Introduction: Welcome to Expound our weekly worship and verse by verse study of the Bible. Our goal is to expand your knowledge of the truth of God as we explore the Word of God in a way that is interactive, enjoyable, and congregational.
Skip Heitzig: Would you turn in your Bibles to the book of Mark, the gospel of Mark, the second gospel, second book in the New Testament, chapter 15. We're entering into what is probably to most of you the most familiar territory of the gospel story, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It is the pinnacle. It is the part of the story that the authors spend the most time on. There's more literary real estate about this last day of Jesus' life than any other part of his life.
And because it's very familiar to most of us, even if you're a Christian for a short period of time, or you have been a marginal Christian most of your life and then got serious with the Lord, you know this stuff. It's familiar to most. So, what I'm going to do tonight is give you some background and some information, because these events are well authenticated in history, not just by the Bible but by other sources of history.
Now, for me to do that, I think it's important for you to know what sources I'm quoting when I quote them to you tonight. And because I might just say the "Talmud" or the "Mishnah," and you're just going, "Okay. Whatever. What is that?" So let me kind of back up and tell you that among the Jews when it came to their material, their books, there was first of all the Torah.
The Torah, you probably have heard; you know what that is. It means the Law, and it refers principally to the first five books of Moses. The Torah: the Law of God, the words given by God to Moses and then to the people. That's the Torah. The whole Old Testament was referred to as the Tanakh. The Tanakh, if you ever hear that term, it means the Old Testament Scriptures.
Now, beyond that, beyond the Tanakh which included the Torah, the Jews as their source had what was called the oral law. The oral law is what it implies. It implies something that is told and retold orally by mouth throughout the ages so you would hear it, memorize it, hear it, pass it on. That's the oral law. And the oral law were different renderings, different decisions, different comments by notable rabbis throughout history about the Scriptures, or about a ceremony, or about God, philosophy, life, etcetera. That's the oral law.
Eventually the oral law was written, was codified, so it could be referred to. When it was written, it was all referred to as the Mishnah. It had thirty-six---no, it had sixty-three volumes, sizable volumes---the Mishnah. Out of those sixty-three volumes, there were thirty-eight, approximately thirty-eight that had comments on the Scripture, tradition of the rabbis, renderings of the rabbis, and they became known as the tractates, the Talmudic tractates.
So we have the Talmud which is part of the Mishnah. The Mishnah is the oral Law that eventually was written and codified. Make sense? So when I say "the Talmud says this," or "the Mishnah says this," you'll know what I'm talking about. One was developed over time, written down; one is a subset of another. So we're in chapter 15 and our goal, my goal is to get through this chapter. Don't always hit my goal because we keep our time, but let's pray before we start.
Father, we are thankful that we have a time that we have set aside. It's a holy time, this night, this day of the week where we have said it's important to us to get a reading of larger sections of Scripture, and to go over it, and to understand it, and to make application to our life and our life experience; to understand what the original author intended the original audience to understand, so that we might then make an interpretation and only then make an application.
So, Lord, we want to be responsible with the truth that is your Word. And we pray that your Holy Spirit will really be the ultimate Teacher and help us to understand and rejoice in the fact that what we read here is authentic, to be trusted, the inerrant Word of God that you have been preserved through the ages, in Jesus' name, amen.
Many years ago in the 1800s a man by the name of William Booth---have you heard that name? William Booth began a society called the Christian Society where it was outreach to the poor in the eastern slums of London, England. That was his goal, to reach out to the poor and preach the gospel to the poor. The Christian Society, as soon as they erected a tent to do outreach, the tent was burned down by thugs.
They moved in a warehouse building, something more permanent, and their meetings were constantly disturbed by gangs throwing rocks and bricks and even fireworks in through the windows of the building just to disrupt them. So, as this kept going on, and all of this opposition to the Christian Mission, in 1865 William Booth decided that he was at war. This community reaching out to the city of London with the gospel was at war.
So in 1865 he changed the name from the Christian Mission to the Salvation Army. That's how it began. The Salvation Army began realizing---"We are at war. The world opposes our mission of preaching the gospel or giving to the poor what they need in the name of Jesus Christ." The Salvation Army was born. And instead of being called William Booth, he was called General William Booth. And they still keep that sort of pecking order and that military organizational set to this day.
In 1889 alone, 669 members of the Salvation Army were physically attacked in London. Some of them were killed and a few of them were maimed for life---all of this as an effort to reach out to Christian England with the gospel. I bring that up because we are at war. Booth was right, we are at war.
Paul wrote to Timothy and he said, "All those who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." Now, here's why I say that to you: because Mark when he wrote this gospel, he was primarily writing for a Roman audience. The main recipients of the gospel of Mark at first were Christians living in the Roman Empire and principally in the city of Rome itself. The Roman persecutions were at full swing. Their faith would be attacked every single day.
And what you have to know is that there were ten, ten major Roman persecutions against the early church from Nero to Domitian, all the way to Diocletian---ten major pogroms or campaigns against the Christian church. So, the recipients of this gospel, when they get to this section so deeply elaborated, so widen with such detail about Jesus their Savior being maligned and beaten and killed, would give them encouragement, because they're following that One who gave his life on Calvary's cross. And to read this section would be very, very encouraging to them.
Now if you recall last week---and if you don't, that's okay, because I'm going to repeat it right now. There was not one trial. There were not two trials. There were no less than six trials that Jesus underwent before he was crucified: three of them were religious; three of them were secular. The first one was with Annas the high priest de facto. He was the ex-high priest, but he really held the sway. He had the influence. He had the authority of that nation. His son-in-law Caiaphas was the acting high priest.
So, trial number one was before Annas. Trial number two, before Caiaphas. Trial number three was early the next morning, before they went to Pontius Pilate, with the whole Sanhedrin. Trial number four is what we're going to get to in verse 1, is when they bring Jesus to Pontius Pilate.
The reason for the three secular trials after the three religious trials is simple: The Jews could condemn him to death, but they didn't have the right of capital punishment. It had been taken away because the Romans occupy the land. And the Roman's took away from the Judeans the right to execute in capital cases any victim for a crime. So they had to bring it to the government. They had to get a death sentence by Pontius Pilate the reigning governor at the time.
So after the first three trials, which were religious, trial number four is before Pilate. Trial number five is when Pilate ships Jesus off to King Herod Antipas. Herod didn't really want to do anything, just wanted to look at Jesus, and he was amused by him. He sent him back to Pilate, and Pilate signed his death warrant. That gives us six trials.
Now, the Mishnah, that's the oral law, gave a list of eighteen rules to be followed whenever you were judging and sentencing somebody to a capital crime. They were violated in this trial. And I have a little list of those rules. I'm just going to give you a few of them. And I want you to hear how what a mistrial, what a miscarriage of justice this was.
Rule number one: No trial is to occur during the night hours. They broke that rule. The trial began and ended at night. Rule number two: Trials were not to occur on the Eve of the Sabbath or during the festivals. What festival was going on at that time? Passover. So they broke rule number one and rule number two, their own rules. Rule number three: All trials were to be public trials to be held in the judgment hall; secret trials were forbidden.
Jesus was taken first to Annas privately; Caiaphas, privately; and then simply to put paperwork on it, they had the Sanhedrin the early next morning. Rule number six: The accused person could not testify against himself; witnesses were required. Now, in this case the Sanhedrin convicted Jesus on his own words. "Are you the Son of the blessed?" Jesus said, "Yes, I am. And you will see the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven."
Based upon Jesus' own testimony they convicted him; no witnesses. They brought in false witnesses, but no witnesses. Rule number twelve: The high priest could not participate in the questioning. In both trial number one and trial number two the high priests (plural) interrogated Jesus. Rule number eighteen: The sentencing in a capital case was not to occur until the following day. Jesus was condemned and the Sanhedrin met the next day to give the appearance that time had elapsed.
They broke their own rules. They're trying the push this thing through. There's an old saying in American jurisprudence: "If you can't find a lawyer who knows the law, find someone who knows the judge." And though they weren't fond of the judge, this being Pontius Pilate, they at least had a working relationship with him, and they manipulated him in getting what they wanted.
Now something else I think you need to know: I mentioned here in reading what the Mishnah said about public trials that it had to be done in a public place. There was a section of the temple called the Chamber of Hewn Stone, which is where the Sanhedrin, the seventy-one ruling elders met for these cases. The Chamber of Hewn Stone is where this should have taken place, but this did not take place there.
Rather, it would seem that it all took place in a clandestine way at the house of Caiaphas. The trial before Annas, before Caiaphas in his house, and before the Sanhedrin, that they all did it within the confines of the courtyards or the home of the high priest Caiaphas. With that as a background, we finally get into verse 1.
"Immediately, in the morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council; and they bound Jesus, led him away, and delivered him to Pilate. Then Pilate asked him, 'Are you the King of the Jews?' He answered and said to him, 'It is as you say,' and the chief priests accused him of many things, but he answered nothing. And Pilate asked him again, saying, 'Do you answer nothing? See how many things they testify against you!' "
Very early in the morning after the trial before Annas and Caiaphas, the Sanhedrin, which took place in the early morning hours---so, keep in mind, Jesus had left Gethsemane after his arrest, and all of these trials took place. He had gotten no rest. And now the next morning light dawns. It's probably six in the morning, because by nine o'clock Jesus is on the cross. At six in the morning they come to where Pontius Pilate is staying.
Where was he staying? Well, on the temple platform, on the northwest corner was a fortress called the Antonia Fortress where Roman soldiers were kept to quail any possible riots that would take place, especially during festivals like this, and where the governor of Judea who lived in Caesarea, not Jerusalem, would travel on feast days and live in this fortress of Antonia. So early in the morning, probably woken up by his guard, saying, "There's a bunch of Jewish high priests out here that demand to see you."
He's now involved in this trial. They bring accusations when they wake Pilate up and bring Jesus before this governor. And what are those accusations? Luke 23 verse 2 tells us exactly what they are. They say, "We found this man subverting the nation," number one, "opposing the payment of taxes to Caesar," number two, "and claiming that he is the Christ, a king." Those were the three charges against him.
Now the first charge: "He's subverting the nation." Was that true? It was false. He never ever suggested that. "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's," he said. Number two: "He's opposing the payment of taxes to Caesar." Again, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." That was a false charge. But that third charge was true. "He claims that he is the Christ, the Messiah, a king."
So when these accusations get leveled against Jesus, Pilate, verse 2, asks what you would consider the follow-up question. "Are you the King of the Jews?" All four gospels tell us this question that Pilate asked Jesus. All four of them write this in their text. In all four gospels, the "you" is emphatic in the Greek language. Let me tell you how it should be rendered: "You! Are you the King of the Jews?"
Now why would he ask it in that way?---and that is way he asked it. Why would he ask it in that kind of condescending way? Well, think of Pilate's world. The only king he knew was in Rome, Caesar. The only kingdom he knew was the kingdom of Rome. And the only way Rome got its kingdom was by force. They conquered it. They took it over. It was the iron fist of Rome that took over nations and killed people and rule even by violence. They brought peace by power.
So here is Pilate who knows just that world, and says, "You---this peasant who hasn't had any sleep, who has bloodstained, peasant garments," standing in front of him. "You! Are you the king of the Jews?" And Jesus says, "It is as you say." Let's just think about that for a moment. What kind of a king was he? Because in John's gospel Jesus says to Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my subjects would get up and fight for me."
So, when he claims to be a king, he's not claiming to be a political king. He was not a political reactionary. But when he says, "It is as you say. I am a king." He meant that in two ways. Number one, he meant that spiritually. There's a throne in your heart, and when you come to Christ, if you're a true Christian, what has taken place is a kingdom shift. You get off the throne that you've been on in your life, and you put Jesus on the throne. There's a kingdom shift. Your alliances are not your will, but his will.
So there's a spiritual kingdom that happens. We're kingdom dwellers. So, it's true spiritually. Number two: It's true eventually. "Yeah, my kingdom is not of this world now," but one day his kingdom will be of this world. In Revelation, chapter 11, I'm guessing around verse 15, an angel makes a proclamation toward the end of the tribulation period: "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever!"
Now, that is an announcement that this spiritual King is going to be the political, actual, physical, world-wide King. He's taking over the earth. "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever!" And following that will come a judgment. And following that will come a millennial thousand-year kingdom. So, when Jesus says, "It is as you say," he's saying, "I'm a King spiritually, though my kingdom isn't of this world, yet; it will be one day."
Which means, all of that to say: Who's the real judge here? Is it Pilate or is it Jesus? Yeah, Jesus isn't the defendant, Pilate is. What Pilate will do and what Pilate will say will determine Pilate's destiny, not Jesus'. Because Peter will say, "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by wicked hands, and crucified, and put to death," Acts, chapter 2.
Now, a little bit about Pontius Pilate: Pontius Pilate was the fifth, fifth governor of Judea. He was appointed as governor by the emperor Tiberias in 26 AD . He occupied the position for ten years. But, get this, Pontius Pilate---because you're thinking of Pontius Pilate, you're thinking he was a Roman. Well, he was Roman, but not from Rome. You see, when you say somebody is Roman, if they take over the whole known world, then you could be from anywhere and be Roman. He was actually Spanish. Pontius Pilate was from Seville, Spain.
And when he was young, Rome took over his hometown and took over the country of what we call now Spain. So he joined the Roman legions at a young age, worked his way up the ranks, but was just, like, not a great soldier. In fact, history portrays him as cruel, cynical, arrogant. So, if you're wondering, "Well, how on earth did he become the governor of Judea?" Well, I'm glad you asked. Have you ever heard the saying, "Well, he married the boss's daughter"? Well, he married the boss' granddaughter.
He married a woman by the name of Claudia Procula the granddaughter of Caesar Augustus. And because of her relationship to grandpa, and now his relationship to her grandpa, he gets the job as governor of Judea. And the idea is---Judea, that's like the backwater of the Roman Empire. Who cares about Judea? That's like---I'm not even---I was going to start naming places and---but you know, you always offend people. So anyway, Judea. And he became a very tentative governor. He wasn't great at his rule, and he was walking on thin ice at this time.
Interesting thing about his wife: Pontius Pilate's wife, according to tradition, according to traditional legend---and that's really all it is, but it is the best traditions we have---was a convert to Judaism, and was very interested in this man called Jesus and the reports about him. According to the written traditions, she was Jewish, but she was very interested in the Messiah.
And as you recall, the night that Pilate was the one who dispatched the guard to arrest Jesus in the garden, that very night she had a dream, the night before this trial, troubling dream about Jesus. And around the time of the trial she said, "Have nothing to do with this righteous man. I had a dream, very troubling dream about him last night." So Pilate is on the hot seat.
"But Jesus answered nothing, and so Pilate," verse 5, "marveled." Thaumazó is the word in Greek. It means "he blew his mind." That's the best translation I can give you. Thaumazó---he blew his mind. Why did he blow his mind? Because here is somebody having accusations leveled against him, and he's not saying anything. He was used to being the judge, and having countless criminals stand in front of him.
And all of them would say things like---well, what do criminals say today in court? "It's not my fault, Judge. And you know, I tell you, I didn't do it." They would just be in denial, and they backpedal. Jesus said nothing and they've accused him of subverting the nation, tax evasion, and the claims that he made. He said absolutely nothing. And Pilate just thought, "Man, I've never seen anyone like this."
"Now at the feast he was accustomed to releasing one prisoner to them, whomever they requested. And there was one named Barabbas, who was chained with his fellow rebels; they had committed murder in the rebellion. Then the multitude, crying aloud, began to ask him to do just as he had always done for them. But Pilate answered them, saying, 'Do you want me to release to you the King of Jews?' For he knew that the chief priests had handed him over because of envy. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd, so that he should rather release Barabbas to them."
From one source that we have, Origen, that's spelled O-R-I-G-E-N, Origen. And Origen---let me explain who he was---was one of the early church fathers from the second century. He was from Alexandria, Egypt, North Africa. He was a theologian, a teacher of hermeneutics, preaching, and quite a historian. And according to Origen this theologian from North Africa, Barabbas's full name was Jesus Barabbas. Jesus was a common name.
But Barabbas is a Hebrew word that means "son of a father." Bar abba---son of a father. So, his name literally is "Jesus, son of a father." So, you have "Jesus, son of a father" next to "Jesus, Son of the Father." And Origen says, "Notice whom they chose." The choice was between Jesus, son of a father, or Jesus, Son of the Father, and they chose Jesus, son of a father instead of Jesus, Son of the Father.
And Origen pointed out people still make the same choice today. People still to this day would rather choose the kingdom of men and man's values, and reject the Father and his Son and those values. It's a very interesting delineation---Barabbas or Jesus? What a contrast. Here's a spiritual King, Jesus; here's a material king, Pilate. Here's one who gave up his authority, who gave up his royal beauty of heaven.
Philippians 2 tells us he humbled himself, he emptied himself. The theological term is the kenosis. He poured himself out, divested himself of the prerogatives of deity, technically. Standing next to one who would grab a hold of any glory he could get, and wore prowled proudly the royal robes of Rome. But once again, Pilate is really the one on trial, and Jesus is the one who is the Judge.
"But the chief priests," verse 11, "stirred up the crowd, so that he should rather release Barabbas to them. Pilate answered and said to them, 'What then do you want me to do with him who is called the King of the Jews?' And so they cried out again, 'Crucify him!' Then Pilate said to them, "Why, what evil as he done?' But they cried out all the more, 'Crucify him!' So Pilate, wanting to"---now watch this---" gratify the crowd."
How many times have we made our choices based upon the crowd, what the billboard says, what the song's message is, over and over again, what most people at work value and say, what society believes in? Wanting to gratify the crowd, not wanting to stick out and stand out and be different, we do what they want us to do. That was Pilate. "Wanting to gratify the crowd, he delivered Jesus, after he had scourged him, to be crucified."
And you've heard that, and you've read that before, right? The scourging of Christ; he was whipped. Now let me fill in a little bit for you. We're dealing with Rome here and the punishment that Rome would inflict upon a prisoner was something that the Jews could not do. So, now that it is in Roman hands and Pilate is in charge of this, he allows the prisoner to be scourged. If you put all the gospel stories together, he did it to placate the crowd, hoping that in just seeing enough blood, they would say enough is done.
Now let me tell you about this. There was not one, but three different forms of flogging, of whipping a prisoner, and they all have different names. Number one was called fustigatio, a Latin term, fustigatio. And it was a less severe beating, a less severe whipping, flogging for somebody who committed, like, misdemeanors. You know, you want to warn them, you want to beat them up a little bit, but you don't want to go too far. That's the fustigatio.
Method number two was called flagellatio. And flagellatio was for more serious crimes, short of the death penalty. It was a brutal beating, but not as brutal as the third called the verberatio. The verberatio was the most brutal kind. Many prisoners did not live through the beating. It was typically coupled with somebody who had been given the death penalty, like crucifixion. If you've been given crucifixion, you go through the verberatio. If you survive that, we will take you and kill you on a cross, which was a slow, painful death.
The way this was done was by using two lictors, men with whips. The prisoner was tied to a post and bent over the post, so that the back would be taut, so the skin would be stretched. The handle was wood, leather thongs attached. Attached to the leather thongs were bits of lead and glass embedded in it, so that when the whip went down, it didn't bounce off, it grabbed the flesh, it stuck. It had hooks, so to speak. And then the lictor would pull back.
It was called by the Romans the "halfway death," because, again, many prisoners did not survive. Having that many diagonal---by the way, they would whip diagonally from either side. And in so doing, get further down through the tissues of the back, passed the subcutaneous layers, down into the muscles, and literally eviscerate the victim.
According to one source Eusebius who wrote a whole series of volumes on ecclesiastical history, church history, said that the victim in going through this type of scourging, this verberatio, would have the organs exposed many times to the sight of the people, the deep-seated tissues exposed to sight. Then he would be released. When he was released, Pilate brought him before the people (John, chapter 18).
And if you remember, he said something very significant. In Latin he said, "Ecce Homo," translated into English: "Behold, the man." "Look at this poor creature," thinking that that would just be a shock to the sight of people, but it was not. They demanded his crucifixion. "Then the soldiers," verse 16, "Led him away to the hall called Praetorium, and they called together the whole garrison."
If we were able to stand tonight in the city of Jerusalem, I would take you over to St. Anne's Church, and I would show you the pavement that is believed to be the very place in the Praetorium where prisoners, including Jesus, stood when they were sentenced to death by Pilate. You can stand today on that pavement. It's one of the few places you know are authentic places. This is where Jesus walked on these stones. Stones are still preserved.
"And they called together the whole garrison. And they clothed him with purple; and they twisted a crown of thorns, and they put it on his head, and began to salute him, saying, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' And they struck him on the head with a reed and spat on him; and bowing the knee, they worshiped him." Of course, that's false worship.
Essentially Pilate handed Jesus over to a brute squad. There was an ancient Roman game that was played, and it's alluded to here, and it was called "hot hand." And hot hand was you take the victim and you blindfold them. And you'd have a circle, and you would stand the prisoner in the circle. And all the soldiers would be outside, and everybody would take turns in hitting the prisoner.
Now, if you've ever been in a fight, guys, you can see a fist coming at you, and you know to react to it. But when you don't know where the fist is coming from and you're just coldcocked, the kind of force that you feel is very, very different than bouncing and moving around. That's how hot hand was. All of the soldiers took turns in smacking the prisoner, except one; one didn't. The blindfold was taken off, and the prisoner, they said, "You have to tell us which one didn't hit you. You have to guess." If you didn't guess, they'd do it all over again; cruel game.
"And when they mocked him, they took the purple off him," that purple robe, "and put his own clothes on him and led him out to crucify him." Now, I don't want to go into great detail, a lot of detail, and several sources have been---it's out there for you. But sometimes we read a phrase, and we just pass over it. And that's the problem when we're familiar with the story. You know, we've heard this; we've read it for so many years. But now it says, "They took the purple off him."
They had put a purple robe on and they beat him up pretty badly. If you know anything about blood and how it coagulates and the lymph that goes into it that acts like glue, that once you have garment on when you have a profusion of blood and lymph it dries pretty rapidly exposed to the air, so that when you take off a garment---you catch my drift. You are pulling that freshly mending scab with it, opening up those wounds afresh and the bleeding becomes more profuse. They did that.
"They put his own clothes on him, and they led him out to crucify him." When the sentence was given for crucifixion, the victim was given to four soldiers. Four soldiers in Latin was called a quaternion. Quaternion---four soldiers. One would go in front of the victim with a placard denoting the crimes he was guilty of. In this case it was, "THIS IS JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS." Three would then accompany to the side and behind the victim.
Crucifixion was not invented by the Romans. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the Persians invented it, but the Romans perfected it. The Persians originally invented crucifixion because they thought that the earth was holy, it was sacred. Sort of like people today worship the earth, mother earth. That was ancient Persian belief. And because the earth was sacred, they would elevate a victim. If you had to kill somebody, you would elevate them from the ground, and kill him off the ground, so as not to touch the earth.
That's why crucifixion was invented. It sort of went away until the Romans found it and they perfected it, and they crucified thousands upon thousands of people. Only one is really remembered and that's Jesus. The cross had two pieces: the centerpiece---that is, the vertical stake, which is called the crux simplex; and the crossbeam, which is called the patibulum.
The patibulum weighed between seventy-five and one hundred-pounds---let's just say seventy-five---that was usually tied to or carried by the victim. He wouldn't carry the whole cross, just the upper crossbeam. Just one chunk of wood was laid upon Jesus. So, I know in your minds, because you've seen the movies, he's carrying this big cross, but the crux simplex, the vertical stake was already in place at Golgotha. Jesus was given the seventy-five-pound patibulum to carry.
And the idea of crucifixion is that we will parade you around the city so that people can see what we're doing to you as a message we send to them: "Do not mess with Rome." So it was done in public. Crucifixion deliberately delayed death to inflict the maximum amount of physical torture they knew to be possible at that time.
In fact, one historian by the name of Cicero made this remark, "To flog a Roman citizen is a crime." Just to flog a Roman citizen is a crime. "To kill him is an act of murder; but to crucify him---there is no fitting word that can describe so horrible a deed." And Cicero said the very thought of crucify or crucifixion should be stricken from the Roman consciousness. It was reserved for the worst of the worst, like Barabbas, a murderer, a slave. But if you were a Roman citizen you could not be crucified.
So Jesus carried the patibulum toward Golgotha and they took him out to crucify him. And verse 21 says, "They compelled a certain man, Simon a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus." So if you're going, "Who is this Simon guy?" now you know. "Oh, it's the father of Alexander and Rufus." Now, I'm not just saying that to be funny. I'll explain why in a moment because it's put in here for a purpose.
"As he was coming out of the country and passing by, to bear his cross." Okay, so Simon was a bystander, a Jewish bystander who had come from Cyrene, North Africa. He's called in some translations "Simeon" or "Simon the black." He's believed to be a black African who is Jewish who had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover. He was a member of the Diaspora, the dispersed Jews throughout the world. He has come; he had no idea that he would be conscripted to carry a cross for a criminal.
But he's brought into it; he's made to do it. And if Rome tells you to do it, you do it. You don't say, "No, I don't want to do it." You do it. But because there's a side note here, we're intrigued. It says this guy was "the father of Alexander and Rufus." So, let me read something to you. First of all, in Romans, chapter 16, when Paul lists several people that are his compadres, he says, "Greet Rufus chosen in the Lord and his mother." Most scholars believe that this was the Rufus whose dad was Simon from Cyrene who helped carry the cross of Christ.
Another Scripture is in Acts, chapter 13, which says, "Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who is called Niger [or the black], Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul." It is believed, once again, that this was that Jewish man who carried the cross of Jesus.
That God used this seemingly weird circumstance to be a divine appointment to get him to see what he would see, and hear the words that he would hear, and see that sign, "THIS IS JESUS . . ." and all the hubbub about Jesus, and converted, and believed in Christ, and became a part of the early church. So, God was using the crucifixion to get to his heart. I mean, he's already in Jerusalem, why not use it to save as many people as you can?
By the way, that is the idea behind Pentecost. When at Pentecost Peter preaches a sermon, and people from all over the world, Jews dispersed from all over the world like this come to Pentecost, and they hear and they see the signs and wonders, many believe. And in believing they go back to their homes, and a church develops. Now, this is good strategy. I don't want to belabor the point, but I see a principle here.
So often we spend so much money poured into mission programs, thousands upon thousands upon multiple thousands of dollars, and often times we send them where fourteen other churches have sent their groups as well. A lot of money is being spent. While all of that is going on, the countries around the world send their very best young people to universities in America at their expense.
If we were to say part of our mission strategy is to get these visiting students at the universities exposed to the gospel, now their government is paying for our evangelism. Now since they're here in our country like they would have been there at Pentecost, let's expend our energy in that kind of evangelism, and I think it would actually make more sense, or at least do it simultaneously.
But the Christian church feels compelled to spend money in sending teams out so they can go, "We've been on the mission field." Good, great, does something for those who go out, but when it comes to mission dollars, I think we could be more strategic. Simon was in town, get him to carry the cross, become a believer, leader in the early church, just like Pentecost---same principle. God gets a hold of his heart and the gospel goes out through his life.
"And they brought him"---we're obviously not going to make it through the whole chapter. "And they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which is translated, the place of a skull." Golgotha is a Hebrew word which means skull. The Greek equivalent would be kranion. Kranion---skull. The Latin equivalent of Golgotha and kranion would be calvarium. Calvary means "skull." It's the place of the skull.
Why? Not because there were human skulls around there, that was forbidden, but because the hill, still present today, looked like a human skull. It's made out of solid rock. And you can see the eyes in it, the bridge of the nose. Some of it has been eroded over time. An Arab bus station sits there today, but it's in the same area.
Now I want to throw something else at you, just sort of to dismantle another belief that you've had by history. Our songs and the movies that we make about the life of Christ portray Jesus crucified on a hill. "On top of a hill, where there were three crosses . . ." You know, the songs teach us our theology rather than the Bible and history, unfortunately. So we have in our minds that Jesus was crucified up there on that hill and there's three crosses up on that hill, and that's what the song says, and that's what the movies depict---not so.
Romans never crucified on hills, especially that hill, it's solid rock. At the base of the hill, with the hill behind it, the skull behind it as a grim reminder, right next to the road out in an open kind of a field, on open square, an open flattened area is where the crucifixions took place. So, if you go to Jerusalem, right where that Arab bus station is today, that's the area where Jesus was crucified.
And I've gone there before, and people go, "Ah, man, they---look it, they ruined it. There's a bus station there." And I go, "I see your point, but I mean, if you're thinking you're going to put a church there and that's going to make it any better, I don't think that's going to help. Because Jesus wasn't crucified in a church between two candles either."
In fact, I think it's very fitting that it's a public bus station with smoke and noise and people going back and forth, because that's exactly what it was back then. It was people moving, and traveling, and going outside the gate, and getting on camels and donkeys, and going places---the public road. So, I think it's very fitting. And to go there today and see that bus station and stuff is, like, yup, it's very, very apropos. Golgotha, the place of the skull.
"And they gave him wine mingled with myrrh to drink, but he did not take it." Now, we don't know who "they" are. But now let me give you another quote. The Babylonian Talmud---now you know what the Talmud is, right? It's that codified commentary section of the Mishnah, right? And there were two different talmuds: the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud. Okay, so the Babylonian Talmud has in it a section about certain gracious women who would prepare a narcotic drink to reduce the pain to be given to those victims sentenced to death, because of Proverbs 31 verse 6, which says, "Give strong drink to him who is perishing."
Isn't that interesting? That's what it says in Proverbs 31. I don't know if you've ever read that in your quiet time, but Proverbs 31:6, "Give strong drink to him who is perishes." So, they thought as an act of mercy given by a commandment of God, "Let's give a pain-reducing drink to those prisoners who are about to die," and they did. That's probably who "they" are.
Jesus didn't take it. Wow, that's like going to a dentist and saying, "No, I don't need a shot." I believe Jesus wanted to experience to the full in his body the weight---that was his choice. He didn't want to emotionally, but he made the choice to feel the full weight of all of our sin upon his body; took the wrath of God upon him. Second Corinthians 5:21, "God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be the righteousness of God in him."
In other words, God the Father treated Jesus as if he had committed every sin committed by every person who ever lived and Jesus took it all. That's what he meant by "this cup." "If it's possible, let this cup pass from me." But he drank it all. "And when they had crucified him, he divided his garments, casting their lots to determine what every man should take. Now it was the third hour," nine in the morning, "and they crucified him. And the inscription of his accusation was written above: THE KING OF THE JEWS."
So they bring Jesus to Calvary. He has carried the patibulum. He couldn't make it all the way; Simon carried it part of the way. Now they get to the place where that crux simplex, that vertical stake is already in the ground awaiting the victim. They place the crossbeam, the patibulum on the ground. The victim would be then placed with his hands stretched out on the patibulum alone, on the ground.
And nails, actually, tapered, long spikes would go into the hand area, but exactly into the wrist. Not here, it would tear, into the wrist. In your wrist you have two arm bones that overlap called the radius and the ulna, and they form a hook. And knowing the anatomy, they would feel for those two bones just below the carpal bones and that is where they would insert the spike into the wood of the patibulum. Two spikes were inserted.
There were four Roman soldiers with ropes; they would hoist the patibulum, and the victim stapled to it with his hands up into place, his feet dangling in midair. And once they affixed him there, that's when they would usually put one spike, sometimes two, into the feet. Now, again, maybe this is more graphic, but believe me, I haven't even touched on a graphic nature of the crucifixion.
But I will commend something to you: March 21, 1986, if you want to track it down, the Journal of the American Medical Association put out an article that is to this day the most descriptive medical description of the crucifixion, in my opinion, ever published. I have a copy of it. Where everything from respiratory distress to muscular spasm, etcetera, suffocation, and asphyxiation---it's all described in medical terms. And you can, if you want to, research to that degree the kind of death that Jesus underwent is put out in that journal.
"With him they also crucified two robbers, one on his right, the other on his left. So the Scripture was fulfilled which says, 'He was numbered with the transgressors.' And those who passed by blasphemed him wagging their heads, saying, 'Aha! You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!'
"Likewise the chief priests also, mocking among themselves with the scribes, said, 'He saved others, himself he cannot save. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross that we may see and believe.' Even those who were crucified with him reviled him. Now when the sixth hour had come," that's twelve noon, "there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour."
This is incredible. This darkness that covered the whole land was unique, verified by history, and important spiritually. But because we're out of time, we're going to have to wait till next time to see why. "Let's go another hour." I love your heart. But the mind cannot retain what the seat cannot endure. [laughter]
Father, thank you. We feel like we have attended a worship service in just reading the text, reading what Mark would write to those suffering believers in Rome who would be reading this document. Peter who gave him the information and was around that time an incredible source of knowledge to young John Mark. But ultimately your Holy Spirit preserved what should be written for our benefit.
Father, we bow before the Savior who gave his life for our sin, before the One who said yes to the cup that he drank. We're humbled. And even as Pilate marveled, we marvel that you loved us. That's why we glory in the cross as was said at the beginning of this service. That's why it never gets old. And to see it through a historical light and other documents being brought to bear just help us to fully appreciate the integrity of the text and the love of the Father.
We are in a war, Lord; this is a battle. Jesus experienced the forces of hell against him, the forces of darkness against him. And all those who lived godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. I pray we wouldn't shy from it. I pray we would see it as a badge of honor. And I pray, Lord, that as it is a war that we would be found on the right side of the battle firmly rooted in Christ. I pray for anyone who doesn't know Jesus personally yet, that it would be personal, they would surrender their lives to Christ, in his name we pray, amen.
Let's stand please. And we're going to close with a song and after this service---you know what? Let's do this: as we sing this final song, it could be that you're here tonight and you don't know Jesus personally. It could be that you've been a church person, but you've never surrendered volitionally, personally, authentically to Jesus. You've never stepped out of the shadows and said, "I'm going to live for Jesus Christ. I'm going to repent of my sins, and turn my life as an authentic believer of Christ."
Maybe you've never done that and you want to know what it's like to be clean. You are in a battle. You gotta get on the right side. So as we sing this final song, I'm going to ask you to get up from where you're standing, find the nearest aisle, and stand right up here where I'm going to lead you right now in a prayer to receive Christ as Savior.
This is your eternity here we're dealing with, just like it was for Pilate, it is for you. You may never have an opportunity like this again. Seize it now. As we sing this song you get up from where you're standing and you come right up here. Maybe you have walked away from the Lord and you need to make a fresh commitment to the Lord. You've been backslidden and you need to come home to him. As we sing, I invite you to come. Stand right up here. As we sing, you come.
[worship music plays]
You know sometimes I'll have people raise their hands, and then follow-up the raising of the hand with coming forward, but listen, some of you just flat know you need to be here---that's it. You've been putting that off. You've been watching. You've had these opportunities before, and you just kind of know how to blow it off every time.
You're here tonight for this reason. And if God is speaking to your heart, you're being dealt with by the Lord, get down here now. Be obedient to him. Be obedient to him. Give your life to Christ. He has everlasting life for you. Don't put it off another day. Come right now.
[worship music plays]
We're about to close this service. Anyone else? We don't do it to embarrass anyone. We really do it so that this decision gets settled inside of you, that you make a stand, you make some kind of a movement that is a public movement. You're saying no to the old, and yes to him, the new. Anyone else? Well, for those who have come forward, I'm really glad you did. I really am. We all are. Congratulations, really. [cheers and applause]
I want the opportunity to lead you in a prayer. Prayer is just talking to God. It doesn't have to be anything formal or special. So I'm going to pray out loud and I'm going to ask you to pray out loud after me. Say these words from your heart, say them to the Lord, mean them because you're basically giving---you're giving the pink slip, the owner's title to your life to Jesus Christ. Let's pray.
Lord, I give you my life. I know that I'm a sinner. Please forgive me. I put my faith in Jesus who died on a cross, shed his blood for my sin, and rose again from the grave. I turn from my past, I turn to you as my Savior, help me to live for you as my Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.
All right! Congratulations! Awesome!