Mark 15:1-20 (March 12, 2023)

If you have your Bible, turn with me to Mark chapter 15. Mark chapter 15.

If you're new with us, we're just going through the book of Mark one section at a time. We find ourselves in verses 1 through 20 this morning.

But while you're turning there, I want to give you a quick heads up that we do occasionally take a little bit of a detour from Mark every now and again.

And we're going to do that over the next couple of weeks, so if you're the type who likes to read ahead, next week we're not going to be in Mark, because what

I'm trying to do is time up the crucifixion story for Palm Sunday, and that way we have the resurrection account timed up for Easter Sunday, so we'll take a quick detour over the next two weeks from Mark.

But today we are in chapter 15 verses 1 through 20, and let's read God's word together.

And the word of God says this, as soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council.

And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate. And Pilate asked him, are you the king of the

Jews? And he answered him, you have said so. And the chief priests accused him of many things.

And Pilate again asked him, have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.

But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed. Now at the feast, he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked.

And among the rebels in prison who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called

Barabbas. And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them.

And he answered them saying, do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews? For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up.

But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him released for them Barabbas instead.

And Pilate again said to them, then what shall I do with the man you call the king of the

Jews? And they cried out again, crucify him. And Pilate said to them, why?

What evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, crucify him.

And so Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas. And having scourged

Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is, the governor's headquarters.

And they called together the whole battalion. And they clothed him in a purple cloak. And twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him.

And they began to salute him, hail, king of the Jews. And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him.

And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him.

And they led him out to crucify him. Amen, this is the word of the

Lord to us this morning. I want to set the stage a little bit about where we are in the story here.

The night before, Judas had betrayed Jesus with a kiss. And he was arrested. He was taken in for a sham trial in which many bore false witness against him.

But even then, they couldn't get their testimony to agree. But when Jesus answered the high priest that he was indeed the

Son of God, the Sanhedrin convicted him of blasphemy. But the religious leaders could not put

Jesus to death themselves. And so they needed the Romans to do that. So early in the morning, after this trial by night, they take

Jesus to Pilate. And they accuse him, verse 3 says, of many things.

And so Pilate, he has a problem now. Because he needs to keep peace. You see,

Pilate, he's nothing if not a career man. So he has found himself. He's worked his way into this very powerful and prestigious position.

And he wants to keep it. So riots, mobs, insurrections, those things don't look good for Pilate.

Pilate needs to keep the peace. He doesn't need to rock the boat.

And so he needs to keep peace. But the problem is Jerusalem is charged. It's Passover time, as we've seen over the last several chapters of Mark.

It's just a very emotionally charged environment there. The priests and the people are in a frenzy.

They're after blood. They want Jesus dead. But Pilate is amazed with Jesus and the fact that he offered up no defense.

We see that in verse 5. And then he questions Jesus. And he doesn't find that Jesus is guilty of any evil worthy of death.

We see in verse 14. And so Pilate is, he's put in this really problematic situation. Pilate's in a pickle.

And so what will he do? What will happen? How will he navigate this situation that he is in?

And how will the priests and how will the people respond? And what will

Jesus do? Pilate thinks that he's found himself a way out.

He's found himself a solution, a way to satisfy the crowd and avoid killing Jesus at the same time.

Because there was this custom we see in verse 6. A custom that at that time, where during the

Passover feast, he would release one of their prisoners. And so his solution is to put forward two men and let the crowd choose.

One of these men is Barabbas, a known insurrectionist and murderer, a real troublemaker, a real thug and a criminal.

One who's obviously guilty and a danger to the public. And on the other hand, there's

Jesus, a man who's done nothing illegal, who's done nothing wrong, nothing sinful. He has taught

God's word. He has healed the sick. He has, he's fed the hungry and he's welcomed the children.

And so surely the people will choose Jesus, right? That was

Pilate's plan. So that's the setup for the story. And in the course of this story, what we're gonna see as we work our way through this passage, we're gonna see deadly sins, a devastating decision, and deliberate silence.

Deadly sins, a devastating decision, and deliberate silence.

So let's first look at the deadly sins that are at play within this story.

And the first one of those we come to is envy in verse 10. Verse 10 says this, for he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up.

Envy, what is envy? I read a great definition this week. It says that envy is a malicious regard for the advantages seen to be enjoyed by others.

It's a malicious regard for the advantages seen to be enjoyed by others. Or we might say it like this, that envy is covetousness at an advanced stage, to an advanced degree.

Or maybe we could explain it like this. I might go into town here in Traverse Rest and see someone with a nice, brand new, really big truck.

And I might think, well, that's pretty cool, I wish I had one. And at this point, it's just an acknowledgment of something nice, it's an admiration for it, maybe even a desire or a wish for it.

But there's nothing sinful there in acknowledging something that somebody else has that's nice. I'm so grateful for my 2002

Tacoma, even though it's much smaller, and I'm content with it. So there's nothing sinful going on there, right?

But what if I saw that nice, brand new, really big truck, and it led me to be discontent with my 2002

Tacoma? And what if I stopped being thankful for it, and I just really, really, really wanted that new, big truck?

So much so that I might even spend money that I don't have in order to get it. Well, that would be covetousness.

I'm coveting that truck, that sin, 10th Commandment. And then envy is when we take that covetousness one step further.

So not only do I want a big truck too, but if I can't have it, I don't want you to have it.

And so envy might lead someone to steal a truck, or to tee it down the side, or slash its tires, because if I can't have it,

I don't want you to have it either. That's envy. You see, envy is destructive. Proverbs says that envy is rottenness in the bones.

And so not only will the envious person destroy others or what they have, eventually that envy will destroy the person, because envy is poison.

And so the chief priests, they're full of envy against Jesus. He preached better than they could preach.

He taught with authority that they didn't have. He led men better than they could lead.

He performed miracles. He attracted a following among the people, the very people that were supposed to follow them.

And so they were envious of him. And so they had to take him down. They had to take him out.

They had to destroy him, because he had, Jesus had, what they wanted. Authority and adoration.

Envy is one of our culture's chief sins. So I want to illustrate that with one of Jesus' parables.

Remember, Jesus taught the parable, I believe it was in Matthew 20. A man who owned a vineyard hired some workers one day.

And they all agreed to work for one denarius for the day's labor. A few hours later, he brought in some more workers.

And then about an hour before quitting time, he brought in even a few more workers. And when it came time to pay the workers, he gave them all one denarius.

Including the men who came and showed up for just one hour's worth of work. They got the same amount as somebody who had one day's worth of work.

And the ones who got there first were upset. They didn't think it was fair that the ones who showed up at the end got the same wage, even though they had agreed that one denarius for one day's work was a fair wage.

Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me, said the master? Or do you begrudge my generosity?

That's the parable Jesus told. And here's the thing. In our culture today, we read that story and we agree with the workers.

That's unfair. But is it? Can God not do what he pleases with what is his?

See, here's the thing. God doesn't give his gifts equally. And who are we to begrudge his generosity to some?

Yet we rebel against this and we think we must make everything even. We must say, flatten out everything and make it even and equal.

And so as a culture, as humanity, we come up with all sorts of solutions to the problem that just adds to the problem.

We come up with socialism, or communism, or feminism, or globalism, or various critical theories.

And if you dig deep enough on any of those, you will strike envy. These ideologies run on envy the same way my

O2 Tacoma out there runs on unleaded gasoline. Envy fuels these ideologies.

But envy, of course, isn't only out there in the big bad world of ideology. It's also right here in our hearts.

We all need to be on guard against envy. And so let me talk to the kids here for just a minute.

And by the way, we love having our kids here in the service with us. It's one of our distinctives here at First Baptist.

Everybody worships together, families worship together, and we love having the youngest among us to the oldest among us all here together.

And so just as a reminder, we don't care about the noise or the wiggles. We like that here at First Baptist, and so I'll talk to the kids for just a second.

Do you ever want the toy that your sibling has so bad that you might even be willing to stir up a fight and sabotage the situation so that mom takes it from both of you?

Brooke, I'll say, if you can't have it, nobody can. That's envy.

Okay, adults, do you ever think that you should have gotten that job promotion?

Not your co -worker? So much so that you've at least entertained faults that,

I wonder if I could get them fired. That's envy. Well, let me ask you like this, do you rejoice in the success of others?

I read a Facebook post one time. I know it's odd to remember things that people post on Facebook. But this is like six or seven years ago, and a friend of mine posted this, and I've never forgotten.

And he said, one of the hardest lessons you'll ever teach your kids is to teach them to rejoice in the success of others, to be happy for the good fortune, the good advantage, and the success of others.

And why is that? It's because envy is heavy. We read about it in Proverbs 27, a stone is heavy and the sand weighty.

But a fool's wrath is heavier than them both. Wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous, but who is able to stand before envy?

Envy is heavier than the stones and it's heavier than wrath. And so we need to be warned about envy because it is a destructive sin, both to others and to ourselves.

And at best, it's often left unchecked in our culture. And at worst, it is celebrated as the cure to our sickness, when in fact, it is the poison that made us unwell to begin with.

And so turn, flee from envy. It's one of the deadly sins we see here in this chapter.

The second one is, we see the next deadly sin in the frenzy of the people, of the mob.

Their sin is a lack of sober -mindedness and a lack of self -control. Let's read about it in verses 11 through 14.

But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him released for them Barabbas instead.

And Pilate again said to them, then what shall I do with the man you call king of the Jews? And they cried out again, crucify him.

And Pilate said, why, what evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, crucify him. So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them

Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. The chief priests, we see in verse 11, they stirred up the crowd, and so they have some of the blame in this, but the crowd allowed themselves to be stirred up.

And so scripture teaches us to be sober -minded, and scripture teaches us to be self -controlled, and the crowd was neither.

They did not consider their actions and decisions. They did not weigh them properly, and so in a frenzy, they chose

Barabbas over Jesus. And they chanted to crucify, crucify, crucify

Jesus. They were out for blood. There's two things that go on in a crowd that we need to be aware of.

One of those is that we imitate one another in escalating ways. And so God made us to be imitators.

This is actually how we learn. We learn by imitating others. This is how God has made us, and we act in imitating ways.

And so when you get a lot of people together in a crowd, when others are stirred up and acting in an emotional way, maybe even in an irrational way, people will often imitate that, and they'll match their emotion, and they'll match their irrationality.

And then when they do that, the other people, the original people, they see that, and they imitate it back, and what ends up happening is the emotion, and often the irrationality, it just grows, it snowballs, as we imitate one another, stir one another up.

And so this is why you will often stand up and cheer louder at a, if you're at the football game, in the football stadium, there with the home crowd cheering on the home team.

You'll stand up and cheer louder in that environment than you would do if you were sitting at home watching that game, the very same game, in your living room alone.

Because you feed off of one another. Now the football example, that's an innocent version, right?

But riots work in the same way, violent protests work in the same way. Things escalate quickly as people imitate one another, so we need to be on guard against that.

So we don't lose self control or lose sober mindedness in a crowd.

A second thing that goes on in the crowd is they often need a scapegoat. They need someone to take the fall, someone to take the blame, so that this can all be dissipated.

And so a popular way this sin plays out in our culture today is online mobs formed to cancel someone.

You've seen this in the news, I'm sure. People feed off of one another, and the posts online keep going, and the phone calls keep going, and the emails keep going.

And it keeps escalating, calling for someone's head, and it keeps escalating. And the only way to calm it down is to fire the guy in question.

Now in God's providence, here what we read about in Mark 15, Jesus is the scapegoat here, and it's

God's plan for him to be so, because he's gonna take on the sins of the world. He's gonna be the true scapegoat.

He's gonna take on the sins of the world with the cross. But we ought to be warned about the sins of the people in this story, though.

They allowed themselves to be stirred up to such a degree that they lost all sober mindedness.

They lost all self control, and they killed the Son of God. We'll return to that decision in just a few moments.

It was a devastating decision. But for now, we take the warning that if we join the frenzy of the crowd, then we too will make bad, consequential decisions.

The third deadly sin that we read about is cowardice. Verse 15, so Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them

Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd.

Pilate gave in to the mob. He feared the people, and so he gave them what they wanted.

Even though it meant putting an innocent man to death, he gave them what they wanted.

Pilate was a man driven by the fear of man. Therefore, he could not stand before men.

He could not stand up to men because he feared men. He could only do, instead, he could only do what they told him to do.

So there's this meme, or this picture that's going around the internet right now.

I think it's a painting, and it's this blue collar man who's standing up alone in this room full of everybody else that's sitting.

He's standing up alone to tell the truth. The point of it being, he had the courage to stand alone to say what is true.

Then there's this other picture that I've seen going around a good bit, and it was of a crowd during World War II, I believe in Germany, and everybody's doing the

Nazi salute except for, if you zoom in, you can see one man who's not. You see, you wanna be that man.

You wanna be the one willing to stand alone to do what is right, or willing to stand alone to say what is true, even if the crowd is against you.

Now, we can give all sorts of examples of how this plays out in life by way of application. We've been schooled in peer pressure ever since our youngest days.

But I wanna mention one application as a test of courage, that's particular to our day, one that doesn't get a whole lot of attention.

But I believe even if you don't face this situation yourself, you can recognize it in others, and you can pray for them to have the courage.

That's the weaponized apology. Apologies are good when we've sinned, right?

I mean, if we've actually sinned, not only are apologies good, they're required. God requires that of us.

And so if we've sinned, we ought to apologize. What we see in our culture now, though, is that people are often demanded to apologize even when they haven't sinned.

And it's weaponized against people. And so you may not have actually sinned, but you may have offended the secular gods, or you may have offended somebody's sensibilities, but you didn't commit an actual sin as the

Bible defines it. And so when this happens, the crowd will come against you, demanding an apology, demanding an admission of guilt.

And the temptation is just to do it, just to go along with it, to appease the crowd, to make it go away using lies.

And so what we must do, the one thing we must not do in this situation is apologize.

And so the principle is, if you didn't sin, don't give in. We don't tell an untruth just to satisfy a crowd.

And here's why. The frenzied mob can never have control over us. Whether they're trying to stir us up into their frenzy, in which case we must remain sober -minded, or whether they're coming against you, in which we must remain courageous.

But cowardice is the way of Pilate, and it sent Jesus to be slaughtered.

And so the question that we all must answer is this, are you willing to be unpopular? Are you willing to be scorned, ridiculed, blamed, shamed, for standing for what is right?

We need courage, not cowardice. The fourth deadly sin is mockery. We see this in verses 16 through 20, when the soldiers, when they take

Jesus and they put the crown of thorns on him, when they put the purple robe on him, when they mock him, saying, hail king of the

Jews, and they laugh at him, they spit upon him, and they're doing all this while they beat him.

They are sarcastically saluting him while they're beating him.

So what is mockery? Mockery is taking that which is holy and treating it as profane.

It's taking that which is holy and treating it as profane. And so Jesus is the holy one of God, and they treated him with utter contempt.

Now there's obviously those in our culture in our day who mock God. They are in open rebellion against him, and we could spend a lot of time railing against that.

But I want to ask the question instead, what about us? Do we ever treat that which is holy with triviality?

With contempt or irreverence? Do we ever make light of that which God takes deadly serious?

I want to quickly apply this with one subject for us to think about. And that is, how do we approach

God? How do we approach God? In the Bible, Cain did not approach

God in the way that he instructed, and God rejected his offering. And Uzziah reached out his hand to touch the cart carrying the

Ark of the Covenant, which God had strictly forbid, and God struck him dead.

I saw something the other day that really captured this thought for me.

It said, the sun will burn your eyes from 92 million miles, and you expect to casually stroll into the presence of its creator?

God is holy. Let us not approach God casually, with triviality.

Let us not treat holy things like they are trivial things, because God will not be mocked.

Let us give due weight to what the scriptures tell us to give weight to, to the things that are glorious.

Otherwise, it's mockery. Now, I call these deadly sins, not because I'm trying to match the list of the seven deadly sins that you might see elsewhere, but because, like all sin, they lead to death.

Sin leads to death, that's a principle in scripture. And in this instance that we see in Mark 15, they specifically lead to the death of Jesus.

They're deadly sins. And they also led to a devastating decision for the people of Israel.

A devastating decision. You see, Pilate, he gave the people a choice, Barabbas or Jesus. Now, Barabbas' name literally means son of the father.

And then you have Jesus, who is the true son of the father, the son of God. And so you have

Barabbas and Jesus. Barabbas was an actual murderer. He was a revolutionary. He was an insurrectionist against Rome.

Jesus was a teacher. He was a healer. He was the rightful king who came to give his life, not to take the lives of others.

And so the choice is a paradigmatic one. It's the choice between Satan and God.

It's the choice between evil and good. It's the choice between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. It's the choice between the dragon and the dragon slayer.

And the people of Israel chose poorly. The frenzied people chose for Pilate to set

Barabbas free and to crucify, crucify, crucify

Jesus. And in so doing, the people, they ratified the Sanhedrin's decision from the sham trial the night before, and they sealed their nation's fate.

And that is why it was a devastating decision. Because it sealed their coming destruction in AD 70.

They did not repent, and so Jerusalem will be destroyed. It's a devastating decision.

But what about you? What about us? What about our choice? When the way of Jesus and the way of the world is set before us, what is your choice?

Choose this day whom you will serve. And then lastly, in this story, we come to Jesus.

What would he do during all of this? And here we see deliberate silence.

Verse four, have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.

But Jesus made no further answer, and so that Pilate was amazed. You see, everybody in this story is talking, except for Jesus.

Jesus, he didn't defend himself, though he could have, he didn't. But rather, as Isaiah prophesied 800 years earlier in Isaiah 53, he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.

Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

See, Jesus was on a mission to save the world. He would not save himself from the cross, because the cross was the way he was going to save the world by dying our death.

In our place, and so unlike the envious priests, Jesus would humble himself and secure the good of others, committing himself to destruction in order to build others up, rather than destroying others to build himself up.

And unlike the frenzied crowd, Jesus was self -controlled and sober -minded the whole time, and he was determined.

He had chosen his hill to die on, and that hill was Calvary, and he was going there.

And unlike the coward pilot, Jesus was courageous in the face of his enemies, and even though he was reviled by the soldiers, he did not revile in return.

No, Jesus went to the cross, silent Jesus went to the cross, where he would be pierced for our transgressions, and crushed for our iniquities, as Isaiah had prophesied.

He is pierced for our envy, and crushed for our lack of self -control, pierced for our cowardice, and crushed for our mockery.

And by his wounds, we are healed. So that instead of envy, we may have zeal to build others up, and rejoice in their success.

So that instead of joining the frenzied mob, we may be sober -minded and self -controlled. So that instead of fearing man, which leads to cowardice, we might have the fear of the

Lord, which leads to courage. So that instead of mockery of holy things, we may have reverence for them.

By his stripes, we are healed. I want to close with one observation and one application about Barabbas.

The observation is this, this story with Barabbas is a microcosm of the gospel. It's the gospel in miniature, in a short story.

That the wicked guilty one goes free, while sinless Jesus dies in his place.

That's the gospel. The guilty is set free while Jesus dies in their place.

And the application is this, you are Barabbas. I am Barabbas. Jesus died so that we, the guilty ones, can go free.

And so if you're here today, and it just hits you that you're a Barabbas, maybe for the first time, it's hit you that no,

I'm the guilty one, I'm the sinner. But you know you've never actually been set free because you've never placed your faith in Jesus for salvation.

I want to encourage you, let today be the day of salvation for you. Come talk to me during the song of response or after the service.

But respond to Jesus' call to you today. That you can be the guilty one who goes free because Jesus has died for you.

And if you've been a Christian for a long time, I want to encourage you, don't ever get over the fact. Don't ever lose sight of the fact that even though you were a

Barabbas, Jesus died to set you free.

Let's pray. And Father in heaven, we come to you right now with grateful hearts that Jesus sets us free.

Father, I pray if there's anyone in here who has never been set free by the gospel, by the free grace of Christ, Lord, I pray that they will respond in faith today.

Lord, I pray that we will all flee from the sins of envy and a frenzied lack of self -control and sober -mindedness and cowardice and mockery.

And that you would transform those things and instead, in place of those sins, that we might put on virtues like courage and reverence and a zeal to build one another up and rejoice in the good and advantage and success of others.

Transform us by your grace, I pray, Father. In Christ's name we pray.