PILATE … THEN THE SOLDIERS
Sermon Text, St. Mark 15:15-20, 24-28. So Pilate, wanting to gratify the crowd, released Barabbas to them; and he delivered Jesus, after he had scourged Him, to be crucified. Then the soldiers led Him away into the hall called Praetorium, and they called together the whole garrison. And they clothed Him with purple; and they twisted a crown of thorns, put it on His head, and began to salute Him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Then they struck Him on the head with a reed and spat on Him; and bowing the knee, they worshiped Him. And when they had mocked Him, they took the purple off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him out to crucify Him. … Now it was the third hour, and they crucified Him. And the inscription of His accusation was written above: THE KING OF THE JEWS. With Him they also crucified two robbers, one on His right and the other on His left. So the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And He was numbered with the transgressors.”
Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. Give us consolation and strength in all trials and tribulation, that You suffered all these indignities for us so that we might with joy accept our crosses, knowing that through faith we will be crowned with honor and glory. Amen!
Dear people loved by God in Christ, the suffering Savior: Grace, mercy, and peace be with you. Amen.
When we come to these things in Jesus’ Passion, we cringe. We want to look away. Because when the action moves into the Praetorium and the Romans take over, it gets ugly.
Jesus was physically beaten by the Jews too. Jesus was condemned by the Jewish Sanhedrin first. But they’re amateurs compared to the Romans. For example, when the Jews punished a crime with whipping, they limited it to 39 lashes. But the Romans had no such limitations. At the point a man was condemned, such as when Pilate delivers Jesus to be crucified, the Roman goal was to make the accused so weak that the person would die quickly.
If you know this, you shudder to hear these words: “So Pilate, wanting to gratify the crowd, released Barabbas to them; and he delivered Jesus, after he had scourged Him, to be crucified. Then the soldiers led Him away into the hall called Praetorium.” These are frightening words.
Pilate gave Jesus to be crucified. But they did not go right out to the road. This would come only “after Pilate had scourged Him.” The scourging was a horrific punishment. The victim was taken to a pillar, stripped of all his clothing, and his arms tied to the pillar. His body would be horribly damaged and torn, and he’d lose a great deal of blood and body fluids.
The Romans didn’t want to prevent a crucifixion; they wanted people to see the man up there, as a deterrent to crime. Rome wanted the crucifixion, but not for it to last forever. The goal of the scourging was to make the man as weak as possible. Jesus died so quickly, that His scourging was obviously very severe and He obviously was lashed many, many times.
But there’s more. “And they clothed Him with purple; and they twisted a crown of thorns, put it on His head, and began to salute Him, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ Then they struck Him on the head with a reed and spat on Him; and bowing the knee, they worshiped Him.”
The Roman soldiers, who were away from home and had to make all kinds of special allowances for the Jews’ religion, used this opportunity to vent their frustrations. They were making fun of the Jews’ religion. One of them twisted a crown out of a thorny bush and pressed it into Jesus’ skull, so that He kept feeling it. They used the way to address Caesar – “Hail!” – but then hit Him with a stick on His head and face, and spit in His face.
Last of all, Mark tells us, they took Jesus down the road to Golgotha and “there they crucified Him.” They pounded nails through His hands and His feet, and lifted Him up on the beam next to the “two robbers.”
Mark was writing to a Roman audience. The Christians in Rome knew all about Roman brutality. When we listen to these details, we’re scandalized by how brutal it was. But there’s a twofold reason that we need to stare this in the face.
The first part is Law. This is the brutal nature of our sin. In our attitude, we’re like the Jews who did their own mockery and beating, but up to a point. We are perhaps OK with doing some sinning. We know we can’t keep the Law perfectly. So we think we can sin up to a point. We excuse our thinking evil of someone, letting loose a swear word in a moment of pain or frustration, expressing hatred for a politician, pushing or cheating to get ahead, watching shows or movies that denigrate marriage, etc. We think that we can keep this sinning under control. It’ll only go so far. Besides, do these things really hurt others? Not that much, we may think.
So we see these Roman soldiers whose treatment of Jesus knows no boundaries and is so out of control, to learn: This is what our sin is like. This is a truer picture of ourselves. We don’t have our sin under control. Once we let ourselves go a little ways, our sinful nature will take it farther. God is showing us what our sinning looks like to Him: it looks just like these soldiers lashing, spitting on and striking Jesus, never getting enough of it. This is what your sinful self is really like.
We hear this to become sorry for our sins. But also to become afraid of our sinfulness, afraid of what we’re really capable of, and don’t play around with sinful desires, don’t make excuses or allowances for sin, don’t wink at sin but hate it and flee from it.
The second reason we have to see Jesus being treated this way is Gospel. Jesus is being beaten and spit upon, and it feels so never-ending, because He is substituting Himself for you. Hell is an eternity of being beaten, spit upon and mocked by the devil and all the devils, all the time.
Jesus wants you to see that He is saving you from that, as He takes it all instead of you. Since this happened to Him, it doesn’t – and won’t – happen to you.
Jesus has nails driven into His hands and His feet, because that is what our sins do. They nail Him to the cross. But they nail Him to the cross, while we go free. Then they do no harm to us. The Roman soldiers are just the instruments God the Father uses to accomplish His plan of salvation.
Jesus patiently suffers it because God loves you. He wants to nail your sins to His cross so that when death and the devil want to torture you with your sins, the answer is: They aren’t there. All the punishment and torture has been dealt out already – to Jesus, who is now smiling and laughing.
One person isn’t mentioned by name here but he is the picture of us. The centurion – the Roman officer in charge of the crucifixion detail – was responsible for Jesus’ body being broken in all this torture, just as our sins are. Yet he will come to believe in Jesus. He can be saved. How wonderful!
This is the point of the awful things in these verses. Jesus wants you to see how much He loves you. This will see you through the anguish over your sins, and also through trials and sufferings: He loves you. Amen!