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Series: Matthew
Sermon by J. Ligon Duncan on Jan 9, 2000
오디오 링크; http://cdn.fpcjackson.org/45/89817479a76a424fd7bcc0db0f5963/Jesus2520Mocked2520.mp3
Would
you please turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 27:27-32. We’ll
continue our exposition of the gospel of Matthew, especially of this
passage dealing with his passion. We Presbyterians don’t often focus
upon the physical sufferings of Christ. There is a variety of reasons
for that. But it’s important for us to see those sufferings as they are
displayed very clearly here by Matthew. Matthew wants us to take account
of the reality of those sufferings. There have always been those in the
Christian tradition which tended to downplay the bodily suffering of
our Lord Jesus Christ, and even some who denied it. And Matthew makes
short work of that in this description of what Jesus endured. But more
than this, Matthew knows that Jesus’ physical sufferings are a
fulfillment of the Old Testament prophesies and are a key to our
understanding the nature of His death on our behalf. The physical
sufferings are a window or a pointer to the totality of the suffering
which He experienced as He became a curse for us. And so, let us hear
God’s holy and inspired word here in Matthew 27:27-32, as we see the
soldiers’ cruel mockery and physical abuse of Jesus before His
crucifixion. This is God’s word.
“Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole Roman cohort around Him. And they stripped Him, and put a scarlet robe on Him. And after weaving a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand; and they kneeled down before Him and mocked Him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they spat on Him, and took the reed and began to beat Him on the head. And after they had mocked Him, they took His robe off and put His garments on Him, and led Him away to crucify Him. And as they were coming out, they found a man of Cyrene, named Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear his cross.”
Thus ends this reading of God’s holy, inspired and inerrant word. May He add His blessing to it. Let’s pray.
Our
Lord this is Your word, and we ask now that in it by the spirit, You
would show us the passion of our Savior, the meaning of His death, and
that we would embrace Him by faith, who is the only Savior of mankind.
We ask it in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Normally, we break
passages into parts and try and see specific points being taught by
Matthew in specific sections of the passage. But today I want to
traverse the whole ground of this passage twice, looking at it from two
different perspectives. When we first work through the passage, I want
you to see the reality of Christ’s sufferings as Matthew sets them
forth. Then I’d like to come back to the same points again and see the
vicarious nature of His sufferings. Matthew is showing us here, even as
he records specifically the torture which Christ endured before the
crucifixion, he is recording these things for us that we might
understand that they are fulfillment, not only of the Old Testament, but
of what Jesus had predicted about His death, and they show the nature
of His death; how His death functioned on our behalf. After Pilate had
released Barabbas, Jesus was turned over to the Roman soldiers to be
prepared for crucifixion. And we’ll begin to consider next week the
horror of that particular method of death. But you can see today just
from what we’ve already read that the preliminaries were brutal and
ruthless and inhumane in and of themselves.
Now we are so
familiar with this description that it is easy for us to read what Jesus
endured and not have it penetrate our hearts and grip us. And I want to
suggest to you an imaginary event. It may even be a little bit
anachronistic, but I think perhaps it will help you grasp a little more
intensely what Jesus went through. We know in Matthew’s time, and
especially a little bit after it, there grew up a teaching which even
affected and infected Christians which basically said that Jesus did not
have a real human body. And others said it like this. Well, He had a
human body, but when the time came for His torture and suffering and
crucifixion, He actually left that body and someone was substituted for
Him. Do you know that the Muslims teach that about Jesus; that He did
not die on the cross, that someone was substituted for Him in body? It’s
a form of a very old heresy. At any rate, the Gnostics often taught
something like that. Well, let’s suppose a young Christian disciple
coming to an aged Matthew, having heard some such teacher who denied the
sufferings and the bodily afflictions of our Lord, and let’s imagine
the blood rising to the ears and head of aged Matthew, and saying son,
let me tell you what my Master suffered for you. And so Matthew begins
to give this detailed account of the sufferings of Christ. In fact,
Matthew is more detailed than any of the other gospels writers in his
descriptions of what happened to our Lord prior to His crucifixion. He
gives us a seven-step description of what these soldiers did to Jesus.
First
of all in verse 28, you see that they disrobed Him. Now that was a very
shameful thing. The Jew of Jesus day could not have conceived of
something more embarrassing, more shaming, than being publicly naked.
Think of it. In the Old Testament, in the first five books of the
scripture, when Moses wants to come up with a way to say delicately, the
most vile and debasing sexual acts possible, what phrase will he use?
And he looked upon his nakedness. He looked upon her nakedness. The
concept of public nakedness and the connection of it was shamed since
the fall was penetrated into the being of the Jew. And so here Jesus is
disrobed and make naked. But more than that, let’s think of the pain
that would have been involved in that. This man had already been
scourged. The flesh was hanging from His back, and to take the robe, the
clothes off the Lord Jesus would have caused excruciating pain. If you
have ever gone through surgery and had the bandages moved for cleaning,
you understand something of the pain that often attends the removal of
the bandages, even for cleaning. And our Lord Jesus Christ’s back was a
bloody mess, and now His robes are taken off. Think of the pain of it.
And
then in verse 28 they robe Him again, now with a faded soldier’s robe.
One of the red robes worn by the Roman troopers, they put it around Him.
Why? To mock Him. The kings in the near east would have worn purple
robes as a symbol of their royalty and now in preparation for the
taunting of Jesus, They put one of these faded Roman troopers’ garments
around him. And then they crown Him with thorns. In verse 29, a thorny
reef is made from some such plant in Palestine, and it’s placed on His
head as a mock crown. The rulers of the near east would have worn crowns
with spikes heading out as if they were the spikes of the light of the
sun, and this crown is pressed down upon His head, and you can think of
the pain and the flow of the blood, and then again in verse 29 they give
him a scepter. They scepter Him with this cane, a stick, or a reed or a
cane. We know that the Roman soldiers often used something like a
bamboo cane to administer beatings. And they stick one of these canes,
one of these sticks, one of these reeds in Jesus’ hand. The king needs a
scepter after all. And they are preparing to mock Him as a king, and so
they place it into His hand.
And then again in verse 29 they
began to prostrate themselves before Him, mocking Him, mocking homage.
They speak to Him as if they would have spoken to Caesar in the
triumphal processions, the crowds and the soldiers would have greeted
Caesar with a cry, “Ave Caesar”. And so they fall down before Jesus and
they say, “King of the Jesus.” These soldiers, though they were Roman
soldiers, probably came from the district of Syria. They were
conscripts, and they would have grown up alongside the Jews and probably
had an intense hatred for the Jewish people. And they loved this
opportunity they now had to mock this man who was said by some to be the
King of the Jews. So they did mocking homage to Him. And then as they
stood up after each of these soldiers had bowed before the Lord Jesus,
each one of them stood up and spat in His face. Spitting in the face of
the one who was the only begotten Son. We know that in those times, as
now, spitting was one of the most grievous insults that you could give,
short of physical violence against a person. And we also know that Jews
considered this spittle of non-Jews, of Gentiles, to be especially
unclean and hear is the Lord of Glory being spat upon by these pagan
soldiers.
And then as they stood up, they took the reed, and
they took their hands, and the back of their hands and they beat Him,
and they slapped Him, and they struck Him on the head with a cane,
driving the spikes of the thorns deeper into His flesh. William
Hendrickson sums up this picture like this: “The soldiers, having
stripped Jesus of His outer garments, throw a ‘royal’ robe around him.
Since a king must wield a scepter, they thrust a stick into his right
hand. Then, one by one, they kneel down in front of him in mock
adoration, saying, ‘Hail, king of the Jews.’ They spit on Him and hit
Him on the head with His own ‘scepter.’” This is the scene of the
torture and the mocking of your Savior.
And after this brutal
treatment and after He has been reclothed, John, in John 19, verses 4
and following, tells us that Pilate takes Jesus in this weakened and
abused physical condition, and he takes Him out to the crowd, perhaps
hoping that after they see the physical duress that He is under, that
perhaps they will relent, perhaps they will not demand that He would be
crucified. And Pilate takes Him out before the crowd, and He says “Ecce
homo.” Behold the Man, hoping that someone in the crowd will show mercy
on Him, and yet all he hears is this: “Pilate, if you show mercy to this
man you are no friend of Caesar.” And so Pilate sends Jesus on to His
crucifixion. The execution, according to custom and law was done outside
of the city gates, probably about a thousand paces north of Herod’s
palace. And Jesus begins to carry His own cross.
This was a way
that the Romans broke the will of those who suffered in crucifixion.
It’s like digging your own grave. To carry the instrument on which you
will be crucified and on which you will die the most horrendous death.
But Jesus didn’t go very far. By the time He got to the city gates He
crumbled under the weight of that cross-beam. And so the Roman soldiers
looked into the crowd and they conscript someone to come and bear the
cross-beam for the Lord Jesus. Roman soldiers would never, ever have
carried it themselves. It was a sign of shame, and they were not doing a
mercy to the Lord Jesus Christ. These blood-thirsty men wanted to make
sure this Man died on the cross, not on the way there. And so they find
this man, Simon of Cyrene, a Jew from Cyrene, the area of Libya, and
they conscript him from the crowds. They force Him into service to carry
this cross-beam. I wonder if Matthew is, in a very subtle way, saying
surely, surely shouldn’t one of His disciples have been there for Him to
carry that cross-beam? Yet He’s alone as He goes to that cross and a
stranger is pulled from the multitude, but the glory of our Lord is seen
even in that.
If you’ll turn with me to Mark, chapter 15, Mark
tells us something wonderful about Simon. In Mark, chapter 15, he says,
“They pressed into a service a passer by coming from the country, Simon
of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus.” Now Mark tells us that
like we know who Alexander and Rufus are. What good does that do to tell
me he’s the father of Alexander and Rufus, if I don’t know who – Mark
is saying to the people to whom he first wrote this book, you know
Alexander and Rufus. They’re Christians. They’re one of us. Even in His
death, He’s the Savior of the world, and this man from Cyrene is saved
as he’s conscripted to bear His cross. Jesus can’t carry His cross
because of the sheer physical exhaustion.
Consider what He had
already gone through. Again Hendrickson describes it: “Consider what he
had already endured with the last fifteen hours; the tense atmosphere of
the Upper Room, the betrayal by Judas, the agonies of Gethsemane, the
desertion by His disciples, the totally hypocritical trial before the
Sanhedrin, the mockery in the palace of Caiaphas, the denial of His most
prominent disciple, the trial before an unjust judge, the terrible
ordeal of being scourged, the pronunciation of a death sentence upon
him, and the seven-itemed abuse by the soldiers in the praetorium.
Humanly speaking, it’s a wonder at all that He was able to carry the
cross any distance at all?” The scourging which Jesus had already
endured often killed people.
And so Simon carries the cross the
rest of the way so that Jesus can suffer the physical death of the
cross. Friends, we must not overlook the enormity of Jesus’ physical
sufferings. These earthly pains are only a small part of the totality of
what He suffered on our behalf.
J.C. Ryle says it this way:
“Never let it be forgotten that He had a real human body, a body exactly
like our own, just as sensitive, just as vulnerable, just as capable of
feeling intense pain.” If you have ever been numbered amongst those who
have been persecuted or oppressed, then you have a Savior who has
experienced the same and more. If you have not, you have cause to praise
for the Savior who has interceded.
But that’s not all. This passage
not only points to the reality of the physical sufferings that Jesus
underwent before the cross, it points to the vicarious nature of those
sufferings for the young people who are here today. Vicarious is just
one big word that means that Jesus suffered for us. He suffered on
behalf of us. He suffered in our place. When we say His sufferings were
vicarious, we mean that His sufferings were done instead of us. And
Matthew’s highlighting that. Our Savior’s experienced sufferings on the
way to the cross were deliberately and emphatically for us. It’s not
enough for us to contemplate the excruciating nature of His suffering.
We must understand that that suffering was for us.
And let’s
review again then Jesus’ treatment in this passage and see how it
fulfills Scripture and how it fulfilled Jesus’ own predictions, and how
it points to His vicarious sacrifice. Jesus was disrobed we saw in verse
28. And we said that that points to the shame of His nakedness. But you
know we think of those passages where Paul speaks of us in the last day
not naked before the Lord, but clothed with bodies, glorified bodies.
And more than that clothed with the righteous of Christ. And you can’t
help but think that Matthew is reminding us that the Savior who was
shamed and naked has provided us a cloak of righteousness. They robed
Him with this mock king’s robe. It was a way of taunting Him, you
remember, and they thought this was very cute, very ironic. This man,
some said, was a king. So they would pretend He was a king.
But
you see the irony is not on Jesus, it’s on them, for He was king. The
man that they were mocking as a king – notice how Matthew throughout
this passage even in the words of those who mock Christ, He puts truth,
more truth than they knew. They bowed before Him, they prostrated
themselves. They said, “Hail, King of the Jews.” He was. They sceptered
Him with a cane. They mocked Him that we might be honored and blessed.
They spat on Him. Listen to what Calvin says about that. “Christ, to
make us stand in the sight of the Father, pure and unstained, was
willing to be spat upon Himself and befouled with all insults.” They hit
Him, they beat Him, they slapped Him, they hit Him with a cane to
fulfill Isaiah’s words in Isaiah 50, verse 6: “I gave My back to those
who strike me. And My cheeks to those who pluck out the beard. I did not
cover My face from humiliation and spitting.”
And then they
let him outside of the city gate and Hebrews 13, verse 12 comments on
that very thing where we learn, “Therefore Jesus also, that He might
sanctify the people through His own blood suffered outside the city
gate.” And then the cross-beam is carried to Golgotha by Simon of
Cyrene. And you notice how Matthew goes out of his way to tell the
nationalities of so many of the Gentiles or others from outside
Palestine who come to a saving knowledge of Christ.
Now think of it, in just a few verses Matthew is going to record that Jesus gives a great commission; a commission to His disciples to go to all nations and make them disciples. But what we see in Matthew, before Jesus ever gives that commission, is that Jesus is doing that Himself. Simon, and his family brought to Christ even in the hour of Jesus’ sufferings. We see a glimpse of the great commission working even before the cross.
And the point of all this, Matthew wants us to know, is that not one drop of Jesus’ blood is wasted. He gives Himself willingly and intentionally for your sins in your place, and when we see Him doing this, we ought to consider what our sins deserve, and we ought to loathe the sin that pressed our Savior to the tree, and we ought to “learn that Christ’s kingdom is not to be reckoned by the fleshly sense but by the judgment of faith and the spirit,” Calvin said. That is when we see Christ on the way to the cross, we understand that the power of His kingdom is totally unlike the power exercised by men. The power of His kingdom is the power of a suffering servant. The sovereign one who humbles Himself, and is humiliated in our place that we might share in His benefits forever.
We must not have a vague, general understanding of His
vicarious suffering. We need to understand specifically every step of
the way He suffers in our place, on our behalf that we might worship Him
aright.
As we come to His table today, let’s remember the
reality of His sufferings, and let’s remember that those sufferings were
for us. Let us pray.
Our Lord and our God, we cannot do
justice to Your word, and yet You use Your word in our hearts to grow
our faith. For those of us who come this day believing, we pray that You
would strengthen our faith by the sight of the suffering Savior. For
those who know Him not, draw them to Him, as they see His self-giving,
redeeming love. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
© First Presbyterian Church.
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