John Gunter: Now, this morning, I hope you've had a great week and great weekend. I need a nap at this point. Just been all over, got to go to a Houston Dynamo game last night with Evan's team, and so I had a bunch of fun with friends, and so always fun trying to wrangle a bunch of kids, isn't it? We come to this morning, and I've I've just been excited to be here with you, that we can come at a time where we can be surrounded by people who are of the same mind, and that we know, as Scott said earlier, he is risen. Amen?
So this morning, what I want to do is I want us to experience the story because we didn't meet on Friday or anything, we haven't covered the rest of the story. And so this morning, what we're going do is we're going to experience it like so many people have before us, that hear the word read aloud. And so this morning, we continue our study of the book of Mark, starting in Mark 15 and verse one. And as soon as it was morning, the chief priests held consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate, and Pilate asked him, are you the king of the Jews?
And he answered him, you have said so. And the chief priest accused him of many things. If I could stop for just one moment. You remember Jesus had nothing to be accused of. Correct?
And so what the reason Pilate is asking these questions is the only thing they could really get Jesus on is to try to claim that he's some kind of insurrectionist. He's some kind of rebel trying to upset, again, that that term Roman peace. Remember, Roman peace is not, hey, everything's perfect, it means if you are a rebel, we're gonna come and knock you in the head, and then we'll have peace again. And so when you you see a question like this, this is the only thing they could try to get everyone roused up about to try and alright, We need to make this stick. We need to make this a legitimate charge.
Right? And so that's what he says, and are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus answered him, you have said so. Jesus didn't say, I said so. He said, you have said so.
And then, again, the chief priest, the the church leaders of the time, accused him of many things. And Pilate again asked him, have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you. But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed that he wouldn't even defend himself. Now, at the feast, he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked, and among the rebels in prison who had committed murder in in their insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas.
And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them. And he answered them saying, do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews? For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priest had delivered him up. He's seeing there's no real charge here. They're just envious of what's going on.
But the chief priest stirred up the crowd to have him released for them Barabbas instead. And Pilate again said to them, then what shall I do with the man you call the king of the Jews? And they cried out again, crucify him. And Pilate said to them, why? What evil has he done?
But they shouted all the more, crucify him. So Pilate, wishing wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Now, that is going to happen from this point on happens because of this here. That what we see is there is no legitimate charge that Pilate you know, we've gotta have justice here, we need to carry out justice. Pilate in the moment, wishing to satisfy the crowd.
How many things in church or in life in general, how many decisions are made just so no one gets their feelings hurt? Oh. That we can go to the point of even saying, crucify this man, who we can't really find any charge against, release you know, the guy that murdered some people in that insurrection? Would you release him to us so we can crucify this man with whom we have no charge? And that's how it goes, that we bow to the whims of the people.
And so as long as no one's getting their feelings hurt, we will go with that so that it is the safe thing. Remember, Pilate's not asking the question, is this right? He's asking the question, what is safe for me? And so to keep Roman peace and to not have an actual insurrection, he decides to bow to the whims of the people. And and the soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is the governor's headquarters, and they called together the whole battalion, and they clothed him with in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him, and they began to salute him, Hail, king of the Jews.
And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him, and kneeling down in homage to him. So you see, we're doing this out of sarcasm. Oh, thank you, oh wise one. Right? We are being as sarcastic as possible, trying to to to make this look as if Jesus himself is claiming this.
Right? And he's not. They have said he is king of the Jews, and they put on this purple kingly looking robe, and they make up this this crown saying, hail king of the Jews, all in a big show trying to trump these things up. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him, and they let him out to crucify him, and they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. And they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull.
And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. They would often give these people something that would would kind of put them out of their their normal state of mind. It it was the one little piece of maybe helping people out in this cruel thing. But Jesus, wishing apparently to to be put out of his state of mind, says no. Okay?
And they it says, and they crucified him and divided his garments among them casting lots for them to decide what what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him and the inscription of the charge against him read, the king of the Jews. Like, this is the whole charge. Do you see what we're saying here? This is the only thing they could come up with.
The charge is, he said, instead of Caesar, right, Roman Caesar, instead of him being ruler and king, king of the Jews, he's claiming himself to be king. And with him, they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. I'd like to say, as we've gone through the book of Mark, we've talked about how quickly Mark talks about things. We know there's more to the story than there were just two robbers on either side. Right?
That there is there is one of those thieves that looks at Jesus and seems to claim, hey, can you do something for me? And Jesus says, you'll be today, you'll be with me in paradise. We don't get that in Mark. Mark is deciding to tell the story of Jesus in quick burst, and so we have to go to other gospels to see that. But it says, and those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, you would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days.
Save yourself and come down from the cross. So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another saying, he saved others, he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, which means Messiah, the king of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe. Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani? Which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This is not a a cry of God has turned away from Jesus, this is a cry of Psalm 22. That Jesus, in this moment of crucifixion, is going back to the songbook that he grew up with. He is going back to Psalm 22 where these exact words are being said.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders hearing it said, behold, he's calling Elijah. And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink, saying, wait. Let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down. And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
And when the centurion who stood facing him saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, truly, this man was the son of God. There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger, and of Joses, and Salome. When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem. Do you remember just a few verses ago last week, the disciples, they sat around the meal having the last supper together, this Passover feast, they all came together claiming, we will not deny Jesus no matter what. And in just the span of what we have in our bibles, we can flip a page, and it doesn't seem like any of the disciples are left.
A few of the women stand by who have helped Jesus in his ministry, watching him be crucified. Peter claiming, I will never, even if everyone else denies you, I will be there. And where is Peter at this point? I can only imagine that after that rooster crowed, after Peter denied so many times, that Peter probably had to walk it off and rethink what was going on. Don't you think?
And to this point, which is a dangerous scene, right, because we were with Jesus. We were with him, we were about the ministry, and if they're going to claim something that he was claiming, hey, he's the king of the Jews, well, if they can put him up on one of those things, they can put us up on one. Can you imagine in your mind kind of reconciling the fact that, well, I don't want to die. Surely God doesn't want me to die too. Right?
You've been there? Yeah. Let me think let me think about this in a different way so that I can save myself. Right? We think it's about good intentions, but a lot of times it's about saving our own hide.
And so all you have left is just a few of the women. And it says, and when evening had come, since it was a day of preparation, that is the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God. So that that means a lot here. That he anticipates you remember as we we began this this study, the the people of Israel anticipated God doing something in their lives. That God should show up, they desired God to show up, and do something about this Roman occupation.
And remember, think about it today, if somebody, some other country came into ours right now, and they ruled, would you like it? Y'all didn't say a word. You must, I guess. Right? We're Texans.
We appreciate people ruling over us. I thought in Texas we were always just on the brink of separating from everybody. Right? Yeah. Uh-huh.
Yeah. Can you imagine some other foreign country ruling over us? They anticipated God doing something. Now, we we might go a little too far and just anticipate we're gonna do something. Right?
God doesn't have anything to do with this. Right? God, hide your eyes, we're gonna handle this. Right? No.
They anticipated God doing something, and so when we get to to Joseph of Arimathea, he is expecting the kingdom of God. He's expecting God breaking into the world again, that they can visibly see God doing something, expecting the kingdom of God. It says, he took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died, and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph.
And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud, and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid. When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices so they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first first day of the week when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb, and they were saying to one another, who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?
And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back, it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, do not be alarmed, you seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here. See the place where they laid him, but go tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.
You remember, we've talked about that we we believe, at least tradition tells us, that Mark is using the words of Peter, that that Mark is telling Peter's story. And you remember, the last thing we hear of Peter before this point is him denying Christ. Denying even knowing his friend with whom he had spent three years in ministry side by side, ups and downs, all of the things. And all of a sudden, go tell his disciples and Peter do you think Peter needed a little encouragement? Go tell the disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.
There you will see him just as he told you. And they went out and fled from the tomb for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid. What emotions would you have had had you been standing there where they were? Scott said this morning, wouldn't it have been amazing? Maybe.
I might have been scared to death. I don't know. But can you imagine seeing something like this and then trying to convey that to others? Listen. How much convincing would it take?
You gotta use your most convincing voice, hey, look me in the eye. I'm telling you, I'm not joking. I know I can be sarcastic. I'm not joking, he is risen. Amen, church?
And we are here not just because Christ died and and was killed and laid in a tomb and he decayed there. We are here today because Jesus is risen. That we live, move, have our being because the love of God was poured out in the person of Jesus Christ. That though he had to face all the things that he went through, that he he prayed so earnestly to God, God, would you have this cup passed from me? He still said, not my will, but yours.
I will step into it if that's what you want from me. And Jesus stepped into all the scourging, all the mocking, all the denying, all the lies for you. And we sit here oftentimes acting like we are scared to death that somebody's gonna be upset because they know we're a Christian. We're gonna hurt somebody's feelings because we talk about God. Jesus didn't die for that, but he died for you.
Jesus went through all of this, and what I want to point out, and what we didn't read in Mark, one of Jesus' last statements from the cross as he looks out at the very people who were doing this thing to him was, God, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Jesus didn't just die for that person you think has got it all together. Jesus died for the person that put him on the cross. Jesus died for his friend and disciple who just denied that he'd even known him.
Jesus died for the very people making up the lies to put him on the cross to begin with. And Jesus died for everything that you have done to sin against God in your life. You know that church. Through the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you are made clean. Now, that doesn't mean that we go out and we just live any other way we want.
Paul deals with that in one of the letters to the churches, because what some of them had in their head You know what? We hear about the grace of God, you know what we should do? We should sin even more so that we can show how gracious God is. Well, wouldn't that? You're welcome, God.
Let me send some more so I can show my friends how gracious you are. You are welcome. God's gift to God, I guess. That's who I am. No.
We live out the resurrection each and every day because the resurrection means we should be changed, that we should be made new in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, I can't imagine for even a moment what the disciples thought as Jesus hung there on the cross. This was the most humiliating way to be killed, this was something reserved for the worst of the worst. Not only that, they've just released someone who says it was a murderer for him. Everyone who was even near him was saying, hey, not me, it wasn't my situation, he's on his own.
I can't imagine what was going through their mind, and I certainly can't imagine what was going through their mind when they said, he's back. Now, I love a good comeback story. Do you? I love stories even when I know the outcome before I start the movie. I love a good comeback story.
I've never watched one Avengers movie where at the end of it, the villain has killed all of them, and the villain is victorious. Even when a couple of years ago, those of you who watched the movies, Thanos snapped and killed half the population of the of the earth, There were still enough to get him back. The next movie begins with somebody cutting off his head, and yes, finally. I love people getting what is coming to them. I'm so competitive in sports, Ryan tells me I need to let it go sometimes.
But the weirdest thing is is getting to know soccer. You know, in baseball, you have your your home and away dugout, so you can kind of fan separate from one another. Football games, you get a whole different side. Right? You're 70 yards away from the other side.
Basketball, you can do home and away, same thing. Soccer, you have to sit away from the team, so you're all home and away, sitting on the same side, and you're kind of intermingled, and I don't like it one bit. Because every time the other other team's fans cheer, I'm upset. And boy, I love it when they're loud and obnoxious, I hate noise makers, and soccer, I'm in the wrong sport to not like noise makers, aren't I, Valentin? The weirdest things I've ever seen have been brought to soccer games to make noise when somebody scores a goal, but boy, I love when they get what's coming to them and we score a goal, and we get them back.
But in Christianity, in observing what Jesus did, that's the wrong attitude. That if we all got what was coming to us, I don't want a part to be any part of that, do you? And because of what Jesus did, I can be saved. But because of what Jesus did, you can be saved. And that person who did something to me can be saved.
And that we should live a life that is different, that is desiring other people to come to salvation just as Jesus did, because he didn't do that just to say, hey, all the people that didn't crucify me, this is for you. He went through what he went through for every single person. We ought to live a life that shows that to people, and shows how great a sacrifice that was. Mark starts out his gospel like this, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Everything that Mark tries to show us within this gospel is about this statement, Jesus Christ, now again, not his last name, Jesus, the Messiah, the sent one of God, son of God.
He begins with this statement, and he ends with Jesus being crucified, and all of a sudden, as the the camera goes to dark, the screen goes to black, he's back. And we live our lives because of I just wanna encourage you this morning that if you don't have a a good relationship with God, get that right. He did this for you. There is no, I'm not good enough. If you only knew what I did, he does, and he died.
And Paul will say that while we were yet sinners, he he died at the perfect time because while we were yet sinners, we couldn't say, hey, because I was perfect, that's why he did it. No. While you were a sinner, Jesus died for you. If there's nothing you bring to the table, it is God's gift of grace that he has given to us to allow us that right relationship with him. And so, that relationship's not right, we'd love to pray with you, we'd love to encourage you and help you out.
If you haven't put on Jesus in baptism, to experience just like he did the death, burial, and resurrection, to be born again into a new life following Him, to be given the gift of the Holy Spirit. There's no day better than today. Would you come if you can?