And When They Had Crucified Him

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Don Filcek; Matthew 27:27-44 And When They Had Crucified Him

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called
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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and I am glad to be together with you guys this morning. How many of you are glad to be in the house of the
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Lord this morning? Are you glad to be here? Awesome. Every week we come together in this place, and I'm reminded of the rich connectedness that God has given to each of us, and particularly,
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I mean, I can only reflect on myself, right, but the rich connectedness that He's given me in my life.
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I mean, I would encourage you, and I say this often on Sunday mornings, look around you. You have people.
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You have people. Despite the fact that we're a society that's increasingly becoming disconnected, we here are a people who are striving to love each other well.
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We live in a world that I think has kind of gutted the word love to some degree of any real content.
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The love of the world, as defined out in our media today, it doesn't sacrifice. It does not hold to covenants.
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It is never constrained by any external standards of blessing or benefit that are tied to any way of life or any rules or any kind of direction or any real what is in the best interest of the other.
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In our text this week, we're going to see love defined. We're going to see love defined.
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Without the use of the word love one single time, Jesus is going to show us what love looks like.
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Full stop. End of story. Mic drop. This is love. He said in his teaching to his disciples in John chapter 15 verse 13, he said this, greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
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Anybody know what's going to happen in our text this week? Someone is going to lay down his life for many friends.
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He's going to demonstrate it. He's going to endure abuse for us. He's going to endure mockery for us.
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He's going to endure crucifixion for us, enduring it all in love.
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And in this, he defines love for us in this text by showing us the ultimate giving of self for the genuine good of others.
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Even we who while we were yet sinners in rebellion against him, in rebellion against his father, while we were in that state of rebellion, enemies, sinners against him,
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Christ died for us. Now I want to encourage you as much as possible to look with fresh eyes at this text, a text you've read before, a text most of us know forwards and backwards, the crucifixion of Christ.
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And so much that we've been taught has eclipsed the text itself to the degree that we might think we know what
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Matthew says when we don't really know what Matthew says. We live in a world of the sensational.
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Our hearts need shock to be moved anymore, right? How many of you know what I'm talking about? So the headlines just kind of go wave after wave after wave, and none of them seem shocking and they ought to be shocking, right?
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And so what really seems to work on our hearts is the visual. We have hearts and minds that are given over to visual renditions of that which is shocking, but God didn't leave us, and this is important, church.
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It's important for us to understand. God did not leave us a movie. God didn't leave us a movie.
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Note that it was at the proper time that God sent forth his son. Scripture says that multiple times. At the proper time,
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God sent forth his son. And I want to point out what might sound a bit pedantic and a little nitpicky, but it's genuinely been a helpful observation to me this week in my study of letting the text, the revealed text of God's word wash over my heart and wash over my mind this week.
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If God wanted us to see his truth on the big screen, he could have waited until the invention of the iPhone to send forth his son, because how many of you know we've had some video?
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Like a lot of video. Like everybody's got a camera, everybody's got a video camera in their pocket right now in this era.
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God sent forth his son. He had sent forth his son. Now, how many of you think there'd be videos of the feeding of the 5 ,000? You could watch it.
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You would see Lazarus come forth in the grave, and people would be like, whoa, and he's, you know, and the camera's shaking, because people are like, what?
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You guys know what I'm talking about, it'd be like, hashtag, he did it again, or something. I don't know. Impressive in Judea.
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I don't know. If he wanted us to take, and I'm not, listen, I'm not critiquing or criticizing at all, like taking some of these things in visually.
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I recognize that there's all different kinds of formats, there's all different kinds of media, but getting back to the text is my main point, because it's quite possible that the only thing in your mind when you think about the passion of the
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Christ is the movie The Passion of the Christ, and how many of you know that those things can, like, overwhelm the text?
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Do you get what I'm saying in that? So be sure that you're ready this morning as I read this to get back to what the text says, because it might shock you what the text says.
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There's a little bit more in the movie than there is in the writing.
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So try to shed what you think Matthew is going to tell us, and instead, let's listen to his words together this morning. Let's listen to his focus.
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Let's listen to his point as we read this holy word of revelation from God about the crucifixion of his son.
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And while the text will be centered on the event of the crucifixion, I suggest to you that we consider the primary thing
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Matthew highlights from the beginning to the end of our text this morning. Look carefully for mockery.
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You don't have to look that hard. It stands out so clear in Matthew's account that it's clearly, clearly, clearly central and important to this gospel writer.
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The act of crucifixion is going to get a single word that functions as a participle of a compound verb that just,
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I know I just geeked out on English for just a second there, but it's a participle of a compound verb, had crucified.
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That's all it is in verse 35. No description, no hammers, no nails, no description of tendons being torn, and certainly no medical professional giving a description of asphyxiation.
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None of it. All of these things are part of his suffering, but they are not the focus because what
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Jesus was doing there goes beyond the torn ligaments and raw nerve endings. How many of you know that people actually suffer?
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Like real people, not just Jesus. How many of you know that the thief on the right and the thief on the left, what was happening to them while Jesus was being crucified?
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They were being crucified. People suffer real pain and physical torment.
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There has been torture down through the ages. It's real. It's gruesome. It's terrible.
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It's cruel. That is not the point of the cross. The point of the cross is not how physical it was.
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The point of the cross goes deeper than that. What he's enduring has to be expressed in words because we don't see it on the outside.
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Mel Gibson's cameras cannot capture the breadth and depth of his suffering, but a lot of his suffering revolves around these statements of mockery.
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So let's open our Bibles or your devices, an app or whatever means you use to navigate to the
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Bible to Matthew chapter 27. We're going to start in chapter 27, verse 27 through 44, and we're going to take in what
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Matthew thinks we ought to think about when we think about his crucifixion. I say this,
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I'm going to be saying this more routinely, but if anybody needs a copy, paper copy of the Bible, we want everybody to have a paper copy of the
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Bible at home. You can talk with somebody during connection time or at the end of the service, and out at the welcome table, they would be glad to give you a copy of God's word.
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But let's take this in together, church, Matthew 27, starting in verse 27 through verse 44.
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Then the soldiers of the governors took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him, and they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisted together a crown of thorns.
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Twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his hand, and kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying,
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Hail, King of the Jews. And they spit on him, and took the reed and struck him on the head, and when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him.
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As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross, and when they came to the place called
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Golgotha, which means place of the skull, they offered him wine to drink mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it.
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And when they had crucified him, they divided his garment among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over him there, and over his head they put the charge against him, which read,
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This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Then two robbers were crucified him, one on the right and on the left, and those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying,
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You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself. If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.
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So also the chief priests with the scribes and the elders mocked him, saying, He saved others.
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He cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel. Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.
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He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said,
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I am the Son of God. And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.
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Let's pray. Father, we come here together on holy ground as we contemplate and consider the sacrifice of your
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Son for us. We come here to a text that reveals the deep pain and deep suffering of our
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Savior, not just merely in the physical realm, but even emotionally, being so very and utterly left alone, mocked, misunderstood, unjustly tried, and sentenced to death.
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Father, I pray that as we take in this vision before us, as we take in these words before us, as we allow your text to roll over our hearts and mind, that we would see ourselves in the position there.
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Our mockery is consistent, it's regular.
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We are indeed a mocking people. Every sin ever committed, every time that we go against your law, every time we go against the way that you have designed things, mocking you, saying,
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You don't know what you're talking about. We have better ways. We have better plans. And there is
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Christ on that cross, dying for that very attitude, that very mindset, that rebellion against you.
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Father, I thank you that while we were yet sinners, in the fullness of time, you sent forth your Son to die on the cross for our sins.
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We were rebels. We were enemies. We were sinners. We were mockers. And rather than coming down off that cross and showing us who's boss, you went all the way for us.
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So, Father, I pray that that would ignite within us gladness and rejoicing and celebration here in our singing, because we are those who are redeemed and being redeemed, are justified and being sanctified, being made more and more in the image of your
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Son day by day because of what He did for us. We've been removed from mockers to family and friends.
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We thank you for that. In Jesus' name. Amen. Keep your Bibles open to Matthew chapter 27, verses 27 through 44.
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If you lost your place or you closed your app, jump back in there so that you can see and follow along in the text this morning.
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And if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donut holes while supplies last back there, you can take advantage of that.
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You're not going to disrupt me if you need to get up and use the restrooms. Those are at the double doors down the hallway on the left -hand side.
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I titled this message, And When They Had Crucified Him, as a reminder that this message is not primarily about the act of crucifixion.
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Following the text is more about the mockery coming at Christ from every segment of society, and further,
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Matthew is going to incorporate in this text a bunch of fulfilled prophecies from the Old Testament, particularly
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Psalm 22. It's as if Matthew wants us to be sure to understand how utterly and extremely alone and rejected
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Jesus was in this moment, and to really identify that every segment of society was against him in this moment of his death for us.
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The context, of course, what's going on is the crucifixion itself, but the thing that's really the focus of Matthew is the scorn and isolation.
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And further, Matthew seems very interested in showing us that these things are consistent with Old Testament prophecies, yes, but also,
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I believe, recorded for us because they're consistent with our hearts as well. So our outline this morning are four forms of mockery.
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It really breaks down into those four forms of mockery. There's the Roman mockery in verses 27 through 38. There's the bystander mockery in verses 39 through 40.
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There's the Jewish mockery, primarily Jewish leaders, in verses 41 through 43. And then there's the bandit or the thieves mockery in verse 44.
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So the bulk of our text is found in that opening section. That really is the bulk of it is verses 27 through 38.
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So we'll start with the Roman mockery when they're mocking him prior to the crucifixion and then early on during and a little bit after he's hung on the cross.
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This is going to take the form of 11 things the Roman soldiers under Pontius Pilate do to intentionally denigrate the
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Son of God in our text. As Matthew seems to be interested in showing that some of these actions fulfill prophecy,
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I'm just going to highlight and reference those places where Matthew is clearly identifying Old Testament despite the fact that he doesn't cite his sources.
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It's very clear where his sources come from and it's obvious in some sections he literally quotes the
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Hebrew or the Greek Old Testament in his passage here. And so the first thing that they do in mockery and shame is to strip
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Jesus naked before the entire battalion. Now that's enough shame for many of us right there.
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A battalion is a technical term for 600 Roman soldiers. Now the only reason that some scholars question whether it was actually 600 soldiers is because it's difficult to imagine this entire scenario happening under the watch of 600 various soldiers.
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But it's easy to assume and it's actually documented now that there was a paved area large enough for the battalion to form up in ranks at the
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Antonian Fortress where these things are taking place. And so I don't see any reason to try to fudge the word that is so emphatically clear throughout all
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Roman writings that this word used here in Greek for a Roman battalion is 600 soldiers.
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So in verse 28, he's stripped in front of them, which was an act of intentional shaming. He's enduring the most basic form of shame that goes all the way back.
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Think about this. He is here experiencing that which humanity in sin experienced in the garden.
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He who will bear the shame of our hearts and lives shares what it means to be unclothed. This is not a minor thing.
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Fundamental to human nature is that we clothe ourselves. Apes don't care. My cat has absolutely zero shame.
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And those of you who have dogs know, oh, it's even worse there. But we do, don't we?
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Yeah, of course we do. We clothe ourselves because we have been implanted with the knowledge of good and evil according to Genesis.
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The fear of being known intimately by all is terrifying because we obviously fear the judging eyes of each other knowing good and evil.
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The second thing that they do is not only do they strip him, but then they reclothe him and they clothe him in a mocking sign of royalty.
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This is the second thing, clothing him in a mocking sign of royalty. To harmonize John's declaration that they clothed him in purple and Matthew's that it was scarlet is fairly simple.
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They chose a soldier's tunic that was the closest approximation to purple that they could get. And you can kind of envision in your mind that color swatch that's somewhere between red and purple and kind of getting purplish, but still kind of on the red spectrum.
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And it was probably closer to red, which was interestingly in my research this week
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I found out is one of the cheapest dyes in Roman times. One of the cheapest ways to dye clothes was red. There's a lot of methods for dyeing cloth red.
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So much of their mockery is centered on his rule and authority and purple is that royal color and they try to approximate it.
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But I want you to think about who they are clothing in mock royalty. He who it is said of in Colossians, he is the image of the invisible
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God. He through whom all things were made including all thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities, all of it made by him and sustaining its authority and power in him and through him.
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He is the one that they mock for his authority. Every mockery in this passage is meant to point us toward a truth that we often have a hard time with, a truth that is indeed true but we struggle to see it.
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And much of it just highlights the arrogance of human rebellion here in this text. The ruler, the creator, the almighty came and dwelt among us, took on flesh and dwelt among us and we stripped him and clothed him in a mocking approximation of royalty.
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That's verse 28. In verse 29 we see a few other mockeries from the Roman soldiers and this is the first in verse 29 is the third one of our text this morning and it's the crown.
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So they twist together a crown of thorns to again approximate a type of crown that Caesar would have worn, usually woven together with laurel reeds or laurel branches and that would be the type of crown that Caesar would wear but they wanted it to hurt so they found some really, really tough thorns and made him a crown.
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They want it to hurt but again the mockery is the main point, the pain is not. They don't believe he has any power.
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They delight in catching a Jew who thinks he's royal. This is the cruelest of all games. The deepest of mockeries.
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He is the only one, think about this, he's the only one worthy of a crown and not only the only one worthy of a crown but one day he will have all the crowns.
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All of his people will cast their crowns around his throne as Revelation indicates in Revelation chapter 4 verses 10 and 11 where it says this, the 24 elders comprising the 12 tribal heads of Israel along with the 12 apostles, they will fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever.
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They cast their crowns before the throne saying worthy are you our Lord and God to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created.
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Restored people will give him, gladly give him their crowns while the broken and sadistic humanity will cram the crown of thorns deeper onto his brow.
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The fourth thing is they give him a stick for a scepter, a reed in verse 29. Again they're following a cultural expectation that the power, we don't get it because we don't have kings and so they don't carry some kind of a scepter or anything.
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The president doesn't walk around carrying a scepter though he may seem to at times. I'm sorry, but power and rule of a reign is represented by a good scepter in ancient times and in giving him a reed they're seeking to complete the cruel mockery giving him a weak approximation of a symbol of power to demonstrate what they think of him.
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He's just weak, he has no rule, he has no authority. There he is clothed in an off royal robe with his crown of thorns and his scepter.
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And so what do you do to one like this who you're mocking in royalty? And so further the fifth is they kneel, they take a posture of worship to him, they kneel before him.
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And of course we know that this is a mock worship, they have no intention of genuinely genuflecting before him, of no real approximation in their hearts of real worship or real desire or real recognition of his authority.
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But I want to point out something that is vital to a lot of these mockings. This is not the last time that these very knees will take a humble posture before this very king.
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It tells us in Philippians 2 .10 that all knees will bow before him in the resurrection and all will see him in his glory.
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Some will bow and worship while others will bow as those who acknowledge too late that he is indeed the real deal.
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But here on this day, these knees bow in mockery. The sixth mockery is fake praise, what comes out of their mouth.
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Now they take a posture before him, a bowing and fake worship, an act of their bodies, but now they say some things too.
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And just like every voice will confess that Jesus is Lord of the glory of God the Father in Philippians 2 .11, so too also these very men one day will acknowledge that they got this all wrong here.
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They declare with their lips, hail king of the Jews. What they say is right where their hearts are are far from him.
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And Matthew wants to be sure we understand that much of what he is mocked for throughout this passage is actually quite true of him.
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Why are they mocking him as royalty? He actually really is. He deserves to be clothed in royalty.
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He deserves all of the crowns. His is indeed the royal scepter of eternal rule over all.
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And his, it's declared in multiple passages, will be a rod of iron with which he smashes the nations in rebellion against him.
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All will bow before him. All will praise his name, declaring this one to be
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Lord. But like the shame of nakedness, the seventh thing that we see here, they do other things to him that seem merely to exist to highlight human cruelty.
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There's no real play, there's no converse to this in the reality of what you do for a king.
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They spit on him in verse 30. That's the seventh thing. Now, I don't know about you, but this one has always just, there's something visceral in me about this.
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There's something that's so insulting and so personal about being spit upon that I think
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I would rather, I mean this like with a little bit of a caveat, but I think I'd rather get punched in the face than get spit on.
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Anybody feel that? Like you kind of just feel that a little bit in you? And I think the caveat is just how big's the dude punching, right?
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But aside from that, like I think I would rather get punched than get spit on. And my wife's observation was, well, the spit will wash off, like I mean you can get injured with a punch.
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And I'm like, I know. And there's something in me that's just like, don't spit on me, right? I just,
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I don't know what that is, but there's something so insulting and demeaning in this action, and it's intentionally demeaning and insulting, and it's very personal.
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They spit upon him, not just the first time, the Jews, the Jewish leaders did it too. Now the Romans are as well.
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Jew and Gentile, you can break the whole world down into those two groups, and both would be glad to spit in his face.
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The eighth is they take the reed that they gave him and they repeatedly strike him on the head now. The verb used in Greek is a continuing action.
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They get at it and they just keep on maybe taking turns beating his head with the reed.
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You've got the placement of the crown of thorns already there. This is again cruel and seeking to inflict pain on him. And now there's a pause after this eighth one before we get to number nine.
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There's a pause to explain some context. Now I don't know if the soldiers were setting their own timeline or if Pilate had set an hour when the crucifixion was supposed to start, or if there maybe was just a routine time that he crucified people, like early in the morning, get them on the cross.
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We know that the next day is going to be a Sabbath day, and so they maybe are honoring the Jews and they've got a timeline, but they strip him of the fake robes again and put on his own clothes.
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And on the way out of town to the place of crucifixion, he is no longer able to carry his own cross. Now he gets as far as the city gates.
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He gets out of the city, which is a substantial walk, and so we get this reality in which he does indeed, as John says, he goes out carrying his own cross, but then by the time that he gets to the city and gets out of the city, they enlist
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Simon of Cyrene, and they compel this man to carry the cross beam of his crucifix. Now it makes for dramatic movies to have him carry the whole cross, because it's a symbol.
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It matters, you know? And so we think of the whole cross, right? And we think of it together, so there's something that's symbolic about him carrying the whole thing.
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But Roman crucifix, we have enough documentation now to have a good idea of how it was carried out.
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We even know some of the terminology and words used for it. The accused would carry their patibulum.
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Patibulum means cross member, the part where the hands go, the cross, the horizontal section, and they would carry that patibulum.
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It's very clear throughout many documents that that's the case. So Jesus was so weakened at this point that all that He endured,
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He had endured so much in the scourging and everything that He needed someone else to carry this piece of wood for Him.
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And I suggest to you that it's a very manageable piece of wood that under normal circumstances, any carpenter would have been able to carry.
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Under normal circumstances, any carpenter would be able to carry this piece of wood, but he can't.
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Simon of Cyrene, it's interesting just to note historically here where his name passes by. According to Mark 15, 21, he had two sons that are mentioned later in Paul's writings, and it's likely that they became notable early church,
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Christians in the early church. So something in this event does indeed strike at Simon of Cyrene, whether his two boys were with him or not, or whether he becomes a
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Christian, we're unclear, but his two sons do and are mentioned by the Apostle Paul as workers alongside of him later.
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The place is mentioned. The place where he's crucified is called Golgotha. And none of the gospel writers, you can look at it, because I had to second guess myself.
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I read a commentary that was like, yeah, you know, by the way, it never mentions that he was crucified on a hill. Anybody's mind blown by that?
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It doesn't say that anywhere in Scripture that he was crucified on a hill. Now we take for granted that it might be possible because the
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Romans really like to show off their handiwork. So they like the deterring factor of people seeing crucified
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Jews so that it's like, you're not going to do what he did because that's going to happen to you. So they would often do it at a crossroads or in a prominent place so that many bystanders and people would have to walk by and see it and identify that that.
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So it's possible, but we, it's cemented in our minds by traditions and songs, right? On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, right?
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Anybody know that song? And so those things draw us, but you want to really have your mind blown.
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The word Calvary, every time you see the word Calvary in a church name, it straight up means the word skull.
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Now it doesn't mean place of the skull, it just means skull. So it's kind of funny, like, you see the word
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Calvary, we're thinking of the place where he was crucified, but, I mean, you think about Skull Reformed Church out in Texas Corners or Skull Bible Church on Drake, right, like, we don't think of it that way, but it's kind of interesting.
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I'm not making fun of them, it's just, like, that's where, when you see the word Calvary, you're thinking death, right?
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You're thinking the place of death. It's a pretty intense thing when you think about it. All of, obviously, tying back to this, the word
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Golgotha is Aramaic, a dying out language during the time of Jesus, but likely one that he spoke, and Golgotha translates into Latin Calvary, place of the skull or skull.
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The 9th Roman mockery is picked up in verse 34, so you kind of get through that context and then it gets back to these mockeries.
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Verse 34, when they came to the place of crucifixion, now he's, multiple times as you harmonize the Gospels, he's going to be offered something to drink twice, once before he's on the cross, and this is before he's on the cross.
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So in verse 34, when they came to that place of the crucifixion, they offered him, it says, wine to drink mixed with gall.
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Now it's hard for us to determine the intentions, and I read a lot about this this past week, but in a passage it demonstrates so much, because here's the thing.
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Some people would actually go like, well this is a kindness on the part of the Romans to offer him something to drink.
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He's just parched, he's been coming out of the city, and they gave him something to kind of numb the pain. How many of you ever heard that?
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They gave him a little something to numb the pain. How many of you think that's consistent with everything the Romans have done so far? But all of a sudden, they just got a little twinge of guilt, and they were like, ah, let's just cut his pain in half.
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Let's give him some ibuprofen or something. I don't think that's at all what's going on here. After studying it and looking into it, gall means bitter substance, and it's likely that what they offer him here, according to the terminology used, is like the equivalent of giving salt water to a guy who's just come out of the desert and is dying of thirst.
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And so here, have a little of this, and he drinks it, and it's salt water, right? That's not going to help.
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It was vinegar or soured wine mixed with a bitter substance. It would do absolutely nothing to satisfy a dying man's thirst.
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Absolutely nothing. And Jesus takes one taste and recognizes it as one more mockery.
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Oh, are you thirsty? Here, drink this. Can you picture it? Can you see it? The ninth mockery.
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He who is the fountain of living water here is mocked in his moment of deep, deep, deep thirst.
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The brevity and lack of detail about the crucifixion itself ought to be breathtaking to us in the gospel accounts.
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It's with intention. The gospel writers were so close to Christ, they don't want to talk about it. They don't want to get into this, and they knew what it entailed.
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But here, between the ninth and tenth mockery, we see that they had crucified him in a passing comment.
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It's already done. By the time that we hear about it, it's already, he's already on the cross. They had crucified him, and it's a passing comment about fulfilled prophecy.
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They divided his garments, which have obviously been removed for the death that entails a very public shame.
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He's not wearing any clothes in this crucifixion scene. They're all gambling for him on the side, and that was predicted in Psalm 22.
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Such a few short words for what they did, and when they had crucified him, they gambled for his clothes.
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These few short words carry with them so much violence and so much violation, so much of the guilt we bear against our
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Maker, so much of our brash rejection of the very Son of God. All the technical studies of crucifixion must never allow us to get mired down in the details that lead us away from the cosmic picture of what
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Jesus Christ is doing for us here before the Father. Church, he loves us.
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He was held in place by those nails for us. He was bleeding all of his blood for you and I.
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He loves us. He died because our sins needed atonement.
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He died because there was no other way for us to be made right with the Father except that he drink down the fierce wrath of the
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Father toward our sins. His suffering in this physical plane, by the way,
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I think it's important to say, his suffering in the physical plane was no worse than the bandit on either side of them. Their tendons were stretched to the max too.
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They had broken blood vessels. They were bleeding out. They were dying along with him, them for their sins.
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So what does that highlight for us? What he did, he did so for us in innocence.
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They're dying for their sins. He is not. He's dying for yours. He's dying for mine.
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Scriptures emphatically declare that the Heavenly Father, whom the second person of the
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Trinity had only ever experienced love and unity with, that Father turned not away but toward the
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Son with all the fierce and white -hot wrath that our sins deserved, and he poured out that hell and fury on the
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Son for us so that our sins can be declared covered.
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It's truly finished, church, in terms of what our sins deserved, and we can be declared righteous and forgiven and adopted and reconciled with God through faith in the
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Son and his sacrifice for us here in these moments. And when they had crucified him, they cast lots for his clothes.
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And Matthew uses a direct quote in this passage in verse 35 from Psalm 22, 18, and he will allude to that same psalm,
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Psalm 22 in verse 37, with them looking upon the one whom they have pierced, and with verse 39, with the wagging of their heads, again a quote directly from Psalm 22, and in verse 43, with mockery for deliverance, they will say to him, come down.
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You see, Psalm 22 factors a lot in the crucifixion scene, I don't know if you realize that, because it predicts it so clearly.
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Old Testament, written hundreds of years before these events, and I encourage you to go read Psalm 22, jot yourself a note if you're taking notes, jot down Psalm 22, go read it sometime this week.
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But the title of that psalm, before they were numbered in the Middle Ages, is kind of shocking and startling when you hear what the
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Jews called that psalm, it will trigger something in you. You see, it was in the
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Middle Ages that we numbered them, they weren't numbered before that. And the Jews, when they wanted to sing a song, they had to have a name for it, right?
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And they named them very much like the British named their hymns, I don't know if you realize this, but the majority of, when we would sing songs in Britain, they wouldn't call it the name that we knew it, they would call it by its opening line, that was the title of it.
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The title of it was the opening line. Well, what's the opening line of Psalm 22? Whenever a Jew wanted to refer to this exact psalm, they would simply say this phrase,
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My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
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That's the title of Psalm 22, that's what they called it, that's the name of it. My God, my
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God, why have you forsaken me? How many of you, that's a familiar phrase.
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How many of you know who's going to say that here in moments from this text? He's going to refer people to that, say, look at this.
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This song is what's happening. Go read it, go read it, church, and be amazed in awe about God's plan, not just a
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New Testament, new thing that he's doing, but something that he's been doing that's consistent with his entire plan from the beginning, to bring about redemption through the sacrifice of the
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Son. The 10th Roman mockery is found in verse 37, with the placard above him, and again, this is a direct mockery of his authority to rule and reign.
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The title above his head where he dies reads what is absolutely true.
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This is Jesus. It says Jesus, a name meaning he who saves his people.
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That's written above Jesus' head while he's dying. His name means he who saves his people, the
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King of the Jews. And he is indeed of the royal line of King David, is indeed the rightful heir to the throne, the eternal throne promised to David.
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The final mockery is found in verse 38, and he's crucified among bandits there against Rome.
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That he who was innocent is numbered among insurrectionists is an interesting form of mockery when you think about it. He who refused to attack
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Romans. He who refused to defend his people against Rome. And here he is being lumped in with those who violently oppose
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Rome, robbing from the Romans to give back to their own countrymen. Likely, as I had mentioned last week, likely, quite possibly, dying on the cross that had been reserved for Barabbas, the ringleader of a bunch of insurrectionists.
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And we still have three more groups of mockers to cover. They're shorter, but still demonstrate the mocking nature of the human heart.
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This is all the Romans, but now we get to the bystanders, people who just happen upon the scene. Maybe we relate to them.
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Somebody who just wanders in. In verses 39 through 40, we see the bystander mockery. They mock him, expressing scorn in words and nonverbals.
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They use gestures. The wagging of their heads in that culture is like the finger wag or the head shake and the tsk -tsk of disapproval.
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No, what'd you do? They have a specific brand of mockery.
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They key in on his statement that he could rebuild the temple in three days. They're made aware of it. Somehow, some of these people that are bystanders have heard what he's accused of and that he declared that he was able to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days.
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And they're like, if you got that kind of power, then you don't have to be up there. If you can do that, then you can come down right now.
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And they challenge him to save himself and come down from the cross. Interestingly, the phrase, exactly in Greek, if you are the son of God, that's an interesting phrase that we see at the heading of two of the temptations of Christ uttered on the lips of Satan.
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Here, the bystanders show their allegiance to a line of questioning begun with Satan himself. If you are the son of God, then fill in the blank.
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A questioning of his authority, a questioning of his origin, a questioning of the source of all of his power and authority.
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This must have been particularly painful mockery to the one who had been given all authority by his father. And he used it to sacrifice himself instead of saving himself.
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He could have come down. He chose not to so that he could pay for my sin and yours.
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The third group of mockers is the religious leaders found in verses 41 through 43. And again, this is a particular malicious mockery.
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They acknowledge that he saved others. He healed. He delivered from demons. He even raised the dead. What do they mean by saved?
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They mean on this physical plane that he did really good things for people. These religious leaders were aware of his power and they were threatened by his power.
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And instead of refuting the miracles, they don't deny that he raised Lazarus. They don't deny that he fed the 5 ,000.
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They don't go for trying to point by point disagree with the great things that Jesus did.
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Instead, what they did, they took a different tack. They attributed his power to Satan. They said, you're doing what you do on evil power.
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But the irony is so crazy direct in these mocking statements. Nothing could be more true than to state that there on that cross,
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Jesus was making a fundamental decision to not save himself so that he could save others.
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The very thing they're asking him to do is the very thing he will not do. If there is a last temptation of Christ, it is here.
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If you are the Son of God, save yourself and stop saving everyone else. Do you hear the irony in that?
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And then they go on to make wild claims that they'll believe him. We'll believe you and accept you if you come down from the cross right now.
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But ask yourself, would they? Would humanity accept him if he came down from the cross?
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They didn't believe him after all the other things they saw him do. They saw him raise the dead. They saw him give sight to a guy who was blind.
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They saw him heal a guy's legs who had been unable to walk from birth. They saw amazing things.
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Why would they suddenly change if he comes down from the cross? And I suggest to you that miracles don't produce faith.
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Miracles most often produce a desire for more miracles. And that's all they're asking for, just one more.
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Just one more and we'll believe. But nestled in the middle of verse 42, look at verse 42 with me.
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It's what may very well be the most hurtful mockery of all. I think it was probably the biggest dagger in Jesus in this moment.
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If God desires him, if God loves you, if he truly is with God, if you truly are with God and God is truly with you, then
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God will deliver you. He said he's the
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Son of God, right? He said he's loved by the Father like a firstborn son.
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If that is true, then the Father will deliver him. Let's sit back and watch. Let's see what his Father, his
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Father does for him. The reason I consider this to be the harshest dig in the whole of the mockery is that I have a fairly high view of the
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Trinity. This calls into question that eternal relationship between Father and Son.
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This had to be a dig deeper than anything that we can imagine. If your
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Father loves you, which he always has, if your Father loves you, then he will rescue you.
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More close and more intimate than any human relationship is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus and the
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Father were eternally sufficient in relationship with the Holy Spirit for eternity past, something we can't conceive of.
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The answer to one of the favorite stump your parents questions that kids like to ask, you know the kinds of questions
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I'm talking about. Every kid someday is going to ask, what was God doing before he created the world?
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You know the question I'm talking about? What was God doing for eternity? Oh my goodness. All of a sudden, when they get that eternal concept, it's like, wait a minute.
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You can see it on their face. Wait a minute. How many movies can you watch? How many board games can you play?
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The answer to the question is quite simple. It's just hard for us to conceive of. The answer to the question, what was
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God doing in eternity past before he created the world? Hanging out. That's the answer.
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Hanging out. Father, Jesus, Spirit, the eternal posse. Talk about BFFs. These are the
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OG BFFs. They're the ones. They hung out for eternity satisfied. Okay with it.
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Forever and ever. And then said, let's share this. Let's share some of this that we have here and make others.
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Let's show love to something other. And they created. If God loves you, then he would let you down from that cross.
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At the very time when Jesus is bearing the wrath of his father toward our sins intentionally. This accusation is meant by the chief priest to be a dig.
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I think it is pain beyond our imagining this accusation. We think about torn.
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We think about nails through our hands and through our feet. And I don't think those things hold a candle to the pain of the consideration of what they are trying to bring forward to him.
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Your father doesn't love you. And that couldn't be further from the truth. But his father is sharing that love with us.
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That's what he's doing. And the fourth mockery needs barely a mention. It's just one verse. Verse 44.
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The bandits on either side of him. Here in his closing time of life on the world that he created. He is mocked by everyone.
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Even the sinners on either side of him dying for their crimes. And they join in. Now they're going to end up spending a couple of hours with him there in that place.
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And one of them at least is going to be like, oh there's something different here. Something going on. And his heart's going to be changed.
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One of the two thieves is going to be transformed there in those passing and fleeting hours on the cross.
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But the point of the text is so much mocking. So much sneering. So much abuse.
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So much of exercising our authority and putting our foot down over the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
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So let me encourage us all to shift our thoughts about the value of communion in a unique way this morning.
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I want you to listen up and don't check out. I know that when I say the word communion it's like, oh Bible's down. Everybody kind of checks out, looks around and it's like, are we going?
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Is it time? Just hang in there for just a minute. We do this thing routinely every week.
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And I value it deeply. I hope you have come to value it or are coming to value it. But let me just suggest to you that in it, it is the anti -mocking.
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It is rather the exact opposite of mocking. In this we are participating in His sacrifice.
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It is the identification together with each other in the sacrifice of the one who endured this all for us.
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So let me encourage all of us to come to the table. Identify your life together with Jesus Christ.
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All the world will mock. And this morning as we come to the tables, we draw near to identify with Him.
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Identify with His suffering. Identify with His mocking. He is our
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King. He is royalty. He is the living water.
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He is the one with whom the Father is well pleased. He is our rescuer. He is our Redeemer.
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He is our Savior. And now He is indeed our faithful brother and faithful friend.
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If you've asked Jesus Christ to be your Savior, and if you are in unity with your brothers and sisters here at Recast, then
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I encourage you to participate in communion during this next song. But if you're still trying to figure out, there's two categories of people that I'd ask to just kind of sit back and take it in.
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If you're still trying to figure out who Jesus Christ is, just sit back, take in the song. Or if you have unresolved conflict with somebody else here at Recast.
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I say this occasionally. I don't say it enough. But one of the things that Paul the
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Apostle warns us against is taking communion in an unworthy manner, which means in a way that where you've got conflict with others here, unresolved, you're just going to go pretend to be together and unified with them.
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If that's you, then I encourage you to skip communion. Take in the song. And if you need to step out and send a text or walk across the room to reconcile with somebody this morning, that would be awesome.
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That would be super cool. I was at a church in Atlanta, an Iranian convert church.
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Most of them had been formerly Muslims. They had come to faith in Christ, Iranian. They did this every week. And it was really cool to see people literally walk over and hug each other and say,
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I'm sorry, and fix things before they took communion. More of that. This sinful world has nothing but mockery for God, for our
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God who has made flesh and dwelt among us. But we, church, we have joy in identifying with the one who came to rescue us from sin and separation from our
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Father. So let's identify with Jesus without shame this next week. Going out with boldness and fearing no mockery.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf.
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I think all of us feel the weight of unworthiness of this just crazy sacrifice that he made for us.
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It's extravagant. It's lavish. It's gruesome. It demonstrates the darkness, the deep, deep wells of darkness in our own hearts where we recognize that we would have been there among the mockers were it not for your grace, were it not for your mercy, were it not for your timing to give us this revelation here now.
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So, Father, I pray that as we take communion, we would do so out of delight and gladness for a sacrifice made for us.
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We're not worthy, but in Christ we are rescued. So let that stand stark in our minds as we come to these tables.
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And then, Father, for anybody who's not able to go to these tables, they've got some reconciling to do. Or further, they just are still trying to figure out
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Jesus. I pray that you would meet them here even in this song and guide them and direct them towards what is true and what is good and what is right.
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And then, Father, I ask that especially that you would walk with us throughout this week with boldness.
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We recognize that the world is increasingly mocking. The Internet is just full of trolls and mockery and jokes about Jesus and laughter about him and making him the butt of every joke.
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But, Father, I pray that you would help us to identify well with him as we take communion together and identify well with one another.