Today we are beginning a new study in the book of Hebrews.  Hebrews is one of my favorite books of the Bible.  I preached through it years ago, I’m not sure how long ago now.  In fact, I can’t find my old notes.  So I’m approaching it this time with a completely fresh perspective, hopefully one that has been enriched after preaching through the whole New Testament which we just finished with the book of Mark last week.

Many, many years ago, I used to have a part time job on the beach right over there every morning for a few hours. My job, for which I hope I was over qualified, was to chase people off the beach who wanted to walk their dogs.  It was not a very fulfilling job to say the least.  But I was attempting to supplement my income while I was starting this church and that seemed to be something I could do.  The good part of it though was I was able to spend a lot of time talking with the Lord and meditating on his word.  I used to bring my Bible and read it between canine interlopers. And for some reason, as I was reading and praying, I felt moved  to try to memorize the entire book of Hebrews.  

Well, I was unsuccessful.  Ambition alone is not a guarantee of success, I’m afraid. But I did manage to get about as far as chapter 4.  Chapter one is not that tough.  In fact, the first few verses are considered as some of the greatest prose in the Bible. But as you move along, and start encountering all of those Old Testament quotations, which seem to repeat themselves, it can be quite a challenge to keep it all straight in your mind.  And I’m afraid that my mind has been scrambled a few too many times back in the days of my youth. 

Today, I think I would be lucky to even quote the first three verses correctly.  But still, I think there is great benefit to memorizing scripture.  I can’t tell you how often I have called up some phrase or even a complete verse by memory that perfectly fits into a situation that I am experiencing. I think God can use that to speak to you.  And I believe there is a special blessing of God that accompanies memorizing His word.  I would encourage you to make a practice of it as part of your regular devotions.  Psalm 139 says, “your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” 

I would also encourage you over the next few months to read the book of Hebrews through.  It is a phenomenal sermon that teaches so much doctrine, and connects the story of redemption in the Old Testament with the New Testament in a way that other books of the Bible do not. There are more Old Testament quotations in Hebrews than in any other New Testament book.  About 29 quotations and 53 allusions from the Old Testament.  I believe you will be particularly blessed if you read through this book as we are studying it.  We are going to be in it for a number of weeks, perhaps about a year or so.  So you will hopefully have read it through many times during that time period, and I think you will get a lot more out of the messages. 

Now I could spend the whole time today introducing the book, but I don’t want to do that.  I will say by way of introduction that the author of Hebrews is unknown.  Who the author might be has been the subject of intense debate sense the second century.  Conservative commentators agree that it was probably written around AD 67, before the destruction of the temple, because the author speaks so much of the temple, and he does so without any indication that it has been destroyed.  The temple was destroyed in 70AD, so it would seem from that, as well as from other internal as well as external evidence that it was written before that time.

As to the question of who wrote it, I can only tell you who others have thought was the author. Clement of Alexandria said that Paul wrote it in Hebrew and Luke translated into Greek.  But many commentators believe that the language does not suggest Paul’s style.  It seems to be someone who was educated in classical Greek.  Paul was a Hebrew, and his Greek, by his own admission, was considered as rough. 

Others have suggested that Apollos wrote it, I believe that was Martin Luther’s suggestion.  That sounds intriguing, but no other writings exist from Apollos to compare it to. Barnabas was another very early suggestion.  My favorite, I suppose, would be Luke.  As a doctor, he would have had the classical education, He was a natural born Greek, and He would have been uniquely equipped to the style of argument that was popular with Paul, since he was the constant companion of Paul for many years. But the fact is, we do not know who wrote it.  However, we do know that the book was widely accepted by the earliest of the church fathers as part of the canon of inspired scripture, and thus ultimately authored by the Holy Spirit. 

Now there is much more that can be said in introduction, but I am going to leave that as it stands this morning, and dive into the book.  You can do your own homework and pursue some of the background information further if you want.  But I want to get into what God has said in this book of Hebrews in the short time we have left  this morning.

Jesus said in John 4:24, “God is Spirit, and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”  But how do we know the truth about God?  Paganism is man determining god as he imagined him.  Virtually all religions, ancient and modern, ascribe to God an invisible nature, at least as far as mere mortals are concerned.  And so recognizing that He is invisible, immortal, they then imagine various attributes of God, according to their own imagination, which is nothing more than superstition.  The point is, unless God chooses to reveal himself to us, we cannot know him.  We may realize certain invisible attributes of God by studying what the creation reveals about it’s maker.  For instance, we might learn a little about the nature of an artist by studying his artwork.  And the greater the amount of art  we have to study, then the more we might infer regarding the artist.  And such is true with God.  Romans 1 tells us that creation itself teaches us certain attributes of God, mainly his eternal nature and that He exists.  Some people stop right there.  They essentially worship nature, rather than the Creator.  And that too is paganism. But even if we have all of creation to study, we will still fall far short in really knowing God, so that we might worship him in truth.  The only way we might really know Him, is if He decides to reveal himself to us.

The author tells us that God spoke in ancient times to the fathers in the prophets, in various times and various ways.  God revealed himself partially, progressively down through the ages, successively adding revelation upon revelation.  Undoubtedly, the greatest father was no less than Adam, who after the fall must have been able to relate to several generations after him the glories of God. Adam actually lived 930 years, within a generation of the time of Noah. And then God spoke through Noah, then to Abraham,  to Moses and then a host of minor prophets, adding revelation upon revelation. God spoke in various ways, through dreams, through a burning bush, through smoke and fire, but always through His prophets. However, for thousands of years, this revelation was still only a partial revealing of God, and of His plan to redeem man from the fall.  There remained a better way, a more complete revelation of God, and that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  God spoke most completely, through Jesus Christ.

What the author of Hebrews is telling us in these opening verses, is that God has chosen to reveal himself, and He revealed Himself in His incarnation in human flesh, who is Jesus Christ.  God has spoken to us in His Son.  John makes the same argument in his gospel in chapter 1 starting in vs 1, identifying the Son as the Word, who was with God in the beginning, who was God, and through whom the world was made, and then who came to the world, revealed in human flesh, and dwelt among us on earth.  It isn’t so much that Jesus brought a message from the Father; He is a message from the Father. The idea is that Jesus is far more than the latest or best prophet. He has revealed something no other prophet could.

Also we should take note that the author says, “in these last days He has spoken to us in His Son…”  Don’t be confused by the phrase, last days.  It’s as if it is a two act play, the first act, and the last act.  Jesus Christ ushered in the last act, or the last days.  God’s word, God’s revelation to man is complete, given to us in these last days.

Notice also, that God does not bother to argue for his own existence.  He simply declares to us that He is.  That He has existed from eternity past.  God does not stoop to defend His existence.  The author simply begins with God’s existence and then extrapolates from that fact; “God, comma, after He spoke to the fathers in the prophets, in many portions and in many ways, in these last days have spoken to us in His Son…” The author presupposes a belief in God, but then what he does is he gives us an argument for believing in Jesus Christ. 

Why?  Because Jesus Christ is the way we come to know God. John 10:30, “I and the Father are one.”  And because Jesus Christ is the means of salvation. John 14:6, “No one comes to the Father but through Me.” So Jesus Christ is the way we come to know truth, and to worship God in spirit.  John 6:63, “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

Now there are seven reasons given in these opening three verses that compel us to listen to the Son, and believe that He has the authority to speak the truth of God.  These seven attributes elucidate the greatness and the character and the nature of the Son of God.

The first one is that God has appointed Jesus the heir of all things.  We believe in One God. But we believe the one God subsists in three persons; the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The great historic creeds of the Christian Church affirm this. This is what Christians believe the Bible teaches; one God, who exists in three persons. So the Son possesses the nature of the Father; one divine nature in our Godhead, but he’s a different person, and He has a different role.

So we read, “He, the Father, has appointed Him heir of all things.” Heirship rests upon sonship.  Only a son can be an heir. Individuals who are not in the family can receive bequests, but heirship and sonship go together. And, later on in the epistle he will make that very plain. All things are eternally His, because the Father, the first person of the Trinity, has appointed

him heir of all things. So the inheritance of all things belongs to the Son of God, all things are eternally his.  All things belong to Him. He is King of all, Lord of all.

Secondly, all things were made by Him. And in John 1:3 we read “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” Worlds not only refers to the planets, to the universe, but also to the ages. The ancient Greek word here translated worlds is aion, from which we get our English word “eons.” It means that Jesus made more than the material world, He also made the very ages – history itself is the creation of the Son of God.

Colossians 1:16 says virtually the same thing; “all things were made through Him and for Him.” So that means all things, all physical things in the universe, and all the history of the ages, is made through Him and for Him.  That means we were made for Christ.  We were made to be the bride of Christ, to have fellowship with Him, to be in communion with Him.  And so it stands to reason that we will not find contentment or fulfillment in life apart from Him.  Some of you here today may see a relationship with God as a hindrance to fulfillment and happiness in life.  But in fact, the scripture says the opposite is true.  We cannot find fulfillment apart from Him because He made us for a relationship with Him. As Paul preached to the Greeks in Acts 17:28 “for in Him we live and move and exist.”

The third attribute of Christ the author says is “And He is the radiance of His glory.” Athanasius, a preacher who lived in the third century said concerning the Light of Christ; “Who does not see, that the brightness cannot be separated from the light, but that it is by nature proper to it and coexistent with it and is not produced after it.” In other words, you cannot separate the source of light from the light it radiates.  We don’t think of the sun as having been created and then given light later on.  Light is inherent to the sun. It’s part of its being. Another early church father, Ambrose said, “Think not that there ever was a moment of time when light existed without radiance.”  So we read here that the Son of God is the radiance of the glory of God. There never was a time in which the glory of God did not have brightness. Jesus is the visible expression of God’s glory.

Jesus himself said of this light in John 8:12, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” John’s gospel says the same thing. John 1:9 “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.” And there we have a clear indication that light represents truth and life.  Jesus would say, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except by Me.” Light is the wisdom of God, revealed in Jesus Christ, which gives us eternal life.

Fourthly, “He is the exact representation of God’s nature.” He is the very image of the essence of God.  Just as an image on a coin is the exact imprint of the die, so Christ bears the very stamp of God’s nature.  As Jesus himself stated; “I and the Father are one.”  And again He said to Philip, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.”

What this means is that though God is invisible, a Spirit, we have the image, the exact representation of the invisible God stamped in the earthly flesh of man, that we might know Him as a person.  That we might know His personality, that we might know that He understands our frame, who emphasizes with us, because He became one of us. 

The fifth attribute of Christ is that “He upholds all things by the word of his power.” He is the One who bears all things along, that’s the meaning of the Greek word. He’s the Lord not only of history, but of prophecy. He is the Lord not only of the past, but the future. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He is bringing about the completion and fulfillment of God’s plan and prophecy concerning the world.

Col.1:17 says, “by Him all things hold together.” I firmly believe that the only reason this world does not detonate like an atomic bomb is because Jesus Christ holds it together. “By Him we live and breathe and exist.” Scientists have developed something called The Large Hadron Collider which is a 17-mile  underground ring between France and Switzerland.  The purpose of this underground tunnel is that it speeds protons to within a hair’s breadth of the speed of light before they crash into each other.  Scientists then comb through the debris field of these micro particles in hopes of finding the source of life in the universe. What they call the God particle.  Well, the Bible tells us the source of life, and that is Jesus Christ.  By Him all things exist and have their being and hold together.  Just think of the billions of dollars that could be used for greater things if they just believed the Bible.

In the sixth attribute, the author moves from the cosmic functions of the Son of God to His personal relationship with mankind.  “He made purification of sins.”  God has now accomplished something that man was unable to do for himself.  After the fall, man inherited a sin nature, which resulted in sin, and sin brought forth death.  God through Christ has provided a divine substitute, to die in our place, that we might be saved.  1John 1:7 says “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sins.” Christ has performed the high priestly function of purging away sins, but not as the high priest of Israel did, year after year, but He has made a once for all sacrifice, and sat down at the right hand of God, because His sacrifice was so much better than all the other sacrifices which were done year after year by the earthly high priests. Such a sacrifice speaks beyond the eternal, immortal and potentially aloof attributes of a Holy God, to declare other marvelous attributes of His character, that of His love and mercy towards His people, that He would lay down His life for His friends.

On this Memorial Day holiday, we recognize and remember the sacrifice men and women made for this country in laying down their lives.  How much more should we memorialize the greatest sacrifice of the Son of God, in laying down His life for us.

The seventh attribute we already made mention of, “He has sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”  Majesty on high obviously refers to God.  However, it’s not necessarily  a reference to a location.  God’s throne is in heaven, in the spiritual realm, above all other power and authority.  At his right hand denotes the supremacy and exaltation of Christ to the place of authority and favor.  That Christ is seated there speaks to the excellence of His high priestly work, and the fact that His atonement was sufficient and complete and contrasted as so much better than that of the Levitical high priests who continuously stood and made sacrifices again and again.

At the Father’s right hand speaks to His authority, and position, and supremacy, as stated in Eph. 1:20-21 which says God “raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,  far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.”

So the surpassing greatness of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is expressed to us in seven affirmations, that we might know that He possesses all the qualifications to be the perfect mediator between God and man.  He is the greater prophet through whom God has spoken His final word, He is the great High Priest who has accomplished man’s reconciliation with God through purification from sin, and He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who ascended to the Father’s right hand, far above all rule and authority.  

What then must our response be to Him?  If we believe in who He is, and what He has accomplished for us, there should be a response of worship and a duty to serve Him.  To have faith in Him, to believe in Him, is to worship Him as Lord God.  To submit to HIs authority over our lives, and live in service to Him.  Romans 12:1-2 tells us what this worship looks like. Romans 12:1-2 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Jesus said that whoever believes in Him would be saved.  Belief or faith in Christ incorporates accepting all that the author of Hebrews has said concerning who Jesus is, and what He came to do.  Believing in Him is trusting in Him, that He can save you, if you will just submit to Him as Lord and God.  Romans 10:8-11 says, “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach):  that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.  For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”

You can receive forgiveness, you can receive righteousness, and you can receive eternal life through believing in Jesus Christ.  God has spoken in HIs Son. Believe in Him and be saved.  

It has been our policy to preach through the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter, for many, many years now, even long before we officially became The Beach Fellowship. I started preaching through the New Testament way back in the day when we were Christian Surfers meeting at Salt Pond. And so today is a special day, because today is the day when I finish preaching through the entire New Testament. I haven’t figured out exactly how many years it has taken me, but it’s about 15 or 16 years. Along the way we also preached through Genesis, the Psalms, most of 1 and 2 Samuel, Daniel, and a few of the minor prophets. We have preached through Ephesians twice now, and starting next week, we will begin a second tour through the book of Hebrews on Sunday mornings.

So it is amazing, really, that God has given me the opportunity to preach through the New Testament, and that I stand here today after 16 years, still doing what we started out doing all those years ago. However, let me say in clarification that preaching through the Bible is not just some academic exercise that helps us to feel superior to other churches which don’t study the Bible. We preach the Bible because we believe it is the inspired Word of God, which is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, and that it’s doctrines equips the church with everything necessary for life and godliness.

Mark began this book by calling it a gospel, in ch.1 vs 1. He now concludes it, in chapter 16, with the Lord Jesus sending His disciples out to preach this very gospel in vs 15. And we stand before you today preaching this same gospel, as evidence of the power of the gospel, and the eternal purpose of the gospel.

The gospel simply means the good news of Jesus Christ. That Jesus was God, revealed in the flesh, who came to bear our sins, to be our substitute, that He was crucified, buried and rose again, and now lives to make intercession for us, and to be with us in HIs Spirit, until He returns even as He was taken up, to claim His church as His bride. That is the gospel, and those who have believed it, and accepted Jesus as their Savior and Lord, have been born again to a new life in Him.

There is a move today in Christianity that no longer really preaches the gospel. They may sound like they still espouse faith in God, but they are teaching a new gospel, which Paul says is not really the gospel at all. They eliminate all the thorny doctrines like sin and hell and judgment, and just talk about love, which has been reduced to some kind of sentimental euphemism for embracing diversity. I read recently about a new kind of Christianity that is becoming popular in Colorado, and the traditional church has been replaced by coffee shops and craft beer infused get togethers to talk about social issues. That’s not the gospel.

The royal wedding this weekend was yet another example of the popularity of the social gospel. The Episcopal priest speaking at the wedding was given kudos by the left leaning media for his embracing, socially unifying message of love, which quoted from all sorts of liberal sources, but avoided the true message of the gospel. Listen, love means that God sent Jesus to be tortured and beaten and nailed to a cross to pay the penalty for your sins and mine. In spite of what the bishop said that we need to love ourselves, the first and foremost commandment is that we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. And the only way we can know how to do that, is if we preach His word faithfully, and obey His word. Jesus said if you love Me, you will keep My commandments. We will keep His word.

Now last week we looked at the first eight verses of chapter 16 concerning the resurrection. And some of you might notice in your Bible version that the remainder of the chapter is set apart in some way, and there may be notes which say that the following verses are not found in the oldest known manuscripts. Many Biblical scholars have debated for centuries as to whether or not these verses were actually penned by Mark, or were appended at a later date by various editors.

I am not a Biblical scholar, nor a Greek language expert. And there are men on both sides of the aisle that I look up to who take opposing views concerning these last eight verses. However, I feel a certain reluctance to discount a passage of scripture on the basis of most modern criticisms. I would tend to think that though there may be problems with this text from certain perspectives such as style or terms used, or older copies versus less older copies, yet I would tend to believe that God has intended these verses to be included in Mark as accurate and reliable.

It is true that the oldest copies of the Greek manuscripts do not contain these twelve verses, but it is also true that the overwhelming majority of the Greek manuscripts that we have today do contain these verses. And it is also true that two of the earliest church fathers, writing from the beginning of the second century, quote from this passage. So it is clear that, from the very beginning, the church has accepted these twelve verses as authentic, even though there is some dispute today that they may not have come from the hand of Mark.

My personal opinion is that it’s likely that Mark’s original letter continued after verse 8. Ending at vs8 would be an odd way to end a book, and it’s at odds with the way the other gospel writers ended their books. But probably something happened to the end of the original manuscript, and the early church fathers wrote a summary of what Mark had written as a way to finish off the book. It’s also a good possibility that these last 8 verses are original to Mark, but there were other verses that were interspersed in this passage which were lost for some reason or another. And so what we have sounds a bit disjointed, and seems different stylistically, but it may be due to the fact that some connecting verses were lost.

Irregardless, many very early Christian writers refer to this passage in their writings, such as Papias, AD100, Justin Martyr, AD 151, Irenaus, AD 180, Hippolytus, AD 190, Vincentius and Augustine also wrote concerning this passage in the around AD 200-250. This shows that the early Christians knew about this passage in the Gospel of Mark and accepted it as genuine.

So we are going to accept it as genuine, as something that the early church accepted as the gospel, and now let’s move on and look at what it says. There are three divisions of this passage; the first verses, 9-14, deal with the basis of apostolic belief; verses 15 and 16 deal with the commission of apostolic preaching; and the final verses 16-20, deal with the confirmation of the apostolic witness.

Let’s look first at the basis of apostolic belief. In vs 11, Mark emphasizes that initially the apostles, when told of Mary Magdalene’s experience, did not believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. You will remember at the beginning of the chapter how the women had come to the tomb early in the morning, at the first light of dawn, and found the stone rolled away and saw the angel. The angel told them that Jesus was not there, but He had risen. But they did not see Jesus then.

According to John’s gospel, Mary Magdalene had gone ahead of the others and, seeing the empty tomb, she ran to tell Peter and John immediately. Evidently she did not hear the angel’s explanation. Peter and John both ran to the tomb. Peter went inside and saw the grave clothes lying there still wrapped as though they were around a body, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head was folded and placed aside. This convinced Peter and John that indeed Jesus was risen, but they still had not seen him.

Mary Magdalene returned more slowly to the tomb and as she stood weeping in the garden she saw what she thought was the gardener, she asked him where they had laid the body of Jesus. Jesus spoke her name and she then recognized Jesus. This was the first appearance of the risen Lord to a disciple. He came first to Mary Magdalene. She ran and told the other disciples. But Mark tells us that when Mary told them that Jesus was alive and that she had actually seen him, they did not believe it.

In vs12, Jesus appears to two other disciples on the road to Emmaus. “After that, He appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking along on their way to the country.” Notice that Jesus appeared to them in a different form. He disguised Himself to them in some way. Luke 24 tells that as they walked along with Him discussing the things that had recently happened concerning His crucifixion and resurrection, He began with Moses and the prophets and showed them from the scriptures all the things that referred to Messiah. Later as they sat at table with him and saw his hands as he broke bread, they recognized their crucified Lord. Then He disappeared.

These two disciples came back to Jerusalem immediately and told the eleven what they had seen, but, in Verse 14, Mark says the eleven did not believe them. “Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they sat at table; and he upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.”

It’s interesting that the disciples are having such a hard time believing that Jesus had risen from the dead. They don’t really even want to believe other eyewitnesses. And yet that is exactly what their own ministry would be founded on. They were eyewitnesses to HIs majesty, to His miracles, and they would be eyewitnesses to His resurrection and ascension, and so it would be incumbent upon the hearers of the gospel to believe their eyewitness testimony. Yet they themselves were slow to believe.

Jesus himself expected the eleven to believe before they saw him. He wanted and expected them to believe the reports of the eyewitnesses who had seen him. They were trustworthy persons and were reporting what they themselves had actually experienced, and that should have been enough to convince these disciples that Jesus was risen from the dead. So concerned is Jesus about this that He rebukes them. Even as He did in the days of His ministry, so now, He, as their living, risen Lord, rebukes them for their unbelief. He takes them to task because they refused to believe those who had seen Him. You can see the importance Jesus attributes to this matter of believing eyewitnesses.

Because that is what one of the pillars our faith is to be founded upon; the testimony of credible witnesses. Paul wrote later that 500 people saw the risen Jesus at one time. We have reliable testimony. The apostles were reliable witnesses, and we are required to believe their testimony. When we have adequate, trustworthy witnesses who report to us what they have seen, we are expected to respond with belief. These men saw the risen Lord. They were granted a privilege that we are not granted; but nevertheless, our faith can rest upon solid foundation. Even though we have not seen him, we believe because of the eyewitness accounts recorded in the word. And as Jesus would tell doubting Thomas later who persisted in disbelief, those who do not see and believe will receive a greater blessing. John 20:29 “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

Next, let’s look at the apostolic commission starting in vs15. 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.” Notice that there are two main points in the command which Jesus gives here. “Go” and “preach.” Just as the Savior seeks and saves those that are lost, so are we to seek the lost. To go into the highways and byways and invite the lost into the kingdom of God. To go into our neighborhoods, our communities and preach the gospel. To go to the ends of the earth and preach the gospel. Not all of us are called to be pastors, or missionaries, or as in this case, apostles, but we are called to be ambassadors to a lost world, to tell them the good news of Jesus Christ. Preaching is proclaiming the good news, the news of Christ’s life and death and resurrection through which believing we are saved, converted, changed, and we receive eternal life.

The good news is that the power of evil in your life and mine can be broken! Sin no longer controls us and ruins and robs us of life. The bondage of sin is broken by the power of the resurrection of Jesus. The living Lord Himself lives within us and imparts to our life the power of Christ. This is the good news, and this is the gospel we are to preach. That is what Scripture calls being saved. That is why Jesus said, “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.”

Notice the order there. Belief comes first, baptism follows. Believing is the means of justification, we are justified by faith, which is believing, trusting in the Lord to save. Then baptism is the evidence of salvation, being obedient to what the Lord says. What Jesus means is that belief ought to be real, and the reality of that inward belief is demonstrated by the outward action of baptism. Only that belief that changes us and converts us is real saving faith, and the way that we can demonstrate it is by being baptized. In other words, belief is action, not just an intellectual exercise. It changes your life, and as Jesus was raised to life, so we die to sin and are raised to new life in Him which results in righteousness. That is what baptism symbolizes, new life after dying to sin.

Maybe some of you here today may have never liked the word saved. But what it means is that we are hopeless and helpless, drowning in our sins and the condemnation of that sin, and the good news is that Jesus Christ has come to rescue us, save us. The late RC Sproul said, “God doesn’t just throw a life preserver to a drowning person. He goes to the bottom of the sea, and pulls a corpse from the bottom, takes him up on the bank, breathes into him the breath of life and makes him alive.” Being saved is being delivered from death, but also being changed from a life held captive to sin, to a new life through the power of Christ in us.

Knowing the unbelief that would face these apostles as they testified to the gospel, the Lord now goes on to give them certain signs which will accompany and encourage them in preaching the gospel. This climate of unbelief is the setting in which Jesus promises these signs in verse 17, “And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; If they pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Now of all the verses in this passage that are problematic, from my perspective these are the most problematic. And I think it really comes from a popular misunderstanding that what Jesus is saying is that all future believers will experience these signs. But I think that the context of the passage indicates that Jesus is saying the apostles will exhibit these signs, as a testimony to their witness. These signs were testimony to the authenticity of the apostles’ message. God would confirm their word by signs and wonders. And Paul speaks of that in Second Corinthians 12:12: “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you in all patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.” Hebrews says the same thing; Heb. 2:3-4 “how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.”

These, then, are the signs of an apostle. They were authenticating signs to accompany those who first went out with the gospel into an unbelieving and hostile world. Consequently, I believe that these apostolic sign gifts expired with the apostles. The word of God which they have spoken has all the authentication that it needs. It has stood the test of time. It has stood the test of thousands of critics through the centuries. But even more importantly, it has changed millions of lives. It has proven to be powerful to save millions and millions of people through the centuries. And furthermore, scripture authenticates scripture. The scriptures authenticate themselves as you study it and read it. You find it proves itself over and over. There is no more need for signs and wonders to authenticate new revelation. The revelation is complete, and it is in our hands as the Holy Scriptures, the word of God, which was given to us through the agency of the apostles.

So what were these signs? Well, they would cast out demons. We see evidence in the scripture that the apostles did this before the ascension of Christ, as well as after Pentecost. They will speak with new tongues. This was a sign that was fulfilled at Pentecost as everyone heard the gospel in their own language. And it continued for a time as the gospel reached the Gentiles. Peter, preaching at Pentecost, says that the new tongues were a fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel 2:28, “It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions.” Peter says in Acts 2:15-16 “For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel.” So that was fulfilled at Pentecost. It’s not something that is prophesied for the end of the age as is often taught. It was a sign of an apostle.

Furthermore, the disciples would have power to survive physical attacks upon their lives. Bitten by a poisonous serpent, they would not die. If they accidentally drank poison, they would not die. They would have power to survive, that the gospel might go out. This would be one of the authenticating signs given to them. You remember that Paul endured a snake bite when shipwrecked on an island, and he did not die. And consequently, he was able to share the gospel with the people there. He survived stoning, and also he survived being thrown to the lions. Peter was released from prison. So God was able to providentially protect the apostles until their mission was finished here on earth.

The fourth sign is power to heal, to lay hands upon the sick, and they will recover. Acts records many examples of the apostles being able to heal the sick and even raise the dead. Again, this was to authenticate their message as being from God.

So God gave these authenticating signs to the apostles as confirmation of the word that they were preaching. And the last paragraph tells us that after the Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven, the apostles confirmed the power of the gospel by going throughout the world preaching the gospel and God working through them in establishing not only the scriptures, but the universal church. As Ephesians 2:19 says, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

So Mark closes this gospel of his with the Lord ascending into heaven, living as Lord in the midst of his church, directing its events, planning its strategy, carrying it unto the farthest reaches of the world. And the apostles, scattered throughout the known world of that day, preached this good news, their witness being confirmed by these great signs. They thus laid the foundation of the great building that Paul calls the church, the body of Christ, that has grown through all the centuries since.

Listen, the gospel has been preached to you today, just as it was 2000 years ago. As Isaiah the prophet spoke: “LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT? AND TO WHOM HAS THE ARM OF THE LORD BEEN REVEALED?” You can receive the good news, believe in the saving power of Jesus Christ, and be saved, receive new life, abundant life. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is able to remake you, and make you into a child of God, if you will just repent of your sins and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. I trust that you will trust Him today, and call upon Him to save you. The Lord is mighty to save all who come to Him in faith.

Today we are looking at the last chapter of Mark, particularly the section of scripture in which he records the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  The chapter begins early Sunday morning.  We ended our message last Sunday speaking of the burial that happened after the crucifixion which was on Friday afternoon.  You will remember that Joseph of Arimethea and Nicodemus were in a hurry to bury Jesus’s body because the Sabbath was quickly approaching.  The Sabbath was counted by the Jews from sundown on Friday, to sundown on Saturday.  We count our days from midnight to midnight.  But without clocks, it was more feasible to count the day as ended at sundown and a new day continuing until sundown the next day.  

During that time, on the Sabbath, Jesus’s body was in the tomb.  If you were here last week, then you may remember that I attempted to describe what may have transpired while Jesus’s body was in the tomb.  1Peter 3:18 tells us “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;  in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison.”  

Now I am not going to preach that message again.  Once was painful enough, I suppose.  I told my wife later that I thought last week’s message was probably the worst message I ever preached. And I said, “What did you think?” Hoping she might reassure me.  But she said, “Oh, I’m not sure, there have been so many!”  

The point though is that during this dark interval between the cross and the resurrection, though His body was in the tomb, yet Jesus was alive in the Spirit, and as the Apostle’s Creed declares, in His Spirit He descended into Hades.  In some mysterious way, in every respect, Jesus paid in full for our sins through His death.   Someone has well said, that the death of Jesus on the cross was the payment, but the resurrection was the receipt, showing that the payment was perfect in the sight of God the Father.  The fact that Jesus was resurrected is proof that God considered the sacrifice of Jesus as fully acceptable and perfectly fulfilled for our justification.

Now I want to briefly make a few notes on the record of Christ’s resurrection as recorded by Mark.  I don’t feel the need to try to fill in all the blanks in Mark’s account from the other gospels.  I think it’s sufficient to note certain points that he wanted to make concerning the record of the resurrection.  Then I would like to show the relevance of the resurrection.  What does it mean for us?  It must be more than just a historical record.  And I believe that the relevance of the resurrection is central and crucial to  biblical Christianity.  Without it, there is no good news.  

The resurrection is the cornerstone of gospel promise. It is the primary theme of worship and praise because the resurrection is the source of eternal life for believers; because He lives, we live also. Without the resurrection, the cross, the death of Christ, would be meaningless. Without the resurrection, the cross would be powerless. If Christ is not raised, according to 1 Cor.14, then your faith is in vain, the gospel is worthless and you are still in your sins…if Christ is not raised.  So we need to understand the resurrection’s relevance.

And then, finally, I want to show our response to the resurrection.  It’s not enough to simply believe or accept it in some superficial, historical way, but it demands a response.  And that response involves an invitation and a proclamation.

So let’s begin first with the record of the resurrection.  Mark’s account is the briefest of all the gospels.  He begins with the same people he left off with at the end of chapter 15 on Friday evening.  With the women who witnessed the crucifixion and burial of Jesus Christ.  These women were those who had followed Him from Galilee.  They had ministered to Him during His travels and ministry, perhaps with financial support, and caring for His needs during His preaching.  They supported Him.  And though all had forsaken Him, these women were faithful through the crucifixion, the burial, and now the first at the tomb early Sunday morning.

There is a principle that is taught in 2 Samuel during the time of David’s wars.  Some of the men stayed behind with the baggage while the others went on to fight the battle.  And after the victory, some mean spirited men wanted to keep the spoils from being shared with the ones who stayed behind.  But David wisely made a tradition, established a principle, which said that the ones who stayed behind with the baggage should share as fully in the spoils as those who fought on the front lines.  And that principle remains  true for these women, who were in the background, serving the Lord, and who gave a great service to the Lord, even though it was unheralded.  So much of the important work of the Kingdom is done by people who are out of the limelight, who support the ministry in the background.  But in the consummation of the Kingdom, they will receive the same reward as those who were on the forefront of the battles.  

The next item of note is that it was early on Sunday morning, what was called the first day of the week. You know, this message would seem to be better preached on Easter, when we formally celebrate the resurrection.  But we also celebrate the resurrection every Sunday.  We meet on Sunday because Jesus was resurrected on the first day of the week.  Sunday became known as the Lord’s Day.  And since the earliest days of the church, Christians met on the Lord’s Day in worship.  The Sabbath was the day of rest which God instituted for man during the Old Testament times looking forward to the rest from our labor that we would have in Jesus, but with the resurrection of Jesus Christ that was changed to the first day of the week, in celebration of the new life we have in  Jesus Christ.  We are no longer under the law of the Sabbath, as Paul said in Colossians 2:16, “no one is to act as your judge in regards to a Sabbath day.” So the fact that it was early on Sunday morning is important to our theology.

There is another item in the record which bears pointing out, and that is the extremely large stone that the women were aware was blocking their access to Jesus body.  It was beyond their ability to move.  And so, to a certain extent, they went to the tomb in faith that somehow they would be able to access the body.  They probably were unaware that Pilate had commissioned a detachment of soldiers to guard the tomb, and that they had put a seal on it, so that it could not be opened.  But the other gospel’s tell us that God had sent an earthquake and an angel to roll away the stone, so that the soldiers ran away afraid.  

The point that needs to be made, is that Jesus did not need the stone rolled away in order to be able to get out of the tomb.  In John 20, we see Jesus in His risen body walking into a locked and closed up room to visit the disciples.  In His risen body doors and walls did not hinder Him.  So He had  already left the tomb before the stone was rolled away. The angel rolled the stone away so that the disciples could enter and witness that He wasn’t there.

But in that early morning darkness, the thought of the great stone across the door to the tomb must have been a great deterrent to the women’s desire to tend to body of Jesus. They could have given up before they ever even started out.  And what a loss they would have if they had not ventured out in faith, in spite of the perceived obstacles. 

There are a lot of perceived  impediments even today in coming to Christ.  There are all sorts of obstacles that we think hinder us from coming to faith in Christ.  But the lesson here is that we come in faith, in spite of the darkness, in spite of our lack of understanding, but believing that God can remove those obstacles, that He can move those mountains that seem to be impeding us, and when we come in the little faith we have, we will find that God has already provided a way, and our little faith will give way to a greater faith. Psalm 36:9, “In thy light we see light.”  As we walk in faith in the light we have been given, God grants greater light for the path ahead.

Notice also when they entered the tomb they saw an angel sitting at the right side of the tomb.  Mark describes him as a young man in a white robe.  The other gospels tell us it was an angel.  I think Mark is also obviously describing an angel, but in appearance he resembles a young man, though in a glorified state.  The women are amazed, frightened.  Angels are a messenger of God.  That is what the word means, messenger. Hebrews 1:14 tells us concerning angels, “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation? And God wants these women to know what has transpired, not to speculate, not to wonder what happened to Jesus.  But to know, by the word of God, that Jesus of Nazareth was no longer in the tomb, but He had risen from the grave, and would go before them to meet them in Galilee. 

So the angel declared that Jesus was risen.  And that they would meet Him in Galilee.  Some of them would in fact see Him later that very day.  But the point is, that the death of Jesus was not the sad end of a tragic tale of a good man.  The resurrection offered hope of a new life, a new relationship with Jesus who lived, to whom death had no power, and because He lived, we might live.  Because He was resurrected, we too have the hope of resurrection.

You know, in a court of law, there is no greater evidence that can be given than that of eyewitness testimony.  A person can be sentenced to death on the basis of two eyewitnesses testimony.  The fact of Jesus’s resurrection is something Paul said was attested to by more than 500 eyewitnesses.  So the credibility of the record of the resurrection stands as a historical fact.  There are many other details of the events surrounding the resurrection that we could review.  Some of those will be discussed next week as we look at the remaining 8 verses.  But for now I would like to leave the record, and move on to the second point, which is the relevance of the resurrection.  What is the meaning of the resurrection, and what significance does it have for me?

First, the resurrection means that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God.  We read in Romans 1:4, (Jesus) “was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.”  If Jesus was not resurrected, then He was just a man with delusions of glory.  But because He was resurrected, and ascended bodily into heaven, it is evidence that He was who He claimed to be, the Son of God.  And only because He was the Son of God, was His sacrifice acceptable. Because Jesus bore all our sins in His death and because His sin-bearing satisfied God, God gave to us all His righteousness. Justification is God crediting the righteousness of Christ to us, imputing the righteousness of Christ to our account. Because God raised Him from the dead, God was affirming the completeness of His sacrifice for sinners.

Secondly, the resurrection means that we have assurance of our own resurrection: 1Thess. 4:14 says, “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” That means that those who are asleep in Jesus, that have died in faith, will be raised from the dead, raised from Paradise to glorification with Christ.  We will be given new bodies, to live in a new heaven and new earth, forever with the Lord. That’s the hope of the resurrection. Because He lives, we live.

Next,  the resurrection teaches us that God has an eternal plan for our lives. The resurrection means that death no longer has any power over us.  Jesus said, “he who believes in Me will never die.”  This life is but a foretaste of what is in store for those who are in Christ.  In the life to come, we will judge angels, we will rule and reign with Christ.  There may be worlds upon worlds out there in the cosmos that God will give to us to reign over.  I don’t know.  Paul said “eye has not seen, and ear has not heard.”  We can’t imagine the life that God has prepared for those who love Him.

In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul relates our bodies to a seed, which as it dies is put into the ground, and comes up in the resurrection as a new body.  1Cor. 15:42-44 “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body;  it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;  it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.” Vs. 53 “For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.” 

Fifth, the resurrection means that Jesus has a continuing ministry: Hebrews 7:25 says, “He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He ever lives to make intercession for them.”  We have a great high priest, positioned at the right hand of God, who ever lives to make intercession for us.  We have an advocate in the heavens, a mediator between God and man.  He who gave His life for us, how will He not freely give us all good things that we need?  That’s the continuing ministry of Jesus Christ who ever lives. 

6, The resurrection means that Christianity and our God are unique and completely different than other world religions.  There is no other religion which claims that their God became man, who died for their sins and rose from the dead, so that He ever lives to help them and minister eternal life to them.  

7, The resurrection proves that though the world considered Jesus as a common criminal, worthy of death, God considered Jesus as the righteous substitute who took our sins upon Himself, to bear the penalty of our sin.  As I said earlier, the death of Jesus on the cross was the payment, but the resurrection was the receipt, showing that the payment was perfect and complete in the sight of God the Father.

Now let’s consider the last point I want to make in this sermon, and that is the response to the resurrection.  It is not enough to hear the facts of the resurrection, to learn the doctrines of the resurrection, but it is also necessary to respond to the resurrection.  It is the climatic conclusion to the gospel which demands a response from all who hear it.  And so we see in the passage two aspects to the response, first an invitation, and then a proclamation on the part of those who have accepted the invitation.  

First, let’s consider the invitation.  As spoken through the angel, the women received a message from Jesus they had to deliver. He says, “Go and tell the disciples…” We might think of this message as an invitation, because through this message the disciples were invited to meet with Jesus.  The angel says in vs7 “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.'”

This illustrates that the invitations of Jesus are invitations based on grace. The disciples had completely failed Jesus. He had every right to be done with them, but in grace He extended this kind invitation to them.  None of us have an invitation from God based on our own worthiness, but on HIs worthiness.  He is worthy of our devotion because He is faithful to love us to the end, to love us even when we desert Him, and to call us back to fellowship with Him.  God wants complete fellowship with us.  That is why we were created.  The fall broke that fellowship.  The resurrection restores that life with God that we were designed to have.  But it is in the form of an invitation to come to Him, to believe in Him and trust Him with our very lives.

This invitation illustrates for us that the promises of Jesus are always fulfilled on His part. He said that He would meet them in Galilee and according to John 21:1 He did just that.  And the Lord has given us many gracious promises as well. He says if we believe in Him, then one day we will see Him in glory, and having seen Him as He is, we will be like Him.  Jesus not only prophesied concerning His own death, but He also promised His resurrection.  “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”  He fulfilled His promise, so that we might be certain that He will fulfill HIs promises to us.

Jesus’s invitation shows us that Jesus want’s to reveal Himself more fully to us.  The angel said, “He is going before you into Galilee, there you shall see Him.”  The main objective was to see Him, for Jesus to reveal Himself to His people.  And the main goal of our faith is that one day we will see Him face to face.  And as a result of that great experience of seeing our Lord in all of His glory, we will be changed to be like Him.  I can’t imagine what that will look like.  But we know that He keeps His promises.  As we were made in His image, in HIs likeness in the first creation, then how much more so will we be like Him in the new creation, when He makes all things new.

When Jesus invites us He always remembers His promises. “As He said to you,” the angel added to the invitation. What Jesus says, He will do, and He can never fail in any promise.  I would ask you today, have you ever accepted Jesus invitation?  He has promised life, forgiveness, peace, joy, eternal life to those who believe in Him.  But if you never accept the invitation, if you never act on it, then you will remain dead in your sins. Jesus has extended to you a personal invitation, to be saved, to be forgiven, to receive eternal life, based on repentance from sin, and faith in Him.  Have you responded?  

Then for those who have responded in faith, there is one more aspect to that response, and that is to go and tell, to proclaim the good news. Until He returns that is our job one, to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.  People are perishing all over the world, without hope, and Jesus provides the antidote.  But He wants us to be the ones to administer it.  

Mark says “and they said nothing to anyone:” This does not mean that they made no report of the resurrection because we know plainly from the other gospel accounts that they did (Mark 16:11 and Luke 24:9). What he probably means is that as they left the scene of the empty tomb, they did not immediately do what they were told because of the fear and trembling that they felt.  Maybe it means that they did not go home and tell their families or neighbors at first, because of the amazement that overwhelmed them.  But we know eventually that they did tell the disciples.  And gradually word spread about the resurrection of Jesus, so that as Paul reported, at one point more than 500 people gathered to see the risen Savior. 

We too have been given a mandate to go and tell.  But I’m afraid we too are often amazed and fearful and trembling.  The sad thing is, that we aren’t afraid because we have seen an angel, we aren’t trembling because we have witnessed the power of God in resurrection.  But we are afraid because of men, and what they might say about us, or think about us.  

I pray that we might be more like David, who said in Psalm 56:11, “In God I have put my trust, I will not be afraid, what can man do to me?”  If we really believe in the power of the resurrection, then we have no reason to fear man.  If we really trust in the power of God to raise men from the dead, then we have no reason to be afraid.  We can be bold because we know the truth that leads to salvation.  We have the antidote that a dying world is in dire need of.  I pray that we will not keep to ourselves what God has done for the benefit of the world.  Let’s go forth with joy and confidence that we have the good news of salvation, and may the God who raised Jesus with power from the grave go before us.

Death is something that is inevitable, it comes to us all.  And yet I suppose, for something that is so universally common, considering it on a personal level is studiously  avoided.  At the risk of sounding overly morbid, the reality is that all of us are dying.  When we are young, death seemed like such a distant, otherworldly concept, that scarcely concerned us.  We live like we will live forever.  But as we get older, as we see more and more of death, and as we see considerably more of the sands of time in the bottom of the glass than is left in the top, the reality of death becomes something which seems more inevitable.

Still, I think most people try to avoid thinking of death right up to the bitter end.  There is no other reason that explains why people live the way they do.  Right up to their last breath, it seems many people continue in their amusements and enterprises as if they will live forever.  

Funerals are a mechanism which can cause people to stop and think about death and dying.  However, I think there is even a tendency today to do away with funerals because people don’t want to think about it.  A big trend today is to cremate someone and then at a more convenient time have something often called a celebration of life.  

But I would suggest that death is something we need to think about, and even embrace, to a certain extent.  I suggest that the scripture talks a great deal about death and burial because it is a vital part of the sequence of life.  It is a vital part of our existence, and it’s a vital part of our salvation.  For this reason I believe we are given details of the burial of Jesus Christ.  In fact, I think that God deliberately planned for the burial of Jesus Christ, that He might teach us certain important principles.  There could have been other ways in which Jesus could have died, and satisfied the wrath of God, but not have included a burial.  But the burial of Jesus Christ is an essential link in our salvation, which God orchestrated down to the smallest detail. 

As we look then at the death and burial of Jesus Christ, we need to understand the necessity of His death.  As I said a moment ago, in reality all of us are dying.  Ephesians 2:5 and Colossians 2:13 says that we were dead in our trespasses and sins.  This deadness that we are born with we inherited from Adam.  1Corinthians 15:22  “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”  The curse of death began at the fall, and it came upon all of creation.

Adam and Eve sinned, and as a result, they incurred the curse of death.  Now you will remember that even as God pronounce the curse, He also promised there would come One from the woman who would break that curse.  Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

Satan bruised Christ on His heel, by nailing Him to the cross.  But through the death of Christ, God crushed Satan’s head, by doing away with the sting of death.  1 Cor. 15:54, says, It is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This victory over death was accomplished in the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  In life He was innocent, He was the spotless, righteous Lamb of God.  In His death He took the punishment for sin that was meant for us by offering Himself as our substitute.  And in His burial He fulfilled the penalty for sin that was due to all men.  “For the wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23 

Isaiah 53:8 says in the NIV, “By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.”

Now I want us to consider more fully the theological implications of His burial, but let’s do so as we look at the details that Mark gives us here in this passage.  Note first of all that in vs 40 and 41 we see these women who were His followers from Galilee, who Mark says used to minister to Him. It’s interesting that these women, who themselves were far from home,  who were in Jerusalem with the Lord, and though all of His disciples had deserted Him, yet they stuck with Him.  These women were witnesses of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We see them here at the cross, then at the end of this passage in vs47 we see them watching to see where Joseph buries Jesus, and then in the next chapter, we see them as the first to visit the empty tomb, and the first to tell the other disciples that He had risen. Their  faithfulness and testimony was critical to the faith of His followers.  God gave them the opportunity to witness everything concerning His death, burial and resurrection firsthand.  And I believe that was because of their faithfulness.  They continued, when everyone else had deserted Him.

And I think that there is a possible lesson in that for us here today.  God rewards faithfulness in the little things by giving you greater faith to do larger things.  And we could also say that God confirms your faith when you are faithful in little things.  Being stedfast, persevering even in the face of persecution is promised a great reward.  Jesus promises a reward to the church of Philadelphia because of their faithfulness. Rev. 3:8 “I know your deeds. Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you have a little power, and have kept My word, and have not denied My name.”  As Jesus was faithful unto death, so we are called to be faithful even unto death.

The second person that we see here is Joseph of Arimethea.  Mark tells us that he was a prominent member of the council.  That means he was a member of the Sanhedrin, perhaps a leader.  This is the very institution that arrested Jesus and put Him on trial and condemned Him to death.  Luke tells us though that he did not consent to their plan.  Either he wasn’t at the trial, or he abstained from the proceedings. Mark goes on to tell us that he was looking for the Kingdom of God.  That means that he was looking for the Messiah.  And the indication is that he recognized Jesus as the Messiah. In fact, in John’s gospel, he describes Joseph as a secret disciple.  And the other gospel writers also tell us that Joseph was a rich man. 

So this secret disciple, knowing that the Sabbath is quickly approaching, wants to ask for Jesus’s body so that he might give Him a proper burial.  In fact, he gives Him a burial fit for a king.  He puts Jesus’s body in his own tomb, in which no man had laid.  This was a very expensive tomb.  It’s big enough for people to stand inside, it’s big enough for angels to sit down inside of, and Mark tells us in the next chapter that it had a very large stone rolled across the opening.  This was a burial vault fit for a king.  And I think that is indicative of Joseph’s faith, in that Mark says he was looking forward to the kingdom of God.  I think that is an indication that he was looking forward to Christ reigning in His kingdom.  

I think we see the same idea conveyed in the answer of the thief on the cross to Jesus.  He said in Luke 23:42 “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!”  Jesus is dying on the cross, and the thief is confessing the faith that Jesus will come back in His kingdom.  That’s pretty incredible faith when you think of it.  He believed in the resurrection of Jesus, that He would come back as the King of His kingdom.

And perhaps Mark indicates that Joseph believes that as well.  Because if he believed that Jesus was the Messiah, as is indicated by the gospel writers, then he would have also believed the prophecies concerning the eternal reign of the Messiah.  He may not have understood the timing, but I think he believed the promises.  Something perhaps in the manner in which Jesus died, made him move from fearful faith to being willing to take up his cross and follow Jesus.

That’s evident because Mark says that Joseph gathered up his courage and went to ask Pilate for Jesus’s body.  Like the centurion who also saw the manner in which Jesus died, he decided that surely this was the Son of God, and so whatever gain he had as a member of the Sanhedrin, whatever gain he had because of riches, he counted but loss, for the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ as His Messiah and Lord. 

Undoubtedly, this public confession of being a disciple of Jesus Christ would have resulted in his being excommunicated from the Sanhedrin.  Quite possibly, it also would have meant that he would be barred from attending the synagogue.  So for Joseph to publicly proclaim Jesus in this fashion would have meant his social, political and eventual financial ruin.   

The same can be said about another secret disciple, and that is Nicodemus.  You will remember Nicodemus who came to see Jesus at night in John 3.  Jesus called him the teacher of Israel, indicating he was an important rabbi.  John tells us that Nicodemus accompanied Joseph in burying Jesus, and he brought a great wealth of myrrh and spices to anoint His body for burial.  So ironically, we see the women and the fearful, secret disciples becoming bold at His death, while the ones who were closest to Him had abandoned Him.

At crucifixions, it was a common practice for the soldiers to either leave the criminal’s bodies to rot on the cross, to be eaten by birds, or to dump them on the nearby garbage heap which was called Gehena.  It was a place of continual burning garbage outside the town, which the Lord alluded to in a sermon about hell.  But the law of the Jews required that the bodies of one hung from a tree be taken down before dark, and the fact that it was also the evening before a high Sabbath, meaning during the Passover, they wanted the bodies taken down.  Joseph, was the only friend that was willing and able to see to it that Jesus was buried.  

And as we will see, it served God’s purposes that Jesus be buried.  There are a lot of questions that could be raised concerning the death and burial of Jesus Christ.  For instance, why did God choose to crucify Jesus?  Why not some other death?  Why did God choose to torture Jesus on a cross as opposed to a more normal death?  Why did God choose to bury Jesus for three days?  And there are even more questions that could be asked.  

Well, concerning the method of death, ie, crucifixion, it satisfied the wrath of God towards sin.  Hebrews 2:10 “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.”  Isaiah 53:10 says,  “But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.” 

God’s judgment against sin, His wrath against sin, is measured by the affront of sin to a Holy and Righteous God.  As I said last week, We have too small a view of sin, and too mild a view of God’s wrath against sin.  When we understand the enormity of our sin, then we can understand God’s wrath against sin. Crucifixion was the Roman government’s harshest punishment for the vilest offenders.  And so God satisfied the law by crucifying Christ.

The second question is why the burial of Jesus?  Why not raise Him up immediately upon death? Why was He buried and in the grave for three days?  Well, again let’s look at Hebrews chapter 2, this time in vs9, “But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.”

First of all, His burial attested to  the certainty of His death.  He was attested to by Joseph to Pilate.  Pilate couldn’t believe that He was already dead, and so he sent for the centurion.  The centurion attested to His death.  We have already seen that the Jews attested to His death, and also that the women from Galilee witnessed His death and burial.  So God made sure that He was dead, and that everyone knew that He was dead. Pilate then gives the body to Joseph.  And when he does so, Mark records that he uses the Greek word, ptōma, which means a corpse. 

What the author of Hebrews tells us though is that Jesus tasted death for everyone.  Now that gets to the theological underpinnings of the burial.  Hebrews again, this time in chapter 9, tells us that Christ was manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and then in vs27 “And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,  so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.”  

What that means is that we are appointed to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ died on our behalf, so that we might escape judgment, having been justified by faith in what He accomplished for us.

And what did He accomplish for us through His death and burial?  One thing we know for sure, He satisfied the wrath of God in fulfilling the complete punishment for sin, but also He was considered righteous before God, and thus God delivered Him up from death through the resurrection.

In the Apostle’s Creed, which some of you might be more familiar with than others, there is the following statement. It is not scripture, nor inspired, but it is a synopsis of the doctrine of the apostles as recorded in about the third century.  It is an early Christian statement of faith.  And in it, we read, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary,

Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”

Now notice that phrase concerning the burial of Jesus Christ, “Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead…” That raises an important point.  Jesus’s body was buried, the corpse was buried, but His Spirit was not dead, and neither was it in the tomb.  The Apostle’s Creed said He descended into hell.  Now a lot of people are offended by that, or don’t know what to make of it.  

Let me try to explain.  Remember when Jesus was on the cross, He cried out with a loud voice, “it is finished!” and then Luke 23:46 says, And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMIT MY SPIRIT.” Having said this, He breathed His last. 

Now “into your hands” simply means into your care, and then notice that Jesus commends His Spirit to pass out of His body, signaling death to His body. He had the power to lay down His life, and He entrusts His Spirit to the care of the Father.

Now remember also that just previous to this, He told the thief on the cross who confessed faith in Him, in Luke 23:43 And Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” 

Jesus Himself described Paradise by using the familiar phrase “Abraham’s bosom,” in telling the story of the rich man and Lazarus, and Lazarus was being comforted in Abraham’s bosom, while the rich man was being tormented in flames.  And Abraham said to the rich man, that between them was a great gulf which no man could cross.  Jesus was giving a picture of Hades, called Sheol in the Old Testament, which the Jews understood to mean was in the center of the earth, with an upper and lower chamber, and in between a great chasm which separated the two, being Paradise and Hell.

Now the Apostle’s Creed gets it’s phrase, descended into hell, from 1 Peter 3:18, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;  in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.”

Now I could preach a message or two on these verses and we don’t have the time this morning, so suffice it to emphasize that Peter says, “having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;  in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison…”  What he is saying is that though Jesus’s flesh was in the tomb, His Spirit was alive and went to what he calls prison, particularly of those who had died during the days of Noah. Now there could be a lot said concerning what and who Jesus preached to in Hell.  But that is not our point this morning.  However, Jesus clearly was not in the tomb.

But also note vs 22, where Peter says that He is at the right hand of God having “gone into heaven, AFTER angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.”  So sometime between the crucifixion and the ascension, the angelic powers and authorities, which is how Paul refers to demonic powers in Ephesians 2, are subjected to Him.

Paul also refers to this ascension and descension in Eph. 4:8-10 “Therefore it says, “WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES, AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO MEN.”  (Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth?  He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.) Paul says that Jesus descended into the lower parts of the earth, ie, Hades.

Now I confess that we can’t know all of what happened to Jesus during those three days in the grave.  But I do know that Jesus fulfilled all penalty and punishment for sin, and He fulfilled all righteousness so that according to Psalm 16:10 “For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.”  God punished Jesus unto the full extent of the law, even unto Hades, having been made sin for us, but God also raised Jesus because He was innocent of any sin, being righteous in all things and having fulfilled perfectly the punishment for sin.

Going back to Isaiah 53 again, looking at vs 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.  But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.”

Most commentators believe that vs 9 is speaking of Joseph of Arimethea’s grave, in the phrase, “His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death.”  And I will agree that on the surface it may fulfill that prophecy.  But is it also possible that in speaking of the grave, Isaiah is speaking of Sheol?  His grave was assigned with wicked men, having been made sin for us, but with a rich man in His death, could that not be a reference to Paradise?  When the poor man Lazarus died, He was taken to Paradise, whereas the rich man was consigned to torment.  

I think that theory has some credence because Isaiah says it was because He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth,  meaning because He was righteous, He was with a rich man in His death, He was in Paradise, even though He was assigned the penalty for the sins of the world.  But that there is a possibility that Christ did suffer punishment in hell for the sins of the world could be construed from the phrase that says, “As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.”

Well, we must leave this for now.  But I want to impress on you one more aspect of the burial of Jesus Christ that is for our application.  The burial of Jesus Christ speaks to the mortification of the flesh.  Putting to death the flesh.  Paul says in Romans that our baptism is a picture of dying to the flesh. Romans 6:4 “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

Christ died for sin, so that we might die to sin.  Christ overcame sin through death, so that we might have life through His righteousness.  We now walk in the Spirit, by putting to death the passions of the flesh.

The flesh and the Spirit are diametrically opposed to one another.  Repentance is recognizing the need for dying to the flesh, so that we might live in the Spirit.  That’s what it means to be conformed to the death of Christ.  I said earlier that Joseph was an esteemed member of the Sanhedrin, a rich man, a man of social standing in the community.  Yet those things which were of great fleshly value to him, he counted as loss for the sake of knowing Jesus as Lord.  

The apostle Paul was also once greatly esteemed by the Sanhedrin.  And yet he came to know the surpassing value of counting such things as dead, that he might have life in Christ.  He said in Phil. 3:7-11 “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,  that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;  in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

May we have the same attitude as Paul, and be conformed to the image of His death, that we might walk in newness of life in the Spirit.  And that life we have in Christ is everlasting life, because as He lives, so we will live.  Jesus said in John 11:25-26 “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,  and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

I believe, without question, that the greatest pivotal event in history is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  The Old Testament saints looked forward to it, and the New Testament church looks back to it.  But not only is it central to Christians, the cross is the monumental centerpiece of the history of the whole world.  Even our calendar reflects the fact of Jesus’s life and death.  I know, AD does not mean “after death.” It means “anno domini”, which means “in the year of our Lord.”  However, even though historians now use BCE or CE, meaning “before common era,” and “common era,” the determining crux of the eras is still the life of Jesus Christ.

Jesus whole life purpose was to come to offer Himself as our substitute, to die on the cross for our sins, that we might be made righteous by the grace of God and be given spiritual life.  But in order to accomplish that, He also had to be God incarnate, He also had to be the Messiah, He also had to be the Son of God, and He also had to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And I believe that as Mark describes the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, he is instructing  us in this tragedy of errors, as the world fails to recognize Jesus Christ as it’s King.  In fact, they scorn Him and ridicule Him for claiming to be the King of the Jews. If this event were a fictional work of literature, then this story would easily best the greatest Shakespearean tragedies.  The King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, rejected, despised, scorned by His own people, and to add injury to insult, they crucify Him, having failed to recognize His rightful claim to the throne, nor His mission of mercy towards the very ones that assailed Him.

I think it’s very interesting that Mark gives merely four words to describe the actual act of the crucifixion; “and they crucified Him.”  Mark does not tell us all the grisly details of crucifixion.  He leaves out even many of the events that the other gospel writers include. Mark obviously wants to focus our attention on this event, but on what exactly?  Volumes of books have been written on the crucifixion.  Movies have been made, poems written, songs composed, and yet Mark, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, gives us four words.  What gives?  If not the torture of the cross, then what should we be considering here?

Well, I want to suggest that what Mark wants us to consider the humiliation of King Jesus.  He is humiliated in that He has put aside HIs robes of glory, His heavenly splendor, and for our sakes became poor, for our sakes became garbed in human flesh, and yet He was despised for it, He was ridiculed for it, He was flogged for it, and then  hanged for it.  Paul says in 2Cor. 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.” 

Mark emphasizes again and again that He was the King of the Jews.  Notice how many times the phrase turns up in this section of scripture.  Notice in vs2, Pilate questioned Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” And He *answered him, “It is as you say.”  Then notice vs9, Pilate answered them, saying, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” Then vs12 Answering again, Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Him whom you call the King of the Jews?” Next, let’s hear the words of the soldiers in vs18 and they began to acclaim Him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Then notice the charge they crucified Him under; vs26 The inscription of the charge against Him read, “THE KING OF THE JEWS.”  Notice next they join the title Messiah, or Christ, with the King of the Jews, in vs32 “Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!” 

Now that’s a pretty interesting perspective on the crucifixion, I believe. Jesus claimed to be the King of the Jews and the Son of God. Jesus was condemned, crucified for being the King of the Jews.  He was ridiculed and scorned and beaten for being the King of the Jews.  He was taunted to come down from the cross if He was indeed the Messiah and the King of the Jews. 

Now to be clear, to claim to be the Messiah was to claim to be the anointed King of the Jews by God Himself.  The Messiah, by many prophesies, was to be a descendent of David, of the line to the throne of David, which indicated that the Messiah would restore the kingdom of Israel. So in the last chapter, when Jesus is brought before the High Priest in a midnight trial, they ask Jesus pointblank, “Are You the Christ (that is the Messiah), 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.”

So Jesus claimed to the religious leaders of the Jews that He was the Messiah, that He was the Son of God, and that He would be sitting on the throne of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.  That’s a pretty heavy claim.  He is claiming not to be just the King of the Jews, but the Supreme Ruler of the Earth.   And then to Pilate, the face of Roman civil authority, who asks  “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Jesus answers, “it is as you say.” 

Now Mark left out the remainder of the remarks that Jesus said to Pilate.  But it behooves us to consider them because it’s reported in John 18:36 Jesus continued to answer Pilate, “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.”

What Jesus is claiming is pretty clear; His kingdom is a spiritual kingdom, not of this world.  Not of the physical, material world.  It is a kingdom of the spiritual world.  And those who are spiritual are part of His kingdom.  Though Jesus had every right to claim the physical, material benefits of being the King of the Jews, the Messiah, He was not setting up a physical throne in Jerusalem but through the royal line of David is establishing a spiritual sovereignty over the world.  And so as Paul would make very clear later in his epistle to the Romans said in chapter 2:28-29 “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.  But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.”

Now that death of the flesh, which Paul says is pictured by circumcision, is described for us here as the cross.  The cross is the means by which the flesh is put to death, and righteousness is revealed, so that sinners might be made spiritually born again. Folks, there is something missing today in modern Christianity.  And that is the cross.  Not the historical details of the crucifixion.  I think we are all well familiar with them.  But taking up our cross and following Jesus.  We have to take up our cross, we have to crucify the flesh, we have to be reborn, transformed, converted, so that we have new life.  Gal. 5:24-25 “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

I’m afraid for the church today because we have millions of people who are claiming to be Christians, claiming faith in Christ, but most cannot be characterized as having been reborn, they cannot be described as all things becoming new, they cannot be thought of as having been converted.  As a result of their Christianity, they may be able to make the claim that they are improved. but not changed.  I’m afraid it is because they have been taught a watered down gospel, which says you can retain all the corruptness of the flesh and still have salvation. 

The truth is, that the flesh and spirit are diametrically opposed. Rom 8:5-8, 12-14 “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.  For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,  because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,  and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. … 12 So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh–  for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.  For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

I’m sure you have all seen the products which have become familiar in the grocery store, and then they come out with a new color scheme on their packaging, and they write in bold letters, “New, Improved!”  Yet when you taste it, it tastes the same as it ever did. I’m afraid that is what a lot of Christians are like.  They claim to be new and improved, but what’s inside still seems to the same.  The problem is perhaps that they have never been converted.  They have just changed some things on the outside, but not the inside.  

Now that change comes from recognizing that you are a sinner in need of changing, number one.  It is an appeal to the One who is able to change you to forgive you of your sins, and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.  To make you into a new creature. And that conversion can only come from the One who has the authority to give life, and to take it away.  It comes when we renounce our will and bow down and worship the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who alone has the power and authority to forgive sins, and to give new life.  

I think there is some difficulty in recognizing what it means to be a King in today’s culture.  We live in a culture of independence, of personal rights.  We live in a time when democracy claims to be the rule of law.  The rule of the people.  But that is not what a King or a kingdom represented in history.  A King had complete authority over life or death.  A King owned all the land, and all the people of the land.  Everything was under His dominion.  The King granted land to certain nobles.  He appointed certain people to certain tasks.  He gave permission for people to do various things.  Everything existed by His decree.  Now that is an outmoded form of government today.  But it was very much in play for the first 6000 years of the history of the world. And that kind of sovereignty is what is referred to in the title King of the Jews.

Now Mark gives us a long list of folks that are at the cross during the crucifixion.  And the overwhelming response of them all towards the idea that Jesus was the King of the Jews is that of scorn and ridicule.  But not all of them. I want to briefly address each of these groups as they are recorded as encountering the Lord Jesus as He suffered, and in the process we will see how they came to see the cross and it’s significance for them.

The first person we see after the sentencing by Pilate an scourging by the soldiers is a man called Simon of Cyrene. As Jesus is being led to the cross, He is forced to carry His cross.  And the suffering He has already endured, and the lack of rest or sleep has had a tremendous effect on Him.  So as He is carrying His cross, Mark tells us that He stumbled, and so the Roman soldiers requisitioned a passerby, who was coming into Jerusalem from the country, to carry the cross of Jesus.  

There is a picture here that I think is illustrative for us as we labor under the load of our sin. Notice the phrase in vs21, that Simon was chosen “to bear His cross.”  The cross is a picture of sin.  And our load of sin causes us to stumble.  The picture here is that we need someone to carry our load for us.  Our sin is too much for us to bear.  But Jesus bore our sins on the cross, that we might be made righteous.  And I believe that Simon came to see this for himself at some point.

Now there is a tradition that Simon actually became a Christian as a result of witnessing the suffering and death of Jesus Christ.  We don’t know exactly how it happened, or when it happened, but notice that Mark tells the reader that Simon was the father of Rufus and Alexander.  The point being that they were known to the church in Rome at the time of Mark’s writing, presumably because their father Simon had first become a Christian, and then led his sons to become Christians.  Many believe that Paul writing much later to the Romans mentions Rufus as a leader of the church of Rome in Romans chapter 16.

The next group we see in this passage is the soldiers once again.  They brought Jesus to a place called Golgotha.  There are a variety  of explanations why it was called the place of a skull, we are not sure which is the real reason.  But that definition is not the point of this lesson.  We see the soldiers offered Him a drink mixed with wine and myrrh, which was a form of narcotic that was given to help those being crucified to lessen the pain somewhat.  But Jesus refused it.  As I said last week, He had no desire to escape the cross, nor even it’s suffering.  He willingly suffered for sin, because that was the penalty for sin that was due to us.  

You know, the cross is a terrible way to die.  But it may not be the worst possible way to die. I don’t know what is, and I prefer not to think of it.  Thousands of people have been crucified, however, down through the centuries.  However, God chose the torture of the cross as a just recompense for the affront of our sin. A Righteous Judge must give an adequate punishment suited to the severity of the crime.  And the agony of the cross illustrates for us the severity of our crimes against God.  We may think of our sins as being too terrible, but to a Holy God, they deserve not only the horrors of the cross, but the beatings of the trial, and the terrors of Hell.  We have too small a view of sin, and too mild a view of God’s wrath against sin.  

Then after the soldiers had crucified Him, Mark says they divided among themselves His garments.  This is all in fulfillment of prophecy found in Psalms 22:16-18 “For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet.  I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me;  They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots.”  Written roughly 1000 years before Christ, this is an amazing fulfillment of prophecy.  That He was crucified, and that they cast lots for His clothing.

The illustration though that needs to be seen in this event, is that the soldiers are natural men, physical men, and consequently are blind to the spiritual.  Thus they crucify the King of the Spiritual Kingdom of the whole earth, and focus only on His clothes. They completely miss the point of the crucifixion, that God has prepared a righteous robe for them to wear through the death of Jesus Christ, the King of the Jews. Instead, they are focused on the physical parts of His clothing.  How many people come to Christianity today looking for the physical benefits to the cross, and completely miss the spiritual blessing.  The prosperity gospel that glosses over the blessing of new life in the Spirit, while emphasizing your best life now, is but a caricature of what we see these poor blind soldiers doing.

These callous men who are gambling over Jesus’s clothes, are the very ones of whom Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” They are looking down at the clothing and the dice on the ground, when they should be looking up, where above Christ’s head is the inscription written in Aramaic, Hebrew and Latin, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.  The Creator of life, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the source of true riches, hangs above them, while they focus on the rags below.

The next group that Mark shows us at the cross is the robbers who were crucified with Him.  Mark doesn’t give us the details that the other gospel writers do concerning these men.  He seems content to say in vs.32  that they were also insulting Him.  But Mark does tell us that this fulfills the prophecy that He would be numbered with transgressors which is found in Isaiah 53:12 written about 700 years before Christ.

Luke tells us that one of the robbers in particular was hurling abuse at Jesus, but the other rebuked him and then said, Luke 23:41-42  “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!”  Jesus answered Him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” One robber despised Jesus as a victim, saw only a convicted man dying upon a cross, the other saw a King, dying to give men life.

Then there are the passersby.  It was typical of Rome to crucify criminals beside the main roads, in order to be a warning to others of a criminal intent.  And as it was the Passover, many people were undoubtedly passing by to enter into Jerusalem before the Sabbath.  And those who passed by were blaspheming Him , shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuilt it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross.”

The thing that these passersby failed to recognize, was that Jesus was intentionally hanging there to save them.  He had no interest in saving Himself.  He would not come down from the cross to try to save Himself.  He went to the cross to save them. Isaiah 53:7 “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.” The Lion of Judah became a lamb that was slaughtered for the sins of His people.

These naysayers are fulfilling prophecy again from Psalm 22:6-7 “But I am a worm and not a man, A reproach of men and despised by the people.  All who see me sneer at me; They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying,“Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him; Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.”

There is another group of scoffers that Mark describes, the chief priests and the scribes.  The very ones who demanded that Pilate crucify Him.  The ones who arrested Him and demanded that He be killed for the charges of blasphemy and treason.  Now they come to the cross for their pound of flesh, and say, “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!” 

Notice first of all, they recognize that Jesus has saved others.  They cannot dispute His miracles.  So what they do is just add more requirements in order for them to believe.  The problem is that they don’t want to believe.  They hated Him without a cause.  Notice also that they call Him the King of Israel, the Christ, or the Messiah.  They are saying it in sarcasm, of course.  

But by their words they condemn themselves.  “Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!”  They say that if they see, they will believe.  But salvation is by faith, and faith is the evidence of things not seen.  I’m afraid that a lot of people today, even many so called Christians, are guilty of making this charge against Christ.  “Manifest yourself and we will believe!  Show us a sign and we will believe.  Why doesn’t God reveal Himself?  I would believe if He would show Himself.”  Such sentiments are not of God, but of the flesh. Jesus said God is Spirit, and we must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. The Bible tells us that the just shall live by faith, not by sight.  Jesus said concerning Lazarus and the rich man, that even if a man were to come back to earth from the dead, they will not believe.  And even if Jesus was to have come down from the cross, these men would not have believed. 

Now there would come a time when it says in Acts that many priests came to faith.  But I think it was because of the preaching of the Word of God, in conjunction with the working of the Holy Spirit. And that was poured out on the church with power after Pentecost.  Acts 6:7 “The word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.”

This speaks volumes of the love of God towards sinners, that after the resurrection, Jesus did not send the apostles to hunt down and put to death or condemn to death the priests, but to preach the gospel so that even the very ones who persecuted Christ to death, might live in the Spirit by faith in the gospel.   What a great testimony to the patience of God when we are living in rebellion against Him.  God is continually wooing us, and seducing us by His mercy and grace that we might turn to Him.  The gift of salvation is available to everyone, even to those who hammered the nails in His hands.  Even to those who cheered His crucifixion.  Even to those who deserted Him at His trial.  Christ came to save sinners, even the chiefest of sinners.  The only people that cannot be saved, are those who will not be saved.

Well, Jesus had been crucified at about 9am.  For three hours He endured not only the torment of the cross, but the ridicule and scorn of His people.  But then at high noon the lights went out.  God caused darkness to come upon the land for three hours.  Some translations say it was an eclipse of the sun.  But the full moon would have prevented a natural occurrence of an eclipse.  I believe it was a supernatural event, signifying God’s judgment upon the sin of the world.

For three hours of darkness God’s judgment rained down upon Jesus in a way that we cannot imagine. But it obviously caused great torment and a sense of desolation to Jesus.  Vs.34 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?”

Once again, this is a direct fulfillment of Psalm 22, which says in vs 1, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.”  We have already seen the disciples forsake Jesus, the Jews forsake Jesus, and now it seems even God the Father forsakes Jesus as Christ becomes sin for us.  

But some bystanders hearing Jesus, seems to misunderstand Him as asking for Elijah.  And so they say, “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.”  Perhaps they referred to Elijah, having been familiar with the prophecy that Elijah would come first before the Messiah, to prepare the way for Him.  So they are sarcastically saying that maybe Elijah will come and help Him come down from the cross.  Right up to the end some of them are slandering Christ.  

And you know, the same is said to be true of the  generation of the last days. 2Peter 3:3-4 “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts,  and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.”  I believe we are living in the last days, in dark days of spiritual blindness and hardness of heart.  And the Bible teaches that God will bring judgment upon the world during that darkness, but men still will not repent.

Right up to the second coming of Christ, men will curse God, and ridicule Him, and mock God. 

Mark then tells us in vs37 after this one last mockery that “Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last.”  We know from the other gospels that He cried out, “Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit.  It is finished!”  Jesus gave up HIs Spirit to the care of the Father, as His body died hanging there on the cross.  And Mark tells us at that moment, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.  This veil being torn from the top to the bottom is another supernatural occurrence by God showing that the way to Him was made possible to all men.  The chief priests had been the only one allowed in to the Holy of Holies, and that only once a year.  Now that was rent, the high priests office is no more necessary, as our Great High Priest fulfilled the role of both the mediator and the eternal, perfect sacrifice for sin. The curtain that separated the natural from the spiritual was opened up through the death of Jesus Christ, that we who were condemned flesh, might be given spiritual life.

Finally, there is one last person that we will look at today.  We see the centurion, who witnessed the entire proceedings, from trial to the darkness, to the way that Jesus gave up His Spirit to die, and who seeing all of that comes to the conclusion, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”

This centurion, who took part in the torture and crucifixion of Jesus Christ, suddenly sees in the death of Jesus the evidence of Christ’s divinity.  He who had participated in nailing Jesus to the cross, now confessed Him as the Son of God, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.  And by such faith, he was given forgiveness, he was given repentance, he was given new life by faith in Jesus Christ.

Listen, what we need to take away from this is that regardless of your rebellion, or how grievous your sin might be, or how horribly you may have blasphemed against the Lord, He died to save you.  He died to change you, to make you a part of His kingdom.  Repent and be converted.  Call upon the Lord to save you, and give you a new life.  Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and be saved today.  

It needs to be restated, that Mark is not writing a biography, but a gospel.  In other words, he is not attempting to record every little detail that occurred in the life of Jesus.  None of the four gospel writers do that.  Some may omit some things the others include, while including some things others omit.  And the reason for that is that they are writing a gospel, or a sermon if you will, which is presenting certain doctrines and principles that they want to emphasize. 

So as we consider this text before us today, it’s important that we resist the temptation to try to fill in all the blanks or gaps in Mark’s account, by bouncing around all the other gospels for the parts Mark seemingly left out.  We must remember that behind Mark is the authorship of the Holy Spirit.  And the Holy Spirit, speaking through Mark, certainly knows that He is omitting certain details.  So rather than focusing on what is not said, we need to focus on what is being said.  The important question then is what is being emphasized in this gospel account?  What is the message that Mark, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is trying to convey to us?  

Well, to start with, we are introduced to a couple of new characters in this passage.  The first being the governor of Judea, who is Pilate, and the other being Barabbas, a convicted robber, murderer, and insurrectionist.  These are the main players in this scene before the crucifixion. The other players who have side roles are the Sanhedrin, who are the governing religious body of the Jews, and the crowd, and the Roman soldiers. 

In vs1, we see the Sanhedrin, which is the whole Council that Mark mentions, made up of the chief priests and all the official religious leaders of the Jews, about 71 persons in all, having a quick trial now that it was daylight, in order that they might officially condemn Jesus to death.  Now they had already had a trial during the early morning hours, but it was an illegal proceeding since  it was against the law to condemn a man to death in a nighttime trial. So they convene again at dawn, condemn Jesus as worthy of death, and bind Him and send Him to Pilate.  Note that He was bound, that He might set men free.  He was rejected, that men might be accepted.  He was condemned, that we might be forgiven.  

And so the Sanhedrin condemned Jesus of blasphemy in their religious trial.  They say in the previous chapter that His claim to be the Son of God makes Him worthy of death. But they do not have the authority to take a person’s life. They don’t have the authority to put a person to death.  For that, they must get Roman approval.  The problem with Rome is that they are unlikely to care too much about blasphemy. They are much more concerned about crimes against the state. So the Jews are going to accuse Jesus in the civil trial before Pilate with the crime of treason; particularly forbidding to pay taxes and claiming to be King.

We have looked at the activities of the Sanhedrin in detail in previous messages, particularly in last week’s message, so today we will not spend much time on them.  Pilate is the officiator of the civil trial.  And Pilate seems to only be concerned about the  charge of Jesus claiming to be a King. Not only because of the possibility of insurrection, but perhaps because if he thought that was true, then Jesus would have outranked him.   He was only considered the governor of Judea, which includes Jerusalem. And first and foremost, Pilate is a petty politician.  He served under Caesar Tiberius.  He had in fact gotten in trouble in time past with the Jews, and had been censored by Caesar.  So he is very concerned to keep his position, to hopefully advance in Roman government, and to do so he must try to walk a line between pleasing Rome and not offending the Jews in his jurisdiction.

If we can say one thing about Pilate’s power though, it is that he has been given the authority over death.  He alone can administer the death sentence.  That is why the Jews have come to him. 

So he asks Jesus, “Are You the King of the Jews?” And Jesus answered him, “It is as you say.” Now Mark leaves it at that.  Luke and John’s gospel’s add considerable more to the dialogue.  And I would encourage you to read their accounts for yourself.  But what I think Mark is trying to emphasize here is the contrast between this petty, political ruler of Judea, and the King of the Jews.  Pilate is governor by the decree of Caesar, and so he has judicial rule over Judea, only a portion of Israel, but which does include the Jewish capital, which is Jerusalem. 

Jesus, on the other hand, is the King of the Jews.  In actuality, Jesus is King over the whole Earth, but since He specifically came to fulfill the purpose of the Messiah, it is to the Jews that He claims sovereignty.  He is sent to the Jews first.  He is of the royal line of David. So He is legitimately claiming sovereignty over the Jews. He has already told the high priest in the preceding chapter that He was the Messiah, the Son of God. Now in response to this pagan politician, He adds the claim that He is King of the Jews.  

It’s interesting to note the contrast between Jesus and Pilate.  Pilate has the authority to condemn, but Jesus has the authority to forgive.  Pilate has the authority to put to death, but Jesus has the authority to give life.  Pilate has a limited, temporal rule, Jesus has a sovereign, eternal reign.  Jesus is recorded as saying to Pilate in John’s parallel account that His kingdom is not of this world.  It is a spiritual kingdom.  And thus it has no boundaries, it has no end, and no limitations.  Pilate’s rule will come to an end, a rather inglorious end at that as tradition tells us he commits suicide in his later years. 

Pilate represents the natural man, the material man, the temporal man, who claims his right to self rule, who thinks that he has the ability and authority to determine for himself what is right and what is wrong.  He thinks he has freedom, when in fact he is in servitude.  He thinks he is making his own decisions, but in fact he is cowering and caving in to popular opinion.

Jesus, in affirming that He is King, albeit of a spiritual kingdom, adds another dimension to what it means to believe in Him.  Faith in Jesus means acknowledging that He has the right to rule your life.  He has authority over life, and He has the power to give life.  But Pilate, as the quintessential natural man, though intrigued by Jesus’s claim,  will not believe in Him, will not acquiesce to Jesus’s sovereingty.  

Isaiah writing 700 years earlier prophesies concerning this failure to recognize Jesus as King in Isaiah 53:2-3,  “For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.  He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.”

Then Mark tells us that the chief priests begin to accuse Jesus harshly.  I suppose we can piece together all that they were accusing Him of from the other gospels, but really it makes little difference.  The details do not concern Mark as much as the fact that they make all kinds of wild accusations, and yet He makes no answer.  Pilate, on the other hand, feels he must respond to their accusations.  Because Pilate is a politician.  He makes his career by acquiescing, or at  least appearing to acquiesce, to the demands of the Jews and to the demands of Rome.  Jesus answers to no man. This judge and jury think that they have authority over Him, but in fact, all authority in heaven and on earth belong to Jesus.  He has the authority to lay down HIs life.  And that I believe, is what is behind Jesus’s silence.  He is not going to play along with Pilate.  He is not going to try to defend Himself.  He has said, I am the Messiah the Son of God.  I am the King of the Jews.  And that is all He needs to say in HIs defense.   In fact, He makes no defense at all.  It may be argued that Jesus is on the offensive, not the defensive.  He is going to lay down His life, voluntarily.  He is resolutely headed for the cross, not the least interested in avoiding it.  And so He answers them not and Pilate is amazed at His silence.

But even His silence is confirmation of His claim to be the Messiah.Isaiah 53:7  “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.”

Mark then tells us that it was the custom of the governor to release a prisoner at the feast of the Passover.  And so they come to Pilate and ask for him to do that, according to his custom.  So he asks them, “‘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.” Pilate, ever the politician, is trying to walk both sides of the fence.  The other gospels tell us that Pilate had already announced that he found no fault in Jesus.  But rather than seeing that justice was done and releasing Jesus, he wants to please the crowd.  However, perhaps this was his half hearted attempt to release Jesus, or at least to be able to claim such, in offering to release Him to satisfy the custom.  But I think that Pilate knows that they will not want Jesus released.  The Jews have made it clear that they want Jesus dead.  I think Pilate is just trying to salve his conscience somewhat by being able to say he offered to release Jesus.  And Mark says that he knew that there was no evil that Jesus committed, it was just a matter of jealousy on the part of the priests.  So I think Pilate knew that they wouldn’t let Jesus be released, he is just trying to portray a semblance of innocence in the matter.  But Pilate already has given over in his heart to the will of the priests in condemning an innocent man.

And let me say by way of application that Pilate is a good example of the natural man who thinks that he is his own ruler, he is the king of his castle, but in reality, he is subservient to the peer pressure of  the world.  He claims to be autonomous, but actually he is a slave of popular opinion.  He caves in to the dominance of the world’s demands, whether it be from the media, or the entertainment industry, or his career, or from the influence of friends.  They reject the dominion of Christ as King, but become enslaved to the passions of sin and the world, which is ultimately orchestrated by the devil.  Like Bob Dylan once wrote, everyone is going to serve somebody.  It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna serve somebody.  Pilate chooses to serve the world, which ultimately achieved the purposes of the devil.

Vs.11 “But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to ask him to release Barabbas for them instead.”  So Mark indicates that the crowd is induced by the priests to ask for the release of Barabbas instead.  And Pilate, wishing to accommodate the crowd, releases Barabbas, the condemned murderer, and keeps Jesus in bonds.

What Pilate and the Jews do not realize, is that by their actions they have demonstrated the gospel of Jesus Christ quite effectively.  Barabbas, the convicted robber, murderer and insurrectionist, is obviously guilty of his sins. He represents the sinner.  And in setting the sinner free, and putting to death the righteous, spotless Lamb of God, they have illustrated nothing less than the truth of the gospel.  That principle of the gospel especially that Jesus came to save sinners.  That principle that the innocent would die for the ungodly.  That principle that God would transfer our sins upon Jesus, who would be punished to die in our place, so that we might be set free from sin and death, and receive the transfer of Christ’s righteousness upon us.  That is the gospel, and though they hated it, yet by their actions in freeing the guilty and condemning the righteous they have given us a tremendous illustration of the gospel of God.

Once again Isaiah predicts this divine justice wrought by God upon our sins. Isaiah 53:6 “All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.”

Such an illustration of God’s grace towards sinners cannot help but make one wonder what happened to Barabbas.  Nothing more is said in scripture concerning him. But  I cannot help but wonder if the magnificence of this transaction, resulting in his freedom, while Christ went on to suffer and die, did not have a tremendous effect on this condemned man.  I cannot help but wonder if he did not follow the crowd to Calvary, and there watch as Jesus was crucified in his place.  I can’t help but wonder if he was converted by this divine act of the innocent dying for the guilty. I suppose we will find out in heaven.  Perhaps we will see Barabbas in heaven. 

But let’s not miss the point that all of us here today are Barabbas.  According to the gospel, we are all sinners, deserving of death, but Jesus took our place on that cross, so that we, by faith in Him, might be set free. I want to point out one more fact about Barabbas, before we move on.  The name Barabbas means “son of the father.”  Bar= son of, Abba, the Aramaic word for “father.”  And interestingly, there are also some manuscripts which  give the first name of Barabbas as Jesus.  So his name might actually have been Jesus, son of the father.  And of course, he was contrasted with Jesus, the Son of God the Father.  One being the sinner, being  the son of Adam, and the other being sinless, being the Son of God. What an irony, that the crowd chooses the son of the father Adam, the sinner, and rejects the Son of God.  And yet is that not what is at stake today?  Does the world choose to believe in  the Son of God, or do they choose to believe in  the son of man?  I would suggest that the world routinely chooses to believe in man, rather than to believe in Christ.  They choose to be ruled by man, instead of ruled by God, and as such, they choose the death of man, rather than the life of God. As it says in 1Cor. 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”

The question of the ages for everyman is found in the next verse, 12, “Answering again, Pilate said to them, ‘Then what shall I do with Him whom you call the King of the Jews?’”  What shall I do with Jesus?  That is the question for every man. That is the question for you today.  What will you do with Jesus?  Will you accept Him as your Savior from your sins?  Will you accept Him as your King?  Will you bow your will to Him?  Will you trade your sinful life for new life in Him?  What will you do with Jesus? Pilate wanted nothing to do with Him.  He tried to get out of making a decision concerning Jesus.  He tried to shunt Him off on Herod.  He tried to release Him.  He said repeatedly that He found no fault in Him.  But ultimately, Pilate did not recognize Jesus as King.  Ultimately, Pilate choose the favor of the world, and rejected the Savior of the world.

Some of you here today may not want to make a decision concerning Jesus.  You want to remain ambivalent about Jesus.  But if you put Him off today, if you shunt Him off until a more convenient time, then you are really doing exactly what Pilate did.  You are rejecting the Lord in favor of maintaining your own sovereignty.  And as such, you condemn yourself.  You are not guaranteed another opportunity tomorrow.  Tomorrow may be too late.  What will you do with Jesus?

Well, the crowd knew what they wanted to do, “Crucify Him!” they cried out.  They essentially want to murder the Son of God.  Their hatred for Christ has reached a fever pitch.  Pilate calls back, “Why, what evil has He done?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify Him!”  They don’t have to have a reason to want to kill Christ.  Their hatred is all the reason that they need.  You know, Jesus was correct to equate hate as murder in the Sermon on the Mount.  Hatred is a scary thing.  I’ve personally seen hatred escalate to murderous intent.  I’ve seen hatred become so manifest in a person it was scary, it changed them into a monster.  And I will tell you something, rejection or rebellion leads to hatred.  Rejection of the truth is not an innocuous thing.  It’s not a harmless choice. It’s not as simple as you believe what you want, and I’ll believe what I want. Rejection of the truth leads to hatred of the truth, and that leads to murder of the truth. 

Notice what Mark says concerning Pilate in vs 15 “Wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas for them, and after having Jesus scourged, he handed Him over to be crucified.”  Wishing to satisfy the crowd.  I wonder how many people have crucified Jesus by wishing to satisfy the crowd?  Trying to satisfy the bloodlust of the world, we crucify Jesus Christ.  Trying to make people like us, to not lose face in public, trying to gain the fleeting approval of the world, we crucify the King of Glory. 

And Mark barely gives a mention in vs15 of the flogging that Pilate gave Jesus.  A cat of nine tails was commonly used to scourge a convicted person before heading to the cross.  It was meant to weaken them, so that they might not last too long on the cross.  It is said that such a flogging was stopped at 39 lashes, because it was determined that 40 would kill you.  Such a tremendous cost was our sin, that it required such a fierce punishment.  

Once again, consider Isaiah 53:5 “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.” What a travesty of redemption when the modern day faith healers use this verse as some sort of mantra denoting the guarantee of our physical health. By His scourging, we are cleansed of our unrighteousness. That is what Isaiah says.  He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities. Our physical health is not the issue, it’s our spiritual health that is spoken of.  The wrath of God against our sin was satisfied in the suffering of Jesus our Savior.

Now beaten to within an inch of His life, His back and legs ripped to shreds, there are still more indignities left to bear.  The soldiers now take part in the ridicule and mocking of Jesus.  Mark tells us more detail of the mocking than he does of the scourging.  Some wounds cut deeper than the flesh.  And the mocking of the soldiers is particularly cruel.  Perhaps they took out their pent up hatred for the Jews upon Jesus.  After all, He was said to be the King of the Jews.  It was common in those days to disrespect the fallen monarch of a defeated enemy.  Maybe that was it then, as the soldiers call all the Roman cohort from the Palace together to ridicule and scorn Jesus.  

The whole idea of Jesus being a King is obviously the point of their ridicule.  They dress Him in purple, a royal fabric, and crush a crown of plaited thorns upon His head, calling out “Hail, King of the Jews!”  Vs19 “They kept beating His head with a reed, and spitting on Him, and kneeling and bowing before Him.”

This is savage mockery.  This is hatred at it’s lowest form.  It’s easy to imagine that these soldiers were the lowest of the low.  That they were no better than savage animals.  But the fact is, that such savage mockery happens today on our concert stages and in our theaters and it is applauded by the world.  The fact is that sin is a savage beast.  Sin is an evil that turns men into the lowest of the low.  Thus we see God’s justification in dealing with divine wrath upon sin. The retribution that these low life soldiers deserved, God struck their blows upon Jesus. 2Cor. 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Once again God’s wrath against sin will be satisfied.  And God’s purpose is that in Jesus He would punish sin, put to death sin, and by His resurrection overcome sin.  If you remember in the Garden of Eden at the fall, God pronounced a curse upon the earth.  He said in Genesis 3:18 that part of the curse would be that the land would produce thorns and thistles.  Thorns then are a picture of the curse of the fall.  The coarse jesting of the soldiers in placing the crown of thorns upon HIs head, unwittingly played into the magnificent illustration of God, that He would put the curse of sin upon Jesus, that we might be free from sin.  

So as the soldiers hit Him and spit upon Him and revile Him, I can picture Jesus standing there in all of HIs bloody wounds, standing there bravely and purposefully bearing our reproach, that even those who were assaulting Him might go free.  

Isaiah 53:4 “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.”

Then Mark tells us in vs20 “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.”  

The question that I want to leave with you today, is what will you do with Jesus?  You cannot avoid the question.  You cannot avoid making a decision.  If you try to avoid it, then you are really rejecting Him as your Savior and King.  I pray that no one here is like Pilate.  I pray that no one here is like the chief priests, or the soldiers who scorned Him, nor the crowd who hated Him without a cause.  I pray that you would be like Barabbas.  That you would recognize that your sin has condemned you to a just punishment, but that Jesus has taken your punishment upon Himself, that He might grant you life everlasting.  

If you don’t know Jesus as your Savior and King, then today I urge you to accept His invitation to enter into His kingdom.  Jesus said in Revelation 22:17  “The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.”  Come to Jesus today.  He will save you.  Jesus said in[Matt.11:28-30  “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.  “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Jesus has taken the burden of our sin upon Himself, that we might be given the righteousness of God.  If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  He can forgive us, because He has paid our penalty.  Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.  Come to Jesus today as your Savior and King and receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ, resulting in salvation unto life.

In the passage of scripture we read today, we have seen a tragic picture of the fall of one of Christ’s greatest, most courageous disciples.  Peter, by all accounts, was the foremost of the disciples.  He was first to declare Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God.  He was the one to jump in the water to walk on the waves with Christ in a storm.  If he had been a fireman, or a policeman or soldier, he would have always been first through the door.  Peter was a man to look up to.  He was a natural leader.  And yet we see him here falling, falling to the lowest level that anyone could have ever imagined.

It reminds me of the lament that David sang of Saul and Jonathan when they died on the battle field.  David said, “Oh, how have the mighty fallen!” Peter was the mightiest, the most courageous of all the disciples, and yet here he is pictured, denying the Lord three times while Jesus was being tried and beaten just a few yards away.  A tragic figure.  A terrible fall into sin. The old adage seems to be true that the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

The question though, as we see Peter rushing out into the night, weeping bitter tearsl, casting himself to the ground in agony at his lack of faith, the question is, how did Peter get to this point? How did he go from being the foremost disciple, part of Jesus’s inner circle, the leader of the band of 12, how did he end up here lying on the ground in disgrace? 

Well, to understand Peter’s fall, we must go back in the gospel accounts to the first step to his declension.  No one goes from the heights of faith to the pit of despair in just a moment. It’s a progression, a downward slide that may be an almost indiscernible drift at first, but it ends up in shipwreck.  It’s like when I see a homeless person on the streets, caught up in addiction, living in poverty and filth, I have to remind myself not to judge him by the way he looks now.  But remember that once upon a time he was a young boy, running around the neighborhood.  Once he was an innocent child.  And I cannot help but wonder what happened in his life that caused him to end up there?  

So let’s retrace the steps of Peter’s denial.  Because I believe we can show that there was a progression which led him to deny Christ.  And perhaps Peter’s fall might serve as a warning to us, that when we think we stand, let us take heed lest we fall.  If Peter could fall, then we all could fall. And perhaps this lesson learned from Peter might even reveal our own fleshly attitudes and actions which are leading us towards a similar fate, and a similar destination.

The first step in the progression of Peter’s failure of faith is found in vs29.  There we see Peter boasting in himself.  Peter said to Jesus, “Even though all may fall away, yet I will not.”  The key to what was wrong in Peter’s response to the Lord’s statement that all of them would fall away that night, was not necessarily in his determination not to fall, but in his superior attitude.  Proverbs says that “pride goes before a fall,”  and Peter shows that in his pride he considers himself superior to the other disciples.  They may fall, they may be weak, but I am not.  I’m better than the other disciples.  I don’t have the sinful issues that they might have. 

Paul warned the Corinthians not to compare themselves against one another. 2Cor. 10:12 “For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.”  As I have said before, when we see another person who is down and out, who is suffering the consequences of bad decisions, our attitude should be, “there, but for the grace of God, go I.”  We need to guard against pride.

The real problem that Peter’s answer reveals is that he is trusting in his flesh, in his courage, in his strength of will to accomplish what the others could not do.  But again, Paul writing the Romans tells us not to trust in the flesh.  Rom. 7:18 “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.”  We have to walk in the spirit, to keep from fulfilling the desires of the flesh.  Peter though is boasting in his flesh, in his strength. And that’s a dangerous first step in the wrong direction.

The second step in the progression to backsliding, was that Peter argued with the Lord and with the word of the Lord. Vs.31, “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.”  Notice, he kept on

insisting even after Jesus corrected him.  Jesus said that they would all fall away, then Peter denied it.  Then the Lord specifically told Peter that before the cock crowed twice he would deny Him three times.  And Peter begins to argue with the Lord.  He keeps on insisting. 

It’s a dangerous thing to argue with the Lord. You may say, well I would never do such a thing.  But of course you do that very thing when you argue with God’s word.  When God says, leave something alone, do not touch, we want to argue that it won’t really be a bad thing for us.  We can do it and not be tempted, we can go there and not fall away.  It may happen to others, they may become alcoholics, but not me.  They may fall into sexual sin, but not me.  And so we find ourselves arguing with the Lord.  We think we know ourselves better than our Maker does. 

I’m reminded of what Jesus told Peter earlier; “Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat.”  It turns out that Satan didn’t have to use some great tool  to turn Peter.  He simply had to use the accusation of a little servant girl, and Peter ’s faith fell like a house of cards.  Because he was dependent upon his own strength. And Satan knows that though our spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.  To rely upon the Spirit, is to walk according to the word of God.  “Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” (Psalm 119:11)  And Isaiah 45:9 says, “Woe to him who strives with his Maker!”  If the Lord said it, don’t be foolish enough to go against His wisdom in lieu of your own.  Let God be true, and every man a liar.

The third step in the progression to Peter’s betrayal is that he was sleeping when he should have been praying. Vs.37.  “And Jesus 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.’”  There is a saying that prevention is worth a pound of cure. And I suggest that the prevention to falling away is prayer.  It’s hard to pray and fall into sin at the same time.

It’s interesting that Mark says that Jesus came to them three times to wake them up from their sleep.  You would think that they would have set themselves on fire in order to stay awake after the first time they fell asleep.  But instead, they seem to have become calloused.  They have no sense of urgency.  They forgot the admonition of Prov. 6:9-11 “How long will you lie down, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?  “A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to rest”–  Your poverty will come in like a vagabond And your need like an armed man.”  Now in context, Solomon was talking about laziness in regards to work, but it certainly applies as well to spiritual poverty.  Phil.2;12 says we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.  Thus Peter writing many years later in his last letter says, “be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness.”

There are really only two sources of spiritual strength, prayer and the word of God.  And notice that Jesus puts a great deal of emphasis on prayer as the means of overcoming or resisting temptation. That’s when we confess with our mouth our faith.  That’s when we call upon the Lord to help us to stand, to keep us from falling.  And finally, I can’t help myself on this one, notice that Jesus says, “could you not keep watch for one hour?”  I’m amazed at the excuses that people come up with in regards to coming to church.  One hour a week, and that is too much it seems.  And then we don’t understand why we are having such problems in our lives. Jesus said the church should be a house of prayer.  Peter could have possibly prevented a lifetime of heart ache if he would have just made prayer a priority.  

There is an old song, “What A Friend We Have in Jesus.” The one line declares “O what needless pain we bare, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”  Prayer is not just declaring what we want, but submission to what God wants.  Jesus taught us to pray “your will be done.”

Another step in the progression to failure of Peter’s faith, is that in the garden he relies upon physical weapons to fight a spiritual battle. Vs.47, “But one of those who stood by drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear.”  That was Peter, according to the gospel of John.  And we would have expected no less.  They only had two swords among 12 disciples, but you would have expected that Peter made sure he would wear one of them. 

Listen, what happens when we walk in the strength of our flesh, in the wisdom of our mind, rather than in the wisdom of God and the Spirit of God, is that we then find ourselves fighting spiritual battles with fleshly methods.  And not only does that not work, it’s counterproductive to spiritual things.  We may think it makes perfect sense.  We may think we have figured out a method for dealing with a problem, but in the long run, it accomplishes nothing for the faith, or even comes to outright disaster.  

Peter forgets that Jesus could have called 10,000 angels to defend Himself if He had wanted to do that.  This was a pretty large mob, it included not only the temple guards of the high priest, but also a group of Roman soldiers.  Peter’s efforts could have ended up getting him and the rest of the disciples killed.  And the sad part of that is, that it was not God’s will.  It was just the consequences of a headstrong, foolish will on Peter’s part to do things according to what he thought was right.  It’s one thing to suffer for the Lord, it’s another to suffer the consequences of unspiritual thinking.  Peter learned his lesson here though, because many years later he writes; in 1Peter 3:17 “For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.”

The fact is that what seems natural and logical to us is often not the method of the Lord. Isaiah 55:8-9  “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”  And Zechariah 4:6 speaks to that as well, “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts.”

The fifth step in Peter’s progression to denial is found in vs54, with says Peter followed the Lord at a  distance. “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.”  After Jesus’s arrest in the garden, Peter fled with all the other disciples.  But then he sort of doubled back and followed the mob back to the high priest’s house.  But whereas in the garden, Peter was right beside the Lord, now he is following at what he thought to be a comfortable, safe distance. 

Listen, there is no safe distance to be from the Lord.  The further you are from the Lord, the more unsafe it is.  If you think you are in a comfortable place with the Lord, then you are about to get a lot more uncomfortable.  James said, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.”  But we often think that we don’t want to end up looking like a religious nut, so we find ourselves a comfortable distance from the Lord, where we think we are still close enough to hear Him and see Him, but not too close for comfort, and not so close as to bring undue scrutiny upon ourselves by the world.  We follow at a distance when our hearts are not fully given to the Lord.  We think we are ok being half way.  But that’s a dangerous place to be.

The truth is, we need to be as close as in the same yoke with the Lord if we are going to have any safety.  It’s much safer to be close to the Lord than close to the world.  The world is hostile towards you, if you are a Christian.  Satan is your mortal enemy and looking for an opportunity to strike you, to sift you like wheat.  And when you start hanging near the back of the herd, and then straggling a few dozen yards behind everyone else, the devil’s ears prick up and he begins to stalk you, looking for the right moment to pounce.  But poor old Peter has to learn the hard way.  His prideful confidence regarding his own resources is his downfall, and already he has started to pick up the pace in his descent.

The devil is always going to tempt you to think that you can go over there and still be ok.  You can do this and still be a Christian.  He uses the allure of the world to lure you further and further from being in communion with the Lord.  It reminds me of the story of a rich man that was hiring a new chauffeur to drive his limousine.  And so he came up with a test course to see how well each applicant could drive.  And the course near his mansion had a hairpin curve around a mountain, with a sharp cliff off the side of the road.  The first driver drove his car pretty fast around the curve, and got within a few feet of the guardrail without skidding out.  The second driver decided he needed to outdo the first, so he went even faster and got within a foot of the edge of the road, and he made it fine.  The third driver drove very slowly around the curve, and he stayed as far away as possible from the edge of the road.  Well, the rich man hired the last driver.  He had no interest in seeing how close he could come to running off the road.  He wanted a driver that would stay as far away as possible from danger.

Now that’s the attitude that we need to have.  When we want to see how close to the world we can get and not end up in trouble, then we are playing right into the devil’s hands.  Our desire should  not be to see how close we can live to this world, but how close we can live to Jesus.

Finally, we see Peter warming himself and sharing a fire with the Lord’s enemies. Psalms 1:1 tells us that there is a progression to falling away from the Lord.  It says, “Blessed [is] the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful.”  Notice that he starts off walking in the counsel of the ungodly, then standing in the path of sinners, then finally sitting in the seat of the scornful.  Peter made the same mistakes.  He walked afar off.  He stood near the fire.  Then finally he is seated with and sharing the fire with the very men that are enemies the Lord.

Trying to find companionship and warmth in the things of the world is always a sign of having moved away from the warmth of His love.  And when we find ourselves sitting by the fire of the world, we find ourselves dangerously close to the denial of our Lord.  James 4:4 “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”  

Peter found himself sitting by the fire of the enemies of Christ, the very servants of the high priests who would strike the Lord repeatedly as He was blindfolded, and without realizing it he had put himself in a position to readily deny the Lord, not just once, but three times.

Yet I am sure that none of us today would think that we would ever deny the Lord.  Oh, everyone else may deny the Lord, but I never will.  Yet we may already have denied the Lord either by our words or our actions.  We have denied HIs word, by not doing what He says.  We have denied Him by refusing to spend time with Him in prayer as He desires.  We deny Him by the way we talk, or the way we act when we are around the world.

Notice, that the more the enemies by the fire accused Peter of being with the Lord, the more incensed he became, until he finally begins to curse and swear.  Now cursing and swearing can be a sign of a heart that is far from the Lord, but I don’t think Peter was necessarily saying curse words.  The commentators tell us that Peter was swearing by God, and pronouncing a curse upon himself if he was not telling the truth, that he did not know the Lord.  That’s really a lot worse than saying a couple of swear words.  It’s hard to imagine Peter falling that far, that fast.  Yet as we saw, it really wasn’t an immediate thing.  It was a downhill slide that started some time before with an attitude of pride.

I think Mark is careful to point out the contrast between Jesus speaking under oath in the inner courtroom and Peter’s oath in the courtyard. Jesus said he was the Messiah, the Son of God, and Peter denied that he knew Jesus at all.  If there is anything good that comes out of this situation, it is that Peter’s pride was broken that night.  He realized when the cock crowed the second time that what Jesus had prophesied concerning him had come true.  His spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak.  Luke tells us that when the cock crowed, Jesus looked at Peter.  And I’m sure that look broke his heart, because Mark tells us that he ran out and wept.  

Sometimes, God has to break us before He can use us.  I heard the story of a famous conductor who had written a beautiful song, and a  young woman was chosen to sing it in his presence at a rehearsal.  The woman was very talented, and she sang the song perfectly.  But when the friends of the conductor asked him what he thought of her rendition, he said, “She will be great when something happens to break her heart.”  

In the life of faith, whereby we walk by faith and not by sight, it is not enough to simply believe with your mind the facts of Jesus’s life.  But  a necessary component to faith is repentance, and that comes not simply from sorrow, but from brokenness over your sinfulness.  Recognizing as Paul said, that there is nothing good in you.  And yet the Lord still loves you, and has died for you, so that He might purchase you for His own.  Brokenness is the key to usefulness. Brokenness is realizing that the flesh is worthless.  Jesus said in John 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

Even Peter’s professed love for the Lord was not able to sustain him in his time of trial because he was dependent upon his flesh, on human abilities and human resources, to carry him through. In the hour of crisis, even love was not really effective in keeping him close to the Lord. Love and loyalty and determination mean nothing when they rest on the shaky foundation of the  human will.  Our steadfastness is not dependent upon our will power, but on the power of the Holy Spirit, who works in us through prayer and the word of God. 

When I look at the lives of many Christians today, I am afraid for them because they depend upon the flesh.  They exhibit sentimentalism instead of sacrificial love. They evaluate spiritual things with worldly appraisals. They propose fleshly methods for dealing with spiritual problems. But God choses to work in the Spirit, which is contrary to the flesh.  Jesus said, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”  

But we bring the flesh into the church, we bring the world into the church, and like Peter slashing with the sword, we try to fight spiritual battles with worldly weapons.  And like Peter, it leads to our spiritual destruction.  That’s why Paul could say, that he gloried in his weakness.  Notice he doesn’t say he gloried in his sinfulness.  He was not glad he was weak, but in recognition of his weakness he knew his dependency was in Christ.  And so he dared not stray from  closeness to Christ.

Paul goes on to say in 2Cor. 12:5, 9-10  “On behalf of such a man I will boast; but on my own behalf I will not boast, except in regard to my weaknesses. … 9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.  Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”  The source to our spiritual strength is our utter dependence upon Christ dwelling in me and my fellowship with Him through prayer and through His word.

The late Paul Harvey used to end his popular radio broadcasts by saying, “And now you know the rest of the story…”  The chapter ends with Peter going out and weeping bitter tears at denying Christ.  But I want to just leave you with the rest of the story.  Jesus, after being resurrected, made a special  private visit to Peter in order to restore him to Himself again.  And then, one more time before His ascension, Jesus made another appearance as Peter and the disciples were fishing, and this time Jesus publicly restored Peter not only to fellowship with Him, but usefulness to the kingdom. Once Peter recognized his weakness, and repented of his pride and self sufficiency, then the Lord could use him.

The good news is, that if you have seen in yourself some parallel today in the life of Peter, you recognize that you have started slipping away from fellowship with the Lord, then there is the invitation of Christ to be renewed and restored to usefulness.  And that starts with repentance.  David, who also fell away and by his actions denied the Lord, prayed a prayer of repentance in Psalm 51, 10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. … 12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit. … 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”

The Lord is willing to forgive and restore those who come to Him in faith and repentance.  

I suppose that the section of scripture we are looking at today is familiar territory for most of you.  I assume everyone here has at least a basic knowledge  of the trial of Jesus Christ.  It is doubtful that I could add much that would be new to you.  And to be honest, that really is not what the purpose of my message should be; to teach some new thing, some new nugget of knowledge that you can add to your spiritual knowledge bank.  Sometimes I think that we confuse that approach with expositional preaching.  My view of expositional preaching is taking a text of scripture, and deriving spiritual doctrine from it, that we can then apply to our lives.  And so I want to try to do that today, even though I realize that it may be difficult due to our familiarity with the subject, and also due to the fact that it is a historical narrative.

So I want to look at the historical context in a moment, and make sure we understand that correctly.  But ultimately, I want to apply the spiritual principles that I think are incorporated in the text.  However, since we have already read the text, I don’t think it will be unhelpful if we identify what the crux of this passage is teaching before launching into our exposition.

And I would suggest that the crux of this section deals with who Jesus Christ is.  To make that less theoretical and more applicable to each one of you here today, the question is who do you say that Jesus Christ is? In the juvenile section of a big bookstore, a small girl, one day, was found busying herself with a box of crayons, and the clerk uneasily asked the child what she was about. She said, “I am drawing a picture of God.” “But how do you know what God is like?” the clerk said. “That,” said the little girl succinctly, “is why I’m drawing him. I want to find out.” She was making up her own mind about what God should be like. And too often when we come to the testimony of Jesus Christ that is the kind of attitude that we have. We do not come seeking to learn, but we come seeking to substantiate some ideas that we have concerning him.

The question of who you say that Jesus is, is of ultimate importance, because the scriptures teach that believing in Christ is the basis for salvation. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him might have everlasting life.” So believing in Jesus constitutes faith, and faith is the means of salvation. 

Jesus Himself says that on several other occasions, one of which is John 11:26 “everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”  And Paul makes the same assertion in 1Tim. 1:16 “Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.”  I could give you many more references to the fact that belief or faith is the basis for salvation, but I am sure you all are in agreement with this fact, and so I will not belabor it.  

However, the question could be legitimately asked, to what degree must belief be developed to be saving faith?  In other words, at what point does one believe unto salvation?  And what constitutes saving faith? Is it merely believing in a historical Jesus?  The fact He lived on earth 2000 years ago is supported by virtually irrefutable evidence.  Even many historians who are for the most part atheists are in agreement that the facts of history indicate that Jesus lived and died on earth.  So they believe that He lived, yet they are not Christians by their own admission.

In fact, even non Christian Jewish historians and scholars do not doubt that Jesus lived.  The Jews have nothing to gain from accepting that Jesus lived.  In fact, the New Testament’s record of their treatment of Jesus is sometimes used against them as a basis for anti-semitism.  But rather than try to deny His existence, the Jews simply try to deny that they contrived His death.  To quote Haim Cohn, an internationally famous expert in Jewish legal tradition, he said that Annas and Caiphas, the high priests mentioned in our text, “Did all that they possibly and humanly could to save Jesus, whom they dearly loved and cherished as one of their own.” (quoted by Hendricksen, NTC Mark)  So most Jewish scholars believe that Jesus lived, they just refute the gospel’s account of their actions concerning Him.

And of course, the other great international religion, Islam, believes that Jesus was a notable prophet of God.  They believe that He lived and taught the scriptures. And yet they are not Christians. So the three world religions, Judaism, Islam, and of course Christianity, are all in agreement that Jesus lived and existed as the Bible teaches.  Yet by no means can all claim to be saved.

So if we were to draw a diagram which has a horizontal line denoting belief, and at the left end we write the words Absolute agnostic, meaning as much of an agnostic as possible, and on the right end we write absolute saving faith, meaning saved beyond a doubt, at what point towards believing would you place a mark on the line to indicate when a person is saved?  Does one have to have full complete faith, full knowledge of all doctrines, full understanding of all  theology in order to be granted saving faith?  Or is it somewhere further down on the line?  Is is perhaps way down at the first dawning of belief?  I must confess that I often wrestle with that. The fact is that I cannot say with absolute certainty where exactly you should make a mark on that line.  I suppose that only God knows for sure where that mark is.  That doesn’t mean that you cannot be sure of your salvation, because I believe you have the inner witness of the Holy Spirit to assure you of that.  But I don’t think that you can necessarily determine with certainty others salvation based on their point on that line. Only God can do that because only God can judge the heart. 

However, I was able to come up with an illustration of what I think common belief vs saving faith might look like that hopefully may help you understand it. When I was a kid, I used to like to fish in some of the ponds near my home in NC.  And we were not very sophisticated fishermen, so we used a little Zebco spinning reel set up with a bobber and lead weight, which suspended a worm on a little hook.  And I loved watching that bobber bounce up and down in the water, signifying that a brim or bass was toying with my bait.  If the bobber ever disappeared, then I knew to pull back on the rod and hopefully catch a fish.

But as those of you who are fishermen know, the fact that the bobber is moving up and down doesn’t always mean that the fish swallowed the hook.  Lots of times, most of the time, in fact, the fish would come up and look at the bait, smell the bait, nibble at the bait, pull on the bait, but in the end it might spit it out and swim off.  Sometimes it would come back and go through the whole process again.  And you might never hook a fish, but you could get a lot of “bites”, as we used to call them.  

It kind of reminds me of the verse found in Heb. 6:4-6 “For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,  and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,  and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.”  Now a lot of theologians have a field day offering various interpretations of this verse, but I think it’s talking about people who have come to the faith, looked it over, smelled it, nibbled on it, but ultimately, they don’t swallow it, they end up spitting it out.  They have been given enough light to believe, they have been given enough conviction of the Holy Spirit to repent, they have been given enough evidence of the transforming power of salvation, yet they end up spitting it out.

Now I think there are a lot of so called Christians like that out there.  And I say “so called Christians” because they show by their lives that they are not really saved.  Because if you truly accept who Jesus is and what He has done, if you truly believe in all that He is, if you truly have saving faith, it will result in a change of heart, a change of nature, a change in direction and a changed life.  The Bible makes that clear.  When one is truly saved, they are converted, changed, and they have a new life.

Now that was a long introduction, but perhaps we established the thesis of this section, and now we need to look at the historical context for a few minutes and then we will make application to us here today.  It helps to understand that there were actually two trials going on.  There was the ecumenical trial, which was the religious trial, and then the civic trial.  The high priests and the governing religious body of the Jews known as the Sanhedrin arrested Jesus, with the help of the temple police and also Roman soldiers.  The Jews could try a person for a religious crime, but they could not legally punish him.  They had to get the approval of the Roman governor to execute punishment, especially corporal punishment.

So they arrest Jesus sometime around midnight and they take him to a hearing with the father in law of the high priest named Annas.  Mark doesn’t include this fact, but John does. Then there is the trial before the Sanhedrin, which is the religious governing body made up of 70 persons, not all of whom were probably there since it was held before dawn.  Those were illegal trials, by the way.  It was illegal to try someone before dawn. So there was another trial after daybreak with the high priest Caiaphas. Then there were three stages in the civil trial, first before Pilate, then before Herod, and back to Pilate again.  

In the ecumenical trial, they focus on getting the verdict of blasphemy.  At the civil trial, they try to accuse Him of insurrection and treason against Caesar. But our passage only focuses on the ecumenical trial today.  We are told at the outset that Peter follows at a distance and ends up in the courtyard of the high priest’s house, sitting with the officers by the fire.

Now I am not a legal expert, even less a legal expert on Judaic law.  So I am not going to try to impress you by talking about things I don’t understand.  However, I will say that most experts in such things concur that this trial was a travesty of justice.  It was an illegal trial, the witnesses were made up of the judges, who were also the prosecuting attorneys, it was during the Feast, which was forbidden, and no conviction was allowed at night, but yet they proceed to do so.

Furthermore, they attempt to get Jesus to incriminate Himself. In vs 60 they try to get Him to tell them what the charges were that were being made against Him.  Again and again their testimonies do not match up.  They also misquote Jesus in vs58. They say, “We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.’” Actually, the words of Jesus according to John 2:19 were, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” But He was speaking of the temple of His body.”

Their hope was to accuse Him of defaming the temple.  After all, they were incensed that He had just cleaned out the temple of the money changers and vendors.  That was their own business enterprise that He had disrupted.

Then the high priest asked “Do You not answer? What is it that these men are testifying against You?” But He kept silent and did not answer.”  Jesus knows that they are not interested in truth, but in proving their falsehoods.  So He does not answer them.  By the way, that is a pretty good principle that we need to employ sometimes.  Jesus said elsewhere, “Do not cast your pearls before swine.”  Now that isn’t the insult that you might think it is.  Jesus isn’t advocating calling someone a pig.  What He is teaching is that it is profitless to speak truth to someone who is not interested in the truth.  Just as it would be pointless to dress up a pig in pearls, it is pointless to present truth to those interested in lies or arguments.  We could defang a few attackers sometimes if we would just refuse to engage.  Just don’t get into a tit for tat.  Especially over doctrinal issues.

The point that needs to be understood though, is that from the very beginning they have already made up their minds about Jesus.  Never was the trial an attempt to uncover the truth, but simply an attempt to justify their desire to kill Him.  They had already decided that they would not accept Him as the Messiah, they hated Him without a cause, and they wanted to kill Him. All the evidence in the world wasn’t going to change their minds.  And so in that respect, the religious leaders are an example of those who do not believe in Jesus Christ.  They rejected who He really was because they saw Him as a threat to their position of authority in the nation. That’s why apologetics is not necessarily a means of salvation.  Most unbelievers are so not because of a lack of facts, but because the facts don’t align with their desires.

So Caiaphas is irritated over the fact that Jesus does not answer these charges, but in fact Jesus is fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 53:7, which says, “He opened not His mouth.”  So in reality, their trial is really turning out to be a farce, until Caiaphas finally asks Him the key question.  This question was really the point of the whole trial and they finally come straight out with it; “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”  How many times had they asked Him this during His ministry.  “Tell us plainly, if you are the Christ.” (John 10:24)  

According to Matthew’s account, the high priest emphasized the question with an oath, as if to say, “By the living God, are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”  Now up to this point, Jesus had not publicly come out with that declaration in no uncertain terms.  Others had declared this to be true, such as the disciples, and Jesus had confirmed that such a declaration came from God.  He had also defended those who called “Hosanna to the Son of David,” which was another title for the Messiah.  He had called Himself the “stone which the builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone” which was a key prophecy of the Messiah.  And He had told the woman in Samaria that He was the Messiah.  But in Jerusalem especially He had not made such an outright declaration of HIs Messiah-ship before to the religious leaders.

But now that HIs hour had come, now that events had transpired to bring Him to the cross as determined by the plan of God, it was the appropriate time to make that declaration. In fact, it was the opportunity that He was waiting for.  Other questions in the trials of the Jews and Romans were not of concern to Him.  Their minds were already made up.  But this question was one that He was ready to declare openly and plainly – that He was the Messiah, and all that title represented.

And notice something in their question before we move to Jesus’s answer.  We can see by their question that they considered the Messiah and the Son of God to be analogous. Therefore according to Jewish theology, they considered that the Messiah had to be the Son of God, therefore being equal with God.  Modern liberal theologians who try to make a distinction between being the Messiah or the Son of God do so at the expense of Jewish theology, which was the governing principle in this trial as well as in Christ’s declaration.

So notice Jesus’s answer.  In fact, He goes further than just answering their question.  He declares another prophecy concerning Himself and the nature of His Kingdom. Vs.62, 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.”

Now what Jesus says is important, but especially in regards to our thesis, especially in regards to what constitutes saving faith in Christ, this declaration of Jesus is crucial for defining our faith.  So let’s break it down.  First, in answering simply “I Am”, Jesus is speaking volumes.  He not only claims to be the Messiah, the Anointed One, but He also makes claim to the personal name of God that was given to Moses out of the burning bush, “I am that I am.”  Under the authority and power of that name, Moses performed great signs and wonders and led the children of Israel out of captivity, through the trials in the wilderness, and on to the Promised Land.

In like manner, when Jesus answered “I am”,  He fulfilled the prefigurement of the burning bush and the pillar of fire that would lead the Jews out of bondage in Egypt to the Promised Land. And shortly after Jesus says, I am,  the signs and wonders of His death and resurrection take place and the greatest of all the exoduses begins, because the Lord Jesus accomplishes the act of redemption on the cross of Calvary by which men who are in spiritual bondage to sin are led out into the freedom of eternal life.

Secondly, in the next part of His answer, Jesus quotes from two different scriptures.  One part of His answer refers to Psalm 110, verse 1.  “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” Jesus has said you shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power.  He is claiming the ultimate throne of His kingdom.  It is a spiritual kingdom of God through which the Messiah rules the world, in the hearts of His people.  It is the throne which is above every throne, above all rule and authority, and certainly above the rule and authority of these corrupt, evil religious rulers.  It is the throne to which those who believe in Him must bow.

And He is making the claim that not only is he the Messiah, but no matter what they may do to Him, they are going to see that He is going to come out of the trials and persecutions and death and crucifixion. He is going to come out triumphant, and he is going to sit on the right hand of the majesty on high. In other words, he is going to be vindicated and triumphant in the events that follow, even through the cross.  And when He comes with the clouds, refers not only to His second coming, but coming in judgment upon the world.

The other text Jesus refers to is found in Dan.7:13, “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man.”  In referring to Himself as the Son of Man in this context, Jesus is alluding to the prophecy of Daniel, especially as he says in vs14,”And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the 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 destroyed.

You know, many times as I counsel Christians today that are going through hard times or trials or difficulties, and when things seem their darkest, I cannot always offer the hope that things will get better in this life.  But I can offer the assurance that there will come a day, when the sorrows of this life will be past, when we will be seated on thrones with the Lord in glory, 

and we  shall rule and reign with him, and we shall enjoy his presence throughout eternity. These great trials which seem so overwhelming to us at the moment and seem unending as we pass through them are just brief moments in the plan and program of God.

Now, I would suggest that Jesus’s answer to the high priest  is the definitive answer to what constitutes saving faith. Believing in Jesus Christ then by His own standard is recognizing that He is God, the great I Am, He is the Son of God, which according to the testimony of the Jews meant that He was equal with God in all respects, and that He is the Son of Man, meaning that He became flesh and dwelt among us, that He might become our substitute, so that He might die on our behalf that we might be made the children of God, to become His kingdom, that we might life for Him and serve Him and rule with Him in His eternal kingdom, which shall never pass away.  All of that constitutes saving faith, what it means to believe in Jesus.

Well, the Jews rejected that outright.  They refused to believe.  In fact, Caiaphas makes a great show out of rending his garment, which was done in a prescribed way to show grief.  But in actuality he wasn’t experiencing grief, he was filled with fiendish glee that Jesus had made this confession, because he could now condemn Him of blasphemy.

Mark 14:63  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.

Their judgement towards Christ, in spite of all the evidence that He had provided during His three years of ministry that He was the Messiah, was to reject it, claim blasphemy and condemn Him to death.  They hated Him without a cause.  I believe that they actually knew that He was the Messiah, and yet in spite of the evidence, wanted to kill Him because He did not fit into their plans and He threatened their power and position.  I believe they knowingly put to death the Son of God.  But that may be speculation on my part.  However, I believe ample evidence was there, and more than enough prophecy concerning the Messiah had been fulfilled that they had to have known about. But they rejected it.

Well, rejection of salvation always leads to hatred, and hatred to persecution, and persecution leads to murder.  These supposedly righteous religious priests and leaders take this as an opportunity to spit on Him, to punch Him, to strike Him.  They even blindfolded Him and then hit Him, while asking “who hit you?”  They truly revealed the evil nature of their hearts.  You know, people can put on all kinds of pious fronts for a while, but when an evil person gets a chance to strike without repercussions someone who is weaker or unable to retaliate, then their true nature is revealed. It certainly proves the depravity of man in his natural condition.

Well, we must close.  But let me try to apply this to us today if possible.  Let’s imagine that you are the judge and jury at the trial of Jesus Christ.  You are the one that must decide who you will say that Jesus is. Who will you say that He is?  It is not enough to recognize that He was a good teacher.  Or that He was a miracle worker and prophet who lived 2000 years ago.  By the words of Jesus own mouth, He declared Himself to be the same God that appeared to Moses in the burning bush 2000 years before.  He is either crazy, or a liar, or He is the great “I Am”, the eternal God.

By His own admission, He claims to be the Son of God.  He answered that question of Caiaphas in the affirmative.  That claim makes Him the equal with God. He is the author of salvation.  He is the Sent One, the Anointed One, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, who redeems to Himself a people from every tribe and nation. He is the Lord God Almighty,  seated at the right hand of the Father on the throne of God above all power and rule and authority.  And by that claim, He claims sovereignty over our lives.  If we believe in Him then we are His people who serve Him. And He is coming again in power and glory for His chosen people.  That is the definition of faith in Jesus Christ, or believing in Jesus Christ, as defined by Jesus.  

How do you judge Him by that statement?  Do you believe in  Him?  The Jews didn’t believe Him and they thought they could condemn Him.  But in actuality they condemned themselves. John 3:18 says “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

If you believe in Him, in all that He claimed to be, then that faith is the means of justification.  “For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.”  I pray that no one tasting of the truth  today hardens their hearts, and spits out the truth of God, and goes away from this place unsaved.  Jesus came to earth to save sinners, and He has paid the price for your sin, that whosoever believes in Him might be saved.  Let’s pray.

We are looking today, in our ongoing study of the book of Mark, at the night before the death of Jesus Christ.  For those of you wanting to hear the story of the resurrection, I’m sorry to disappoint you.  I’ve been going through the book as fast as I could, but we are here today I believe by the providence of God.  For the question really that needs to be asked regarding the life of Christ, is why did He need to suffer and to die? And then when we answer that, I think we will have a new appreciation for the resurrection.  So I hope to expound upon that thought of why He suffered here today as we exegete the passage before us.

Now for context, as I said it is the night before His crucifixion.  It is the night of His betrayal.  Multiple betrayals, by the way.  We all know the betrayal Judas did, but we will see that before the night is over, all will have deserted Christ.  And you will remember that at the beginning of that evening, which was Thursday evening, Jesus and His disciples observed the Passover.  It was customary for the Galileans to observe the Passover supper on Thursday, and the Judeans would observe it on Friday.  Hence Jesus was able to observe the Passover on Thursday, and change it’s symbolism to the Lord’s Supper in so doing, and then the next day, Friday, He was able to offer Himself as the Passover Lamb for the sins of the world.  God’s timing was impeccable, planned in infinite detail since before creation, and Jesus knew exactly what and when all things pertaining to His death would occur.  

I believe that realization on the part of Jesus of the exact details of His death is very important to understand.  Some theologians seem to love to make Christ out to be an unwilling, and unwitting victim.  But we will see that Christ showed tremendous courage and commitment to the Father’s will, because He knew intimately the horrors set before Him.  Jesus was no coward, He knew what was coming, and He courageously set His face towards the cross and no power on Earth could have stopped Him.  And He did that not only because He loved the Father and wanted to do His will, but also because He loved us, and He wanted to obtain for us the price of our redemption.

Another indication that Jesus fully knew what was ahead of Him, because it was traditional to sing the Hallel, which was the hymn they sang before going out on the Mt. of Olives.  The Hallel comes from Psalms, and particularly we se in Psalm 118: 27 “Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.”  In Psalm 116, the same hymn, we read in vs 3 “The cords of death encompassed me And the terrors of Sheol (Hades) came upon me; I found distress and sorrow.”   I would suggest that if you read the entire Hallel, you will come to believe that Jesus faced the knowledge of His death with courage and commitment, and He left the Upper Room singing His battle song, headed for the Mt. of Olives.

So as the disciples followed Jesus out of the Upper Room, towards the Mount of Olives, it was dark, and they wound their way through the streets of Jerusalem towards the Kidron Brook, which already was flowing red with blood as the temple mount and the altars drained directly into it.  And as they waded across this bloody brook by the moonlight, 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.”

Jesus is quoting from a passage in the Old Testament, in Zechariah 13:7.  I suggest to you that it is the Spirit of Christ who was the author of that prophecy, so it is no surprise that Jesus knows it right well.  Peter writes later in 1Peter 1:10-11 “As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries,  seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.” So Jesus Himself was the author of the prophecies concerning His death. 

And I make much of this principle of the deity of Christ and His eternal nature spoken of in Hebrews 1:3, because it is important that we understand that it must be God that dies on the cross in order to effect our salvation.  Jesus, if just a man, was no more than a martyr. Many people have died as martyrs, even many have died on the cross.  Jesus had to be God in human form in order to effect our salvation through His death.

I don’t know how many of you may have seen an article in the news this weekend about a somewhat primitive and superstitious culture in the Philippines which every year before Easter acts out several crucifixions.  They actually flagellate themselves as they walk on these marches, and then it culminates with several of them being tied to a cross and then nails driven into their hands.  The sad thing is that such sacrifice and suffering does nothing in regards to obtaining justification or holiness.  They are suffering needlessly.  Only a holy, righteous God can atone for sin.   And Jesus was the divine, spotless, Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. 

Notice also in this statement of Christ in vs 27,28, that Jesus foretells not only their falling away, and not only His death but the regathering of the disciples after His resurrection.  He knows all that is going to happen before it happens. It is all going according to a divine plan.

However, Peter doesn’t believe Him. He says that even though all the other guys may fall away, that He would never fall away.  I want you to notice some dangerous attributes that Peter exhibits in this statement.  First, he disregards the word of the Lord.  God has given us His word, even His commandments as warnings that we need to heed.  But how often do we brush aside the word of God in view of our own confidence?  We think we know better than the Lord.  The word  says, do not be unequally yoked; we say, we don’t see the problem with it.  The word says, do not be drunk with wine, we say, a few drinks won’t hurt you.  The words says, do not commit fornication, we say, that’s unrealistic in today’s culture.  How foolish Peter was to brush aside so easily the word of the Lord.  And how foolish we are today when we think it doesn’t really matter, or there won’t really be any consequences of our foolishness.

Secondly, Peter shows a superior attitude towards his fellow disciples. “They may fall away, but I never will.”  We often do the same thing, looking down at others who have fallen into sin, and yet thinking that we are somehow above it.  We routinely think that what we do isn’t really so bad.  We conveniently forget how often we sin against God. As I said the other day, we should never see a drug addict, or alcoholic, or a person enslaved to some grievous sin, without saying, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”  The scriptures say, “there is no temptation overtaken you, but such as is common to man.”  It’s a dangerous thing to look down upon others while thinking you are above such things.

Thirdly, Peter shows that he doesn’t know himself. He has an inflated, conceited opinion of himself as events are going to show.  Pride goes before a fall.

Jesus then rebukes Peter with an even more detailed prophecy of the events to come. “Truly I say to you, that this very night, before a rooster crows twice, you yourself will deny Me three times.”  Jesus is referring to the third watch of the night, between midnight and 3am.  That’s pretty specific, I would say.  And yet Peter denies the word of the Lord again, with an even greater emphasis, “Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you.” Though Peter did not know himself, yet the Lord knew his heart.  And notice that Mark says, the other disciples said the same thing.  Yet in just a few hours, all would leave Him and flee.  

How many of us confidently assert we will never be untrue to the Lord, yet find ourselves later forsaking Him and His word. We do not know our hearts.  Jeremiah 17:9 says “The heart [is] deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” The point that needs to be made if we are to fully understand what is going on in Gethsemane and then at Calvary, is that we are all utterly sinful.  The word of the Lord says in Romans 3:10-12 as it is written, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;  ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.” Six times the word of God says “there is none.”  That includes you. Not your neighbor, but you are a depraved sinner.  And in Isaiah 53:6, “All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way.”  And furthermore, the word of God says in Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death.” Man is cut off from God, without hope, and fully deserving of the punishment of eternal death away from God.  

There is no hope in good works, there is no hope in being better than your neighbor, there is no hope in religion.  There is no way to atone for your sins. The only hope is that God will have mercy and forgive us.  But God cannot wink at sin.  God cannot break His own law. If God is a good God, then God must also be a just God. And the justice of God must be meted out towards sinners.  There is only one way for us to escape the punishment that we rightly deserve.  That is if God might transfer our iniquity on another, and punish Him, so that we might go free.  And that is exactly the point of the gospel.  Isaiah 53:6 says, “God has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” And 2Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made Him, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”  God did not stop counting sin, He just stopped counting them against me, He counted them against Christ. That is the whole picture of the Passover, the innocent spotless lamb dying in the place of the guilty.

I believe that our iniquity, the sins of the world, began to be placed on Jesus that very night in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Gethsemane is a garden on the Mount of Olives, and as you might expect in an olive grove, it was the place where there was an oil press, where the olives were taken to be pressed into olive oil.  And that is what the word Gethsemane means, an oil press.  I believe that what happened there that night was the fulfillment, at least in part, of the prophecy in Isaiah 53:10, which says, “But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering.”  It was there, in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Lord began to crush Him, putting Him to grief for our sins.  The guilt of the world began to crush Him, until as Luke 22:44 tells us, “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

Notice that Mark says, after Jesus left some disciples and went off to pray, that he says Jesus was greatly distressed and troubled. I don’t think that the English language does that phrase justice. I think it could be better translated, filled with horror and anguish. Jesus goes on to say to Peter, James and John who went a little further with Him, “I am overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”  Then Mark says that Jesus going further still, alone, He threw Himself to the ground and prayed, “Father all things are possible for you, remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.”

Now what is going on here?  Did not Jesus know that this suffering was coming?  Is He now wishing for another way out?  Is He looking to avoid the cross?  Is He crying because He is sick in fear of what is to come in the crucifixion?  I would say – Never!  I think His anguish was not at that moment caused by anticipating the cross.  On the contrary, He was looking forward to it.  It was the purpose for which He came.  

No, I think that what was agonizing to Jesus was the horror of sin.  He had never known sin.  He had been always in perfect communion with the Father from eternity past.  Now He begins to know the burden of sin, the horror of sin, the weight of sin, upon His spotless, holy, righteous soul, and the anguish and horror of experiencing our sin  drove Him to the ground, and the weight of all our sins pressed down upon His soul until great drops of blood came out of His sweat glands.  And in regards to that horror, previously unknown, Jesus calls out to the Father, “if it’s possible, remove this cup from Me, yet not My will, but Your will be done.”

Jesus showed by this great act that His sacrifice was not forced upon Him, but He volunteered.  He voluntarily laid down His life for us.

I want to also speak to the point of what kind of death Jesus died for us.  So much has been pictured on film or spoken of from the pulpit regarding the physical torment of the cross on the human body.  But I would suggest that as these events in the Garden illustrate, the sufferings of Jesus were far more than just physical, and in like fashion, the death of Jesus was much more than physical.  The death that the unsaved man suffers is both physical and spiritual.  The spiritual death everyone is destined for is eternal separation from God, and eternal torment in hell.  I did not make that up. I would like to agree with Pope Francis who was reported as saying the other day that there is no hell.  But neither the Pope, nor I get to make those decisions.  Jesus said there was hell, and so there is a hell, where the worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched. 

I believe the scriptures teach that Jesus suffered not only death on the cross, but the full equivalent of suffering that we would have to suffer.  He was our substitute.  Somehow or another, during those three days when His body was in the tomb, the Spirit of Christ suffered in Hades in such a manner that God counted it as sufficient payment for all the sins of the world.  How could He be our substitute unless He suffered all the punishment that is due to us?

Now I don’t have the time to offer all the reasons for my statement concerning this, but let me just leave you with a couple of things, and then you can do your own homework. First recall the  verse from the Hallel which I quoted earlier; Psalm 116:3, “The cords of death encompassed me And the terrors of Sheol (Hades) came upon me; I found distress and sorrow.”  The Apostle’s Creed, which is not inspired by the way, nevertheless says in the Book of Common Prayer, “And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”

And I will give you just one more reference, and that is found in 1Peter 3:18-20 “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;  in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison,  who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.” In the Spirit, Jesus descended into prison, that is Hades, the abode of the dead.

I want you to see something else that is given to us in this text for our instruction.  And that is the contrast in attitude between Jesus and the disciples regarding prayer.  Between the two, Jesus and the disciples, it would seem that the Lord needed prayer a lot less than the disciples.  But as the text illustrates, Jesus prays fervently, repeatedly, but the disciples repeatedly are found sleeping instead of praying.

The other night at Bible study, I tried to present another contrast between David and the Amalekite, and again between David and Saul.  In each case, David represented the spiritual man, and the Amalekite and Saul represented the material man, or the natural man. We have the same sense of that here.  David, of course, was a type or picture of Christ.  And so Christ is the quintessential spiritual man, and the disciples are natural men in their actions and attitudes.  They may have been saved, but they are still natural in the way that they view the world around them and their response to circumstances they find themselves in.  And so they do not obtain victory in their lives, because they fail to live by the Spirit, but instead they are walking according to the flesh.

An essential component in spiritual life is prayer. Prayer is spiritual conversation. Prayer is a spiritual connection to God who is Spirit.  So when Jesus warns the disciples to be on the alert, because the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, He is speaking to that very principle that it is necessary to be in the spirit, to be in communication with the Spirit of God, if we are going to be able to stand firm in the physical world. 

Ephesians 6 tells us that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against angelic principalities and powers that are fighting against us.  And Paul’s list of the Christian armor gives us only two weapons that we might use in this spiritual battle that we are engaged in.  One is prayer and the other is the Word of God.  Paul has this to say in regards to prayer, “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.”  

So as we see this contrast between Jesus and the disciples. Jesus is praying fervently. Jesus is throwing Himself on the ground. He is crying, beseeching the Lord.  He is sweating drops of blood as He prays.  He prays repeatedly.  He prays for hours.  We have recorded elsewhere that many times Jesus prayed all night.  And also Jesus implores, practically begs the disciples to pray with Him and for Him.  So that is how Jesus prays in the Garden.  On HIs face in the dirt, crying with tears, sweating with drops of blood, for hours calling out to God. 

Now look at the disciples.  They were too sleepy to pray.  They were too conceited in their own strength to feel a need to pray.  They had physical, tangible, normal, natural reasons to lay their heads down and go to sleep.  They just didn’t see what Jesus was so incensed over.

I wonder which example is the one that is more like our prayer life?  Do we tend to pray more like Jesus, or more like the disciples?  And let me point out one more thing about this prayer time.  Jesus says, “Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  Remember Jesus said earlier to Peter, “Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.”  Satan has demanded permission to sift you here today like wheat, to sift your children like wheat, to sift your spouse like wheat.  Have you prayed for them, that their faith may not fail?  Your fervent prayers may be the only thing that keeps them from falling.

The point that needs to be made is that if you are desiring to live the spiritual life, the victorious life, then it’s necessary to be proactive spiritually, and not reactive.  In other words, Jesus is saying that prayer now delivers from temptation later.  Prayer now delivers from trials later.  The natural instinct is that you live the way you think is best now, you do what seems natural now, and then when things fall apart, then when consequences come, then when the crisis arises, now you pray.  But we need to be proactive in our prayer life, that we may not come into temptation. That’s the secret to a successful spiritual life, it’s praying at all times, in good times, when it seems there is no necessity to pray.  Pray at all times in the spirit.

Well, the time of trial comes unexpectedly for the disciples, even though they are weary, in fact, it deliberately comes in their weariness.  The devil always attacks us when we are weak.  When we are tired.  He hits us when we are down. And so Judas and the mob are approaching and Jesus who has been watching and praying hears them and says, “Get up, let us be going.  The one who betrays Me is at hand.”  

Some people point to this statement as evidence that Jesus wanted to flee the cross. But in fact the opposite is true.  Jesus wants to go out to meet them.  And as He does, Judas and the mob come up and Judas runs up to Jesus and greets Him with a kiss, which was the prearranged signal with the mob that this was Jesus whom they were supposed to arrest.  It’s only been a few hours since Jesus washed Judas’s feet in the Upper Room and served Him at the Passover meal.  Judas went out into the night, told the High Priests that He knew where Jesus would be sleeping that evening, and was given this mob made up from the temple police and Roman soldiers.

Peter though is still determined that through sheer force of will he will not deny the Lord, in fact he will die with Him if necessary.  So he draws his sword and takes a swing at the nearest man and ends up cutting off his ear. Luke’s gospel tells us that Jesus healed the man’s ear and Matthew’s gospel tells us that Jesus rebuked Peter.   The point Jesus made in response to the mob and their arrest of Him was not to fight them with swords.  They came with swords and clubs.  They came with all the physical strength and weapons they could muster.  Peter thought that the disciples must fight fire with fire.  But Jesus doesn’t do that.  Instead, He says all this was done to fulfill scripture.  It was the Father’s plan not to fight against flesh and blood, but to fight against sin and death.  And Jesus would accomplish this great spiritual victory by delivering Himself over to death, so that He might experience the suffering and death that we all deserved, so that we might be given eternal life.  The enemy was sin and death, and Jesus would defeat them through righteousness and paying the penalty through His substitutionary death.

The disciples though, still seeing through the physical, natural eyes, are totally taken aback at Jesus’s response.  They don’t understand the spiritual yet.  They are still operating in the natural realm.  They don’t see Jesus doing anything that is going to bring about victory, they think that Jesus is surrendering to the stronger power of the mob.  They think He’s raised the white flag of surrender.  And so they all flee.  

Almost as a footnote, Mark adds an autobiographical note in vs51 and 52.  He was the young man who escaped naked.  Not yet a disciple, just a young hanger on, eventually he would become mentored by Peter and become a valued asset to the church.  But like all the rest, he deserted Christ that night.

I hope that you recognize in this passage of scripture we have studied today, why Jesus had to suffer and die.  Jesus suffered and died in our place, so that He might fulfill the justice of God, the wrath of God against sin which was poured out on Him.  And He did that so that we through faith in who He is, and what He has done, might be made righteous in Him.  I pray that you have accepted through faith this marvelous gift which Jesus purchased for us.  Saving faith is not just believing Jesus existed, but believing that His substitutionary death was sufficient to satisfy the judgement of God towards me.  And that assurance is given in that God raised Jesus from the dead, having satisfied all judgment.

And then secondly, I hope that you will be encouraged to walk in the Spirit, to live in the Spirit.  1Cor. 2:14-15 says “But 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.  But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.”  You want to live the victorious life over sin, as Jesus died to procure for us? Then walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh.  Pray at all times in the spirit.  Don’t be wise in your own estimation.  Don’t think too highly of your strength of will.  But put your faith and trust in the Lord and seek Him in all things and at all times.  And if we do these things, then I pray that we will never be untrue to the Lord.   

Today we are looking at the section of scripture in which Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper. It is called by various names in Christianity today, in some churches, it is the eucharist, in some, it is communion. All refer to the same ceremony, yet all do not observe it in the same way. It is the belief of this church, and most conservative, evangelical Christian churches, that this ceremony is one of two essential ordinances for the church, the other being baptism. In fact, some theologians have said that the identification of the church is that it observes the preaching of the word and the observation of the ordinances. So it is important that we know how we are to observe the ordinance of communion, and why.

I believe that the answers to those questions can be found in this text. For the answer to how we are to observe it, I would point to the precursor of this ritual as the template from which it is established. And as we se in vs12, it is the ceremony or ritual of the Jews that was known as the feast of Unleavened Bread. And if you look back at vs 1 of chapter 14, you will see that the Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread are presented as synonymous. They refer to the same event, which is a week long celebration of Passover.

Now this ceremony was perhaps the most important ceremony celebrated in Israel. It was a celebration of the deliverance of Israel from captivity to Egypt. You will remember that Israel was captive of Egypt for 430 years, and God raised up Moses to be their deliverer. God, through Moses demanded that Pharaoh would let Israel go, but Pharaoh hardened his heart, even though God showed great signs and caused plagues to fall on the Egyptians. Until at last the patience of God was finished, and God pronounced a curse upon the land by saying that at midnight the death angel would pass through the land, and God would strike dead the firstborn son of whomever did not have the blood of the Passover lamb upon the door posts.

For the salvation of Israel from the plague of death, God instituted an ordinance which required for the Israelites to take an unblemished lamb and slay it, and put some of the blood upon the doorposts of their house. Then they were to roast the lamb whole in fire, and eat the lamb with a side dish of bitter herbs and with unleavened bread. This meal was to be taken once a year on the first month of the year, as a way of remembering God’s deliverance of the Israelites from slavery.

And though all the Jews may not have understood all the spiritual significance of the feast, other than the historical application, yet from our perspective we know that there were many symbols in the feast which were to be for our instruction. Namely, that as the scripture said in Hebrews 9:22, that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. The unblemished Passover lamb that was to live with the Jews in their home for 3 days, and then be sacrificed was a substitute for sin. It presented the principle of the innocent dying for the guilty. God allowed for the spotless lamb to be slain for the sins of the believing family. The bitter herbs represented the bitter years of slavery to Egypt, which in turn represented the bitter years of enslavement to sin and the world. And the symbol of unleavened bread represented the removal of sin; sin being represented by the yeast which causes corruption in the bread, making it rise, or in the absence of it, causing it to be unleavened, or uncorrupted.

So the Passover was observed every year in Jerusalem, and Jesus has been heading for this particular observance since the day He began His ministry, referring often to His appointed hour, which was the exact time when the lamb would be slain during the Passover. Now on the day of the feast, Jesus sends two of His disciples to prepare the meal in a room which He has designated for this important event. And there is an interesting aspect of mystery to Jesus’s instructions. He says “Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him.” It sounds like some clandestine arrangement like you would read about in a spy novel or something. In fact, there is a reason why Jesus would want to keep the location secret, and that is the fact Judas is looking for a way to betray Him to the rulers. So in saying look for a man carrying a water pitcher, the disciples would readily recognize the incongruity of a man doing something which was typically something only women did, and in so following this man they would be taken to the house which the Lord had designated, without Jesus having to divulge it’s exact whereabouts ahead of time. Now we don’t know whether or not Jesus had prearranged this, or whether it was His divine foreknowledge, but either way, it was something Christ had arranged, either through divine providence or prearrangement.

And I believe it was by divine providence, as Christ is able to even tell them the details of the conversation they will have, and Mark tells us that they found everything just as Jesus said it would be. And so they prepared everything for the Passover meal.

When it was evening, Jesus came to the house with the rest of the disciples, all twelve of them being now present, and Jesus as the host would have conducted the ceremony. The timing of this is Thursday evening, by the way. I’ve heard some commentators explain that the Galileans celebrated the Passover on Thursday evening, but the Judeans celebrated it on Friday. Thus, Jesus could celebrate the customary meal with His disciples on Thursday evening, but then be sacrificed Himself on Friday as the Passover Lamb for the remission of sins, even as thousands of lambs were being slain in the temple.

Now according to John’s gospel account, Jesus first washes the disciples feet in preparation for the meal. It was customary to wash one’s feet before entering a house to eat. And so Jesus takes on the position of a servant, that He might wash the disciples feet. You can read that account in John 13 if you like, but I will not expound on that aspect of the evening except to point out one fact; and that is that Jesus also washed Judas’s feet. If you want to know what being a spiritual servant looks like, then look no further than at the humility of Jesus who washes the feet of the man who will betray Him that very night.

And then, once again we see the divine omniscience of Jesus in His remark as they were then seated and eating the meal, “Truly I say to you that one of you will betray Me—one who is eating with Me.” Now this was a shocking statement, and it should be noted that the word betray means literally, to deliver over. So it is clear what Jesus is saying, yet it is unclear of whom He is speaking of.

If this were a “who dunnit” then such a statement might draw conspiratorial glances around the dinner table, each of them appraising the criminal intentions of his neighbor. But to their credit, it sparks intense introspection on the part of the disciples, as they each wonder whether they could be the culprit. They show a sense of healthy self distrust. They don’t think of themselves as too far above such a thing as disloyalty or even betrayal of their Lord.

And I say such an attitude is healthy, because we should always have the mindset that we should not think of ourselves as being above some vile sin. We should always have a view towards anyone found in some public sin, that there for the grace of God go I. In fact, to some extent, all of them would desert Him that night. And Peter would in fact deny Him. Betrayal is just one step further.

So they each ask with a sense of inner grief, “Surely, not I?” They grieve because they mourn their own lack of fortitude or certitude. They know they are weak, but they pray that they are not that weak. And Jesus does not immediately allay their fear. Nor does He identify the culprit. But Jesus allows a moment of introspection and examination. And in 1 Corinthians 11:28, Paul warns that we too must take the moment to examine ourselves that we do not eat of the table of the Lord unworthily. We need to take the time to examine ourselves, to look for the yeast which needs to be removed from the Lord’s house, whose house we are, if we are to properly celebrate what Jesus has done for us in His sacrifice.

Jesus gives an answer to their questions of “Is it I” by giving an ambiguous answer, “It is one of the twelve, one who dips with Me in the bowl.” This was referring to the practice of eating a sop, a piece of bread dipped in the juices and herbs and meat. He was referring to the unthinkable act of sharing His food and yet plotting His betrayal by one of His own friends and close acquaintances. Especially in that culture, such an act after the host’s hospitality was considered unconscionable.

But though it was meant to be ambiguous to the disciples, it must have cut like a knife to Judas, who knew what his plans were, and now understood that Jesus knew his heart. It’s interesting that among the disciples none were more highly esteemed than Judas. He was above reproach. He was the treasurer, even though someone like Matthew, a tax collector, had more experience with handling money. He was a Judean, whereas all the others were Galileean. Therefore he was probably from a better society, better educated, more noble in appearance. And yet we are reminded that God said, “man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.” And Jesus knew what Judas had planned in his heart.

And then Jesus adds a warning for Judas. “For the Son of Man is to go just as it is written of Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.” Though the Christ had been prophesied in the scriptures that He would die, (Isaiah 53 especially) yet Jesus is saying that Judas is still responsible for his actions. Though God appointed that Jesus would suffer for the sins of the world, yet still man who caused His suffering is responsible. Nowhere in scripture does predestination cancel human responsibility.

It was intended as a warning, but also as an opportunity; a last opportunity to repent. Judas could still have repented. Perhaps even as Judas kisses Jesus as a signal to the mob later on that night, he could have still repented. But like Pharaoh, Judas continues to harden his heart.

Well, at this point, Judas goes out, the other disciples thinking that Jesus must have given him some mission to go buy something that was needed. And so Jesus resumes the Passover meal, and in so doing He institutes the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper. And please note that I try to consistently use the term “ordinance.” There is another word that is often heard in this regard which is “sacrament.” Sacrament infers a sacred act by which a certain measure of righteousness is attained. The Roman Catholics, for instance, believe that this ritual involves transubstantiation, in which the bread and wine become the very body and blood of Christ as it is taken. The Reformation began to move Protestants away from that assertion, and most evangelical Christians today believe that it is representative, or symbolic of Christ’s body, but it is not His actual body.

I was just in Starbucks the other day talking with a Catholic about this. They believe that the host, or the bread, is the actual body of Christ, even before it is eaten. So they cannot offer the host outside of the church. However, they have altered the ordinance because they do not offer the wine to the public for sanitation reasons, among others.

But we believe that Jesus was speaking figuratively. And if you will remember the Passover meal and it’s symbolism which I started by describing for you, then it should not be difficult to recognize that as the Passover meal was symbolic of God’s deliverance of Israel from their sins, then the Lord’s Supper is symbolic of Christ’s deliverance of the sins of the world. Jesus often used symbolic language to teach spiritual principles. For instance, Jesus said “I am the vine, you are the branches.” Obviously symbolic. Jesus said about Himself that He was the door, He was the light of the world, He was the good shepherd, He was the bread that came down out of heaven, He was the rock in the wilderness, He was the water of life. In alll those expressions we understand them to be symbolic, and so also then is the Lord’s Supper.

Furthermore, Jesus was sitting there in front of them in His natural body, a 30 something year old Jewish man, and He was holding out a piece of bread or a cup of wine and saying, “this is My body, this is My blood.” He was not yet crucified, so He could not be actually offering those things to them except symbolically representing what He would accomplish for them on the cross.

So without further debate, it was a symbolic ceremony that Jesus was instituting. But what in fact did it represent? Well, once again we need to look at the precursor, the Passover meal. Jesus was declaring that He was the Passover Lamb. We are the family that must offer an unblemished sacrifice for the remission of sins, that the angel of death might pass over us. We do not have a qualified unblemished lamb that we may offer to God. The Bible says that there is none righteous, no not one. The original Passover Lamb in Egypt was a symbol of the true Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world which at that time was yet to come. The Passover pointed forward in faith to the day when Christ would come as the unblemished Lamb of God. The Lord’s Supper points back in faith to the day when Christ came as the unblemished Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world.

As the Jews ate the lamb and the meal, they looked forward to that promise in Christ. Even so, as we eat the Lord’s Supper, we look back in faith to what Jesus did on the cross, the righteous dying in the place of the unrighteous. The innocent dying for the guilty. We recognize that we are guilty and that He died in our place. And then we eat of the unleavened bread, as acceptance of the righteousness of Christ which is applied to us by faith. As He is righteous, we by faith become righteous. That is why we eat the unleavened bread. It represents His righteous, sinless body, which was broken for US. His sinlessness avails for us through His death when we appropriate it by faith.

And then we drink of the cup. The cup, Jesus said, was the new covenant in His blood. Only God can make a covenant with man. A covenant is a binding agreement, a promise, usually sealed with an oath, or a deposit, or sometimes with blood. Jesus made the strongest possible bond of covenant, when He sealed it with His precious blood, the very blood of God. By His blood we are saved. Romans 5:9 “Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.”

The Old Testament spoke of this new covenant, especially in Jeremiah 31:33-34 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” This covenant between God and man for our forgiveness is ratified by Christ’s blood.

The author of Hebrews rightly tells us that Jesus is the guarantee of a better covenant with better promises. Though we celebrate the Lord’s Supper again and again, it is in remembrance, not in a continual sacrifice. The scripture says once and for all His sacrifice has sufficed to be the guarantee of our inheritance in heaven as children of God. But please understand that Jesus says that His blood has been poured out for many. That is more than a few, but not for all. But only to those who eat of His body and drink His blood. That is, for those who appropriate His sacrifice and substitute for themselves. They believe in Him, and they accept Him as their Lord and Savior. And that is what we are symbolically referring to when we eat and drink of the Lord’s Supper. Just as baptism does not save us, but it represents what has happened on the inside, and the new life spiritually that we are now living, so the Lord’s Supper represents what Christ has done, and what we have believed and appropriated, and now live with Him in us, and us in Him.

Finally, there is one last statement which Jesus makes in vs. 25, “Truly I say to you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” In this statement Jesus reveals that the Lord’s Supper not only points back in remembrance to the cross, but also it points forward to the second coming. When Jesus speaks here of the Kingdom of God, He speaks of the consummation of the kingdom, when Jesus comes for His bride the church, and we are with the Lord, and participate in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Jesus is prophesying, in the face of His imminent death, that He will rise again, and He will return to claim His kingdom as it’s King. It is then not just a solemn remembrance of His death, but also a blessed hope of the resurrection, not only for Christ as the first fruits, but also for us as His bride, who will never taste death but will be raised with a new, glorified body to be with the Lord forever. And that is something to celebrate.

In vs.26, Mark says that they concluded the ceremony by singing a hymn, and went out on the Mount of Olives. I would point out that this is the only time we are told that Jesus or the disciples sung. I’m sure it wasn’t the only time. But it’s telling that singing does not have the emphasis in the New Testament that we have given it in the church today. Now you can make as much of that as you want. But I think we need to examine what we do today in the church in the name of worship by comparing what they did in the early church. There were other examples of singing in the church, Paul and Silas in prison comes to mind. And both James and Paul instruct us to sing.

But once again, if we look to the Passover Feast celebration, then we learn that the hymn they traditionally closed with was called the Hallel, which is Psalm 115 to 118. I would love to take this opportunity to read them in their entirety, but we do not have the time. It is particularly poignant though to read some of the verses recognizing what Jesus was about to go through as He was singing them. We don’t know the melodies of these songs today, but I can’t help but imagine that they were like fighting songs, like marching songs, that stirred up courage and faith in a time of trouble. And so in closing, I would like to read just a few random verses as they speak so vividly of what Jesus must have been feeling as He prepared Himself for the cross.

Psalm 116:3-4, 6, 8-9, 15 The cords of death encompassed me And the terrors of Sheol came upon me; I found distress and sorrow. 4 Then I called upon the name of the LORD: “O LORD, I beseech You, save my life!” … 6 The LORD preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me. … 8 For You have rescued my soul from death, My eyes from tears, My feet from stumbling. 9 I shall walk before the LORD In the land of the living. … 15 Precious in the sight of the LORD Is the death of His godly ones.

Psalm 118:1, 5-6, 8, 14, 16-17, 19, 22, 27-29 Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting. … 5 From my distress I called upon the LORD; The LORD answered me and set me in a large place. 6 The LORD is for me; I will not fear; What can man do to me? … 8 It is better to take refuge in the LORD Than to trust in man. … 14 The LORD is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation. … 16 The right hand of the LORD is exalted; The right hand of the LORD does valiantly. 17 I will not die, but live, And tell of the works of the LORD. … 19 Open to me the gates of righteousness; I shall enter through them, I shall give thanks to the LORD. … 22 The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief corner stone. … 27 The LORD is God, and He has given us light; Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar. 28 You are my God, and I give thanks to You; You are my God, I extol You. 29 Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting.

Let us not forget that Jesus suffered and died for us, that those who believe in Him and accept Him as their Savior and Lord might have the forgiveness of sins and have everlasting life. We are now going to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Let’s pray as we prepare our hearts.