Blessings For Curses

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“Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.”

Mark 15:15

Main Readings: Isaiah 53 & Mark 15:1-41

Supporting Readings: 2 Corinthians 5 & Psalm 22

If reality television really does teach us something, perhaps it teaches us this: the human heart will do almost anything - even outrageous things - to advance its own interests.

In Mark 15, we see this all-too-familiar impulse laid bare—not on a screen, but in real life, at the trial and crucifixion of Jesus.

We already saw, last time, the Jewish Sanhedrin try Jesus. The location for that trial was the house of the high priest. And you’ll remember that they found Jesus guilty of blasphemy and worthy of death.

But now as we come to chapter 15, we find Jesus being bound and handed over to a Roman ruler called Pilate.

It’s not because they want a second opinion that they’re going for this second trial. Rather, it’s because there’s a certain dead-end that they’ve come to in their pursuit of Jesus’ death.

The dead-end is that Israel, as a Roman-occupied territory, has had their rights to capital punishment removed by the Romans. They were no longer permitted to put Jesus to death. It’s not as if this had taken them by surprise though, verse 1 says, ‘they had made their plans’.

The key to their plans is that Jesus has confirmed that he is the Messiah - meaning the anointed one - and therefore by that claim, he actually makes a claim to kingship.

Their intention, then, is to use this to convince Pilate that Jesus is an insurrectionist. That is to say that his aim is to set himself up as king and thus oppose the kingship of the Roman emperor.

That’s why the question comes from Pilate to Jesus ‘are you the king of the Jews’ in verse 2. And why the written charge over Jesus’ head on the cross is ‘The King of the Jews’ in verse 26.

If the first trial, at the hands of the Jews, was driven by religious envy, then this one is driven by something equally powerful: political usefulness.

Whereas the Jewish one ended only in a verdict: ‘worthy of death’, this one ends in death itself. And that’s exactly what the Jewish leaders had planned for. Such is the depth of their evil intent against Jesus.

In fact, Mark has gone out of his way here in his account to reveal to us the length and breadth of the human condition in the trial and crucifixion of Jesus.

I don’t know about you, but as I progress along life’s journey, I do not find more redeeming qualities in my own nature. Rather, I find more attributes that are reprehensible.

It’s not that they weren’t there before, but it is that, progressively, the Holy Spirit exposes them more fully to me. And so, I find I am worse than ever I thought I was.

The events surrounding the Roman trial and the crucifixion of Jesus serve to expose the human heart and leave it bear for us to see.

Take Pilate for example, here’s a man in a high position with power over life and death.

He’s a man whose encounter with Jesus ‘amazed’ him in verse 5.

He’s a man who didn’t find anything in Jesus that was particularly worthy of death. He says in verse 14, ‘What crime has he committed?’

For Pilate there is no good reason to condemn Jesus. Instead, there are good reasons to think that there’s something different about Jesus - something strange and unusual; something commendable and worthy of life, not death.

And so, we witness in Pilate a great tussle in his soul. We see him at once, wavering between two positions.

On the one hand he is a man of political aspiration the likes of which, in some way, depend on him satisfying the Jewish people.

You can see in verse 6 that it was customary for the Roman ruler to release a prisoner at the Jewish festival. And in verse 8 it’s obvious that he’s under pressure to do that. So, deep down he wants to satisfy these people for political advantage.

But then there’s Jesus who ‘amazed’ him with his meekness in the face of what, he knew, were trumped up charges. Verse 10 says that Pilate knew that it was ‘out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him’.

So, you can see that Pilate is looking for a work-around here. Neither wanting to condemn Jesus nor wanting to disappoint the Jews, he’s looking for an exit strategy.

This is a common place that people find themselves when confronted with Jesus. There is a cost to knowing him and yet everything about him commends him to them. And they are left wondering: ‘what should I do with Jesus?’

In Pilate’s mind, releasing Jesus would be the best of all worlds – it would be no skin off his nose; it would be in-line with custom; and it would mean he wouldn’t have Jesus’ blood on his hands - something he famously tried to wash off at his final verdict.

And I think we all know how this works: The brain seems to be able to function twice as quickly as normal when we’re in a moral bind.

I’m always amazed what my mind will come up with to justify my heart’s desire at just the moment when it needs that perfect excuse.

Pilate’s best efforts to dodge the bullet failed though. The chief priests were one step ahead of him and they had stirred up the crowd to ask for Barabbas instead of Jesus.

This guy Barabbas, he was an insurrectionist - not just an accuse done, but a real one; and a murderer to boot, according to verse 7.

So, what will Pilate do? Well, he’ll ask the crowd what they want. He thinks, he’ll make sure that Jesus’ blood is on their hands and not his.

‘What shall I do with the one you call the king of the Jews?’ - he asks the crowds in verse 12. And when they say, ‘crucify him’, he asks ‘Why?’ ‘What crime has he committed?’. But they only repeat their cry: ‘crucify him’.

And so, Pilate has nowhere left to go. At this crossroads he must either sacrifice his own political interests by doing what he knows is right and exonerating Jesus. Or he must give-in to the ‘self’ impulse and give the crowd Jesus on a cross.

And verse 15 says, ‘he had Jesus flogged’ - a brutal ordeal all by itself - ‘and handed him over to be crucified’.

The impulse to self-promotion in Pilate is the impulse at work in all of us. And Mark shows us that is the case.

Every single group, or individual, we turn to in these verses is motivated either by self-promotion or self-preservation - which is ultimately why they all reject Jesus.

There are the religious leaders for example. They handed Jesus over to Pilate out of envy. They saw the impact Jesus had on the people - the way the people embraced him - and they feared for what they were losing. It was self-interest that was the wind in their sails.

And what about the crowd? They’re driven by a kind of blood-lust and spectacle – it’s much more entertaining to see a man die than to see one released only.

Then there’s the Roman soldiers - the military personnel who seem to be on a power-trip - not just one or two, but the ‘whole company’ Mark says in verse 16.

They’re the ones who dress Jesus up as a mock king. They put a purple robe on him and fashion a crown for him - a crown made out of thick brambles with inch-long thorns that press deeper and deeper into his head as they hit him with the mock scepter, they made for him.

And spitting on him, they pay mock homage to humiliate him as much as possible.

There’s also the everyday on-lookers of verse 29 who join in the fun - scorning Jesus and hurling insults at him.

And the religious elites who feel vindicated now that Jesus is on the cross, so they come back for seconds in verse 31 ridiculing him about saving others but failing to save himself.

Even the criminals crucified with Jesus, Mark says, heaped insults on Jesus.

From every section of society, from every possible position, the human condition is naturally repulsed by Jesus it would seem.

How is it that Jesus is so comprehensively rejected?

How is it that people are so cleaver with their moral cover up?

Well, it’s not surprising that verses 16 to 32 are dripping with mockery. Mockery can be a cleaver human trick to sooth the human conscience.

Someone once said, ‘shame is the birthplace of perfectionism, disengagement and mockery’.

When pangs of guilt rise in the soul, they are nothing less than the echoes of eternity resonating in our hearts. Those echoes whisper to us. They whisper things like, ‘God is real’.

They whisper, ‘I can’t get away with this’.

They whisper, ‘this is going to end badly’.

Those are good whispers – whispers that speak wisdom to our hearts.

But the human condition is so fallen and so bent towards evil, that even as those echoes are reverberating in our hearts, the human heart can find cleaver little antidotes. And mockery is one of them.

Mockery works to sooth the human conscience because it can make that which is righteous look ridiculous. And that in turn makes the doubts somehow less reasonable and it makes the sin so much more sensible.

It’s because of the effectiveness of mockery to sooth the consciences of the soldiers that they mock Jesus with respect to his kingship.

And it’s because of the effectiveness of mockery to sooth the consciences of on-lookers, and the religious rulers, and even the crucified criminals, that they mock Jesus as to his ability to save.

So, summing up the human condition exemplified here in Mark’s account: Jesus said, ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength’ and people said, ‘we will love ourselves first’.

It is because of this evil preference that people have made false gods and idols out of just about anything. Mute idols and dumb gods that can no more hold us accountable than can a dead person. And that suits us just fine because then there’s no accountability.

Jesus made those people feel uncomfortable. He was so perfect; he was so sinless. Even in the face of false and dangerous accusations, he didn’t revile or return evil for evil.

When he opened his mouth, nothing but truth came out. He called for repentance; he called for a turning to God. He was everything a human being, made in the image of God, should have been.

And they hated him for it. And it’s why so many still reject Jesus today.

There is something gloriously good for us in this rejection of Jesus though. It’s not good for them who rejected him, but it’s good for us - depending on what we do with Jesus.

If we do what they did with him - in our hearts - then we’re no better off than they are. But there is a way that their rejection of him paves the way for him to become something exquisite for us - providing we recognise the horrors of our human condition and therein find our need of him.

Jesus said in Mark 12 that ‘the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’. He was talking about himself of course. He is the stone they rejected, and he has become the cornerstone.

And Mark shows us how he has become the cornerstone in lots of details here. Details that are curses on Jesus, but in and through his death on the cross, correspond to benefits for us.

It is like the antiphonal choir of mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim in Joshua’s day. On one side of the valley all the blessings and on the other side all the curses.

Here, at the cross, we can see how the curses that should have been ours fall on him. And the blessings that should have been his, come to us who cling to him by faith.

There are no blessings though for any who will not flee to Jesus. But for anyone who builds their life on Jesus by faith, these benefits accrue to them. And their curses fall on him.

It’s so obvious from what we have seen that Jesus was treated falsely. He was falsely accused by the Sanhedrin. He was falsely handed over to death by Pilate.

But, where the curse of falsehood fell on him, the blessing of being declared righteous falls on us for whom he died. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

That’s not something we were. It’s not something we deserved to be. But it is something we become by faith in Jesus. Because he was falsely accused, and thereby ended up on the cross, he bore the condemnation owing to our sin on our behalf.

In Jesus, there was no falsehood, neither was there any sin. We talk of children being innocent, but even then, we’re not talking about the kind of innocence we find in Jesus. True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. Yet he was condemned as guilty.

We, on the other hand are justified as innocent even though we are guilty. His death, then, makes it possible for a damnable sinner like me to be credited with righteousness and justified as worthy in God’s sight.

This idea of substitution is so clearly visible in the prisoner exchange Pilate supervised.

One real insurrectionist for one falsely accused insurrectionist. One real criminal for one falsely condemned innocent.

Pilate is ready to release Jesus, but instead Barabbas - the murderer - goes free, and Jesus goes to the cross.

The flogging Jesus endured inflicted deep wounds in his flesh - wounds Isaiah says bring about our healing. Our wounds are self-inflicted, aren’t they? Sin and self-seeking have left us guilty, sick, poor, and afflicted.

All that wounding is our fault. Why? Because we’re not victims; we’re perpetrators.

Sin’s sores weep for a lifetime and they condemn for eternity. But, by his wounds, Isaiah says, we are healed.

The soldiers put that mock robe and that agonising crown on Jesus. And yet, there’s nothing more worthy of ridicule than people - people who say to themselves about God ‘come, let us break his chains and throw off his shackles’ - the Psalmist says, ‘God laughs at them’.

But Jesus turns all that on its head. I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness.

Aren’t those Jesus’ robes? Yes, but he’s given them to me, and he has taken my mock robes for himself.

He’s given me a special crown too - a crown of glory. Somewhere it was said of me, ‘my glory was my shame’ - that’s true, it was. I delighted in my shame. But he took a crown of thorns, and now I have a crown of glory from him.

These are the very best of things brothers and sisters!

There’s a cross here also - a cross of cursing. A certain man from Cyrene, Mark says, was forced to carry the cross for Jesus - too weak from the scourging and beating he’d already taken to carry it himself, no doubt.

The Jewish law had a curse for those hung on a cross - ‘cursed is everyone hung on a pole’ it said. Jesus, though, redeemed us from our curse - the one owing to our sin - when he took his place on the cross and, thereby, he was cursed. He became a curse for us and lifted our curse from us.

As he hung there on the cross, he was also offered a cocktail of sorts - verse 23 describes it as wine mixed with myrrh; designed to act as a pain relief. Whether for compassionate reasons or to prolong the ordeal it’s not clear, but, either way, Jesus refused it, Mark says.

If he takes the cup of pain relief then where does that leave the cup of suffering? Rather, he refuses the cup of relief in order that he might drink the full cup of God’s wrath.

That cup of wrath should have been ours. But because he made it his, the cup of wrath has been taken from us and in its place, we have been a given a cup of blessing – Corinthians calls it ‘a participation in his blood’.

And these truths reveal great ironies - don’t they? They show that the one who is mocked king of the Jews really is King - King of kings and Lord of Lords.

They show that the one who they think can’t be saviour because he can’t save himself, is that very thing because he doesn’t save himself. It’s because he will not save himself, that he can save others.

The very one they think can’t destroy the temple and raise it again in three days now that’s he’s hanging on the cross, is destroying the temple (that is his body) and will raise it again in three days’ time.

The very one they think they are taking advantage of by casting lots for his clothes in verse 24 is, by their lot-casting, the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy.

The very one who everyone, from Pilate to the passerby is judging, will one day be judged by him who will judge the living and the dead.

In short everything that looks one way, the cross of Jesus is turning on its head.

The weak is strong, the guilty is innocent, the cursed is blessed, the mocked is majesty, the dying is saving, the shamed is crowned.

So, now that we’ve seen the sin-sick condition of humanity illustrated in every person connected with this terrible event - the most terrible event in history because of the holiness of Jesus.

And since we’ve seen the way that Jesus, by being rejected, has become the cornerstone of our salvation - resulting in matchless blessings for us - we should not miss Jesus like some of these did.

They said they would believe in him if they could see him come down from the cross. But the fact is they wouldn’t have believed if they had have seen him come down. That’s clear because they already confessed in verse 31 as to their knowledge of him saving others.

They’re referring to his miracles of healing and deliverance and resurrection - which they had seen - and yet they still did not believe.

Seeing is not the problem - you see. Seeing is not believing, because believing is something the heart does, not the eye.

Isn’t it wonderful that physical defects are no obstacle to God’s saving purposes! The soul is the thing that needs fixing, and God can fix any one of those he chooses.

So, rather than saying ‘I haven’t seen it so I can’t believe it’, we must rather say ‘I haven’t embraced Jesus and so I don’t believe in him’ – if, indeed, that is true of us.

You know, I never saw someone on a high platform asking to see the design of the platform before they would trust the platform. I have however, seen people clinging for dear life to a platform having never set eyes on the designs.

Why is that? It is because embracing the platform is the difference between falling and not. That much they believe.

They cleave to an inanimate object for their life, without a question in their mind whether that is sensible or not. And yet, there are many who won’t cling to Jesus.

Well, I can tell you that the ruinous nature of our human condition is guaranteed to drag us down - all the way to hell. And there’s no two ways about that.

Has Jesus not commended himself to us?

Has he not shown both his credentials and his desire to rescue us?

Has he not demonstrated all the blessings he wants to bestow upon us by taking our stripes for us?

Has he not said, ‘come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden with sin and I will give you rest?’

Has he not bid us look to him and live?

Has he not presented himself to us as entirely desirable, and completely lovely, and altogether worthy of our faith?

He has done all these things friends. So, I put it to you that we must stop saying, ‘when I see I will believe’.

We must rather believe by clinging to him - knowing that our life depends on knowing him personally and intimately; and all these blessings he will confer on us.

In that case he will have gone to the cross for us, and the awful consequences of our human impulse to self-promotion will have been cleansed away. God’s holiness will have been upheld. And we will have peace with him.