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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from
God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Upon him was the chastisement that
brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)
Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, bless all of us with your Holy
Spirit, to me that I may preach well, and to all of us that we may hear well.
Amen.
In
Isaiah 50, we read the following words: I gave my back to those who strike,
and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I did not hide my face from
disgrace and spitting. In our sermon tonight, we think about particularly
where Jesus’ physical suffering turns particularly nasty in a way that we
haven’t seen yet in our readings so far. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus
anticipated this great suffering, and was so shaken by the thought of what was
to come, he sweated blood and an angel came to minister to him.
In our
reading tonight, we read about the scourging of Jesus, how the soldiers
gathered around him and clothed him with a purple robe, crowned him with
thorns, put a reed in his hand, mocked him by kneeling before him, spitting at
him, and striking and slapping him. And then after all this, Pilate brings him
out before the crowd, and present him to the them.
May
the Holy Spirit come and help us tonight in all of our thinking, and increase
our faith in Jesus, our Saviour. Amen.
Let’s
look at the first part of our reading tonight:
I.
The scourging of
Jesus.
In ancient times, it was a common punishment to flog
a criminal. Some countries in the world today still use this as a punishment.
Even in the Old Testament, there was a law about it in the book of Deuteronomy:
If the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall
cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with a number of stripes in
proportion to his offense. Forty stripes may be given him, but not more, lest,
if one should go on to beat him with more stripes than these, your brother be
degraded in your sight. We even read in St Paul’s letter that he had
received this punishment. He writes in 2 Corinthians: Five
times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. It was common
for the Jewish people to give 39 lashes, 40 minus one, just to make sure that
the people were not given more than forty.
But in Jesus’ case, it was something quite
different. Notice in the book of Deuteronomy, God set a limit to the number of
lashes—the number 40. And there is a reason given: Lest, if one
should go on to beat him with more stripes than these, your brother be degraded
in your sight.
Jesus was not flogged by the Jews, but by the
Romans—in fact, he received a scourging, as it called.
But let’s go back for a moment to the book of
Genesis. One thing that we read about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, is
that before the fall into sin, it says: The man and his
wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Later, when they had been deceived
and had fallen into sin, what is the first thing they do? It says: Then
the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they
sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. When God
comes walking in the garden, Adam says: I heard the sound
of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked and I hid myself.
A Roman scourging called for the prisoner to be
naked. There was no consideration of shame—there was no regard for whether the
person would be degraded. Also, the Romans would use a whip with pieces of
metal or bone embedded in the whip. The purpose was to make a mess of the
person. Also, there was no limit to the number as with the Jews.
This is what Jesus underwent in our reading. Also,
in John, it says that Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. It was
probably not the case that Pilate himself personally flogged him. We might say
that Pilate had bought a horse, but that doesn’t mean that he personally went
and inspected the horse and handed the money over. Most likely, he would have
an employed horse-trainer who would go and do all of that for him. So also,
with this: Pilate would have had someone employed to carry out this scourging.
Think about if we had had such a thing like this in our society today—who would
do it? Who in our country would agree to do this? Only the most deranged
low-life imaginable would be willing to do this. We could imagine Pilate had
got one of his most bloodthirsty soldiers, an “ex-prison guy”, in other way, a
madman to do this job.
This is the kind of person that Jesus was in the
hands of. And strangely enough, not much is said about it in the Scripture. In
John we read that Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. Matthew and
Mark simply say: And having scourged Jesus, delivered
him to be crucified. And yet this one word: scourged, or flogged, indicates
the fulfilment of a wonderful prophecy from Isaiah. We read: Upon
him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds [or with his stripes] we
are healed.
This event teaches us about who we are. It brings us
face to face with our sinful nature. Here we see a man laid bare, like Adam and
Eve in the garden. Before the fall, there was no shame. But now, Jesus is
stripped of his clothes—the purpose of this is to shame him. And in the Garden
of Eden, Adam and Eve were clothed with skins. Because of the sin, payment was
required, and a animal, maybe a sheep or a leopard or something, lost its life
in order to cover them. But here, Jesus’ bare skin is not covered up, but it is
removed from him, one stripe at a time. And Jesus reveals to us his true
humanity. When Jesus was on the mountain of the Transfiguration, he showed a
glimpse of his divinity: the light of his divine nature shines through his face
and his clothes and lightens up the night. We learn here that God the Father is
his true Father, and that Jesus is his true Son. As John says: We
have seen his glory, the glory as of the only Son from the Father. However,
that same skin which glowed with all of God’s power and energy, is now stripped
to reveal that he had a human mother, Mary. And he shows to us, by submitting
to this tremendous cruelty, that he underneath his skin, like all members of
the human race, we have blood and flesh and bones.
The shame of this whole event of Jesus’ scourging is
our shame. The innocent Son of God is stripped and tied in place, and subjected
to a beefy pagan madman, and in his hand with one of the nastiest known weapons
know to the human race. Can we even come to think that this is our human
nature? This is our sin being punished.
But also, Jesus does not want us simply to think
about this because he wants to shame us: no—he does this because he wants to
cover over our sin, and forgive it. We should think about this not about what
other people did to Jesus, but what Jesus himself accomplished and achieved.
Psalm 32 says: Blessed is the man whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Jesus’ nakedness and flesh is
uncovered, you are covered by him. St John writes in his first letter: The
blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. And in Isaiah, we read: Upon
him was the chastisement—not for nothing—but that brought us
peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
So often as a pastor I have heard people say: If you
knew what I had done, you wouldn’t be so quick to speak about forgiveness.
What I’ve done can’t be forgiven. Yes—you’re right, I might not know what
you’ve done. But I know what Jesus has done. And if only these words about
Jesus’ suffering and death for you would hook into your mind and skin, your
heart your flesh, just as that whip did to Jesus! Hebrews says: The
word of God is living and active, sharper than any
two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and
marrow. Let it pierce! Let it sink in. You are a beloved,
forgiven, child of God. By his wounds, with his stripes, you
have been healed.
We come to the next part of our reading:
II.
Jesus receives a
mock-coronation.
In Matthew’s Gospel, we read: Then
the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and
they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put
scarlet robe on him. Mark calls it a purple cloak.
When we hear in our times about someone wearing a
certain colour, we don’t often think very much about it, though we do have some
associations. We clothe baby boys in blue and baby girls in blue. We are used
to the police and the navy wearing blue, the army wearing brown. Pastors often
wear black and white. Brides wear white at their weddings. We might look twice
if someone wore a gold or silver suit or a dress.
However, in ancient times, purple was a very
expensive colour to wear. Purple dye was made from a particular type of
sea-snail, and was hard to come by. Generally, it was royalty then that wore
purple. Even today, if you see an official photograph of the Queen with her
crown, she would often wear a purple robe. In the New Testament, we read about
the businesswoman Lydia who became a Christian. We read: One
who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of
purple goods, who was a worshipper of God. When Jesus tells the story of
Lazarus and the rich man, we read that the rich man wore purple. This is to say
that the man was dressing like a king, when he wasn’t one. Being rich doesn’t
make a person royalty. (This would be like if wealthy people like Clive Palmer
or Rupert Murdoch started to wear gold crowns!)
Here in our reading, Jesus is clothed in purple.
This is a mock coronation. He is given a royal, purple robe, not because they
recognise him as a king, but because they are mocking him.
Once again, if we go back to Genesis, we read that
God said: Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it,
and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens
and over every living thing that moves on the earth. God says to
his human creatures: have dominion. In order
words: live like kings and queens and royalty, ruling the world together with
me. But Adam and Eve exchange this royal dignity of having dominion for being
the devil’s slaves. They weren’t satisfied with the dignity they had already
received from God, and the devil tempted them by saying: You
will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat it you will be like God! And yet the
promise is false.
Now, Jesus, the true King of glory, the King of
Kings and the Lord of Lords, is treated like a pretend king, and is clothed
with a purple robe.
The next part of the coronation ceremony we read is
where we read: and twisting together a crown of
thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand.
This is a mock version of a real crown, and a real
sceptre, usually made out of gold, which were symbols of a king’s authority.
In Genesis we read: When no bush of
the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung
up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man
to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the
whole face of the ground—then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the
ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a
living creature.
Can you imagine this picture of a perfect serene
created world, with a gentle mist watering everything? But then after the fall
into sin, we read where God says to Adam: Because you have
listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I
commanded you, “You shall not eat of it,” cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it
shall bring forth for you. Here in our reading tonight we see these thorns and
thistles return. The thorns are twisted into a terrible crown, and a thistle,
or a reed, is put into Jesus hand as a sceptre. The very things which were
God’s judgment upon Adam, Jesus now takes upon himself as he takes that same
judgement upon himself.
In Psalm 110, we read the wonderful words: The
LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your
footstool.” The LORD sends forth from Zion your mighty sceptre. Rule in the
midst of your enemies!
Here in the city of Jerusalem, from Zion, the LORD
sends forth his mighty sceptre. Jesus receives a sceptre in his hand—but not a
gold one, but an old stick. And yet the words are true: Rule
in the midst of your enemies! Jesus is here surrounded by his
enemies, and yet he is not being ruled, but he is ruling. We read in Matthew
that the soldiers took the reed and struck him on the
head. Jesus knows what he is doing—he is suffering all of
this to make atonement for the sin of the world.
The next part of the mock coronation happened like
this. We read: And kneeling before him, they mocked
him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Mark says, they
saluted him. Remember here that when Jesus was arrested in
the Garden of Gethsemane, we read: Then Jesus, knowing all that would
happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered
him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he”. [In Greek,
the word are simply I AM, just as when he said to Moses, I AM, when he spoke
from the burning bush.] It says: When Jesus said to them, “I AM”, they
drew back and fell to the ground.
Do you see here that the immense power of Jesus’
words, and the use of the words, “I AM”, forces the people to the ground—the
power is so great, so intense, and so immense. And the same here: when these
soldiers are in the presence of Jesus, they can do nothing but kneel and hail
and salute him. They do it out of mockery, but we know their actions speak
true. This is the very thing that we should also desire when are face to face
with Jesus: to kneel before him, to hail him, and to salute him as our king. But
not in mockery, and God cannot be mocked. When King David was anointed as a
king, God said to Samuel: The LORD sees not as man sees: man
looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.
We also read in Philippians: At
the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the
earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father.
Here we see in this mock coronation ceremony, that
the soldiers also kneel before God and confess Jesus as king of the Jews. We
can see their outward appearance, but God sees the heart.
What also is part of a coronation ceremony?
Well—normally if a king or queen is crowned, there would be a great cheer from
the crowd. But what do we read? And they spit on him and took the reed
and struck him on the head. We see here a fulfilment of the
prophecy from Isaiah: I gave my back to those who strike, and
my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and
spitting.
God would know what these men ate, what they had for
breakfast. God would know when they had last brushed their teeth, and he would
have seen the gingivitis and the phlegm. In his suffering, Jesus received the
filth and the dirt of human spit upon his face. By contrast, after Jesus had
risen from the dead, and had destroyed death and conquered death, and had no
sign or scrap of death anywhere around him, we read that he breathed on his
disciples and said: Receive the Holy Spirit. This breath
would have been even fresher than that cool gentle mist over the Garden of
Eden. That mist was created by God, but Jesus was God himself.
Just to finish our sermon tonight, we should also
remember that at Jesus’ ascension, we see the other side of what happened in
our reading tonight. Tonight we read about his mock coronation, but at the
ascension we read about his entrance into heaven, where he sits down at the
right hand of the throne of God. Instead of the sound of mockery, we read in
Psalm 47: God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a
trumpet. In stead of the laughing, the jeering, the fake
saluting, we read in the same Psalm: Sing praises to
God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises! For God is the King
of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm! God reigns over the nations; God
sits on his holy throne!
Let’s bow the knee before our Saviour and Redeemer
and our Sacrificial Lamb, who, as Isaiah said, was wounded for our
transgressions and bruised for our inquities. Let’s
receive him as our Saviour and our king and our Lord, and worship him in
spirit and in truth. Let our hearts and our lips speak together, and not
in conflict with each other, as Jesus says to the Pharisees: The
people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
The famous hymn says:
O sacred head, now wounded / With pain and scorn
weighed down / In mockery surrounded / With thorns Thine only crown. / O sacred
head, what glory / What bliss, till now, was Thine! / Yet, though despised and
gory, / I joy to call Thee mine.
Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world,
have mercy on us! Amen.
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