s wrath and was forsaken in the place of sinners, so that his people will never be. With a loud cry he breathes his last, a cry of victory, and the temple veil tears from top to bottom, opening the way into God’s presence. A Gentile centurion confesses, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God.’

    More sermons from Mark · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    standing for the reading of God’s word. This evening, instead of preaching from a psalm, we continue from this morning to consider the events of our Lord’s passion, and in particular, His death, as we consider Mark chapter 15, verses 33 through 41. The Lord Jesus has been scourged, and He has been crucified, and He is on the cross. Mark chapter 15, beginning at verse 33, and I’ll read through verse 41. Let us hear God’s holy word. When the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which is translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, Behold, he is calling for Elijah. Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave him a drink, saying, Let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.

    And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. When the centurion, who was standing right in front of him, saw the way he breathed his last, he said, truly this man was the Son of God. There were also some women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, the less and of Joseph and Salome. When He was in Galilee, they used to follow Him and minister to Him. And there were many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem. Dear friends, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God to bless the proclamation of His Word. Once again, dear Lord and Father in heaven, as we approach this text of Holy Scripture, we are standing on holy ground as our Savior lays down his life for our redemption.

    We ask, O God, by your Holy Spirit, that you would once again cause your word to find a lodging place in our souls this evening. We ask that you would deepen our faith, and strengthen our love and our hope in Christ this evening through what we consider. We ask that your word would go forth. We pray, Heavenly Father, that you would grant unto me, your unworthy servant, the grace to declare your word with clarity and power and with the assistance of your Holy Spirit, so that you would be glorified, so that the lost would be brought to faith in Christ, and so that your people would be built up in grace and faith. In Jesus’ name we pray and all of God’s people said, Amen. You may be seated. Once again, I would encourage the children or anyone else who finds it helpful to follow along with the key words that I’ve suggested on your sermon outline.

    The title of my sermon this evening is The Forsaken One, The Victorious One. The Forsaken One, The Victorious One. Well, dear ones, in our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, we consider a solemn and powerful record of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Mark, the divinely inspired author of this gospel account, records the basic details of our Lord’s death, and he records it in a very simple and straightforward manner, giving the basic details of our Lord’s death with very little comment. But even though this account is simple, straightforward, and very direct, it is nevertheless a powerful and moving account of the sufferings and death of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In our text for this evening, Mark records for us two miraculous events which took place in connection with the suffering and death of our Lord.

    Miraculous events that were signs that this was something supernatural that was taking place. This death of this man, Jesus, was more than the death of an ordinary man. The first event recorded for us in this passage, this first miraculous event is recorded in verse 33. And I’ll just read it again. It says, when the sixth hour came, that would be about 12 noon, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. And as I will soon explain, this darkness seemed to have had a supernatural origin and was not simply a matter of God’s ordinary providence. Of course, everything that occurs is under the control of God’s divine providence. God uses secondary means to accomplish his purposes most of the time. But in this case, it would seem that this particular darkness was not merely of a natural, providentially controlled event, but rather an event involving a supernatural divine intervention.

    And I’ll explain more about that in a bit. The second event is found in verse 38. And I will again read that for you. It says, and the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The veil that separated the holy place in the temple from the most holy place. It was a very thick veil. And so it would take a supernatural power or a great power to to split it in two from top to bottom. This event is also clearly a miraculous event, even more clearly miraculous than the supernatural darkness of verse 33. While Mark records this amazing event without comment, which is sort of typical of Mark’s fast-paced, just-the-facts style, Nevertheless, this amazing and miraculous historical event is overflowing with rich redemptive historical significance, and we’ll get into that in a bit as well.

    But as you will notice if you read our text for today carefully, it was not until our Lord cried out and breathed his last, it wasn’t until then that the veil in the temple separating the holy place from the most holy place was torn in two. And so before we consider the symbolic significance of this tearing of the veil from top to bottom, we’ll first be considering the final cry of Christ from the cross before he breathed his last. But before we get to that, let’s dive into verse 33 and 34, and this is the first main point in your sermon outline if you’re following along. Brothers and sisters, let us consider the meaning and significance of the darkness between the sixth and the ninth hours. the meaning and significance of the darkness between the sixth and the ninth hours.

    Verse 33, it says, when the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which is translated, and notice that Mark translates this for his Gentile audience. It’s translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Which is a quotation from Psalm 22, verse one. Now, we notice here the timing and the extent of this darkness. The sixth hour, as I mentioned, would be, by Roman reckoning, about 12 noon, and the ninth hour would be 3 p.m., 3 in the afternoon, which incidentally, and interestingly, was the time around which the sacrifices would have been offered in the temple. So this darkness lasted for about roughly three hours. And as verse 33 indicates, we are told that it was over the whole land.

    In other words, it was an extensive darkness. So it was a widespread darkness that would have been noticed by multitudes of folks. Now, what was the cause of this darkness? While some have suggested, well, maybe it was an eclipse or something like that, but as Bishop J.C. Ryle points out in his commentary on Mark, he says, it is almost unnecessary to remark that the darkness which covered the heaven on the day of the crucifixion could not possibly have been occasioned by an eclipse of the sun because the Passover was always held at full moon. It is evident that the darkness was miraculous and caused by some special interference with the course of nature. So whatever God used to cause this darkness, it apparently was a supernatural darkness. It was supernatural in its origin, and it was miraculous in its timing.

    For this darkness descended upon the land while Jesus was in a sense, finishing his work of atonement. He was completing his work of atonement for our sins by dying on the cross. It was in the last three hours of his crucifixion, the three hours leading up to his breathing his last, leading up to his death where this darkness descended upon the land. So even if God chose to use natural means to bring about this darkness, the fact that he caused it to become dark at just the right time, at just this particular time, shows that it was a miracle. Now what is the significance of this darkness? I think there is much that we can learn from this, brothers and sisters. Oftentimes in scripture, hell is described as the outer darkness. And what this points us to, brothers and sisters, is that Christ endured the outer darkness of God’s wrath in our place. in our stead.

    As I mentioned, hell is sometimes described in Scripture as the outer darkness, hell being the final place of punishment for the unrepentant wicked. And we see hell described as the outer darkness in multiple places in Scripture, but just to give you one example, I’d invite you to turn to Matthew 8, Matthew 8, verses 11 and 12. In those verses, the Lord Jesus, speaking of the spread of the gospel beyond the Jews, He says, He’s anticipating there prophesying the Gentile ingathering from the nations, that the gospel would go out to all the world and that people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation would be welcomed into the kingdom of God and become part of the true Israel of God, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then notice what Jesus says in verse 12, but the sons of the kingdom Those who were outwardly in the kingdom, outwardly part of the people of God, but who had rejected Him as Messiah and Savior, who were not truly in the kingdom, the sons of the kingdom, will be cast out into the outer darkness, in that place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

    Dear listener, if you have been born again by the Holy Spirit and thus truly know the Lord Jesus Christ as your very own Lord and Savior, then you can rest assured that Christ your Savior endured the outer darkness of hell in your place. During those hours, those, from our vantage point, brief hours, Christ endured an eternity of suffering. Christ, the eternal Son of God, suffered infinitely during that brief span of time. He did so in our place, in our stead, in order to redeem us from our sins. And if you are in Christ, if you’ve been born again by the Spirit and are trusting Christ as your very own Lord and Savior, then this outer darkness shows you what your sin and my sin deserves. Christ endured that outer darkness for us. and for our salvation.

    Christ endured the outer darkness of hell in our place. Christ endured the infinite weight of God’s holy wrath. He experienced an eternity of hell during those brief hours of darkness and during his suffering, his passion and death on the cross. Now the human mind cannot even begin to plumb the depths of our Lord’s sufferings during those hours. And yet, as I pointed out this morning, our Lord Jesus underwent this suffering willingly, voluntarily. He willingly stayed on the cross, even though he could have come down from the cross if he had chosen to do so. But no, he willingly suffers, and he does so in our place, in our stead. He willingly tasted the darkness of God’s holy wrath against our sin on the cross, that we who through sovereign grace trust him as our Savior might know his love and his grace.

    So this is one of the important lessons we can draw from this. Believer notice, consider also that Christ endured the agony of forsakenness in your place. A dear Christian, do you realize that as Jesus Christ suffered on the cross, he was experiencing for the first and only time in all of eternity, Jesus was experiencing the agony of being forsaken by his father. Christ as our sin bearer and substitute, receive the Father’s holy rejection and righteous wrath in our place so that we might never have to experience the horror of being rejected and forsaken by God the Father. Indeed, in and through Christ, we are, both now and forevermore, we are accepted and loved by God the Father, and He promises never to leave us nor forsake us. Now, I do want to make one brief comment about this.

    Recently, I was listening to a theologian talk about the atonement of Christ. And this is a theologian that is somewhat controversial, but is generally identified as an evangelical of sorts. And he was saying how when it comes to the doctrine of Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement. That is to say, Christ took the penalty for our sin upon himself in our place. This is what we’re speaking about. This is what our text points to. He says that oftentimes this particular theologian was saying, well, we have to be careful when we talk about the substitutionary atonement, especially when we’re talking about it to folks who have experienced abuse. And he made the point that some folks, when they hear preaching about the substitutionary atonement, instead of hearing, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, they hear, for God so hated the world that he punished his son.

    This, of course, is a twisted caricature, a straw man of the biblical and historic doctrine of Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement. You see, it isn’t that Jesus died to make an angry God loving. God is indeed angry with our sin. The Bible says God is angry with sinners every day. God is angry with sin. And His righteous, holy character demands that sinners be punished for their sin. but it was not anger or hatred that moved God the Father to send His Son. It was out of love for sinners that the Father sent His Son, Jesus Christ, and Christ came willingly, voluntarily to take the penalty of our sin upon himself. So it was love that sent Christ to the cross so that the demands of God’s holy wrath and justice against our sin could be satisfied.

    So whenever you hear liberal theologians or those who have issues with the substitutionary atonement saying things like, well, that’s divine child abuse or what have you, or you can’t preach that to someone who’s experienced abuse, there was no abuse taking place here. God the Father and God the Son in the covenant of redemption in eternity past made a covenant within themselves. The Father promised to give His Son a seed and Christ promised to come and suffer for that seed. so that they might be redeemed from their sins. Again, as we’re told in Romans 5 verse 8, God demonstrates his love for us in this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Christ’s death on the cross is a demonstration, a manifestation of the Father’s love for us. So let us make sure we keep that in mind, especially as we hear those who mock or ridicule the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement.

    Certainly we need to be sensitive in the way that we communicate this doctrine, as we need to be sensitive in communicating any doctrine. But remember, friends, it was love that moved the father to send his son, and it was love that led Jesus to the cross and kept him on the cross, even during this time of outer darkness. Christ endured the agony of forsakenness in our place. so that we might not be forsaken but might be accepted in the beloved both now and forever. Dear listener, are you accepted in Christ the beloved? Are you in Christ? Turn to Christ by God’s sovereign grace. May you come to put your faith and trust in Christ and Christ alone for your salvation from sin. And then look at verses 35 and 36. We read this, when some bystanders heard it, they heard Jesus say, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani.

    When some bystanders heard it, they began to say, behold, he is calling for Elijah. They mishear him. They think, oh, he’s crying out to Elijah. And it was believed that before the Messiah would come, Elijah would come and set things right. Of course, that was fulfilled in the ministry of John the Baptist and so forth. but the bystanders are mocking Jesus. They’re saying, oh, he’s calling for Elijah. Verse 36, someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave him a drink saying, let us see whether Elijah will come and take him down. Notice that at this unimaginably sober, solemn, and holy moment, of our Lord’s passion, the calloused onlookers respond to our Lord’s agonized cries, not with reverence and awe, not with respect, not with compassion, but with jest and mockery.

    This too underscores the utter forsakenness and the utter loneliness of our Lord on the cross. But again, He did that. He went through that. He experienced that loneliness and forsakenness so that we might never have to experience it. Beloved, because of original sin, the unbeliever has no true fear, no sense of awe-filled reverence for God. By nature, by fallen nature, our depraved and fallen hearts delight in mocking that which is holy. Not too, a while ago I remember, some of you are familiar with the atheist promoter Richard Dawkins and I remember hearing how, I guess he’s got a following online and it’s my understanding that at one point Dr. Dawkins put out a challenge to to his followers, especially those from Christian backgrounds, to openly over the internet renounce their baptism and curse the Holy Spirit, trying to get them to blaspheme the Holy Spirit.

    And this apparently was a very popular trend for a while. I don’t follow these things as I should, perhaps, but we have that mockery out there, this hostility and mockery and scoffing against the Lord and against the gospel and against things that are holy. And that is in line with our sin nature. Our sin nature leads us to mock that which is holy. We see that here in the way these calloused bystanders mocked our Lord. Dear listener, let us be warned against the blasphemy of mocking or making light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The worldly-minded, the unregenerate, think that the gospel of a suffering, crucified Savior is utter foolishness, and they cast ridicule and mockery and scoffing upon it. But the Word of God teaches us that this foolish gospel, this good news of a crucified, risen Savior, this Message that is viewed by the worldly wise and the worldly sophisticates as being just silly mythology.

    It is the very power and wisdom of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. I’m reminded of what the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2, verses 14 through 16. 1 Corinthians 2, verses 14 through 16, Paul writes, but a natural man, that is to say, a man who is fallen in his sin nature, devoid of the Holy Spirit. A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. That word spiritually, I think, should have a capital S. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to appraise and accept the things of the Spirit. Verse 15, but he who is spiritual, capital S, appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one, for who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct him?

    But we have the mind of Christ. Let us, by the grace of God, embrace the mind of Christ. Let us be willing to let the world look at us as a bunch of fools and idiots and silly people believing silly myths. That’s what the world thinks of us. But we know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the very power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. But next. Not only do we see the powerful truth of the substitutionary atonement highlighted and displayed in the outer darkness that Christ endured during those hours, but next I would have us to behold the victory cry from the cross. Let us, and this is the second point in your outline, behold the victory cry from the cross, verse 37. After Jesus had been mocked and someone had offered him sour wine on a sponge again as part of the mockery and scoffing.

    Let us see whether Elijah will come and take him down. It says, and Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. Now that is an amazing statement there actually. And this is perhaps one of the things that got the centurions attention. Because it is well known that if you are a crucifixion victim, As victims of crucifixion near death, they are utterly and completely exhausted. After hours upon hours of pulling themselves up by the spikes driven through their wrists and into their feet in order to just breathe, they wear out. No crucifixion victim on the verge of death would have the energy or the strength to cry out in a loud voice. But Jesus has made it clear, I lay down my life, no man takes it from me, I lay it down of myself.

    So what does Jesus do when it is time, when the work of atonement has been complete, when God’s elect have been redeemed, when Christ has accomplished our redemption, what does he do? Does he just kind of quietly give up the ghost? No. He utters a loud voice and he breathes. Now, when we compare Mark’s gospel with John’s account of this in John 19, verses 28 to 30, which I’ll read for you in a few moments, we can infer that our Savior’s cry from the cross was not a cry of disillusionment or defeat. He wasn’t saying, Father, why? Why? There’s theories out there among the higher critics of the Bible that say that when Jesus said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me, that Jesus felt defeat, that Jesus had this scheme in mind that if I go to the cross, I’ll get God’s attention and he’ll finally end the world and usher in the consummated messianic kingdom.

    And when that didn’t happen, Jesus was dejected on the cross and he cried out in defeat. But no, that’s not how the scriptures present it. As I mentioned before, when Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He is quoting from Psalm 22. He is indicating that he is fulfilling messianic prophecy. And when Jesus cries out at last, it is not a cry of defeat, but a cry of victory. Turn with me, if you would, to John 19, and look at verses 28 to 30. John 19, verses 28 to 30. Says this, after this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished. This is John 19, beginning of verse 28. After this, Jesus knowing that all things had already been accomplished. In other words, he had fulfilled the mission that the Father sent him to fulfill.

    He had accomplished our redemption. He had atoned for our sin. To fulfill the scripture, he said, I am thirsty. A jar full of sour wine was standing there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to his mouth. Therefore, when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, what? It is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Was this a cry of defeat? Far from it, no, beloved. It was a cry of victory. It was a cry which anticipated the glory of the resurrection. The forces of the worldly wise, the forces of the evil one, thought that they had finally conquered the Son of God. But in that apparent defeat on the cross, Jesus snatched victory. out of the jaws of apparent defeat.

    It was no defeat at all, in fact. It anticipated His resurrection glory. Dear ones, our Lord’s last cry on the cross, as I said, was not a cry of defeat, but a cry of victory. It was finished. The work of atonement was complete. The divine wrath, the holy wrath of God against our sin was satisfied. The strict justice and the tender mercy of God had come together and had met at the cross of Calvary, and there in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, both of these attributes, the justice and the mercy of God, were vindicated and displayed. Sin had been fully paid for. The great multitude of God’s elect had been redeemed. Salvation had been accomplished. The night of crucifixion was over. The day of resurrection was about to dawn. Hallelujah. And as the confirmation of that fact, as confirmation of the fact that Christ had succeeded in making a full and perfect atonement for sin, an amazing event occurs.

    And that’s my final point in your outline. Consider, beloved, the symbolic significance of the tearing of the veil in two from top to bottom. Verse 38, and the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. As an initial confirmation of God the Father’s acceptance of His Son’s sacrifice, a mysterious, miraculous event occurs here. The veil of the temple, which separated the holy place from the holy of holies, and only the high priest could enter the holy of holies and only once a year, That veil, that veil which barred ordinary folk from the holy presence of God, the special presence of God that dwelt there, was removed. The way into the holy of holies was opened up. Now notice the manner in which it was torn in two. Was it torn in two just from the middle out, from the bottom up?

    No, from the top down. I believe, beloved, that this is significant. It was not from the bottom up, but from the top down. It would seem that by this miraculous action, God is symbolically teaching us that he takes the initiative in coming down to us. We don’t pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We don’t work our way into heaven. We don’t climb Jacob’s ladder into glory. He comes down to us. He came to us in the person of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, and His grace comes to us. We don’t climb up to God. We do not tear the curtain asunder from the bottom up. Salvation, restoration into a right relationship with God is not by our works or by our initiative or by our efforts. It’s not by our free will or our decisions.

    It is from God. Salvation is of the Lord. God initiates the salvation process. God continues that process. God completes that process. God, out of love for us sinners, sent his son to die on the cross for our sins. And Christ’s broken body and shed blood on the cross were the means by which God removed the thick curtain that bars us from entering His holy presence because of our sin. The tearing of the veil was made possible by the tearing of our Savior’s flesh and the pouring out of His blood on the cross. In closing, I want to make a number of points of application or takeaways. We learn here that sin has separated us from fellowship and friendship with the holy God who created us. When God commanded the Israelites in their construction of the tabernacle and later the temple to put this thick veil between the holy place where the priests could be and the holy of holies where only the high priest could go once a year, And on this veil there were depictions of animals and cherubim.

    It was a depiction of the Garden of Eden. But because of man’s fall in sin, We’ve been cast east of Eden. We’ve been cast away from Eden. And so that veil represented the barrier between the holy God and sinful man. And that we cannot presume to enter into the holy of holies without priestly ministrations. And so this teaches that we could never remove that separation or satisfy God’s holy requirements by our own initiative or works or merits or strivings or will. or decisions. But God, out of love for sinners, took the initiative to remove that thick barrier by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to atone for sin on the cross and to satisfy the demands of His own holiness and justice against our sin. By Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, sin has been atoned for.

    The barrier separating unholy sinners from the Holy God has been removed And therefore, all who trust Christ and His saving work alone for their salvation receive the benefits of His saving work on the cross and are restored into a right relationship with God, restored and reconciled to God, and indeed become beloved children of God. In other words, those who come to know Christ as their Savior are justified, reconciled, and adopted by sovereign grace. How then should we respond to these truths? Well, like the centurion, we must confess that this man, Jesus, was indeed the Son of God. Notice the centurion’s response. Now, this was the soldier who oversaw the crucifixion. So this man was a pagan man. He was a Gentile from a Gentile background. And yet, he had been noticing these strange things. He’d been noticing this darkness.

    He had been noticing, and he noticed our Lord give up the ghost with a loud cry. And he realized something supernatural is taking place here. Verse 39, when the centurion, who was standing right in front of him, saw the way he breathed his last, he said, truly, this man was the son of God. Another gospel account has him saying, truly, this was a righteous man. Now even though this centurion probably did not understand the full significance of what he just confessed, I doubt that this centurion had a correct orthodox Trinitarian theology or understood the depths of the incarnation of Christ as the God-man, the Word made flesh. But nevertheless, at some level he recognizes This man is the Son of God. And so this centurion was the first Gentile ever recorded in scripture to have been drawn to the crucified Savior.

    Let us confess Him as the Son of God, as our Lord and Savior. And let us follow the godly example of the faithful women who followed Christ and were with Him even towards the end as verses 40 and 41 indicate. We could spend a whole, there could be another sermon on the women who attended Christ at the cross. But given the time, I will leave it there. But brothers and sisters in Christ, let us praise God for his amazing grace and mercy for us in Christ as displayed in our Lord’s death on the cross. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that Christ has made full satisfaction, propitiation for our sins. We thank you, Lord, that we fellowship in the benefits of Christ’s finished work by faith, God-given faith. We thank you for your word, for faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

    We pray that as we consider these truths, tonight that our faith would be deepened and strengthened, and especially, Lord, be with us as we prepare to commune in fellowship with our Savior in the Holy Supper this evening. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. Let’s respond to the preaching of the word by rising and we’ll sing Psalm 22a. Because it is a lengthy psalm, we’re going to sing stanzas one through three, seven, 10, and 11. Psalm 22a, let’s rise and sing together.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Mocking the King

    Mocking the King

    About this sermon

    The Roman soldiers dress Jesus in purple, crown him with thorns, and mock him as King of the Jews, and the chief priests and passersby jeer at him on the cross: ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself.’ Jesus refuses the drugged wine and endures the cross with his senses clear. He could have come down, and he stayed so that he could fully atone for our sins. One of the criminals crucified beside him repents and receives the promise, ‘Today you shall be with me in paradise.’

    More sermons from Mark · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Amen. Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word as we continue our consideration of the Gospel of Mark and we are reaching the end of our study of Mark. This morning we consider a passage in Mark chapter 15 verses 16 through 32. Let us hear God’s holy word. And remember the setting, our Lord Jesus has undergone both phases of his trial, his trial before the religious authorities and as well as his trial before the secular authority represented in the person of Pontius Pilate. And now Jesus is delivered up to be mocked and scourged and crucified. Let us hear God’s holy word, Mark chapter 15, beginning at verse 16. The soldiers took him away into the palace, that is the praetorium, and they called together the whole Roman cohort. They dressed him up in purple, and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on him.

    And they began to accuse him, hail, king of the Jews. They kept beating his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling and bowing before him. After they had mocked him, they took the purple robe off him and put his own garments on him, and they led him out to crucify him. They pressed into service a passerby coming from the country, Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. Then they brought him to the place Golgotha, which is translated place of a skull. They tried to give him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided up his garments among themselves, casting lots for them to decide what each man should take. It was the third hour when they crucified him.

    The inscription of the charge against him read, the King of the Jews. They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. And the scripture was fulfilled, which says, and he was numbered with the transgressors. Those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads and saying, ha, you who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. In the same way, the chief priests also, along with the scribes, were mocking him among themselves and saying, he saved others, he cannot save himself. Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross so that we may see and believe. Those who were crucified with him were also insulting him. Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.

    Please join me in prayer. Our Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you for your holy, God-breathed, inerrant, infallible word. It is indeed a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path, a guide to our way. And Lord, as we approach this very solemn and somber portion of your word, we pray that your spirit would open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word. Be present this day, Lord God, as you are present in the reading of the word. Be present by your spirit in the proclamation of your word. Grant unto me, your unworthy servant, the grace to speak forth and declare your word with faithfulness, with power, and with the assistance and grace of your Holy Spirit, for the salvation of the lost, the building up of your saints, and as a powerful witness for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

    For it is in his name that we pray, and all of God’s people said. Amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon this morning is Mocking the King. And if you have your sermon outline, I encourage the children to choose a few of these key words to be listening for as a guide and help to listening and paying attention to the sermon. The words are mockery, king, love, cruelty, gospel, hope, and salvation. Well, friends, when I was a young person, I learned a very common saying that adults tended to teach young people in my day, and that was, sticks and stones may break my bones. Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, right? Sticks and stones may break my bones, but what? But words can never hurt me. Now, in hindsight, I understand why adults would often teach us young people this saying.

    After all, you know, basically the idea is, look, your friends are gonna tease you. Don’t take that too seriously. Let that kind of roll off your shoulders. But think about the saying itself. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. Friends, is that actually true? Is it true that words can never hurt you? I would suggest to you that that is absolutely false. In fact, hurtful words, especially words of cruel mockery and vicious ridicule, can profoundly wound a person’s soul and cause long-term psychological and emotional damage. Sure, it’s true that sticks and stones can break our bones, but broken bones can often heal in a relatively short period of time, and they can often heal back stronger than they were before. But vicious, cruel words can often leave a wound in the soul that can take years to heal, or which may never be completely healed.

    Dear ones, our passage for this Lord’s Day morning records for us some of the vicious, cruel words of mockery and ridicule that Jesus Christ, our Messianic King, endured from both the Roman soldiers as well as from his fellow Jews. Now, in past weeks, we’ve considered the events of our Lord’s arrest and the various phases of his trial. First, his trial before the Jewish religious authorities, the Sanhedrin, which took place during the night, and then his early morning trial before the secular authority represented in the person of Pontius Pilate. Jesus also had a hearing before Herod. which other gospel accounts record and so forth. But we considered the various phases of the trial and what Jesus endured through all of that. We considered, for example, how Pontius Pilate, under pressure from the Jewish religious authorities and the crowds, released a violent insurrectionist named Barabbas under pressure at the request of the crowd, and how he condemned Jesus to death, again, under pressure from the religious authorities and from the crowds.

    Well, after having Jesus scourged, Pilate handed him over to be crucified, as it says in verse 15. Wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas for them, which is like releasing a terrorist, right? Pilate released Barabbas to them, and after having Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified. And by the way, it’s interesting how simple and straightforward Mark is in speaking about these events. Scourging was a horrible torture. The Roman scourge included several whips with pieces of bone and metal on them. And if you were subject to a Roman scourge, it is likely that your entire back area, your buttocks, and the parts of your upper legs would be entirely shredded. Your skin would be shredded, oftentimes exposing muscle, even bone. And many victims of scourging, Roman scourging, died from the torture. But Jesus was handed over to be scourged, and then after his scourging, Jesus was handed over to be crucified.

    Well, our passage for this Lord’s Day morning continues Mark’s narrative of our Lord’s passion of His suffering and death upon the cross. As Mark here records, our Lord’s mistreatment by the Roman soldiers who guarded Him, His crucifixion, and the mockery He endured from His fellow countrymen as He hung upon the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. So let’s dive into our passage for today, beloved, and I want you to consider first of all, and this is the first point in your outline if you’re following along, consider the incredible love of Christ for us sinners. A love which compelled him to endure such shame and mockery from the wicked. This passage of Holy Scripture, this solemn, somber passage of God’s Word highlights and displays the incredible love of Jesus Christ for us sinners. Consider the incredible love of Christ for us sinners, a love which compelled him to endure such shame and mockery from the wicked.

    We see an example of the ridicule that Christ endured in these verses. I want to focus especially on verses 16 through 20, and then verses 29 through 32 at this point. Let’s go through these portions of this passage. And first of all, we see that Jesus endured shame and mockery from the pagans, from these unbelieving Gentile soldiers. Look at verse 16, it says, the soldiers took him away into the palace, that is the praetorium, and they called together the whole Roman cohort, or it could be translated as battalion. Now, what was this palace or praetorium? Well, it was probably, this probably refers to the official residence of the governor. And so Jesus was taken there and it says the whole battalion came together to mock the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the word in the Greek for battalion or cohort is spera.

    And since Aspera, the 10th part of a legion, consisted of 200 to 600 men, as one commentator points out, the word is probably used loosely here by Mark to include only the soldiers that were immediately at hand. But the point is, here is Jesus all alone, surrounded by these scoffing pagans. Now, these soldiers had probably had a lot of experience putting to death Jewish insurrectionists, those who among the Jews would be messiahs and would be insurrectionists who sought to overturn Roman rule. And so they probably figured this guy, Jesus of Nazareth, was just another Messianic pretender, just another one of these zealots, Jewish zealots, who was trying to overturn Roman rule. That was their view. But nonetheless, here is Jesus all alone as he is surrounded by these scoffers, these mockers. And what do they do to him?

    It says, verse 17, they dressed him up in purple. Purple was a royal color. He’s charged with political insurrection. That was the civil charge brought against him. A civil charge, by the way, as we discovered on the last Lord’s Day, that Pilate himself rejected. Pilate said, I find no fault in this man. Pilate knew that the Jewish authorities brought Jesus before him out of envy. Pilate knew that the charges against Jesus were, that there was nothing to them, but nevertheless, in order to save his own political career, and under pressure from the crowds, Pilate gave Jesus over to their whims, their desire that he be crucified. And so they put on him a purple robe, perhaps an old soldier’s cape. And then what else do they do? It says, they dressed him up in purple and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on him.

    Regarding this crown of thorns, one commentator points out, Jesus bore the divine curse on the ground which produced thorns after Adam sinned. Remember I read that passage from Genesis chapter three earlier in the service where after Adam and Eve had disobeyed God’s command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God confronted them, judicially confronted them in the garden And he pronounced the curse. He pronounced the curse upon the serpent, which contains the proto-evangel. He will crush your head. You will wound his heel. But in the curse pronounced upon Adam, what does God say? He says the ground will bring forth thorns and thistles. Well, here is Jesus, and he has placed on his head A crown of thorns. I believe we are intended to understand this as having redemptive historical significance because what this points to is that Jesus Christ bore the divine curse that God had placed upon the ground.

    He bore that curse upon himself. And then this commentator goes on to say, the soldiers used the crown to ridicule the idea that Jesus was the king. Not only the crown, but the purple robe. So here is Jesus, all bloodied up because of the scourging, and a crown of thorns is put on his head. And what goes on next, verse 18, they began to acclaim him. Hail, King of the Jews, as they said, in jest and mockery. And what else did they do to honor this king? They kept beating his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling and bowing before him. The kind of mockery that our Lord endured, the ridicule, not only the physical agony and pain, but the mental torment and agony that Jesus endured through the mockery of these soldiers was more than any of us could even begin to imagine.

    Oh, how alone our Lord Jesus must have felt. But Jesus, the Son of God incarnate, underwent this suffering for you and for me, dear brother and sister in Christ. But not only, and then if we skip along to verse 29. It says, those passing by were hurling abuse at him, wagging their heads and saying, ha, you who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. In the same way, the chief priests also, along with the scribes, were mocking him among themselves and saying he saved others. He cannot save Himself. Here we see Jesus enduring shame and mockery from His own fellow Jews. It’s one thing for these, for Jesus to endure such mockery from these Gentile soldiers who, you know, they didn’t understand the Jewish faith.

    They didn’t understand the Jewish religion, at least not to the extent that they, they weren’t familiar with the Scriptures. So, in a sense, it’s understandable that pagan unbelievers would mock Jesus. After all, in their view, he’s just another one of these would-be messiahs, another one of these Jewish zealots that’s trying to overthrow Rome. But Jesus experiences mockery from the people who ought to have recognized Him as the true Messiah. This mockery by His own people must have hurt Him even more than the mockery He had received from the soldiers. But in all of this, brothers and sisters, we see the love of Christ displayed. let’s focus on that as we focus on verses 21 through 30. It says in verse 21, after Jesus, verse 20, let me start at verse 20, after they had mocked Him, they took the purple robe off Him, which must have been incredibly painful, because remember, His back had been shredded from the scourging, and with the purple robe being put on His back, imagine, I mean, what happens when you tear off a band-aid that has been applied inappropriately or not carefully.

    It hurts. Imagine the robe being ripped off his back. That must have caused incredible pain. But they take off the purple robe, and then they put his garments back on him. And they led him out to crucify him. And as they led him out, he had to carry his own crossbeam. The crossbeam typically weighed about 30 to 40 pounds. So Jesus, with his shredded back, carrying this crossbeam, He couldn’t handle it. And so what happens? Look at verse 21. They pressed into service a passerby coming from the country. And then this passerby whom the soldiers pressed into service to carry Jesus’s crossbeam is named. He’s Simon of Cyrene. And then Mark goes further to identify him. He’s the father of Alexander and Rufus. to bear his cross.” Now Simon of Cyrene, where is Cyrene? Cyrene was in northern Africa where there was a significant Jewish population at that time.

    Alexander and Rufus are probably mentioned here because they were likely known to the church in Rome and Mark according to early church tradition, Mark’s gospel was originally written to the church in Rome. And so this Rufus, this Alexander and Rufus are probably mentioned because they were likely known to this church in Rome. And we see that, for example, let’s take a look at Romans 16 verse 13, which may be referring to the very same Rufus mentioned in this passage. In Romans chapter 16, verse 13, we read these words. Paul writes, “‘Greet Rufus, a choice man in the Lord, also his mother and mine.’” Now what does this point us to? Well this underscores the claim, beloved, that Mark’s gospel is derived from eyewitness testimony. According to the United Testimony of the early church, Mark was written, John Mark was a disciple of the apostle Peter.

    And so what we have in Mark’s gospel is likely a representation of Peter’s preaching. And in any case, Mark bases his gospel on eyewitness testimony, and of course the Holy Spirit inspired Mark to write precisely what he wrote. And as I mentioned, the crosspiece that condemned criminals were forced to carry could be 30 to 40 pounds. Since Jesus was too exhausted to carry his own crosspiece, Simon was involuntarily conscripted by the soldiers to carry the cross of our Lord. And that was something that anyone could be subjected to. If you lived back in those days and you happened to be walking down the street and a very common sight was Roman soldiers carrying off criminals to a place of execution. If you were an able-bodied man, the soldiers might call on you and say, hey you, pick up this guy’s cross, and you would have no choice, you’d have to do it.

    So that’s what Simon of Cyrene was pressed into service to do. And then verse 22, it says, then they brought him to the place Golgotha, which is translated place of a skull. Now think about it, why was it called place of a skull? It might have been called Place of a Skull because perhaps this hill was shaped like a skull, or perhaps it was named that way because perhaps this was a place where many had been executed by the Roman government for their crimes against Rome. In any case, isn’t it ironic? Here, Jesus dies on the cross at the place of a skull, and the skull represents death. Jesus died on Golgotha to deliver God’s people from death. But when he arrives there, when he arrives at Golgotha, what do they do before they crucify him?

    Look at verse 23. They tried to give him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. This would have had an anesthetic effect which would have somewhat dulled the pain. Now if it was the soldiers who offered our Lord this wine, this cheap wine, then this serves to show that even these hardened soldiers who had likely crucified many victims, even these soldiers were not entirely devoid of humanitarian concern for their victims. But nevertheless, Jesus refuses it. Jesus refuses this wine that would have helped to dull the pain. Jesus our Lord chose to face the agony of crucifixion with his senses fully intact. Was he insane? Why did he do this? He chose to endure the agony of the cross without any mitigation of his pain. Why did he do this? He did this because he was going to the cross to pay the penalty for our sin.

    And the only way he could do that was with all of his senses intact. In other words, Jesus did this out of love for us sinners. And then we have this display of what was going on at the foot of the cross. It says in verse 24, it says they crucified Him. Again, Mark, a very straightforward record of what they did. Doesn’t go into any of the details about the horrors of crucifixion because Mark’s readers would have been very familiar with the torture of crucifixion. And they crucified him and divided up his garments among themselves as the soldiers, the executioners had the right according to Roman custom to take the spoil from their victims. And so they casted lots for them to decide what each man should take. This is very significant because it is a fulfillment of Psalm 22 verse 18.

    If you look at that passage, and I know we read that together earlier in the service, but Psalm 22 verse 18. One of the most often quoted passages from the Old Testament quoted in the New Testament, it says, they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. So this is a fulfillment of this messianic prophecy recorded in Psalm 22, verse 18. And then something amazing happens, it says this. They tried to give him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it, and they crucified him and divided up his garments among themselves, casting lots for them to decide what each man should take. It was the third hour when they crucified him.” Now, by Roman reckoning, the third hour, the first hour started at 6 a.m., so the third hour would be around 9 a.m. in the morning.

    And then verse 26, the inscription of the charge against him read, the King of the Jews. That was the civil charge brought against the Lord Jesus. And then it says in verse 27, they crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. Now again, verse 26, typically the charge against the victim of crucifixion was put on a placard and hung above the head of the victim as a public witness to the crime of the crucified as well as a warning and deterrent to the public. And so here is Jesus, falsely accused. And He is indeed the King of the Jews. He’s King of Kings and Lord of Lords. They crucified two robbers with him, we’re told. Now the term robbers there could more accurately be translated as insurrectionists. These weren’t just some thieves.

    These were men who were involved in a crime against the Roman government, an attempt to overthrow the government. Perhaps they had participated with Barabbas in the insurrection that he was involved in. In any case, verse 27, what does this underscore? It underscores the fact that Jesus as the suffering servant was indeed numbered with the transgressors just as Isaiah 53 verse 12 predicted that he would be. And then verses 29 and 30, those passing by were hurling abuse at him, wagging their heads and saying, ha, you who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. Come down from the cross. Come down from the cross. Do you think Jesus desired in his humanity to come down from the cross? Who wouldn’t desire that? This was not just cruel mockery of Jesus on the part of those who were hurling this abuse.

    This was not only cruel mockery as our Lord was writhing in the agonies of crucifixion, it was also a great temptation to Jesus. This was, in a sense, Satan tempting Jesus through the mockery of the crowd to indeed come down from the cross Understand, beloved, that our Lord Jesus Christ could have ended his suffering at any moment if he had chosen to do so. He had the authority as the divine Son of God incarnate. He had the authority to call legions of angels to his aid and to miraculously come off the cross and to immediately crush and judge those who were his tormentors. But instead of doing that, he chose to stay on the cross He endured all of this unimaginable agony, ridicule, and shame. You see, if Jesus had come off the cross at the instigation of this temptation, if he had said, that’s it, no more, what that would have meant is that our sins would not have been fully atoned for.

    What that would mean is that we would be unredeemed. We would remain unredeemed and lost and dead in our sins. But because Jesus willingly, voluntarily stayed on the cross, sin has been atoned for. Our forgiveness and salvation has been won. Jesus endured all of this for us and for our salvation. What a great, amazing display of God’s love and mercy to us in Christ. So we’ve considered the incredible love of Christ for us sinners that is demonstrated by our Lord’s sufferings on the cross and all of the mockery and ridicule that he endured. But next consider the depths of human cruelty and hardness of heart displayed in these events. We’re so used to hearing this passion story that we sometimes miss the power of it. You say, yeah, I’ve heard this. Been there, done that.

    Heard this story before. Yeah, ho-hum. No. This account should drive home to our hearts not only the incredible love of Christ for us sinners, but it should also drive home to us the human capacity for cruelty and hardness of heart. We see the cruelty of insensitive, harsh mockery. What hardness of heart on the part of both the Roman soldiers and on the part of the Jewish crowds to mock someone who is suffering such horrific agony as our Lord was suffering then. What incredible hardness of heart that takes. I mean, yes, some would say, well, yeah, but the Roman soldiers believed Jesus deserved this, and certainly the Jewish religious authorities believed that Jesus deserved this. In their view, Jesus was a blasphemer, and the penalty for blasphemy under the old covenant law was death, execution. But nevertheless, even if Jesus was a man who deserved the treatment that he got, how wicked to gloat over the sufferings, the horrible sufferings of a fellow human being.

    So we see the cruelty of their insensitive, harsh mockery. We also see the cruelty of their inhumane treatment of the Lord Jesus Christ. Dear friends, few tortures invented by the sick, perverse mind of sinful man are as cruel, as brutal, and as inhumane as the torture of crucifixion. Now, Jesus endured an eternity of suffering, if you will, in the brief six hours or so that he was on the cross, but many victims of crucifixion could linger two, even three days before finally expiring. It was a horrible torture, and you think about it. Jesus suspended with these large spikes through his wrists and his feet. The only way, if you were a crucifixion victim, the only way that you could get a breath would be to pull yourself up on the spikes that were driven through your hands and feet.

    And as Jesus pulls himself up for each and every breath, His shredded back, shredded from the horrors of his scourging, would have rubbed against the rough wood of the cross. It was a horrible, horrible torture. What is the root of this hardness and cruelty that leads sinful man to treat their fellow human beings in such a way? Well, the answer is our sin nature. I remember many years ago I was a seminary student at Gordon-Conwell in the Boston area. I remember this was back in the early 90s. We were watching the news one evening and I remember hearing a story about a young lady who I believe she had been traveling in Israel and she had been tragically murdered. And I remember the news team was interviewing, I believe it was her father, and her father made an interesting comment about his daughter who, again, had been tragically murdered.

    Her father said, you know, my daughter never stopped believing in the basic goodness of humanity. What an ironic and sad thing. His daughter had been tragically murdered in cold blood And yet, his daughter had believed in the basic goodness of humanity, and it seems like her father did, still did, too. Contrary to popular belief, man is not basically good. The events recorded in our passage for today demonstrate that. You see, brothers and sisters, it was our sin that nailed Jesus to the cross. And every time you and I sin, It’s as if we are holding that hammer and driving it down into the spikes one more time. But Jesus endured this for us and for our salvation. And so even as we consider the horror of the human capacity for evil and cruelty, We see finally here, and this is the final point of your sermon outline, consider finally the hope which our Lord’s passion offers to a sinful, hardened humanity.

    The hope which our Lord’s passion offers to a sinful, hardened humanity. Look at verse 31. It says, in the same way the chief priests also, who should have known better, by the way, and along with the scribes, who also should have known better, they were mocking him among themselves, saying, He saved others, He cannot save Himself. Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross so that we may see and believe those who were crucified with Him were also insulting Him. Verse 31 is so ironic. These chief priests, these scribes who should have recognized Jesus as the Messiah, what do they say as they’re mocking Jesus amongst themselves? They say, well, He saved others, but Himself He cannot save. Now, of course, Jesus could have saved Himself from that suffering if He’d wanted to, but He didn’t, thankfully.

    It was all part of God’s sovereign plan that He would drink down the dregs of the holy wrath of God for us and for our salvation. But notice, they say, He saved others. Even our Lord’s enemies recognized that Christ had the power to save others. This was a power that was abundantly demonstrated during our Lord’s earthly ministry by His many miraculous acts, acts such as His healing of the sick, giving sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf and speech to the dumb. raising up those who were paralyzed and so forth. He demonstrated his power to save through healing the sick, through raising the dead. Remember Lazarus? Through his casting out of demons, his multiplying of the loaves and the fishes, his walking on the water, his calming of the storm. All of these bore testimony to the almighty, divine, sovereign, saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

    The hope which our Lord’s passion offers to a sinful humanity is not simply the hope of physical healing or freedom from demonic possession. It is the hope of eternal salvation, nothing less than the hope of eternal salvation. And not just the hope in the sense of a mere wish. Remember that biblical hope is a certainty but is still yet in the future. For in Christ, salvation is not only accomplished, but it is absolutely secured. And we see how Christ’s saving grace shines forth even in these dark moments. As verse 32 tells us, it says, those who were crucified with him were also insulting him. Remember, Jesus was crucified between two insurrectionists, two thieves or criminals. Even the two criminals crucified with Jesus initially joined with the crowds in insulting and mocking our Lord. However, this is where it’s important to compare scripture with scripture.

    As Luke’s gospel tells us, at some point, one of these criminals has a change of heart. The Holy Spirit begins working in the heart of one of these criminals, and he is brought to repentance. Let’s compare this passage with Luke 23, verses 39 to 43. Let me just read that for you. I’d invite you to turn to Luke 23, verses 39 to 43. We read these words. One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at him saying, are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. But the other answered and rebuking him said, do you not even fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed are suffering justly for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong. And he was saying, Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.

    It was definitely the work of the Holy Spirit bringing this man to recognize that this crucified man beside him was indeed the king of the Jews, indeed the messianic king. And what does Jesus say to him? Verse 43, He said to him, truly I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise. Dear listener, what about you? Will you join with the crowds and the one criminal on the cross who mocked Jesus, the Messianic King? Or will you, like this repentant criminal on the cross, turn to Jesus Christ in penitent faith and recognize him as your Messianic King? If you, by grace, turn to Christ in faith and repentance, trusting Him for your salvation from sin, then what Jesus said to this criminal on the cross, He says to you. He says that you will be with me in paradise.

    Maybe not today, But indeed, you will be with him in paradise because God’s word promises that if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved. Repent and believe the good news. Do not mock the Savior. Embrace the Savior by faith as your very own Lord and Savior. And God will forgive your sins through the blood of Christ, renew you by his spirit, and secure you for eternity. For there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Amen. Let us pray. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you for the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ, which were followed by His glorious resurrection victory. Lord Jesus, how we thank you that you loved us unto death, that you stretched out your arms upon the hardwood of the cross to bear our sin in your body on the cross.

    And Heavenly Father, we thank you that out of love for us sinners, you gave the greatest gift of all, you gave the gift of your son Jesus, who came willingly and voluntarily and submitted himself to death on the cross, that he might win our redemption. And so we pray, Heavenly Father, that these truths would find a lodging place in our souls and bear fruit in our lives, fruit of gratitude and praise and obedience for all that you have done for us. We pray these things through Christ our Lord and all of God’s people said, amen. As we close our time in worship, let’s rise and we’ll sing together number 342, Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted, 342.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The King of the Jews

    The King of the Jews

    About this sermon

    Peter denies Jesus three times and weeps, and the Sanhedrin hands Jesus over to Pilate. Before Pilate, Jesus makes the good confession that he is the King of the Jews, and Pilate finds no guilt in him. Pilate releases Barabbas, a murderer, and sends the innocent Jesus to the cross, and so Christ literally takes a guilty man’s place. Jesus is no mascot for any political cause, left or right, and he is the Redeemer King who died for sinners.

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    Sermon transcript

    Amen. Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word as we continue on in our consideration and study of the Gospel of Mark as we are nearing the end of Mark. My sermon text today is Mark 1, verses 1-15. I’m going to begin reading in chapter 14, verse 66 to kind of fill out the context a bit. The focus will be especially on chapter 15, verses one through 15. Dear ones, let us hear with reverence and awe the word of our God. beginning in chapter 14, verse 66, As Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came, and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, You also were with Jesus the Nazarene. But he denied it, saying, I neither know nor understand what you are talking about.

    And he went out onto the porch. The servant girl saw him and began once more to say to the bystanders, This is one of them. But again he denied it, and after a little while the bystanders were again saying to Peter, surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean too. But he began to curse and swear, I do not know this man you are talking about. Immediately a rooster crowed a second time, and Peter remembered how Jesus had made the remark to him, before a rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times. And he began to weep. Early in the morning, the chief priests with the elders and scribes and the whole council immediately held a consultation, and binding Jesus, they led him away and delivered him to Pilate. Pilate questioned him, Are you the king of the Jews?

    And he answered him, It is as you say. The chief priests began to accuse him harshly. Then Pilate questioned him again, saying, Do you not answer? See how many charges they bring against you? But Jesus made no further answer, so Pilate was amazed. Now at the feast he used to release for them any one prisoner whom they requested. The man named Barabbas had been imprisoned with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the insurrection. The crowd went up and began asking him to do as he had been accustomed to do for them. Pilate answered them saying, Do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews? for he was aware that the chief priests had handed him over because of envy. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to ask him to release Barabbas for them instead.

    Answering again, Pilate said to them, then what shall I do with him whom you call the king of the Jews? They shouted back, crucify him. But Pilate said to them, why, what evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, crucify him. Wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas for them, and after having Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified. Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God to bless the preaching of His Word. Once again, Heavenly Father, we thank You that You have spoken to us, that You have revealed Yourself to us in Your Word. And we thank you that the word reveals the Lord Jesus Christ, the living word to us. We ask that by your spirit, you would be at work in our hearts as we consider this portion of your word.

    And we ask that you would grant unto me, your unworthy servant, the grace to declare and speak forth your word with humility, with power, with strength, and with applicatory influence. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. You may be seated. You’ll notice in your sermon outline there’s quite a number of words you can be listening for in the sermon if you find that helpful to help you follow along. The title of my sermon today is, The King of the Jews. Well, dear friends, Our passage for this Lord’s Day morning is a portion of Holy Scripture that we would do well to approach with a deep sense of reverence and awe, indeed, with a holy fear and trembling. For think about what’s going on in this passage of God’s Word.

    Here in this passage of God’s Holy Word, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the very eternal Son of God incarnate, He is about to enter into the lowest depths of his estate of humiliation. Not only has our Lord been betrayed by his close disciple, Judas Iscariot, abandoned by his other disciples, and unjustly taken into custody. Not only has the Apostle Peter denied our Lord three times, Not only has our Lord been falsely accused during His religious trial in the presence of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin, and accused of multiple things, false accusations during highly irregular and questionable legal proceedings that had taken place during the night. But now, as our passage for today presents Mark’s record of our Lord’s civil trial before the Roman magistrate Pontius Pilate, we not only see our Lord Jesus continuing to endure false accusations from the religious authorities, we also see the crowds, the people, stirred up by their religious leaders, openly rejecting Jesus, openly rejecting the one who is the Prince of Peace. and rejecting him in favor of a man named Barabbas.

    Barabbas being a violent insurrectionist, a murderer, one whom we might describe today as a terrorist. They choose the guilty criminal over the innocent, sinless Savior. They choose the violent terrorist over the gentle, humble Prince of Peace. They choose the unjust sinner over the just and holy one. As we approach this sobering text, let us seek to understand what the Holy Spirit is teaching us in this passage of His Word. This passage has much to teach us about the Lord Jesus Christ. And there are three aspects of Christ that I want to focus on as we make our way through this passage of God’s Word. This passage, first of all, presents our Lord Jesus as the Messianic King. This is the first point in your sermon outline. Beloved, behold Jesus, the Messianic King. Let’s look again at the first two verses of our passage.

    It says, early in the morning, the chief priests with the elders and scribes and the whole council immediately held a consultation. And you may wonder, well, wait a minute. Hadn’t they already met during the night? Hadn’t they already tried Jesus? Well, yes. Remember that our Lord’s trial was actually in two phases. There was the religious phase of his trial held before the Sanhedrin, and then there was the civil phase of the trial. So again, as I mentioned, Mark is recording for us in this passage the civil phase of our Lord’s trial. And so the chief priests and the elders and the scribes, those are the various members of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin, they met early in the morning. It says that they immediately held a consultation. A consultation for what purpose? A consultation to draw up civil charges to bring before Pontius Pilate, civil charges against the Lord Jesus.

    So it says, immediately they held a consultation. Remember that word immediately is one of Mark’s favorite words. And they bind Jesus and they led him away and delivered him to Pilate. In verse two, Pilate questioned him, are you the king of the Jews? And he answered him, it is as you say, or literally just you say, or you say so. Jesus is here revealed as the messianic king. Now what does that term Messiah mean? Children, what does the word Messiah mean? It means anointed one. The Messiah was God’s chosen, promised, anointed king, the one who would be anointed with the Spirit above measure. And Jesus indeed was the promised Messiah, the anointed divine prophet, priest, and king of God’s people. Jesus is the Messiah, or in the Greek language, the Christos, the Christ. When we compare Mark’s account of this trial with the other gospel accounts, it is clear that Mark is presenting us with a highly condensed summary version of our Lord’s trial.

    Mark doesn’t go into all of the details, so it’s helpful to compare Mark’s account with some of the other gospel accounts, and we’ll be doing that throughout the sermon today. But in verse one, here we read of the Sanhedrin probably consulting each other, as I mentioned, in order to draw up civil charges against Jesus to present to Pontius Pilate. You might say, well, why were they gonna do that? They’ve already decided what Jesus was guilty of. They’ve decided that Jesus was guilty of blasphemy because Jesus claimed to be deity. to be God. And according to God’s law, according to the old covenant civil legislation, if you were guilty of blaspheming the God of Israel, you earned the penalty of execution. You were to be stoned to death. But friends, the religious crimes like blasphemy would have no standing in the eyes of Roman law.

    And so since the Jews were under Roman occupation, they did not have the legal power to execute criminals. And that explains why they gathered together to draw up civil charges against Jesus and to bring Jesus before Pontius Pilate. And who is this Pontius Pilate? We confess in the Apostles’ Creed that he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. Well, Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea at that time, a position which he held from 26 AD to 36 AD. Pilate’s official residence was in Caesarea on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, but apparently Pilate is at this time temporarily staying in Jerusalem, staying there probably to help keep the peace. After all, Jewish high festival seasons like the Passover were times when Jewish nationalistic passions were more easily stirred up by Jewish zealots and would-be messiahs and others who sought to violently overthrow a Roman occupation of Palestine.

    And so Pilate’s there to keep the peace. And notice in verse two, it says, when Pilate, the governor there, when he has Jesus before him in this legal trial setting, Pilate asks him, are you the king of the Jews? What is this title, king of the Jews? What does this indicate? Well, this indicates the civil charges that the Sanhedrin were bringing before Pilate against Jesus. What this title implies is that Jesus was a political revolutionary. He was seeking to overthrow the rule of Rome. He was seeking to become a king of the Jewish people and to separate the Jewish people from Roman rule. Again, the civil charge, this is the civil charge that was brought against Jesus. And again, since the Jewish authorities knew that charges of religious blasphemy would have no legal standing in a Roman court of law, they instead bring allegations of treason, of incitement of political insurrection against the Lord Jesus.

    Now, and so Pilate hears this charge, and you know, as a Roman official, he needs to take this charge seriously. After all, it was his job to keep the peace and to make sure that no political insurrection occurs. And so Pilate asks him, are you the king of the Jews? But it’s important to understand that Pilate’s use of this title, king of the Jews, in this question was probably dripping with sarcasm. Now we can’t hear Pilate ask the question, we can’t hear the tone, but he probably asked the question something along these lines. Are you the king of the Jews? Come on, ridiculous, right? But Jesus answers essentially in the affirmative. He says, it is as you say. Now, Jesus does not come out and say, yes, absolutely, I’m the king of the Jews. But he does say, it is as you say.

    In this answer, Jesus affirms that he is indeed the king of the Jews, that he is indeed the promised messiah, the messianic king. but not in the way that Pilate would have understood such a title. Pilate would have understood that title, King of the Jews, as oh, you claim to be a king, an earthly political king, in opposition to, in competition with Caesar, right? But Jesus makes it clear, no, I am the messianic king. Christ’s words here are likely an indirect way of him saying, yes, Pilate, I am the king of the Jews, but not in a political or military sense. Now here is where it’s helpful to compare Mark’s account with other gospel accounts. Let’s turn, for example, to John’s account of this trial before Pontius Pilate. John 18, verses 33 to 38. John chapter 18. verses 33 to 38.

    John records it as follows. This is a Jesus here before John’s record of Jesus before Pilate. It says, therefore, Pilate entered again into the praetorium, a place where Jesus was being tried, and summoned Jesus and said to him, Are you the King of the Jews? Jesus answered, Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about me? Pilate answered, I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered you to me. What have you done? And then Jesus explains, look at verse 36, John 18, verse 36, Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm.

    Therefore Pilate said to him, so you are a king. Jesus answered, you say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born and for this I have come into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.” And then notice Pilate’s cynical response. Verse 38, Pilate said to him, what is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, I find no guilt in him.” Pilate’s assessment and judgment is that Jesus may be crazy in his view, this man Jesus might be a nut, but he’s not guilty of anything criminal. It’s interesting, the passage I read for you earlier in the service from 1 Timothy 6, the Apostle Paul in that passage interprets this interchange that Jesus has with Pilate as our Lord’s good confession of his own messiahship before Pontius Pilate. as Paul urges Timothy to persevere in his good confession of Christ.

    And I know I read this earlier, but let me again ask you to turn to 1 Timothy 6, and let me just read again and comment on verses 12 through 15. As Paul wraps up his epistle to Timothy, he says, fight the good fight of faith, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God who gives life to all things and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the proper time. He who is the blessed and only sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords and so forth.

    Well, beloved, what can we learn from this? What can we take away from this? We learn here, among other things, we learn that Jesus is truly and indeed King of God’s people. But He is not merely King of the Jews. He is King and Lord over all. As Paul wrote in that passage in 1 Timothy 6, Jesus is King of kings, Lord of lords. Have you, dear listener, bowed in your heart before Him in faith and repentance as your King, your Sovereign, your Lord? God in His gospel calls you and me to repent of sin and trust in Jesus, to trust in Jesus not only as Savior from hell, but Savior from sin, and that involves trusting Him to reign in your life as Lord. upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” We also notice that Jesus confesses his identity as the Messianic King and as the Lord before Pontius Pilate.

    Let us also, beloved, hold fast our confession of Christ. There are many pressures today to deny the Lordship of Christ, if not in word, at least in action and in fact. but we are urged in the scriptures to hold fast to our confession. Indeed we are told in places like Romans 10 verse 9 that if you confess with your lips Jesus is Lord or the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you shall be saved. And remember what we are told by the author of Hebrews in Hebrews chapter 4 verses 14 through 16. And you’re welcome to turn there if you would like. Hebrews 4 verses 14 through 16. The author of Hebrews writes, Therefore, since we have a great high priest, that’s Jesus. He’s not only our king, he’s our priest and our prophet.

    We do not have a high priest, I’m sorry, verse 14. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us do what? Let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So let us hold fast our confession, the good confession, that Jesus is indeed the Son of God, the Lord, the Messianic King. But also, in this passage, this passage makes it clear that many false accusations and slanders were brought against the Lord Jesus during the process of his trial.

    And I would have us reflect on the fact that if Christ’s enemies brought false accusations against the sinless, spotless, innocent Son of God, let us not be surprised if the enemies of Christ and of Christianity hurl false accusations against us. In fact, Jesus told us to expect that they would. You know, sometimes because it’s, comparatively speaking, it’s relatively easy to be a Christian here in America. We don’t have to worry about overt, formal, violent persecution, at least not yet. Things might be changing. But nevertheless, when we face actual repercussions or pushback or mockery or slander or even persecution for our faith in Christ, we’re surprised. You know, how can this be happening? But Jesus makes it clear that, hey, This is kind of the ordinary lot of being a follower of Jesus Christ. Consider, for example, what our Lord Jesus says in John chapter 15, verses 18 to 21.

    In that passage, the Lord Jesus says this, You know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. So let us be aware of that. Let us not be surprised if persecution comes our way. I’m not suggesting that we welcome it or invite it or seek to provoke it, but nevertheless, if and when it comes, let us realize that this is the lot of Christ’s followers in this present age.

    And so Jesus is here presented as the messianic king. But next I would have you to notice that Jesus is also presented as the innocent king. Jesus is here presented as the innocent king. Look at verses three through five. It says this, the chief priests began to accuse him harshly. Then Pilate questioned him again saying, do you not answer? See how many charges they bring against you? According to the scholars and commentators that I consulted in preparing this sermon today, in the Roman legal setting, if you were accused of something and you didn’t answer your accusation, it was sort of a way of saying, hey, I’m guilty. It’s a way of admitting guilt, or at least that was the assumption. If you didn’t respond to the accusations, the assumption is that you are guilty of that which you are accused of.

    And this is what really blew Pilate’s mind, because Jesus was facing a horrible death, crucifixion, if he didn’t defend himself. Verse five, but Jesus made no further answer. Pilate was amazed. Pilate was amazed, and then skip down to verse 11. But the chief priests stirred up the crowds to ask him to release Barabbas for them instead. Answering again, Pilate said to them, then what shall I do with him whom you call the king of the Jews? They shouted back, crucify him. And what does Pilate say? Verse 14, Pilate said to them, why, what evil has he done? Pilate’s examined him, he can’t find anything criminal or evil in this man, Jesus. But they shouted all the more, crucify him. Again, our Lord’s silence in the face of this onslaught of false accusations. Why does Jesus do that?

    Well, this is in fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 53, verse 7. Turn to Isaiah 53 and look at verse 7. I know that you folks are familiar with this passage of God’s word, but sometimes we hear things so often that we kind of ignore them. Hear this again with fresh ears. Isaiah 53, verse 7, this is a prediction of Jesus, the suffering servant. It says, he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers. So he did not open his mouth.” Jesus did not open his mouth to defend himself because by this action he was showing himself to be the suffering servant prophesied by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 53. Verse seven.

    And so Jesus is here shown to be the suffering servant and the innocent king. And again, notice how amazed Pilate is that Jesus would say nothing in his own defense, even though the threat of suffering a horrible death by crucifixion hangs over his head. Pilate doesn’t get it. Why would you not defend yourself? Don’t you realize that I have power to crucify you? Again, let’s go back to verse three. The chief priests began to accuse him harshly. That’s how it’s translated here in the New American Standard Version. The ESV translates it as many things, that the chief priests accused him of many things. In other words, they bring many false accusations against the Lord Jesus. What kinds of false accusations? Well, Luke’s gospel gives us three specific accusations that they brought. Let’s look at Luke 23, verse two.

    Luke 23, verse two. It says this, and they began to accuse him, saying, we found this man misleading our nation. Accusation number one, this man, Jesus, misleads our nation. Number two, forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar. That was an obvious, blatant lie. Jesus never discouraged the paying of taxes to Caesar. And number three, saying that he himself is Christ a king. Well, that’s true, but not the kind of king that would be a threat to Roman rule. And so these are the kinds of accusations they’re bringing against him. And think of it, friends. Here is Jesus, the sinless, spotless, holy Son of God, the Lamb of God, accused falsely by wicked men. And even Pilate, Pilate though he himself was a godless pagan, a wicked man, a corrupt career politician, even Pilate was not buying their accusations as implied in verse 14 and also implied and made clear in other gospel accounts where Pilate makes it clear to the crowds that I find no guilt in this man.

    Again, Luke 23, verses 13 to 15. Luke 23, 13 to 15, it says this, Pilate summoned the chief priests and the rulers of the people and said to them, you brought this man to me as one who incites the people to rebellion. And behold, having examined him before you, I have found no guilt in this man regarding the charges which you make against him. nor has Herod, for he sent him back to us, and behold, nothing deserving death has been done. Therefore I will punish him and release him.” That’s what he wanted to do. Pilate didn’t wanna deal with this man. And so Pilate, in other words, Jesus was publicly, openly declared by the legal authorities of his day to be legally innocent of the charges that had been brought against him. And by the way, that would be a very important point for the Gentile readers that Mark was writing this to.

    That would be very important to them, to know that this Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, was legally innocent in the eyes of the Roman authorities. Jesus is indeed the king of the Jews, but he is the innocent king. He’s not a violent political king seeking to overthrow the yoke of Rome. Now, let me ask you, have you ever been falsely or unjustly accused of something? I think we’ve all faced that in one way or another at one point in our lives or another. Friends, when we are falsely, unjustly accused of something, what is our first instinct? What is our natural, impulsive first reaction to false accusation? Our natural instinct in the face of false accusation is to get defensive. Getting defensive in the face of being falsely accused of being something or doing something that you haven’t been or done That’s not fragility, that is not a sign that you’re really, really guilty.

    Oh, you’re getting so defensive, that must mean that you really are guilty. No. When we are falsely accused, our natural response is to vigorously defend our good name and to vehemently refute the false accusation. And indeed, there are obviously times and circumstances when doing that is perfectly appropriate, even godly. It’s a godly thing to want to defend and maintain your good name and reputation. But here is the Lord Jesus Christ standing before the secular authority represented in the person of this wicked pagan, Pontius Pilate, and having to endure a flood of completely false, unjust accusations. And again, how does our Lord respond? He responds with a calm, dignified, almost serene silence. No wonder Pilate was amazed. Think about it. Wrap your brain around this. Why does our Lord Jesus do this? Well, not only to fulfill Isaiah 53 verse 7, but I think from the text we can clearly infer that Jesus was silent because He was confident that His Father would eventually vindicate Him and would eventually show him to be cleared of these false charges brought against him.

    In fact, that vindication would happen in short order. It would happen three days later when Jesus was raised from the dead. Our Lord’s bodily resurrection from the dead was, among other things, God the Father’s vindication of his son’s innocence and victory. Since God the Father vindicated His Son, we who are united to Christ are already vindicated in Him.” That’s good news. We are the guilty ones, but in Christ we are forgiven, justified, vindicated. And on that great judgment day, we who by grace have trusted Jesus Christ as our very own Lord and Savior, we will be openly vindicated before all of gathered humanity. In the words of our shorter catechism, on that day of judgment, we believers will be openly acknowledged and acquitted on the judgment day. We’ve already been acquitted before the throne of God. in the courtroom of heaven.

    In our justification, the gavel of God the Father has already gone down. He has already declared us to be righteous in his sight, not because of our own righteousness, but because of the righteousness of Christ credited to us, received by faith alone. And so you’ve already been justified. But that was a secret declaration made in the courtroom of heaven on judgment day. That which God had declared secretly is now openly declared to gathered humanity, an open acknowledgment and acquittal, an open vindication. It is coming, brothers and sisters. And therefore, let us also, like our Savior, let us not be fazed by the world’s false accusations. Let us not fret because of evildoers. Let us not get so worked up by the false accusations of the world. There is a time to stand up for ourselves and to defend our good name and reputation, but there’s also a time to say, you know what?

    I’m not gonna sweat this. My father in heaven has already justified me in Christ and he will vindicate me in the end. And I just have to wait for his timing. So let us calmly trust our sovereign Lord to vindicate us in the end. So Jesus is here presented as the messianic king. He is presented as the innocent king. But finally, I would have you have us notice that Jesus is here presented as the Redeemer King. Jesus is presented as the Redeemer King. Again, beginning at verse six, we read these words. Now at the feast, he, Pilate, used to release for them any one prisoner whom they requested. This was apparently a policy or a custom that Pilate observed to kind of keep the Jews under control, to keep them, to placate them and what have you.

    And then we read about this man named Barabbas. Verse seven, the man named Barabbas had been imprisoned and rightfully so. It says he’d been imprisoned with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the insurrection. The crowd went up and began asking him, asking Pilate to do as he had been accustomed to do for them. Pilate answered them saying, do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews? For he was aware that the chief priest had handed him over because of envy. Pilate knew what was going on. He knew that these were false charges that were being brought against Jesus. He knew it. And answering again, he says what, verse 11, it says, but the chief priest stirred up the crowds and asked him to release Barabbas for them instead.” And indeed that is what ends up happening.

    Verse 15 says, wishing to satisfy the crowds. Notice, not wishing to do what is just and good but wishing to satisfy the crowds because Pilate didn’t want to get in trouble He didn’t want the Jewish authorities to lodge a complaint against him to the emperor. He didn’t want to lose his position of authority and prominence as a governor of Judea. So wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas for them. And after having Jesus scourged, and scourging there was a violent, horrible torture. Many victims of Roman scourging would die from the treatment. Having scourged Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified. Now I must credit for some of the points in this, some of the insights of this point, I must credit the late great evangelical Anglican Bishop J.C. Ryle. And as Ryle points out in his expository thoughts on the Gospel of Mark, in his words, this passage presents us with a powerful picture of God’s Gospel plan of salvation.

    How does this give us a picture of God’s gospel plan of salvation? Well, it gives us a picture of that because it gives us a picture of vicarious substitutionary atonement. God’s gospel plan of salvation is a plan that involves vicarious substitutionary atonement. Again, to quote from Ryle, the guilty is set free and the innocent is put to death. The great sinner is delivered and the sinless one remains bound. Barabbas is spared, and Christ is crucified. Because Jesus, who was unjustly sentenced, submitted to the sentence, because Jesus went to the cross, Barabbas, who deserved the cross, Barabbas goes free, because Jesus took his place, took his punishment. Now regarding Barabbas, in verse 7 it says the man named Barabbas had been imprisoned and so forth. He was an insurrectionist. According to a variant reading of Matthew 27, 16 and 17, the full name of Barabbas is Jesus Barabbas.

    Jesus was actually a very common name back then among the Jews, sort of like Jim is a common name in our world today. Jesus, Yeshua, Joshua is a very common name in first century Palestine. So it wouldn’t be surprising if Barabbas’ full name was Jesus Barabbas. But think about that. If this is the case, if Barabbas’ full name was Jesus Barabbas, then what this means is that the crowd chose a violent, revolutionary, military Jesus over the peaceful, spiritual, soul-saving Jesus, the true Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. But that’s not done today, is it, Pastor? Well, I think a similar thing is done today when people today choose a revolutionary or political version of Jesus over the biblical Jesus. This is done, for example, in liberation, so-called liberation theology, which is basically, as I understand it, a Marxist ideology that cloaks itself in Christian theology.

    It’s also done when it comes to the social justice Jesus of the political left or, on the other hand, the culture warrior Jesus of the political right. In fact, brothers and sisters, I would contend that we blaspheme the real biblical Jesus when we use him as a mascot to support our own political or ideological causes. Now, don’t get me wrong. Certainly, our faith does have cultural, political, and social ramifications and implications to it. But Jesus, remember, let us remember, beloved, that Jesus, the real Jesus, the messianic king of the Jews, is not an earthly political king, offering earthly health, wealth, political peace, and prosperity, political influence and power, no. The real Jesus, the biblical Jesus, is the Redeemer King who died on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of wretched sinners like Barabbas the terrorist.

    Wretched sinners like me, Jeff Willauer. Wretched sinners like you. Praise God that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was willing to go to the cross as the suffering servant in order to take our place. in order to redeem us from our sins. As the scriptures say, Jesus didn’t die to make an angry God loving. It was God’s love that led him to send Jesus to pay the penalty for sin. to satisfy the demands of his own holy justice. As it says in the scriptures, God demonstrates his own love for us in this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Let us receive him, rest upon him, and then out of gratitude for his gift of salvation, let us gratefully obey him as our King and Lord. Amen, let us pray. Our Lord and Father in heaven, we praise you and thank you for Jesus, our Redeemer King, our great prophet, Priest and King.

    And we praise you, Heavenly Father, for the gospel, the good news that in Christ we are forgiven, in Christ we are justified, in Christ we are and ultimately shall be vindicated. We ask, O Heavenly Father, that this good news would resonate within our souls and take deep root in our hearts today. And we pray that you would grant us the grace to make the good confession of Christ before others. that others might come to know Jesus as their gracious Redeemer King. In His name we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen. As we reply and respond to the preaching of God’s Word, let’s rise and sing together number 456, Jesus, What a Friend of Sinners, 456.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Son of Man on Trial

    The Son of Man on Trial

    About this sermon

    The trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin was the worst injustice in history: a rigged hearing with false witnesses and a verdict decided in advance. When the high priest demands whether he is the Christ, Jesus answers plainly, ‘I am,’ and says they will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power. The council condemns him for blasphemy, spits on him, and beats him. The Judge of all the earth submitted to that unjust judgment out of love for sinners, and one day he will judge with perfect justice.

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    Sermon transcript

    of God’s Word. As we continue our study and consideration of the Gospel of Mark, as we are nearing the end of the Gospel, we come today to Mark chapter 14. My sermon text for today is Mark 14, verses 53 through 65, although I’m going to begin reading at verse 43 to fill out the context. pardon me. On the last Lord’s Day we saw our Lord Jesus and His disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane and that leads to His betrayal, arrest, and His trial. So let us hear God’s Holy Word beginning at Mark 14, verse 43. Immediately while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, came up accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs, who were from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now he who was betraying him had given them a signal, saying, Whomever I kiss, he is the one.

    Seize him and lead him away under guard. After coming, Judas immediately went to him, saying, Rabbi, and kissed him. They laid hands on him and seized him. But one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. And Jesus said to them, have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as you would against a robber? Every day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But this has taken place to fulfill the scriptures. And they all left him and fled. A young man was following him. wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body, and they seized him. But he pulled free of the linen sheet and escaped naked. They led Jesus away to the high priest, and all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes gathered together.

    Peter had followed him at a distance right into the courtyard of the high priest, and he was sitting with the officers and warming himself at the fire. Now the chief priests and the whole council kept trying to obtain testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, and they were not finding any. For many were giving false testimony against Him, but their testimony was not consistent. Some stood up and began to give false testimony against Him, saying, We heard Him say, I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands. Not even in this respect was their testimony consistent. The high priest stood up and came forward and questioned Jesus, saying, Do you not answer? What is it that these men are testifying against you? But he kept silent and did not answer.

    Again the high priest was questioning him and saying to him, Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One? And Jesus said, I am. And you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. Tearing his clothes, the high priest said, what further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy. How does it seem to you? And they all condemned him to be deserving of death. Some began to spit at him and to blindfold him and to beat him with their fists and to say to him, prophesy. And the officers received him with slaps in the face. Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of His Word.

    Gracious Heavenly Father, as we consider the indignities, the rejection, the suffering that our Lord Jesus endured for us, we pray that by your spirit that these truths would indeed make a powerful impression upon our souls. And we pray, Heavenly Father, that through this preaching of your word this morning, that your Holy Spirit would deepen our love for the Savior who suffered so much for us. We pray that you would set a guard over my lips, that I might speak only that which is faithful to your word. And we pray that you would make our hearts good soil, that the seed of your word would take deep root in our hearts and bear spiritual fruit unto sanctification and holiness in our lives. We ask these things, Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, and all of God’s people said.

    Amen. You may be seated. Dear ones, one of the sad realities of our fallen, sin-cursed world is that sometimes gross injustices occur. In fact, the history books are filled with many examples of injustice. For example, there are many instances in human history of an innocent person being accused by false witnesses, resulting in that innocent person being legally condemned and punished for a crime that he or she did not commit. The worst example of this kind of injustice in all of human history is none other than the rigged trial, the unjust conviction, and the brutal crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. The Gospel records bear clear testimony to the historical fact that Jesus Christ, think of it, Jesus Christ, the innocent, sinless Son of God incarnate, was viciously, unjustly, and falsely accused by His enemies. Again, dear ones, no greater injustice has ever occurred in the sick history of fallen humanity than the trial, conviction, and murder of the innocent, sinless Son of God.

    But at the same time, beloved, Let us remember that in the irony of God’s sovereign plan and providence, no greater act of mercy has ever been performed in all of human history than our Lord Jesus’ willingness to voluntarily, yes voluntarily, submit himself to an unjust trial and to a horrible death on the cross. For in allowing himself to undergo these indignities and these sufferings, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ fulfilled the mission that God the Father had sent him on. The mission to redeem and save the very same sinful humanity that had been responsible for nailing him to the cross. Friends, the trial of Jesus, which secured his conviction and guaranteed his execution, was a complicated and messy and rushed affair that took place in several stages. When we compare the Gospel accounts with one another, we discover what those stages were.

    And the first stage was a religious trial that occurred before the Jewish Sanhedrin, the Sanhedrin being the religious leadership council in Jerusalem. And that was followed by a civil trial which took place before the secular authority, before Pontius Pilate. Now in terms of the religious stage of the trial, John’s gospel tells us that there was first a preliminary hearing before Annas, the retired high priest who was also father-in-law of the current high priest Caiaphas. Then there was the actual trial proper before Caiaphas on the Sanhedrin, which is what is recorded for us in our passage for this Lord’s Day morning, and which probably took place either very, very late Thursday night or very early on Good Friday morning. And then there was a final consultation of the Sanhedrin, a final phase of the trial, if you will, that took place early in the morning before Jesus was turned over to Pontius Pilate.

    That’s recorded in chapter 15, verse 1, where we read, early in the morning, the chief priests and the elders and scribes and the whole council immediately held a consultation, and binding Jesus, they led him away and delivered him to Pilate. Now in their rush to condemn and get rid of Jesus, the religious leaders not only violated biblical laws of civil justice, they also violated their own ordinary procedures and rules, as we will see. Friends, it was truly a rigged trial. It was a mockery of genuine justice. With this in mind, let’s dive into our text for today and let’s first of all observe, beloved, the indignities that our Lord endured as He was subjected to a rigged trial. This is the first main point in your outline. Let us observe the indignities that our Lord endured as He was subjected to a rigged trial.

    Now before I go verse by verse through this section, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we consider these indignities, as we consider the abandonment and forsakenness and humiliation that our Lord endured throughout this unjust and rigged process as detailed in our passage for this Lord’s Day morning, Let us not forget that Jesus endured all of this for us and for our salvation. Why did Jesus allow himself to be subjected to such indignity, such suffering? Brothers, sisters in Christ, this was for you and for me. Jesus did this, brothers and sisters, because he loves you. He loves me. He loved us even unto the death, and let us never forget it. It was out of love for us that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ underwent such indignity and abuse, and he did so in our place, in our stead.

    We deserve this treatment because of our sin. We deserve punishment for our sins, but Jesus took that upon himself. So let’s dive in. In verse 53, we read this. They led Jesus away to the high priest, and all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes gathered together. Now, notice the various religious leaders that are mentioned. There’s the chief priests, as well as the elders, the presbyters, and the scribes, the Bible scholars. They’re all gathered together, and these various these various categories of leaders indicates to us that Mark is speaking here of the Sanhedrin, the council. So Jesus was led from Gethsemane to the residence of the high priest Caiaphas where he was tried before the Jewish Sanhedrin. Now, usually the Sanhedrin conducted its sessions in one of the halls in the market area near the temple.

    But it seems likely that the Sanhedrin chose to hold this particular trial in the high priest’s residence in order to ensure secrecy and to avoid provoking any kind of public outcry by those who were sympathetic to our Lord. That in and of itself, the location of this trial, gives us an indication that something fishy’s going on here. Things are not being done in a transparent, in a manner that conduces to the integrity of true justice. And then in verse 54 we read about Peter. Now remember it says that back in verse 50 it says they all left him and fled. When Judas came to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus and his disciples had been gathered, Judas came with a detachment of soldiers. What did they do? What did the disciples do? They fled. But Peter seemed to, you know, he follows at a distance.

    It says in verse 54, Peter had followed him at a distance right into the courtyard of the high priest, and he was sitting with the officers and warming himself at the fire. Now, why does Mark bring this detail up here in this context? Well, this prepares us for Mark’s account of Peter’s denial of Christ, which is recorded later on in this chapter, in which I’ll be preaching on it in a future sermon. But nevertheless, we see Mark setting things up for the occasion of Peter’s denial. And remember that Jesus had predicted that Peter would deny him three times even before the cock crowed twice. And then verse 55, it says, now the chief priests and the whole council kept trying to do what? They kept trying to find out the actual facts. They kept trying to establish the truthfulness of Christ’s claims.

    No. What are they doing? The chief priests and the whole council kept trying to obtain testimony against Jesus to put him to death, and they were not finding any. It is clear, beloved, that the council here is not interested in impartial justice or truth. They are not interested in seeking the truth or pursuing the path of genuine justice. Instead, they’ve already made up their minds that Jesus was guilty and deserved to die. For Jesus had dared to threaten their authority and influence over the people, and they could not have that. So they’re going through the motions of a trial to make it look or seem like the legalities and the principles of scripture have been satisfied. But as Mark points out here, they kept trying to find testimony against Jesus. This is no impartial hearing.

    This is shown again by the fact that they were seeking testimony against Jesus. This was a sham trial. It was a perversion of justice. And then verses 55 or 56 and following it says this, for many were giving false testimony against him. Now that should cause us to pause and ask, well, where did these many folks, this is late at night or very, very early on good Friday morning, where did all of these false witnesses come from? It’s very likely that the Sanhedrin had sought them out in order to satisfy the legalities of the situation. It says, many were giving false testimony against them, but their testimony was not consistent. And then we have some examples of this. Some stood and began to give false testimony against him, saying, We heard him say, I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.

    Not even in this respect was their testimony consistent. Beloved, the Scriptures require that legal guilt can only be established on the testimony of at least two or three witnesses. Under the Mosaic Civil Code revealed in the Old Testament, one witness was not sufficient to convict anyone of a crime, especially of a capital crime. In other words, there must be multiple witnesses, and these witnesses must not give conflicting information. Instead, there must be corroboration and consistency in their testimony. And just to give you some samples of where the Old Testament requires this, I’d invite you to turn to Numbers, chapter 35, verse 30. The book of Numbers, chapter 35, verse 30. I’ll get there eventually. There we go. In this passage from the Mosaic Law, It says this, if anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death at the evidence of witnesses, plural, but no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness.

    There have to be at least two witnesses. This is confirmed as well if you look at Deuteronomy 17, verse 6. Deuteronomy 17, verse 6. It says this, on the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death. He shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. And then also, stay in Deuteronomy and turn to chapter 19 verse 15. It says there, a single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed. On the evidence of two or three witnesses, a matter shall be confirmed. So this is a requirement of God’s Word that these that the Sanhedrin is bound to observe. But these, they’re not able to observe that because the witnesses here are giving false testimony, conflicting testimony and what have you.

    And then it says in verse Now where does this particular false testimony come from? Well, these false witnesses are probably recounting a garbled or misconstrued quote from Jesus, which is recorded by John in his gospel in John 2, verse 19, where Jesus was talking not about the temple, the physical temple in Jerusalem, but was talking about the temple of his own body. If you turn to John 2, let me just read John 2, verses 19 through 21. It says the following here. Let me start with verse 18, John 2, verse 18. The Jews then said to him, what sign do you show us as your authority for doing these things? Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said, it took 46 years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?

    But notice what John says in verse 21, but he was speaking of the temple of his body. So again, the false witnesses were quoting him out of context, quoting the Lord Jesus out of context. Now what happens next? It appears that the high priest Caiaphas is getting frustrated. None of these witnesses match each other. There’s not corroboration. There’s contradiction. And so finally the high priest stood up, verse 60, the high priest stood up and came forward and questioned Jesus saying, do you not answer? What is it that these men are testifying against you? Jesus was sometimes very frustrating to the authorities because when they were trying to trap him in his words, he knew when to speak and what to say, but he also knew when to keep quiet. And here he was keeping quiet, because it says in verse 61, but he kept silent and did not answer.

    And that must have completely frustrated the high priest. As one commentator puts it, in majestic silence, Jesus refused to dignify the self-refuting testimony by any explanation of his own. J.C. Ryle points out in his expository thoughts on the Gospel of Mark, Bishop Ryle writes, to be seized unjustly as a malefactor and put on trial as a criminal when innocent is a severe affliction. but to hear men inventing false charges against us and coining slanders, to listen to all the malignant virulence of unscrupulous tongues let loose against our character and know that it is all untrue. This is a cross indeed. Let me just pause there and ask, have you ever been falsely accused of something? Have you ever had someone or some group of people slander you? It’s maddening, isn’t it? It is indeed, as Ryle puts it, this is a cross indeed.

    All this, he says, was a part of the cup which Jesus drank for our sakes. Great indeed was the price at which our souls were redeemed. Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of this underscores the extreme evil of which we sinners are capable. Remember that this high priest and the Sanhedrin, these men were of a like nature with us. We are sinful just as they were sinful. We tend to pat ourselves on the back and say, well, if I lived back then and if I were in that context, I certainly wouldn’t have done what these men did. But you and I, we are all capable of this kind of gross evil. But this passage also underscores the incredible grace and mercy that our Lord Jesus displayed. Again, dear listener, consider the evil that you and I are capable of as fallen sinners, but also consider the amazing grace that God offers to us in the gospel of his son, Jesus Christ.

    As we’re told by Paul in Romans 5, verse eight, God demonstrates his love for us in this, that while we were yet Worthy? While we were yet good and righteous? No, while we were yet sinners. Rebels against our creator. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Dear listener, do you recognize Christ’s death as the only hope of your salvation? Do you look to Jesus Christ who suffered and was crucified for sinners just like you and me? Do you look to Christ alone for your salvation? Do you repent of your sin and turn to Him? Turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. Come to Him and He will forgive you. He will save you. He suffered for sinners just like you and me. Turn to Him by faith and He will cleanse you and forgive you.

    But who is this one who suffered so? Well that leads to my next main point as we move to the end of verse 61 and consider that along with verse 62. Let us consider next the powerful testimony of Jesus to his own Messiahship. The powerful testimony of Jesus to his own Messiahship. And so here Caiaphas is questioning Jesus and he remains silent. He’s refusing to answer. But then the high priest says this in verse 61. Again, the high priest was questioning him and saying to him, are you the Christ, the son of the blessed one? Here Caiaphas gets very blunt and very direct with Jesus. Tell us who you are. What do you say about yourself? Jesus finally answers. Verse 62, Jesus said, I am, in the Greek it is ego eimi, I am, and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.

    You shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. What does Jesus say? in answer to that question. He says, I am. Now this is significant because in those words, in this answer, Jesus implicitly claims deity since God is revealed in scripture to be the great I am. Remember when Moses was called by God to deliver God’s people from their slavery in Egypt? Remember the scene of the burning bush when God called Moses and Moses says, Lord, whom shall I say sent me? And what does the Lord say to him? Whose name should I say, God? To paraphrase him, God says, tell him I am that I am. God is the great I am. And Jesus, by using these words, implicitly claims deity. Now, it’s my understanding that the Jewish conception of the Messiah at this time was not that the Messiah would be divine, but that the Messiah would be a man clothed with divine authority.

    But Jesus, by answering the question, I am, and saying, yes, I am, He is implicitly claiming deity. And then Jesus also qualifies his testimony to his own messiahship by applying to himself the messianic prophecies recorded in Daniel 7, 13, and 14, as well as Psalm 110, verse one. And let’s first go again to Daniel 7 verses 13 and 14. We’ve covered this recently as we went through the Olivet Discourse, but this is a significant prophecy about the Messiah with his mysterious divine Son of Man figure in Daniel 7 verses 13 and 14. We read the following words. It says, I kept looking in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven one like a son of man was coming and he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him.

    This is a picture of the ascension and coronation of the son of man, the Messiah at the right hand of the Ancient of Days, God the Father. Verse 14, and to Him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and His kingdom is one which will not be broken. destroyed. Jesus is referencing this prophecy when he answers the high priest by saying, you shall see the son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. Also included in this is a reference to Psalm 110 verse one, a wonderful messianic Psalm, Psalm 110 verse one, which I will also read to you. It says, the Lord says to my Lord.

    In the Hebrew, Yahweh says to my Adonai, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Now, what is Jesus claiming by referencing these messianic prophecies? What is he claiming about himself? He is claiming that one day I will be reigning at the right hand of the Father and you will see the effects of this. See, by answering in this way, again, Jesus makes an implicit claim to deity. This refers to our Lord’s ascension and reign at the Father’s right hand. So by these solemn words, Jesus in effect predicts that Caiaphas and the rest of the Sanhedrin, these men who had dared to presume to sit in judgment over the divine messianic king, they would one day experience for themselves the effects of his sovereign reign and would themselves be subject one day to his judgment.

    Those who are daring to judge him, one day they will be subject to his judgment. Their roles would be completely reversed and these men who had rejected him and refused his gracious reign would one day see him seated at the right hand of God. And the right hand of God is the place of ultimate authority, sovereignty, and power. No wonder it says that Caiaphas responded by tearing his clothes, a sign of mourning and horror. Because Jesus was saying, you may be judging me now, but our roles are going to be reversed. As we’ve observed throughout our study of Mark, earlier on in his ministry, our Lord Jesus had been secretive and veiled about his messianic identity and his messianic claims. But now, as Jesus is about to go to the cross, the veil comes off and Jesus is very plain and open and forthcoming about his claim to be the Messiah.

    And that leads us to consider for ourselves, beloved, What do we make of the claims of Christ? Dear listener, what do you make of the claims of Christ? Do you believe that He is indeed the promised Messiah, the divine Son of God and Son of Man who reigns in glory at the right hand of God the Father Almighty and who will come again in glory on the clouds of glory at His second coming to judge all of humanity? Have you embraced Him in faith and repentance as your very own Lord and Savior? Finally, beloved, notice the unjust sentencing and the brutal treatment of our Lord at the hands of His enemies. The unjust sentencing and the brutal treatment of our Lord by His enemies. Verse 63, again, I already mentioned this but I’ll read this again.

    Tearing his clothes, the high priest said, what further need do we have of witnesses? In other words, you’ve heard this man, Jesus of Nazareth. You’ve heard his claims. You’ve heard him claim to be God. You’ve heard him claim to be the Messiah who would sit at the right hand of power, the right hand of God the Father. You’ve heard this claim. Notice how he describes the claim in verse 64. You have heard the blasphemy. How does it seem to you? And they all condemned him to be deserving of death. And indeed, if Jesus was not the Messiah, if he was not who he claimed to be, then he would be guilty of blasphemy. And under biblical law, Old Covenant law, he would be subject to the death penalty. But one of the things that these religious authorities are unwilling to consider is that maybe his claims are actually true.

    Jesus is, in fact, the one he claims to be. He has demonstrated it time and time again. But they have hardened their hearts. They have rejected and refused him. And again, the tearing of the clothes was a symbolic gesture of indicating horror and sorrow. And the whole council, though, unjustly condemns him. They condemn their own Messiah. What is so ironic here, as I mentioned before, is that Jesus Christ as Messiah is the divine judge who is unjustly judged and sentenced by sinners in a rigged trial, but who will one day judge all humanity, including those who judged him at his trial. And in the case of Christ’s judgment on that final judgment day, his judgment will not be a rigged trial. He will pursue and demonstrate perfect unbending justice. Brothers and sisters in Christ, the trial of Jesus was indeed a grave injustice that exposed the Son of God to ridicule, mockery, and brutal abuse.

    But again, let us remember that Jesus underwent all of this out of love for us. Let us show our gratitude to our Savior for his demonstration of such amazing love and grace by living lives of grateful, faith-filled, obedient discipleship. Amen. Let us pray. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you that out of love for us sinners, you gave the greatest gift of all. You gave the gift of your son, Jesus. And we thank you, oh Lord Jesus Christ, that you came willingly, voluntarily, that you underwent the humiliation and the indignities and the sufferings of the cross. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you did that for us and for our salvation. And we rejoice that you have been raised from the dead, and we have been raised in union with you, and we are reigning with you at the Father’s right hand.

    Give us grace, Lord, to show our gratitude by living lives of faithfulness and obedience. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. Dear friends, as we close our time together, we’ll rise and sing together number 352, Man of Sorrows, what a name. Man of Sorrows, what a name, 352.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Agony in Gethsemane

    Agony in Gethsemane

    About this sermon

    Peter boasts that he will never deny Jesus, and within hours he falls asleep in Gethsemane while his Lord is deeply grieved to the point of death. Jesus falls to the ground and prays, ‘Abba, Father, remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what you will.’ Christ has a human will as well as a divine one, and his human will submitted perfectly where ours never could. The hour comes, the betrayer arrives, and Jesus rises to go to the cross, where he will conquer sin, death, and hell.

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    Sermon transcript

    Amen. Please remain standing for the reading of God’s word as we can continue our consideration of the gospel of Mark. My sermon text today is Mark chapter 14. I’ll read verses 26 through 42, although I will clue you into the fact that I’ll be focusing especially on verses 32 through 42, but I’ll begin reading at verse 26. Mark chapter 14, beginning at verse 26 and reading through verse 42. Dear friends, let us hear with reverence and awe the word of our God. After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives and Jesus said to them, you will all fall away because it is written, I will strike down the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee. But Peter said to him, even though all may fall away, yet I will not.

    And Jesus said to him, truly, I say to you that this very night before a rooster crows twice, you yourself will deny me three times. But Peter kept saying insistently, even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you. And they all were saying the same thing also. They came to a place named Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, sit here until I have prayed. And he took with him Peter and James and John. and began to be very distressed and troubled. And he said to them, My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and keep watch. And he went a little beyond them and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass him by. And he was saying, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.

    Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. And he came and found them sleeping and said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Again, he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And again, he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy and they did not know what to answer him. And he came the third time and said to them, Are you still sleeping and resting? It is enough. The hour has come. Behold, the son of man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up. Let us be going. Behold, the one who betrays me is that hand.

    Dear friends, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God to bless the preaching of his word. Our Lord and Father in heaven, we pray that by your spirit that that Christ would be present with us in the proclamation of your word this day. And we pray that your word would find a lodging place in our souls, make our hearts good soil, that the seed of your word would take deep root and bear much spiritual fruit in our lives that bring glory to your holy name. We pray that you would be with us now, make us open and receptive, and grant me the grace to declare your word with clarity and power. For Jesus’ sake we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen. You may be seated.

    The title of my sermon this morning is Agony in Gethsemane. And if you’re following along in your sermon outline, please notice that there’s quite a number of words you can be listening for in my sermon today if you find that helpful. Well, dear ones, the drama of March Gospel is quickly speeding towards its climax. The crucifixion of Jesus was imminent. Jesus had just finished eating his last Passover meal with his disciples, and in the context of that meal, our Lord had instituted the Holy Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, a sacrament which we will have the privilege of celebrating in a little while. Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, had made arrangements with the Jewish religious authorities to betray Jesus into their hands. And Judas had already gone out to fetch a force from those authorities in order to arrest Jesus and bring him to trial.

    After the Passover meal was finished, the Lord Jesus and his disciples go to a place that is called Gethsemane. Now, Gethsemane, which means oil press, was a garden located somewhere on the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives. And Jesus and his disciples would often go there in order to get away from the crowds. Perhaps it was owned by one of our Lord’s friends or sympathizers who allowed them to have access to his garden. In any case, Judas apparently knew that Jesus and the other disciples would be going to Gethsemane after the Passover meal. And which is why we’re told in verse 43 that Judas came up accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs to this particular place. Now, friends, for my sermon this morning, I want to have us consider our Lord’s agony in the garden of Gethsemane and the significance of that and some of the vital truths that we can learn from this passage of God’s word as well.

    So first, I want us to consider how our Lord’s anguish in Gethsemane reveals his true and genuine humanity. And next, I want us to observe our Lord’s entire submission to the will of God the Father. And finally, I want us to take to heart how absolutely essential it is for those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus to heed our Lord’s command to watch and to pray in the face of temptation. So first, let’s dive into our passage. And I want us to focus, first of all, on verses 32 through 34. Let us consider, brothers and sisters, how our Lord’s anguish and Gethsemane reveals his true humanity. We see here how the Lord’s anguish in Gethsemane reveals his true and genuine humanity. It says this, verse 32, they came to a place named Gethsemane.

    Let me just pause there. Remember, they had celebrated the Passover together. Jesus had just finished his last meal, his last supper with his disciples, and they are on their way to this garden called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, we are told, sit here until I have prayed. Isn’t that interesting? Our Lord Jesus was a man of prayer, though he is was and is the eternal divine son of God. He is also a man of prayer. He is the God man. And as the God man, he was a man devoted to prayer. And he needs to pray. He’s with his disciples. He asked them, sit here, wait for me while I go and pray. But he doesn’t go alone. It says in verse 33, he took with him Peter and James and John and began to be very distressed and troubled.

    Now, who does he take with him to the spot where he’s going to be praying? He takes the three inner circle, if you will, of his disciples. Jesus takes Peter, James and John, his inner circle of disciples, his closest friends. He takes them with him. And friends, that is very significant because the humanity of our Lord is underscored by the fact that he is so distressed by the sufferings that he knows he is about to face, that he seeks the support and the encouragement of his three most intimate friends. Verse 33 goes on to say that Jesus began to be very distressed and troubled as it is translated here in the New American Standard Version. It’s interesting, those words, very distressed and troubled. The Greek words that are translated by these English words, very distressed and troubled, indicate an extremely intense level of emotional anguish.

    See, what Jesus is said to be experiencing here could be described as a deep psychological agony, an inner turmoil that is almost beyond words to describe. This, too, underscores the truth that Jesus, while certainly divine, was also truly, genuinely human. Friends, the real, genuine, true and full humanity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ comes clearly into view, not only in these verses, but throughout the rest of this passage as well. For example, we find our Savior praying not once, not twice, but three times to his father that he might be spared the terrible experience of having to undergo the wrath of God on the cross for the sins of his people. In verse 36, our Lord pleads with the Heavenly Father by saying, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me.

    Yet not what I will, but what you will. Oftentimes in the Old Testament scriptures, the cup of the Lord is a symbol for his wrath and the unrepentant wicked are pictured as drinking from the cup of the wrath of the Lord. Well, Jesus is going to experience that wrath of the Lord as our sin bearer, our substitute. Remember, Jesus died in our place, in our stead. He took the punishment that we justly deserve for our sins. As our sin bearer, our substitute, our savior, he took that punishment upon himself. That was the cup that he would bear, that he would drain down to its dregs for us in our place, in our stead. But here, before his crucifixion, Jesus cries out to his father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.

    Here, our Lord Jesus appeals to God the Father. with a deeply intimate term, the term Abba, begging the father to find another way besides the cross for dealing with the sins of his people. You see, friends, in his human nature, our Lord Jesus did not want to undergo the agonies of the cross. This surely demonstrates his true humanity. God has imprinted into our nature the instinct for survival. We have an instinctive, natural drive to avoid pain and to avoid death. We have a survival instinct. And with respect to his human nature, Jesus had that instinct as well. And that’s not a sinful thing to have. It wasn’t sinful for Jesus to want to avoid the cross with respect to his human nature. Also, in verses 37 to 42, we can detect our Lord’s deep disappointment with his three friends. as they allow themselves to succumb to sleep in the hour of their master’s greatest need.

    Again, verses 37, verse 37, he came and found them sleeping and said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep? This is the same Simon Peter who said, Lord, even if all of the other ones abandon you, I will not betray you. Peter being being very confident in himself and in his loyalty to Christ. But here is Peter, boisterous Peter, saying, I’m willing to die with you, Lord Jesus, if necessary, but he can’t even stay awake for his master. No doubt Jesus is deeply disappointed, and Jesus urges him to keep watching and praying. And we’re told in verse 39 again, he went away and prayed a second time, saying the same words. And again, he came and found them sleeping for their eyes were very heavy and they did not know what to answer him. In other words, they were probably very embarrassed that he’s caught them dozing off when he’s asked them to watch with him, to support him, to be there for him.

    I mean, friends, it’s really shocking when you think about it. Here is Jesus. deeply distressed and in profound need of the moral and emotional support of his close friends. But instead of staying alert and seeking to provide him with their support, they decide to take a nap. Why do I drive this point home? Why is this so important? We know that Jesus was a man just as he is the Son of God. He is the God-man, the Word made flesh. But it’s important to reflect upon the fact that his humanity is just as important for our salvation as his divinity. It is just as essential, brothers and sisters, for our salvation that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be true man, fully man, as it is that he be true God, fully God. Indeed, the Bible teaches that our Lord Jesus Christ has two natures, a divine nature and a human nature united in one divine person.

    As our larger catechism explains in summarizing the Bible’s teachings on this subject in answer to question number 40, the question is, why was it requisite that the mediator should be God and man in one person? The Bible based answer to that question given by our larger catechism is this. It was requisite. In other words, it was necessary that the mediator who was to reconcile God and man should himself be both God and man. And this in one person, that the proper works of each nature might be accepted of God for us and relied on by us as the work of the whole person. Dear listener, are you trusting in Jesus, the God man for your salvation, the God man, the one who is the one and only mediator between the holy God and sinful humanity, Christ himself being the sinless one?

    Are you trusting in him? Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man coming unto the Father except by me. And as the Apostle Paul tells us, there is one God and there is one mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus. Oh, turn to Christ, trust in him for your salvation. That is your only hope of forgiveness and salvation. But next, observe our Lord’s entire submission to the will of God. the Father. We observe next our Lord’s entire submission to the will of God the Father. Look at verses 35 and 36. So again, Jesus has taken his disciples. They’ve arrived at Gethsemane. Jesus has asked the bulk of his disciples to stay put while he takes Peter, James, and John with him to go and pray. And he expresses the deep distress and anguish of his soul in verse 34 and then verse 35, it says this, and he went a little beyond them and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass by, pass him by.

    And he was saying, Abba, Father, notice the intensity and earnestness of his prayer to his father. Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will. But what you will. Beloved, did you know that Jesus has two wills? You ever thought of that? Think about it. Just as our Lord Jesus Christ has two natures, a divine nature and a human nature. So Christ also has two wills, a divine will and a human will. And just to give you a little lesson in church history There was, in fact, a group of heretics in the early church that were known as the monothelites. Now, the term mono means one, and fellow is the Greek word meaning I wish or I will. And so the monothelite heresy taught that Christ had only one will, namely the divine will.

    However, friends, our passage for today clearly indicates that that cannot be the case. After all, It was clearly the divine will that Christ go to the cross to suffer for the sins of his people. But in our text for today, we find the Lord Jesus not wanting to go to the cross. Notice also Christ’s words in verse 36 imply a difference between our Lord’s human will and the will of God the Father, which would have been the same as Christ’s divine will, since the Father and the Son are one in essence and in perfect harmony. one with another. Jesus prayed to the father, yet not what I will, but what you will. In his expository thoughts on Mark, Bishop J.C. Ryle offers this helpful quote from a Bible scholar named Petter, and I quote. Scholar says there are two distinct wills in Christ, but although they be truly distinct and different one from the other.

    Yet they are not contrary one to the other, but they are subordinate each to the other, the human will of Christ being always subject to his divine will and most ready to be ordered and ruled by it. Therefore, here we see that he doth submit his will as he was man to the divine will of God the Father, which divine will of the Father was also Christ’s own will. This truth we are to hold and maintain against those old heretics which were called monophyllites, because there was but one kind of will in Christ, namely his divine will. But some might say, well, Pastor, was Jesus being sinful in wanting to avoid the cross with respect to his human will? And the answer to that question is no. It was not sinful for Jesus, with respect to his humanity and his human nature, to desire to avoid the cross.

    All of us would desire to avoid such suffering. The human will of Jesus, of course, was a sinless will. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He was not conceived and born in sin as we are. We inherit a sin nature from Adam, but Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and was born without sin. So he is true God and true man, yet without sin. And so it was not sinful for Jesus to desire to avoid the cross. But because you and I have a sinful nature, apart from God’s grace, your will, our will as sinners, is naturally opposed to God’s revealed will. Consider it, my friends. If the sinless Lord Jesus was obligated to submit his sinless human will to the divine will of God the Father, how much more so should you and I as sinners repent of our perverse wills, and by faith submit our sinful wills to the will of God.

    But friends, the truth is, the only way that’s ever going to happen to us is if we are born again by the Holy Spirit. You see, in reality, we don’t have, in the ultimate sense, we don’t have a free will. Now we are free, we have a free will in the sense that we are free to do what we want to do, but the problem is, that our desires, our will, our desires are governed by our nature. And if we are sinners by nature, we’re going to freely choose what? We’re going to freely choose sin. Sinners don’t freely choose righteousness unless they are born again by the Holy Spirit. And so God has to spiritually renew us and change our wills. Indeed, he has to spiritually resurrect us, raise us spiritually from spiritual death to newness of life in Christ before we will will to do his will.

    He has to make us willing to do his will. Dear listener, has he made you willing to turn to Christ in true faith and repentance? May God in his grace grant you the grace to turn to Christ in faith and repentance. But finally, beloved, let us take to heart how absolutely essential it is for those of us who claim to follow Jesus to heed our Lord’s command to watch and to pray in the face of temptation. This is my final point in your sermon outline. Let us take to heart how absolutely essential it is for those of us who claim to follow Jesus to heed our Lord’s command to watch and to pray in the face of temptation. I draw your attention once again to our Lord’s words to the Apostle Peter in verses 37 and 38.

    And he came and found them sleeping and said to Peter, and Peter was the spokesman for the other apostles, and he’s the one that so boisterously said, Lord, I will never abandon you. I will never betray you. I will never deny you. Jesus says, Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation. The spirit is willing, meaning the human spirit. It’s not talking there about the Holy Spirit. The human spirit is willing, but the flesh, meaning our earthly nature, is weak. Now, again, I understand and we recognize that these words are addressed specifically to the Apostle Peter, and yet I would suggest to you, brothers and sisters, that they have a general application to all of us as well. Again, in verses 27 to 31, we read that Jesus predicted that all of his disciples would abandon him.

    But Big Mouth Peter confidently asserted that Jesus was wrong. He says, no, Lord, you’re wrong. I will never deny you, even if all the others abandon you, I will not. Big Mouth Boastful Peter. And then Jesus went on to predict that Peter himself would deny Jesus three times in very short order. Indeed, before the rooster crows twice, as it says in verse 30, Jesus says, truly, I say to you, when Jesus says truly in the Greek, it is Amen. Truly, I say to you, he’s saying this is going to happen. This is important. Truly, I say to you that this very night before a rooster crows twice, you yourself will deny me Again, not once, not twice, but three times. In response, as I mentioned, Peter, along with the rest of the disciples, the rest of the disciples chime in.

    As Peter boasts, the rest of the disciples say, yeah, us too, Lord, we won’t deny you, right? They promise to be loyal to Jesus even unto death. As it says in verse 31, Peter kept saying insistently, even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you. And they all were saying the same things also. And certainly we have no reason to doubt that Peter and the others were sincere in this expression of their loyalty to Christ. But even though Peter’s spirit and intention were willing, his flesh again probably meaning here his body or earthly nature was weak. What is the solution to this human weakness in the face of temptation? Jesus answers that question at the beginning of verse 38. He says, keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation.

    Now, to come into temptation appears to mean to succumb to temptation. What was Peter’s temptation going to be? Peter’s temptation was going to be to succumb to the pressure to deny Jesus under duress, a pressure from which Peter proudly thought, He was immune. But as we know in Scripture, pride goes before a fall. And oh, Peter fell hard and he fell far. And so, brothers and sisters, as with Peter, so with us. How do we avoid succumbing to giving into temptation? Well, first of all, watch. Don’t let down your guard. God’s word calls us as as his children to be watchful. I’m reminded of what it says in Proverbs 4 verse 23, and I encourage you to turn there. Proverbs chapter 4 verse 23. It says this. Watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flow the springs of life.

    Watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flows the springs of life. But don’t just watch. Watching alone amounts to self-reliance. Instead, what does Jesus tell Peter, and through Peter I would suggest us as well, what does he tell us to do? Watch and what? Watch and pray. Watch and pray. What is prayer? What do we do in prayer? When we pray, are we earning merit with God? showing how holy and worthy we are, no. Prayer is at heart, at its foundation, an expression of utter dependence upon God and upon His keeping power. Dear ones, let us watch and pray in the face of life’s many trials, troubles, and temptations, for only then will we overcome. And so, friends, our passage for today in closing our passage for today shows us our Lord Jesus getting ever closer to fulfilling the ultimate mission that the Father sent him to this earth to accomplish, namely going to the cross where he would redeem us from our sins.

    Jesus, at the end of this passage, as he finally returns to his three disciples who are snoozing He says in verse 41 and 42, he says, Are you still sleeping and resting? It is enough, meaning probably meaning it’s enough. You’ve had enough time to sleep. It’s time to wake up. Things are starting to happen because he says what the hour has come. What hour is that? The time has come for the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be enthroned upon the cross. where he would make satisfaction for sin. He says, Behold, the son of man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners, just as the scriptures had predicted, just as Jesus himself had predicted. The time had come for Jesus to accomplish the mission that the father had sent him to accomplish, to die for our sins and then following that rise victorious from the dead. bringing life and immortality to light through the gospel.

    And so Jesus says in verse 42, Get up, let us be going. Behold, pay attention. In other words, the one who betrays me is at hand. The drama is about to be consummated. Jesus is about to go to the cross. That is, in one sense, this is a time of great distress, but it’s also a time of great victory. For when Jesus goes to the cross, he will conquer sin and death and hell. Let us rest in his victory and let us to get up and be going in our discipleship, let us follow him, our risen, ascended, victorious Lord. Amen. Let us pray. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven, We do indeed praise you and bless you and thank you for Jesus, our savior. We thank you, Lord, that he was willing voluntarily to undergo such agony, not only agony of body, but distress and agony of soul to do so for us in our place, in our stead.

    And oh, Lord Jesus, we thank you that you loved us unto death, that you were willing to stretch out your arms upon the hardwood of the cross and to do so for us in our place. We thank you, Lord Jesus. We ask that you, by the power of your spirit, would inflame within us a deepened love and devotion to you, Lord, and strengthen us in the face of temptation. Grant us the grace, O Lord, in this fallen world where we face many trials, many temptations. Grant us the grace, Lord, to be spiritually alert, to watch and to pray out of gratitude for all that you’ve done for us. In Jesus name, we pray and all of God’s people said. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.