Passion: The Suffering

Passion  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  31:41
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As you could see in the video we watched just a minute ago, today’s text brings us to Jesus’s suffering. He is still before Pilate, but all along the way he is suffering one indignity after another.
For Christians, these are difficult images.
I remember when The Passion of the Christ came out. I went to the theatre to see it, and I immediately wish I hadn’t. It wasn’t entertainment…they were killing my Lord.
That’s what it’s like when I read these passages.
That’s the truth of which Pilate missed last week when he asked “what is the truth?”
Jesus is the truth, the truth about God and his love for us. It was about to be on full display for all to see, and Pilate was going to play a big part in the story.
But there is something about Pilate that we really don’t like; I mean Pilate is an easy man to hate. Think about it, how many people do you know named Pilate? Not many… none?
But I wander if what we find so easy to hate in him is something we too easily see in our selves.
I was watching the news yesterday and there was a report that some Senators who were on the intelligence committee had sold several million dollars worth of stock and assets soon after they were briefed on the severity of what would become a pandemic… back in January.
Now I don’t have all the details, and neither did the reporters telling the story, but they - the reporters - were full of outrage. How could they do such a thing.
I have to say I was a bit taken back by it, then I realized that that’s what we do… we watch out for #1… me and mine way too often.
Look at the videos we have seen of people fighting over bottled water… the way people race through the stores to get toilet paper.
In seasons of difficulty or in seasons of stress, this tendancy of ours to watch out for us above all others becomes very clear… That’t what I find in today’s text speaking to… both what I see going on in culture and in my own heart.
Let’s pray and then we will get started.
If you have a bible in front of you, open it up to John 19… or use the bible here in our online worship page.
By the way, if you register on this page with the same account as you would use in the online bible app YouVersion, the notes you take here will remain in your digital bible… or I think you will be able to print them out later. If you don’t use the YouVersion Bible App, I would encourage you to download it. There’s a YouVersion for kids as well that is great as well.
Back to John 19… actually back to the end of chapter 18
We finished last week with Pilate’s response “What is truth?” … verse 38 continues...
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John 18:38–40 NIV
38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. 39 But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?” 40 They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.

John 18:38-40

Here it all begins, Pilate pronounces Jesus innocent for the first time… he will go on to do this again.
Pilate had heard how the people had cheered Jesus when he arrived in town. He thought that if he could offer them a choice between Jesus and one they all knew was guilty, the choice would be obvious… but it wasn’t so. Some translations call Barabbas a robber, but the word is related to a Bandit… an outlaw. One who caused trouble for everyone, for the Romans as well as for the Jews. Everyone knew this guy was no good… It was Mugsy Boges… it was Chapo, it was Coronavirus… not good for anyone.
And yet, that was their choice. Other accounts of this part tell us that the people were roused by the priests. That makes sense, but here we see the people doing what they know isn’t right… this isn’t the last time in our passage today we are going to see this.
You see this has been a reality since the very beginning...
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Genesis 6:5 NLT
5 The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.
Then in Chapter 19
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John 19:1–5 NIV
1 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3 and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face. 4 Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.” 5 When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”

John 19:1-5

Pilate wants to satisfy the people, he doesn’t care one way or the other about Jesus at this point, just doing his job.
Has Jesus flogged.
Flogging… Jews limited to 40 lashes… but not the Romans. They wanted to punish up to death… and if he died, so be it.
This allows us to see the soldiers, ROman soldiers who were no friend of the Jews, take out their anger for the peopl eon Jesus. They see him, they beat him, they crown him, they dress him, and they punch him as the king of the jews. They had nothing personal against Jesus… But their anger was at the Jews.
You see in this, Jesus was taking the beating for the Jews… for the priests, for the elders, Jesus was taking their punishment… Just as the prophets foretold years earlier that he would.
When they finished, Jesus was again presented to the people as a beaten and bloody … no he’s nothing special… he’s just a man. Pilate announces. As if to say… is this who you are worried about? Why are y'all so worried about this pathetic weak, man?
Pilate hoped they would be satisfied, but they weren’t
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John 19:6–7 NLT
6 When they saw him, the leading priests and Temple guards began shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” “Take him yourselves and crucify him,” Pilate said. “I find him not guilty.” 7 The Jewish leaders replied, “By our law he ought to die because he called himself the Son of God.”

John 19:6-7

Instead of being turned to compassion at the beaten man, the crowds anger was only stirred.
When I was in elementary school, I remember there was a kid in school who got picked on a lot. And when he did, I never remember anyone coming in and calling us out. Why is that? Why is it that so often when we see something going on that is wrong, we don’t step in and stop it.
We see it in others… and we hate it… but we so rarely see it in ourselves until after the fact.
Pilate begins to separate himself from what’s going on. He’s like the one who see’s the fight and begins to walk away at this point.
Pilate says yall do what you want, but I fuind him innocent… I’ve already beaten him… for nothing… wasn’t that enough?
And they remind us of the whole reason Jesus is being crucified… Because he claims to be God… I suppose they were using these words with Pilate in hopes that he would be offended because Caesar was the son of god for Romans...
It certainly had an impact on Pilate
as we read in the next passage:
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John 19:8–10 NIV
8 When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, 9 and he went back inside the palace. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10 “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?”

John 19:8-10

What was the source of his fear… yes the Jews were tying Jesus to a crime against Rome… a crime that Pilate didn’t see, but his wife had come to him as we see in Matthew’s account of the trial.
She had told him
Matthew 27:19 NIV
19 While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.”
Pilate you see is getting stressed by what’s going on. The people he is charged with governing are pushing him, his wife is pushing him, What does Jesus say? Not much.
Just like the prophecies of the messiah foretold, that he would be silent before those who would kill him.
It’s clear that Pilate wants out of this. But Jesus won’t let him off the hook. Pilate has a task before him that it is clear he wants no part of… but he lacks the courage it would take to stand up to the crowd.
He claims to have the power of life and death over Jesus… but without courage, power and authority become tools only for self preservation.
To him Jesus responds:
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John 19:11 NLT
11 Then Jesus said, “You would have no power over me at all unless it were given to you from above. So the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”

John 19:11

Jesus tells Pilate, this that you were given isn’t really power at all, you are just playing a part given you by God.
Jesus goes on to say that the one with Greater sin is the one who turned him over to Pilate… I believe this refers to Caiaphas, the chief priest who had stirred the people up… who had led the people astray. Who had denied to see the truth from the beginning.
When Jesus had healed, performed miracles, taught in the synagogue, all along the way Caiaphas could have seen God at work, but instead he and his position was threatened. He feared losing his status, his leadership in the temple.
Does that mean that Pilate wasn’t guilty? Absolutely not. He knew what was right and he refused to do it.
Ever been there? Sure you have. We all have.
That’s called sin… and we are all responsible for our own. We can’t say, someone made me do it… I knew better, and I chose to deny the truth.
Verse 12 adn 13 show us how Pilate reacted to this.
John 19:12–13 NIV
12 From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.” 13 When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha).
The jews again try to make this about Caesar, but Pilate knows their problem is that Jesus has shown them up.
The people loved him because of his miracles and the leaders don’t like that. That’s what this is all about, and Pilate knows it… so like any politician wanting to leverage his authority … his power in this situation, he makes things official.
If he’s going to set Jesus free, i’m going to do it from a place of power, so the Jews can’t argue with me too much.
From here the passage closes with 14-16
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John 19:14–16 NLT
14 It was now about noon on the day of preparation for the Passover. And Pilate said to the people, “Look, here is your king!” 15 “Away with him,” they yelled. “Away with him! Crucify him!” “What? Crucify your king?” Pilate asked. “We have no king but Caesar,” the leading priests shouted back. 16 Then Pilate turned Jesus over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus away.

John 19:14-16

Pilate presents the Messiah on passover… and he is received to be crucified; slaughtered just like a passover lamb. This is probably the greatest irony of this whole spectacle.
And immediately after his presentation, the Jewish leaders reject the idea of the messiah… God as their king and proclaim “We have no king but Caesar”.... I wonder how many of them said those words and thought… what have we just done. It is as if, in that moment, they had taken the side of Pharoah… they joined the Canaanites, Philistines, Babylonians, and Assyrians. Every enemy of God’s people over the centuries had been rejected because the Kingdom of God would stand forever… and now the Jews were turning against it.
Just as John 1:11 forewarned us...
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John 1:11 NIV
11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
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My hope is that many of them felt a sting of conviction at that moment.
That’s what I always want for myself… when I sin, I want to be convicted quickly. I don’t want to keep doing something that I know is wrong.
Pilate was… he even washed his hands. He knew this wasn’t right, but he went along with it to appease those he ruled.
How sad is that?
But that doesn’t have to be our story… Because God isn’t finished.
You see, in just a few hours, Jesus is going to be nailed on the cross and he is going to pray to his father in heaven… forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing.
Forgive them.
that’s what we get through Jesus’s death on the cross… forgiveness.
When you know you are forgiven for things that you knowingly did… wow that changes your heart.
I shared before that I came to Christ when I was convicted of the way I had treated my wife… I loved her… at least I thought I did… but it wasn’t my love for her that changed me, it was when I realized I had be forgiven that my heart began to change… it was Jesus’s love for me that changed me.. that still changes me.
It was the fact that Jesus endured all this suffering… and forgave.
Sure you fall short… but there is forgiveness. You say, well does that mean I can just live any way I want.... his love won't let you. when you understand that you can’t out sin his forgiveness.... your heart is changed. You no longer want to sin. You no longer want to do what you know isn’t right… you no longer want to watch out only for yourself… when people are suffering, being bullied, you no longer want to walk on by… God moves you to do something about the brokenness in this world.
I am excited about the future of our nation, of the church, because I believe that God is using this season to do something…
to raise up new disciples
To engage his church in our communities
To bring families closer together
God is up to something and it might take us a while to see the effects of what he is doing… but he is on the move… let’s look for ways to be a part of that.
If that’s you… wanting to be a part of what God is doing… pray that God would show you needs, that he would show you how you are gifted, blessed to be a blessing...
If you find yourself watching this and are thinking I’m tired of doing what I know is the wrong thing just because I’m watching out for me… you see that there is another way to live.... I want to invite you to join that life… receive Jesus as your lord… to proclaim There is no other King but Jesus in my life… ask him to rule, invite him to change you...
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