Have you ever wondered who truly bears responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus? Beyond historical blame, this question cuts to the heart of Christian faith and personal accountability.
We journey through Mark 15, examining the final hours before Jesus' crucifixion through a lens both historical and deeply personal. As the narrative unfolds, we witness Pilate's moral failure—recognizing Jesus' innocence yet condemning him to satisfy the crowd. This pivotal moment reveals how envy drove the religious leaders and how easily crowds can be manipulated into demanding injustice.
The contrast between destructive envy and sacrificial love emerges as a central theme throughout this account. Where envy acts selfishly, Christ's love gives everything for others' benefit. This distinction challenges us to examine our own motivations and responses to opposition.
Perhaps most relevant to our contemporary experience is the exploration of how Christians should respond when facing ridicule or pressure to compromise. The Roman soldiers' mockery of Jesus—crowning him with thorns, dressing him in purple, and offering false worship—serves as both historical account and cautionary tale. Their behavior reminds us that followers of Christ [The Mesiah] should expect opposition while remaining steadfast.
The seemingly random encounter between Jesus and Simon of Cyrene reveals God's providence working through unexpected circumstances. This Passover pilgrim, forced to carry Christ's cross, was so transformed by the experience that his family became believers, with his son Rufus later recognized as "a choice man in the Lord."
What strikes most profoundly about this passage is how it calls us to critical thinking and spiritual courage. In a world where crowds still follow charismatic but misleading voices, we're challenged to stand firmly on truth, even if standing alone. The crucifixion narrative isn't merely historical—it's a template for faithful discipleship in a hostile world.
Have you reflected lately on how this ancient story continues to shape your response to contemporary challenges? Share your thoughts and join our conversation about standing firm when truth demands it.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
As we pick up our story, we're in Mark, chapter 15
.
Jesus has been arrested by theJewish leaders, he's been sent
to Pilate, and Jesus is now inthe morning of the day of the
cross and he is about to go tohis death.
He's with Pilate being accusedby the Jewish leaders and it's
(00:43):
the last day of his earthly life.
Here, steve, I have a question.
Over the years, there's beenmany people that have wrestled
with the question of who killedJesus.
As we look at that questionbefore us today, over the
centuries some people have said,well, the Jews were responsible
for Jesus' death, and peoplehave accused the Jews of killing
(01:08):
the Savior.
Other people have said, no, itwas the Romans that killed Jesus
.
There's been historical andkind of theological arguments
about it.
But, steve, I know who killedJesus.
Do you know who's responsiblefor Jesus' death?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I have the definitive answer yeah you did and I did,
we all did.
All of those who neededsalvation, who needed a sin debt
paid.
All of us are the ones thatdrove Jesus to the cross.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I am in agreement with that and I'm in agreement
with J Vernon McGee, who said itthis way who killed Jesus?
I did it.
I killed him.
It was my fault.
He was killed because of my sin.
The whole question of whokilled Jesus he voluntarily gave
his life is really the answer.
He gave it for my sin and foryour sin.
(02:01):
Nobody took his life.
He gave it, Even down to thevery end, as we'll see.
He gave up his spirit at thelast on the cross.
The Romans didn't take it, theJews didn't take it.
He was in total control of thetiming and what happened to him
throughout the entire account,and that's what we're going to
see here as we go through this,as we've seen already, there's
(02:23):
been at least twice now where hedid not respond to the
accusations, because Jesus isthe one that's in control here.
The high priest had the titleof the religious leader of the
country.
The Sanhedrin had theresponsibility to make a lot of
rulings.
The Roman governor, Pilate, hadall the army and military power
(02:44):
behind him, but the onestanding here named Jesus.
He was the one that was reallyin control of what was going to
happen.
So we're going to pick up withthis story in Mark, chapter 15.
Steve, can you read from verse6 down to verse 15?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Now, at the feast, he used to release for them any
one prisoner whom they requested.
The man named Barabbas had beenimprisoned with the
insurrectionist who hadcommitted murder in the
insurrection.
The crowd went up and beganasking him to do as he had been
accustomed to do for them.
Pilate answered them saying Doyou want me to release for you
(03:23):
the king of the Jews?
For he was aware that the chiefpriests had handed him over
because of envy.
But the chief priests stirredup the crowd to ask him to
release Barabbas for them.
Instead Answering again, pilatesaid to them Then what shall I
do with him, whom you call theking of the Jews?
They shouted back Crucify him.
(03:45):
But Pilate said to them why?
What evil has he done?
But they shouted all the moreCrucify him.
Wishing to satisfy the crowd,pilate released Barabbas for
them and, after having Jesusscourged, he handed him over to
be crucified.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
With this we have Pilate finally making a decision
.
He's been trying to placate theJews to keep from having a riot
.
Remember, this was the time ofthe feast.
The city was swollen withpeople and Pilate had brought
military troops there just incase there might be a riot.
It would look bad on Pilate tohis superiors if there was a
(04:32):
riot there and he had to quellit or if it got out of control.
Pilate is worried about thatand he's trying to do a little
bit of a dance to try to placateall sides.
He knows that Jesus is innocentand it tells us that in verse
10.
Look at verse 10 and tell us,steve, why did the Jewish
leaders hand Jesus over?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
to the Romans it was because of envy.
Even Pilate could tell that.
The reason why was because ofenvy.
The envy is what he is growinga large following behind them
which, to them, threatened theirauthority that they had over
the people.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
If we look at envy, one of the sins that will really
cause trouble with people, whatwill envy do to a person?
What will envy do to ourjudgment and our ability to look
at the world?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
clearly Causes us to not think straight.
It gets in your mind and startsto work and eat away at you
because you just can't seestraight.
All of a sudden, you justbecome focused on whatever, that
idea or whether that personthat you're looking at, the envy
that's there and it, just likeI said, eats at you and it won't
(05:49):
go away.
If you don't get it undercontrol, then it will cause you
to actually take action againstsomebody or to do something just
like it has caused thisleadership to go to the point
that they want to kill Jesus.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Envy will do great harm to a person.
It clouds our mind and cloudsour judgment.
Envy will cause people to makefoolish financial decisions and
go to financial ruin.
Envy will cause people to pickup a weapon and take an innocent
life.
Envy will cause the destructionof people's lives and
(06:28):
livelihoods and their families.
Envy is a great sin.
It happens largely because ofjealousy and pride and greed.
Now, in contrast to envy, wehave Jesus, who gave his life
out of love to people thatdidn't deserve it, like us.
(06:49):
So if we were to contrast envyand love, what can love do for
people?
That is kind of a contrast toenvy.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Love can cause you to take action also, but the
action that you take is onethat's going to be at the
benefit of the one that you love.
That's the difference.
Envy is taking action to pleaseyourself, Love is taking action
to please the other person.
I think that's the maindividing point between the two.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Look at verse 11.
Verse 11 says the chief priestsstirred up the crowd to ask him
, Pilate, to release Barabbasfor them instead.
Now this is the crowd, andremember the crowd just days
earlier had been cheering Jesuson in the triumphal entry and
had been following Jesus.
(07:41):
Now we have this crowd,probably handpicked by the
Jewish leaders, here, to makethis appearance before Pilate.
But what is the crowd doinghere that would impact Jesus and
why are they doing this?
Why would they call for thisman, Barabbas?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Well, the leadership are going through the crowd and
stirring them up to call for hisrelease.
That's the reason why they'redoing it they're wanting to have
Jesus crucified.
Now, one of the things thattells us about Barabbas through
(08:21):
other texts outside of thescriptures, we are told that his
name is also Yeshua.
Bar Abbas is a Greektransliteration of Bar Abba.
His name is Yeshua from theFather, and there's a little bit
of a play going on here thatyou have a guilty man, an actual
(08:43):
insurrectionist, but the samename, yeshua from the Father,
yet you have Jesus, yeshua, whois actually from God, the Father
, yet the people are calling forthe guilty man's freedom and
for the innocent man to be putto death.
That's the behind the scenes ofwhat's actually going on here.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
We have, of course, the chief priests, who are
having a somewhat of a financialbut a power struggle here with
Jesus.
Jesus had been having thesecrowds and they were envious.
That's why they were envious.
They also didn't like Jesusclaiming to be God Almighty
envious.
They also didn't like Jesusclaiming to be God Almighty.
(09:29):
They go to Pilate, trump upthese charges to get him killed.
In order to emphasize this,they handpick a group of people
and whip them up into anemotional frenzy in front of
Pilate to try to get their willdone.
Now we have to ask ourselves.
If we look at history somewhatobjectively, we see several
times in history where it's nothard to find, where large
(09:50):
populations, even in a country,will get whipped up into a fear
or an anger and they will dothings that are just not right.
They will do sinful things.
So as Christians, we should notbe in a position to be whipped
up like these people to call forthe death of an innocent man
(10:11):
and release of a guilty man.
Remember it says here thatduring the feast that this was a
special time of the year Pilatehad a custom of placating the
crowds by releasing someone thathe had arrested.
It was generally someone that.
Okay.
This is going to make us happybecause this person we like has
been released and is no longerin prison.
(10:33):
So Pilate was doing these typeof things to try to placate the
Jews.
So Pilate realizes Jesus isinnocent and the priest had
brought him there for an enviousreason.
Pilate says ah, I know what I'lldo.
I'll give him a choice.
I'll pick the worst of the guysand Jesus and see if they pick
(10:55):
Jesus.
Well, the chief priest whippedup the crowd to choose the
murderer, barabbas instead ofJesus.
So the question before us isnow how can we keep from being
somebody in this crowd, howcould we keep from being
manipulated by somebody that'san emotional leader to follow
(11:19):
along with the crowd?
Because we've all seen this inhistory.
There's been times where crowdsget very angry, very, very
afraid, and the crowd will dothings that we, as Christians,
shouldn't do.
How can we, as Christians, keepa level head and not follow
along with the crowd wheneveryone else?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
is doing something.
First is to hold our leadershipaccountable.
The way to do that is to knowyourself what the truth is.
Through that, you can be ableto evaluate whether the
leadership is leading you astrayor not.
Pilate, very obviously here,tells us so why.
What evil has he done?
He is giving this crowd reasonsto doubt the leadership that is
(12:03):
whipping them up into thisfrenzy.
That, to me, is the very basicthing is know the truth in
regards to Scripture.
Know the Scripture on our own.
We have our own responsibilityto know the Scripture, and then
we can know whether or not we'rebeing led astray.
The second part, then, is justthat to then stand up and call
(12:29):
the leadership out and say waita minute, I don't think what
you're saying is what we shoulddo, and here's the reasons why
we shouldn't do that.
So you have to take a standsometimes, whenever you know the
actual truth and yourleadership is taking you in a
wrong direction.
You need to stand up for thetruth, I think.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
That's exactly it.
Every Christian needs to bementally and spiritually
prepared to, if the time arises,to stand up and hold for what
we know is right, what we holdthe scriptures to be right, even
if everyone else goes the otherdirection.
We need to be prepared if itarises to stand alone.
(13:12):
We need to be prepared to standup and stand on the Word of God
, even if we're the only onesdoing that.
We need to be prepared if ourchurch goes astray.
We might be the only one thatwould stand up if our culture
goes astray, if our family goesastray.
I think, steve, god even putsus in situations like this
(13:32):
sometimes just to see our faith.
I mean, that was similar towhat Job did.
Job stood firm with his faith.
Now, job asked some questionsthat God didn't think was very
wise questions, but I think Godputs us in trials to prove our
faith.
There's going to be times.
This is something we shouldteach to our young people.
Teach the next generation standup for what's right, even if
(13:55):
you are the only one.
If you were the last personleft on earth that was standing
for the truth of the Scripture,would you hold firm?
And you need to be prepared todo that.
Well, it tells us.
Then, if we back to the text,verse 15 tells us why Pilate
released Barabbas.
He says here wishing to satisfythe crowd, pilate released
(14:17):
Barabbas.
Pilate caved.
Pilate gave in to the crowd.
Pilate knew Jesus was innocent.
He knew that these were falseaccusations.
He knew that the Jewish leadershad brought an innocent man to
him and accused him because ofenvy.
(14:38):
But because of the crowd, hegave in and he knowingly
released a murderer andcondemned an innocent man to
death.
Steve, I see here Pilate as aman who did not have the
internal resolve to stand up anddo what's right.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
In one of the other Gospels.
It records that he went over toa wash basin and symbolically
washed his hands as he condemnedJesus and sent him out to be
crucified to say, in essence, myhands are free of this man's
blood.
But what you said is exactlyright, glenn.
(15:16):
He caved.
He still had the ability to saythis man's innocent.
Nothing has been proven to methat he's guilty.
I'm going to release him, buthe didn't do that.
So he is guilty on that accountof sending an innocent man to
their death.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
It says there in verse 15, wishing to satisfy the
crowd.
What does that tell you aboutPilate's motivations?
I think he was motivated moreby trying to keep the peace than
he was about truth and justice.
He was there to keep the peace,even if it meant condemning an
innocent man to death.
Our leaders today should be in aposition to do what is right,
(15:57):
even if the crowd goes anotherdirection.
Our church leaders should dothis.
Our national leaders should dothis.
Our national leaders should dothis.
We need leaders that areinterested in doing what's right
, what's good, what's justbefore God, rather than what's
popular to the people.
Someday, we will stand before aholy God.
(16:17):
We're going to get called inbefore him and he's going to ask
us what did you do with thetruth that I gave you?
I submit we need to have ananswer that's better than what
Pilate's going to ask us whatdid you do with the truth that I
gave you?
I submit we need to have ananswer that's better than what
Pilate's going to have to answer.
How do we keep as regularpeople some of us are leaders.
Some of us are regular peoplehow do we, as regular people,
keep from being swayed byleaders that are going off track
(16:40):
, because that's what happenedto the crowd.
The Jewish leaders were tryingto influence them and there's no
indication here in the textthat there's one guy in the back
saying, raising his hand,saying wait a minute.
I don't think we ought to dothis.
No, they seem to all go alongwith these leaders that are in
the wrong direction.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Along with what I mentioned earlier about studying
Scripture and knowing whatScripture says, so that we can
hold the leadership accountable.
I think, glenn, anotherpractical thing is just critical
thinking.
Critical thinking is to takeand look at all of the subject
matter and the pros and the consof a situation, then put it
(17:21):
together and say does this makesense?
Critical thinking used to betaught whenever you and I were
in school.
Somewhere along the way, I knowas far as my children, they
really stopped teaching criticalthinking as a course in all
classes.
I really don't know why they'vedone that that.
(17:49):
But critical thinking, by itsvery name, means that you're
going to be critical of anythingthat's given to you.
You're going to think itthrough Beyond just studying the
scriptures from a religiousstandpoint, on a secular
standpoint of our leadership.
We don't need to just takewhatever they say because we
like them.
Many times we get on a dividingline and because a leader is of
a particular organization thatwe are behind and we like, and
(18:13):
another leader is of anorganization that we don't like,
we automatically divide theleadership that way and say, oh,
I'm going to follow this leaderbecause he belongs to the
organization I like, andanything the other guy says I'm
not going to like.
That's wrong.
We should take both sides asfar as the information that's
given to us any information lookat it critically and make a
(18:37):
decision Is it truthful, is itnot truthful, what is wrong with
it, what's not wrong with it,and then make a decision based
off of what the thought processthat we have put into it, not
based off of just followingleaders blindly and doing
whatever they say and believingeverything that they might tell
us, and it's not just a lessonfor kids, it's a lesson for all
(19:04):
of us.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
We need to be ready, if necessary, to stand alone on
the Word of God.
As the account goes on,starting in verse 16, we have an
even uglier scene.
Pilate turns Jesus over to becrucified.
So now the rough, crudesoldiers have their way with him
(19:28):
.
Reading now in Mark 15,starting in verse 16, the
soldiers took him away into thepalace, that is, the praetorium,
and they called together thewhole Roman cohort.
They dressed him up in purpleand, after twisting a crown of
thorns, they put it on him andthey began to acclaim him Hail,
king of the Jews.
They kept beating his head witha reed and spitting on him and
kneeling and bowing before him.
(19:49):
After they had mocked him, theytook the purple robe off him,
put on his own garments and theyled him out to crucify him.
They pressed into service apasserby coming from the country
, simon of Cyrene, the father ofAlexander and Rufus, to bear
his cross.
With this these soldiers aredoing what to Jesus, steve?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
They're mocking and making fun of him.
It goes back to the questionthat you asked earlier how does
the secular world treatChristians?
This is it.
This is one way.
These Roman soldiers havenothing to do with Judaism, nor
the Messiah that Jesus isclaiming to be, or the King of
(20:33):
the Jews.
They're in control, they'reoccupiers of the country, so
they feel that they can dowhatever they want to do.
They have no qualms aboutmocking him and making fun of
him because they're superior.
They're very much representing,I think, the world in and of
themselves.
The world thinks in generalthat it's superior to Christian
(20:57):
and Christian thought.
Here they mock him and thenthey also beat him and make fun
of him.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
These were soldiers.
These were Roman soldiers.
All soldiers are generallytrained killers.
That's what their job is.
These were rough, crude men whohad a rough, crude job.
It was their job to be solethal that nobody would
challenge them.
That's the job of most soldiers.
Most soldiers that are truewarriors are generally not
(21:25):
designed for refined genteelhalls with manners.
These are people who's trainedto be executioners, trained to
be killers.
And, steve, you alluded to thefact that they thought they
could do anything they wanted,simply because usually they
could.
They could pretty much bosspeople around within very few
limits.
(21:45):
They could do what they wantedwith the Jewish population.
These were rough, crude,sadistic men who were doing
rough things to our Lord.
Think of this.
They took the most righteousand holy man in the universe and
they made crude sport with him.
They beat Jesus until his facedid not look like a man.
(22:08):
They whipped him until his backwas just an open sore, an open
meat, just bleeding sores on hisback.
One reason the disciples wereso humiliated and so fearful
after Jesus' death was becauseof the severe nature of the
beatings that Jesus got on thecross.
(22:30):
The beatings that startedearlier in the high priest's
residence now continue here.
These gentlemen that were thesoldiers were no gentlemen at
all.
They were rough, crude,sadistic men.
In verse 17, they put on apurple robe and a crown of
thorns and our translation saysthey beat him with a reed.
(22:51):
Well, really, it was a rod.
This was something that youcould break open flesh with if
you used it just right.
The wisest and most noble andmost pure holy being in the
universe allowed himself to beridiculed.
The thorns were not small.
These tore the skin, tore thescalp open.
(23:12):
The rod was severe, thewhippings was severe.
So I just see the contrast here, steve.
We have Jesus as holy and pureand righteous and good and all
that that represents.
He was those things and hevoluntarily submits himself to
(23:33):
these rough, crude, sadistic mento be spit upon, to be
ridiculed, to be beaten, and thecontrast could not be greater.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Jesus had taught his disciples earlier that there's
going to come a time wheneveryou're going to be turned over
to the enemy and that they'regoing to beat you.
Remember whenever John andJames said, Lord, whenever you
come into your kingdom, we wantto sit on your right and your
left.
And he said are you going to beable to be immersed or be
(24:05):
baptized in the cup that I'mabout to bear?
And they said, oh yeah, sure.
Well, here is part of the cupthat he's bearing, he told him.
He said you surely will bebaptized in it.
You surely will be baptized init.
You surely will be immersed init.
Some of those disciples most ofthem, did die in cruel ways.
Glenn, this is also theleadership of the Jews.
(24:29):
This shows how low they havestooped to get Jesus killed.
It's not just Jesus thatthey're beating and making fun
of here.
He's a Jew.
They're also doing it becauseof that.
And there was this tensionbetween the Roman occupation and
(24:50):
the Jewish people, and theJewish leadership knew that they
didn't like the Romans and thepeople didn't like the Roman
occupation because, given achance, this is how they were
treated.
Pilate was not known as beingkind to the Jewish people.
This is a picture also to me ofhow low the leadership has done
(25:11):
to submit themselves to thisRoman authority just so they can
get rid of Jesus.
Because, given the chance, ifthey're ever brought before
Pilate and they're convicted,they might just be treated the
same way as these soldiers aretreating them.
But yet they don't care.
(25:31):
They throw that aside becausethey want Jesus gone and done
with.
Why?
Because they were envious.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
When I was a kid I had a teenager that was older
than me at the time spit in myface.
I could smell it for many years.
If I think about it now, Icould still smell the spit on
your face.
It's very, very humiliating.
These men then, it says, took apurple robe.
Purple was for royalty.
They took a purple robe andthey they made a crown of thorns
(25:59):
and they mocked him andpretended to bow down and
worship this Jewish person.
Now I get the contrast To thesesoldiers.
This was a poor, itinerantrabbi and there was nothing
royal about him.
These men were entirelyridiculing our Lord and they
were doing so with false worship.
(26:21):
It was fake, it wasn't reallyreal.
And if I were to ask myself, isthere anybody in our day that's
doing false worship, that's justgoing through the motions, like
these soldiers were?
I find that it's true, and thefirst person I see that's just
gone through the motions ofworship is when I look in the
mirror it's me.
I found myself being equallybad as far as just going through
(26:45):
the motions at times.
There's been times in my lifewhere I went through true
worship and really felt goodthat I was honoring God with my
worship.
There's other times when I'veleft worship service saying you
know, if I'm honest with myself,I was just going through the
motions.
So I think all of us need to askourselves and be honest when I
go into worship.
(27:06):
Am I just going through themotions or am I truly honoring
the God of the universe andgiving him what I need?
Steve, I know I've been guiltyof just going through the
motions and I suspect we've gotlisteners out there that at
times they've just gone throughthe motions.
I know there's churches outthere that don't do proper
(27:27):
worship.
How should we, as people, notdeal with our feelings?
We don't worship just becauseof how I feel and get more
emotional, but we worship intruth.
How can I truly worship God theway he deserves it To?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
understand this description here.
What he went through and thisbeating that he took.
It's something that is reallyindescribable as to the pain and
the suffering that he took.
And he did that for us.
He did that so that we might beable to have eternal life.
(28:05):
He did that so that we could befound righteous, or reckoned
righteous, as it's put, that Godreckoned righteousness to
Abraham whenever he believed.
This isn't even the worst of it.
We're going to read in the nextsection the actual crucifixion,
and we'll talk about thatprocess when we get to it.
(28:26):
This isn't even the worst of it, but, like you said, his face
was beat to a bloody pulp,unrecognizable, and his back,
the same way, was just a meathanging off of it because of the
scourging that was done to himprior to that.
It gets back to your questionhow do we worship?
(28:46):
We don't really fullyunderstand what Jesus Christ,
the Messiah, went through inorder to provide for us a path
of salvation and to be able tohave a relationship with him.
We need to stop and ponder thismore often, what he has done.
Then I think we can truly getto a place where we can worship
(29:11):
and honor him.
Let's not be like the otherpeople and just kind of go
across this and say, oh yeah, hedied for our sins.
It was more than that.
He suffered for our sins and weneed to acknowledge that so
that I think we can properlyworship him.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Here in this account, they ridiculed our Lord.
The question we need to ask isif they ridiculed our Lord, what
are they going to do to me andwhat are they going to do to you
?
Can we, as Christians, gothrough life expecting to be
treated any differently?
I submit some people will treatus with respect, but some
people will ridicule us for nomore nor less than we are
(29:51):
followers and disciples ofChrist.
We should expect to receivesome ridicule in the world.
The question then becomes howshould I react, not if, but when
I get some ridicule from theworld?
How can I react?
Can I still continue to doChristian ministry even though
there's people that are pokingfun and trying to ridicule and
(30:13):
trying to stop the work?
I submit we can.
Whatever we go through, there'sno different than what other
Christians have followed sincethe beginning of the church.
Even our Lord got worse thananything we'll get.
So the ridicule should beexpected and it shouldn't
surprise us, and we should beable to keep doing Christian
(30:35):
ministry.
Don't you think, steve?
I do agree with that.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
We just got to put our faith and trust in God's
calling of us, of whatever it isfor us to do, and realize that
there are people and Christiansin other parts of the world that
face this type of a persecutionand even death a lot more often
than what you and I ever have.
(31:00):
We see them that they take itand they don't renounce their
faith.
I think we can takeencouragement from them.
If they can stay faithful tothe Christian cause and the
Christian mission, then mostcertainly we can whenever we get
a little bit of pushback on oursin.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
At the end of this little section we read verse 21,
.
The Lord was so weak that hecouldn't carry his cross.
The Roman soldiers grabbedsomeone that was just a
bystander and put him intoservice carrying the cross.
The prisoners generally carriedtheir crosses.
Jesus had been beaten so muchand for so long, and he'd been
(31:40):
up all night and he had lost somuch blood that he was too weak
to carry the cross.
They grabbed this man that wasjust a bystander, simon of
Cyrene, and get him to help.
That tells us a couple ofthings.
One is that our Lord was soweak and had lost so much blood
by this point that he couldbarely walk, let alone carry a
(32:01):
cross.
Next, the little parentheses.
Here, simon of Cyrene was thefather of Alexander and Rufus.
Well, why would it mention that?
Well, these men had toobviously be well-known in the
church.
And if we turn over to Romans16, verse 13, we find that Rufus
was a prominent member of theRoman church.
(32:23):
We have here, if we read alittle bit between the lines,
this man, simon, was there withhis sons going to the Passover.
And of course, things aren'tjust happened.
They happened by God'sprovidence that he was standing
right there at the right momentand got picked.
It must have profoundlyaffected this man's life, this
man, simon of Cyrene, seeing theLord and carrying his cross.
(32:46):
We can imagine him going backhome and telling the story to
his wife.
It changed his life forever.
He raised his sons in thechurch and they became at least
Rufus became a prominent memberin the church.
There is an Alexander as well.
Late in the epistles that wassomeone to be avoided.
The apostle Paul says watch outfor Alexander.
(33:06):
He did me much harm.
We don't know much more thanthat, but we know that they were
in the church and this man,simon of Cyrene, was greatly
affected by this experience andlet me just real quickly read
that verse, glenn, romans 16, 13.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Read Rufus a choice man in the Lord, also his mother
and mine.
So I think you're right.
It did affect Simon so much tothe point that his family became
believers in the Lord JesusChrist.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Our Lord is now bleeding and on his way to the
cross.
It's a very ugly scene, but thedeath on the cross is both
extremely ugly and also quiteprofound.
It's beautiful for us who hadour sins washed away because of
it, and we'll see that next timeon Reasoning Through the Bible.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Thank you so much for watching and listening.
May God bless you.
As we pick up our story, we're in Mark, chapter 15
.
Jesus has been arrested by theJewish leaders, he's been sent
to Pilate, and Jesus is now inthe morning of the day of the
cross and he is about to go tohis death.
He's with Pilate being accusedby the Jewish leaders and it's
(00:43):
the last day of his earthly life.
Here, steve, I have a question.
Over the years, there's beenmany people that have wrestled
with the question of who killedJesus.
As we look at that questionbefore us today, over the
centuries some people have said,well, the Jews were responsible
for Jesus' death, and peoplehave accused the Jews of killing
(01:08):
the Savior.
Other people have said, no, itwas the Romans that killed Jesus
.
There's been historical andkind of theological arguments
about it.
But, steve, I know who killedJesus.
Do you know who's responsiblefor Jesus' death?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I have the definitive answer yeah you did and I did,
we all did.
All of those who neededsalvation, who needed a sin debt
paid.
All of us are the ones thatdrove Jesus to the cross.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I am in agreement with that and I'm in agreement
with J Vernon McGee, who said itthis way who killed Jesus?
I did it.
I killed him.
It was my fault.
He was killed because of my sin.
The whole question of whokilled Jesus he voluntarily gave
his life is really the answer.
He gave it for my sin and foryour sin.
(02:01):
Nobody took his life.
He gave it, Even down to thevery end, as we'll see.
He gave up his spirit at thelast on the cross.
The Romans didn't take it, theJews didn't take it.
He was in total control of thetiming and what happened to him
throughout the entire account,and that's what we're going to
see here as we go through this,as we've seen already, there's
(02:23):
been at least twice now where hedid not respond to the
accusations, because Jesus isthe one that's in control here.
The high priest had the titleof the religious leader of the
country.
The Sanhedrin had theresponsibility to make a lot of
rulings.
The Roman governor, Pilate, hadall the army and military power
(02:44):
behind him, but the onestanding here named Jesus.
He was the one that was reallyin control of what was going to
happen.
So we're going to pick up withthis story in Mark, chapter 15.
Steve, can you read from verse6 down to verse 15?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Now, at the feast, he used to release for them any
one prisoner whom they requested.
The man named Barabbas had beenimprisoned with the
insurrectionist who hadcommitted murder in the
insurrection.
The crowd went up and beganasking him to do as he had been
accustomed to do for them.
Pilate answered them saying Doyou want me to release for you
(03:23):
the king of the Jews?
For he was aware that the chiefpriests had handed him over
because of envy.
But the chief priests stirredup the crowd to ask him to
release Barabbas for them.
Instead Answering again, pilatesaid to them Then what shall I
do with him, whom you call theking of the Jews?
They shouted back Crucify him.
(03:45):
But Pilate said to them why?
What evil has he done?
But they shouted all the moreCrucify him.
Wishing to satisfy the crowd,pilate released Barabbas for
them and, after having Jesusscourged, he handed him over to
be crucified.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
With this we have Pilate finally making a decision
.
He's been trying to placate theJews to keep from having a riot
.
Remember, this was the time ofthe feast.
The city was swollen withpeople and Pilate had brought
military troops there just incase there might be a riot.
It would look bad on Pilate tohis superiors if there was a
(04:32):
riot there and he had to quellit or if it got out of control.
Pilate is worried about thatand he's trying to do a little
bit of a dance to try to placateall sides.
He knows that Jesus is innocentand it tells us that in verse
10.
Look at verse 10 and tell us,steve, why did the Jewish
leaders hand Jesus over?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
to the Romans it was because of envy.
Even Pilate could tell that.
The reason why was because ofenvy.
The envy is what he is growinga large following behind them
which, to them, threatened theirauthority that they had over
the people.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
If we look at envy, one of the sins that will really
cause trouble with people, whatwill envy do to a person?
What will envy do to ourjudgment and our ability to look
at the world?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
clearly Causes us to not think straight.
It gets in your mind and startsto work and eat away at you
because you just can't seestraight.
All of a sudden, you justbecome focused on whatever, that
idea or whether that personthat you're looking at, the envy
that's there and it, just likeI said, eats at you and it won't
(05:49):
go away.
If you don't get it undercontrol, then it will cause you
to actually take action againstsomebody or to do something just
like it has caused thisleadership to go to the point
that they want to kill Jesus.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Envy will do great harm to a person.
It clouds our mind and cloudsour judgment.
Envy will cause people to makefoolish financial decisions and
go to financial ruin.
Envy will cause people to pickup a weapon and take an innocent
life.
Envy will cause the destructionof people's lives and
(06:28):
livelihoods and their families.
Envy is a great sin.
It happens largely because ofjealousy and pride and greed.
Now, in contrast to envy, wehave Jesus, who gave his life
out of love to people thatdidn't deserve it, like us.
(06:49):
So if we were to contrast envyand love, what can love do for
people?
That is kind of a contrast toenvy.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Love can cause you to take action also, but the
action that you take is onethat's going to be at the
benefit of the one that you love.
That's the difference.
Envy is taking action to pleaseyourself, Love is taking action
to please the other person.
I think that's the maindividing point between the two.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Look at verse 11.
Verse 11 says the chief priestsstirred up the crowd to ask him
, Pilate, to release Barabbasfor them instead.
Now this is the crowd, andremember the crowd just days
earlier had been cheering Jesuson in the triumphal entry and
had been following Jesus.
(07:41):
Now we have this crowd,probably handpicked by the
Jewish leaders, here, to makethis appearance before Pilate.
But what is the crowd doinghere that would impact Jesus and
why are they doing this?
Why would they call for thisman, Barabbas?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Well, the leadership are going through the crowd and
stirring them up to call for hisrelease.
That's the reason why they'redoing it they're wanting to have
Jesus crucified.
Now, one of the things thattells us about Barabbas through
(08:21):
other texts outside of thescriptures, we are told that his
name is also Yeshua.
Bar Abbas is a Greektransliteration of Bar Abba.
His name is Yeshua from theFather, and there's a little bit
of a play going on here thatyou have a guilty man, an actual
(08:43):
insurrectionist, but the samename, yeshua from the Father,
yet you have Jesus, yeshua, whois actually from God, the Father
, yet the people are calling forthe guilty man's freedom and
for the innocent man to be putto death.
That's the behind the scenes ofwhat's actually going on here.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
We have, of course, the chief priests, who are
having a somewhat of a financialbut a power struggle here with
Jesus.
Jesus had been having thesecrowds and they were envious.
That's why they were envious.
They also didn't like Jesusclaiming to be God Almighty
envious.
They also didn't like Jesusclaiming to be God Almighty.
(09:29):
They go to Pilate, trump upthese charges to get him killed.
In order to emphasize this,they handpick a group of people
and whip them up into anemotional frenzy in front of
Pilate to try to get their willdone.
Now we have to ask ourselves.
If we look at history somewhatobjectively, we see several
times in history where it's nothard to find, where large
(09:50):
populations, even in a country,will get whipped up into a fear
or an anger and they will dothings that are just not right.
They will do sinful things.
So as Christians, we should notbe in a position to be whipped
up like these people to call forthe death of an innocent man
(10:11):
and release of a guilty man.
Remember it says here thatduring the feast that this was a
special time of the year Pilatehad a custom of placating the
crowds by releasing someone thathe had arrested.
It was generally someone that.
Okay.
This is going to make us happybecause this person we like has
been released and is no longerin prison.
(10:33):
So Pilate was doing these typeof things to try to placate the
Jews.
So Pilate realizes Jesus isinnocent and the priest had
brought him there for an enviousreason.
Pilate says ah, I know what I'lldo.
I'll give him a choice.
I'll pick the worst of the guysand Jesus and see if they pick
(10:55):
Jesus.
Well, the chief priest whippedup the crowd to choose the
murderer, barabbas instead ofJesus.
So the question before us isnow how can we keep from being
somebody in this crowd, howcould we keep from being
manipulated by somebody that'san emotional leader to follow
(11:19):
along with the crowd?
Because we've all seen this inhistory.
There's been times where crowdsget very angry, very, very
afraid, and the crowd will dothings that we, as Christians,
shouldn't do.
How can we, as Christians, keepa level head and not follow
along with the crowd wheneveryone else?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
is doing something.
First is to hold our leadershipaccountable.
The way to do that is to knowyourself what the truth is.
Through that, you can be ableto evaluate whether the
leadership is leading you astrayor not.
Pilate, very obviously here,tells us so why.
What evil has he done?
He is giving this crowd reasonsto doubt the leadership that is
(12:03):
whipping them up into thisfrenzy.
That, to me, is the very basicthing is know the truth in
regards to Scripture.
Know the Scripture on our own.
We have our own responsibilityto know the Scripture, and then
we can know whether or not we'rebeing led astray.
The second part, then, is justthat to then stand up and call
(12:29):
the leadership out and say waita minute, I don't think what
you're saying is what we shoulddo, and here's the reasons why
we shouldn't do that.
So you have to take a standsometimes, whenever you know the
actual truth and yourleadership is taking you in a
wrong direction.
You need to stand up for thetruth, I think.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
That's exactly it.
Every Christian needs to bementally and spiritually
prepared to, if the time arises,to stand up and hold for what
we know is right, what we holdthe scriptures to be right, even
if everyone else goes the otherdirection.
We need to be prepared if itarises to stand alone.
(13:12):
We need to be prepared to standup and stand on the Word of God
, even if we're the only onesdoing that.
We need to be prepared if ourchurch goes astray.
We might be the only one thatwould stand up if our culture
goes astray, if our family goesastray.
I think, steve, god even putsus in situations like this
(13:32):
sometimes just to see our faith.
I mean, that was similar towhat Job did.
Job stood firm with his faith.
Now, job asked some questionsthat God didn't think was very
wise questions, but I think Godputs us in trials to prove our
faith.
There's going to be times.
This is something we shouldteach to our young people.
Teach the next generation standup for what's right, even if
(13:55):
you are the only one.
If you were the last personleft on earth that was standing
for the truth of the Scripture,would you hold firm?
And you need to be prepared todo that.
Well, it tells us.
Then, if we back to the text,verse 15 tells us why Pilate
released Barabbas.
He says here wishing to satisfythe crowd, pilate released
(14:17):
Barabbas.
Pilate caved.
Pilate gave in to the crowd.
Pilate knew Jesus was innocent.
He knew that these were falseaccusations.
He knew that the Jewish leadershad brought an innocent man to
him and accused him because ofenvy.
(14:38):
But because of the crowd, hegave in and he knowingly
released a murderer andcondemned an innocent man to
death.
Steve, I see here Pilate as aman who did not have the
internal resolve to stand up anddo what's right.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
In one of the other Gospels.
It records that he went over toa wash basin and symbolically
washed his hands as he condemnedJesus and sent him out to be
crucified to say, in essence, myhands are free of this man's
blood.
But what you said is exactlyright, glenn.
(15:16):
He caved.
He still had the ability to saythis man's innocent.
Nothing has been proven to methat he's guilty.
I'm going to release him, buthe didn't do that.
So he is guilty on that accountof sending an innocent man to
their death.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
It says there in verse 15, wishing to satisfy the
crowd.
What does that tell you aboutPilate's motivations?
I think he was motivated moreby trying to keep the peace than
he was about truth and justice.
He was there to keep the peace,even if it meant condemning an
innocent man to death.
Our leaders today should be in aposition to do what is right,
(15:57):
even if the crowd goes anotherdirection.
Our church leaders should dothis.
Our national leaders should dothis.
Our national leaders should dothis.
We need leaders that areinterested in doing what's right
, what's good, what's justbefore God, rather than what's
popular to the people.
Someday, we will stand before aholy God.
(16:17):
We're going to get called inbefore him and he's going to ask
us what did you do with thetruth that I gave you?
I submit we need to have ananswer that's better than what
Pilate's going to ask us whatdid you do with the truth that I
gave you?
I submit we need to have ananswer that's better than what
Pilate's going to have to answer.
How do we keep as regularpeople some of us are leaders.
Some of us are regular peoplehow do we, as regular people,
keep from being swayed byleaders that are going off track
(16:40):
, because that's what happenedto the crowd.
The Jewish leaders were tryingto influence them and there's no
indication here in the textthat there's one guy in the back
saying, raising his hand,saying wait a minute.
I don't think we ought to dothis.
No, they seem to all go alongwith these leaders that are in
the wrong direction.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Along with what I mentioned earlier about studying
Scripture and knowing whatScripture says, so that we can
hold the leadership accountable.
I think, glenn, anotherpractical thing is just critical
thinking.
Critical thinking is to takeand look at all of the subject
matter and the pros and the consof a situation, then put it
(17:21):
together and say does this makesense?
Critical thinking used to betaught whenever you and I were
in school.
Somewhere along the way, I knowas far as my children, they
really stopped teaching criticalthinking as a course in all
classes.
I really don't know why they'vedone that that.
(17:49):
But critical thinking, by itsvery name, means that you're
going to be critical of anythingthat's given to you.
You're going to think itthrough Beyond just studying the
scriptures from a religiousstandpoint, on a secular
standpoint of our leadership.
We don't need to just takewhatever they say because we
like them.
Many times we get on a dividingline and because a leader is of
a particular organization thatwe are behind and we like, and
(18:13):
another leader is of anorganization that we don't like,
we automatically divide theleadership that way and say, oh,
I'm going to follow this leaderbecause he belongs to the
organization I like, andanything the other guy says I'm
not going to like.
That's wrong.
We should take both sides asfar as the information that's
given to us any information lookat it critically and make a
(18:37):
decision Is it truthful, is itnot truthful, what is wrong with
it, what's not wrong with it,and then make a decision based
off of what the thought processthat we have put into it, not
based off of just followingleaders blindly and doing
whatever they say and believingeverything that they might tell
us, and it's not just a lessonfor kids, it's a lesson for all
(19:04):
of us.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
We need to be ready, if necessary, to stand alone on
the Word of God.
As the account goes on,starting in verse 16, we have an
even uglier scene.
Pilate turns Jesus over to becrucified.
So now the rough, crudesoldiers have their way with him
(19:28):
.
Reading now in Mark 15,starting in verse 16, the
soldiers took him away into thepalace, that is, the praetorium,
and they called together thewhole Roman cohort.
They dressed him up in purpleand, after twisting a crown of
thorns, they put it on him andthey began to acclaim him Hail,
king of the Jews.
They kept beating his head witha reed and spitting on him and
kneeling and bowing before him.
(19:49):
After they had mocked him, theytook the purple robe off him,
put on his own garments and theyled him out to crucify him.
They pressed into service apasserby coming from the country
, simon of Cyrene, the father ofAlexander and Rufus, to bear
his cross.
With this these soldiers aredoing what to Jesus, steve?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
They're mocking and making fun of him.
It goes back to the questionthat you asked earlier how does
the secular world treatChristians?
This is it.
This is one way.
These Roman soldiers havenothing to do with Judaism, nor
the Messiah that Jesus isclaiming to be, or the King of
(20:33):
the Jews.
They're in control, they'reoccupiers of the country, so
they feel that they can dowhatever they want to do.
They have no qualms aboutmocking him and making fun of
him because they're superior.
They're very much representing,I think, the world in and of
themselves.
The world thinks in generalthat it's superior to Christian
(20:57):
and Christian thought.
Here they mock him and thenthey also beat him and make fun
of him.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
These were soldiers.
These were Roman soldiers.
All soldiers are generallytrained killers.
That's what their job is.
These were rough, crude men whohad a rough, crude job.
It was their job to be solethal that nobody would
challenge them.
That's the job of most soldiers.
Most soldiers that are truewarriors are generally not
(21:25):
designed for refined genteelhalls with manners.
These are people who's trainedto be executioners, trained to
be killers.
And, steve, you alluded to thefact that they thought they
could do anything they wanted,simply because usually they
could.
They could pretty much bosspeople around within very few
limits.
(21:45):
They could do what they wantedwith the Jewish population.
These were rough, crude,sadistic men who were doing
rough things to our Lord.
Think of this.
They took the most righteousand holy man in the universe and
they made crude sport with him.
They beat Jesus until his facedid not look like a man.
(22:08):
They whipped him until his backwas just an open sore, an open
meat, just bleeding sores on hisback.
One reason the disciples wereso humiliated and so fearful
after Jesus' death was becauseof the severe nature of the
beatings that Jesus got on thecross.
(22:30):
The beatings that startedearlier in the high priest's
residence now continue here.
These gentlemen that were thesoldiers were no gentlemen at
all.
They were rough, crude,sadistic men.
In verse 17, they put on apurple robe and a crown of
thorns and our translation saysthey beat him with a reed.
(22:51):
Well, really, it was a rod.
This was something that youcould break open flesh with if
you used it just right.
The wisest and most noble andmost pure holy being in the
universe allowed himself to beridiculed.
The thorns were not small.
These tore the skin, tore thescalp open.
(23:12):
The rod was severe, thewhippings was severe.
So I just see the contrast here, steve.
We have Jesus as holy and pureand righteous and good and all
that that represents.
He was those things and hevoluntarily submits himself to
(23:33):
these rough, crude, sadistic mento be spit upon, to be
ridiculed, to be beaten, and thecontrast could not be greater.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Jesus had taught his disciples earlier that there's
going to come a time wheneveryou're going to be turned over
to the enemy and that they'regoing to beat you.
Remember whenever John andJames said, Lord, whenever you
come into your kingdom, we wantto sit on your right and your
left.
And he said are you going to beable to be immersed or be
(24:05):
baptized in the cup that I'mabout to bear?
And they said, oh yeah, sure.
Well, here is part of the cupthat he's bearing, he told him.
He said you surely will bebaptized in it.
You surely will be baptized init.
You surely will be immersed init.
Some of those disciples most ofthem, did die in cruel ways.
Glenn, this is also theleadership of the Jews.
(24:29):
This shows how low they havestooped to get Jesus killed.
It's not just Jesus thatthey're beating and making fun
of here.
He's a Jew.
They're also doing it becauseof that.
And there was this tensionbetween the Roman occupation and
(24:50):
the Jewish people, and theJewish leadership knew that they
didn't like the Romans and thepeople didn't like the Roman
occupation because, given achance, this is how they were
treated.
Pilate was not known as beingkind to the Jewish people.
This is a picture also to me ofhow low the leadership has done
(25:11):
to submit themselves to thisRoman authority just so they can
get rid of Jesus.
Because, given the chance, ifthey're ever brought before
Pilate and they're convicted,they might just be treated the
same way as these soldiers aretreating them.
But yet they don't care.
(25:31):
They throw that aside becausethey want Jesus gone and done
with.
Why?
Because they were envious.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
When I was a kid I had a teenager that was older
than me at the time spit in myface.
I could smell it for many years.
If I think about it now, Icould still smell the spit on
your face.
It's very, very humiliating.
These men then, it says, took apurple robe.
Purple was for royalty.
They took a purple robe andthey they made a crown of thorns
(25:59):
and they mocked him andpretended to bow down and
worship this Jewish person.
Now I get the contrast To thesesoldiers.
This was a poor, itinerantrabbi and there was nothing
royal about him.
These men were entirelyridiculing our Lord and they
were doing so with false worship.
(26:21):
It was fake, it wasn't reallyreal.
And if I were to ask myself, isthere anybody in our day that's
doing false worship, that's justgoing through the motions, like
these soldiers were?
I find that it's true, and thefirst person I see that's just
gone through the motions ofworship is when I look in the
mirror it's me.
I found myself being equallybad as far as just going through
(26:45):
the motions at times.
There's been times in my lifewhere I went through true
worship and really felt goodthat I was honoring God with my
worship.
There's other times when I'veleft worship service saying you
know, if I'm honest with myself,I was just going through the
motions.
So I think all of us need to askourselves and be honest when I
go into worship.
(27:06):
Am I just going through themotions or am I truly honoring
the God of the universe andgiving him what I need?
Steve, I know I've been guiltyof just going through the
motions and I suspect we've gotlisteners out there that at
times they've just gone throughthe motions.
I know there's churches outthere that don't do proper
(27:27):
worship.
How should we, as people, notdeal with our feelings?
We don't worship just becauseof how I feel and get more
emotional, but we worship intruth.
How can I truly worship God theway he deserves it To?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
understand this description here.
What he went through and thisbeating that he took.
It's something that is reallyindescribable as to the pain and
the suffering that he took.
And he did that for us.
He did that so that we might beable to have eternal life.
(28:05):
He did that so that we could befound righteous, or reckoned
righteous, as it's put, that Godreckoned righteousness to
Abraham whenever he believed.
This isn't even the worst of it.
We're going to read in the nextsection the actual crucifixion,
and we'll talk about thatprocess when we get to it.
(28:26):
This isn't even the worst of it, but, like you said, his face
was beat to a bloody pulp,unrecognizable, and his back,
the same way, was just a meathanging off of it because of the
scourging that was done to himprior to that.
It gets back to your questionhow do we worship?
(28:46):
We don't really fullyunderstand what Jesus Christ,
the Messiah, went through inorder to provide for us a path
of salvation and to be able tohave a relationship with him.
We need to stop and ponder thismore often, what he has done.
Then I think we can truly getto a place where we can worship
(29:11):
and honor him.
Let's not be like the otherpeople and just kind of go
across this and say, oh yeah, hedied for our sins.
It was more than that.
He suffered for our sins and weneed to acknowledge that so
that I think we can properlyworship him.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Here in this account, they ridiculed our Lord.
The question we need to ask isif they ridiculed our Lord, what
are they going to do to me andwhat are they going to do to you
?
Can we, as Christians, gothrough life expecting to be
treated any differently?
I submit some people will treatus with respect, but some
people will ridicule us for nomore nor less than we are
(29:51):
followers and disciples ofChrist.
We should expect to receivesome ridicule in the world.
The question then becomes howshould I react, not if, but when
I get some ridicule from theworld?
How can I react?
Can I still continue to doChristian ministry even though
there's people that are pokingfun and trying to ridicule and
(30:13):
trying to stop the work?
I submit we can.
Whatever we go through, there'sno different than what other
Christians have followed sincethe beginning of the church.
Even our Lord got worse thananything we'll get.
So the ridicule should beexpected and it shouldn't
surprise us, and we should beable to keep doing Christian
(30:35):
ministry.
Don't you think, steve?
I do agree with that.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
We just got to put our faith and trust in God's
calling of us, of whatever it isfor us to do, and realize that
there are people and Christiansin other parts of the world that
face this type of a persecutionand even death a lot more often
than what you and I ever have.
(31:00):
We see them that they take itand they don't renounce their
faith.
I think we can takeencouragement from them.
If they can stay faithful tothe Christian cause and the
Christian mission, then mostcertainly we can whenever we get
a little bit of pushback on oursin.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
At the end of this little section we read verse 21,
.
The Lord was so weak that hecouldn't carry his cross.
The Roman soldiers grabbedsomeone that was just a
bystander and put him intoservice carrying the cross.
The prisoners generally carriedtheir crosses.
Jesus had been beaten so muchand for so long, and he'd been
(31:40):
up all night and he had lost somuch blood that he was too weak
to carry the cross.
They grabbed this man that wasjust a bystander, simon of
Cyrene, and get him to help.
That tells us a couple ofthings.
One is that our Lord was soweak and had lost so much blood
by this point that he couldbarely walk, let alone carry a
(32:01):
cross.
Next, the little parentheses.
Here, simon of Cyrene was thefather of Alexander and Rufus.
Well, why would it mention that?
Well, these men had toobviously be well-known in the
church.
And if we turn over to Romans16, verse 13, we find that Rufus
was a prominent member of theRoman church.
(32:23):
We have here, if we read alittle bit between the lines,
this man, simon, was there withhis sons going to the Passover.
And of course, things aren'tjust happened.
They happened by God'sprovidence that he was standing
right there at the right momentand got picked.
It must have profoundlyaffected this man's life, this
man, simon of Cyrene, seeing theLord and carrying his cross.
(32:46):
We can imagine him going backhome and telling the story to
his wife.
It changed his life forever.
He raised his sons in thechurch and they became at least
Rufus became a prominent memberin the church.
There is an Alexander as well.
Late in the epistles that wassomeone to be avoided.
The apostle Paul says watch outfor Alexander.
(33:06):
He did me much harm.
We don't know much more thanthat, but we know that they were
in the church and this man,simon of Cyrene, was greatly
affected by this experience andlet me just real quickly read
that verse, glenn, romans 16, 13.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Read Rufus a choice man in the Lord, also his mother
and mine.
So I think you're right.
It did affect Simon so much tothe point that his family became
believers in the Lord JesusChrist.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Our Lord is now bleeding and on his way to the
cross.
It's a very ugly scene, but thedeath on the cross is both
extremely ugly and also quiteprofound.
It's beautiful for us who hadour sins washed away because of
it, and we'll see that next timeon Reasoning Through the Bible.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Thank you so much for watching and listening.
May God bless you.
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