Exactor Mortis
Mark 15: 37-39 (NLT)
Intro: You know how you can tell that Easter is here? You look at the TV schedule. On many of the channels you see programming and movies concerning Biblical times. I have seen Killing Jesus, and numerous shows and documentaries focusing on Jesus or the era that Jesus lived. The continuation of the series The Bible starts tonight. It is called AD and it tells the story of the spread of the Gospel and the Church.
.While most has Jesus in common, there are characters that are in every one of these but are seldom, if ever noticed. They are the Roman Soldiers. Most of the narratives that we see and hear are concerning the interactions between Jesus and the Jewish people. This morning, on this Easter morning, I want to take a few minutes and look at the Easter story in a different way. I would like for us to experience the Easter story through the eyes of a Roman soldier. One particular Roman soldier actually. He is brought into the Easter story in our text this morning in Mark chapter 15.
. Jesus has been crucified, He is hanging on the cross and Mark records this in verses 37-39.
37Then Jesus uttered another loud cry and breathed his last.
38And the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
39When the Roman officer who stood facing him saw how he had died, he exclaimed, “This man truly was the Son of God!”
. This man, this Roman soldier came to a realization that all mankind will eventually come to.
. He realized that Jesus was the son of God.
. How did he come to that realization, that’s what I want to explore this morning. Let’s look at Easter through the eyes of that Roman soldier.
( Go into a first person monologue)
. My Name is Longinus. I am a centurion in the Roman army which means that I am in command of 100 men.
I also have another command within that group of 100 men. I am in charge of the “Death Squads” the men who crucify the ones sentenced to death by the Roman Empire.
My title is “Exactor Mortis” which means supervisor of these men.
. This execution that is to happen tomorrow is pretty routine. We will scourge three men and then we will crucify them. Pretty cut and dry.
. As my day begins, I am called to the palace of the governor of the region, Pontius Pilate and he has this Jewish prisoner there and he tells us to take him and flog him. His name is Jesus.
. I have heard a little bit about this man Jesus but never anything bad.
. I have a centurion friend who swears that Jesus healed a servant of his who was sick without even going to his house. I trust my friend but I am a little skeptical of these miraculous healings. It doesn’t matter tough because I am a soldier and I follow orders.
. We take Jesus and usually when we Romans flogged someone, we used a whip that had three tendrils coming of the handle and we would tie pieces of jagged rock or pieces of old bones to the end of the tendrils. What this did was actually sink into the skin of the person being flogged and when the whip was pulled away, part of their skin would come with it. Even though we were trained to do it this way, it always turned my stomach. What an awful way to torture someone before you killed them. Many times men would die during this process and never make it to the crucifixion site.
.Not so with Jesus. We also had a whip that had lead balls attached to the end of it. We used this when we wanted to make sure that the person being whipped would survive the beating.
. My men beat Jesus with these whips and then they did something unusual, they began mocking him and calling him names. They spit on him and made a crown out of a “Nabeca” shrub. It really is a beautiful shrub with elliptical leaves and small green flowers but it also has thorns that are at least an inch long. They formed a crown out of this shrub and pushed it onto the head of this man. The one inch thorns digging into his skin and his face being streaked with blood.
. Then they put an old robe of purple on him and gave him a reed as a scepter and mockingly humiliated him calling him the King of the Jews.
. As we were going back to the governor’s palace people were gathering because the governor would traditionally release one prisoner for the Jewish people during Passover and the people were gathering to see who he would release.
. We took Jesus back to the Palace and Pilate brought him out to show the crowd that he had punished him. His intention was to release him as the prisoner that was pardoned during the Passover. He asked the crowd if they wanted him to release Jesus who he did not think deserved death or someone else.
. The Crowd started shouting “give us Barabbas”. He was one of the men we thought we were going to crucify. A vile man who was a murderer.
. Pilate asked them what he should do with Jesus and they yelled “crucify him”.
. Pilate did what they asked for and he released Barabbas and told us to crucify this man.
. When we crucify someone, they carry the cross beam with them because the piece that stands straight up and down is permanently placed in the ground.
. Another cruel thing we do is we make the condemned man carry that piece of the cross to the site of the crucifixion. Jesus was too weak by now to do this so we made a man in the crowd carry his cross for him.
. When we get to the site, we strip the clothes off the criminals and in their final shame, we crucify them naked.
. We drive spikes through the wrists as we stretch out his arms so that both arms are as far out as possible. We drive them through the wrist because it insures that their arms will not be released by the skin tearing and their arms falling down.
. We hoist the cross beam up with Jesus nailed to it and place it in the area at the top that has been hewened out for it. Then we Place his feet on top of each other and lift then up about a foot and then we drive a spike through them. We do this so they can push up to get breath so they can stay alive just a little longer. Another cruel trick that we use to prolong the agony of those we are killing.
. It’s about this time that I start to notice some things about this Jesus. He is not like the other criminals that we usually see. Usually the men being crucified curse us and spit on us and call us the vilest names. Not this Jesus.
. His concern seems to be for others and not himself. He asks God to forgive all of us that are crucifying him. I don’t know why we need forgiveness, after all, I am a soldier just doing his job. He asks one of the men there to take care of his mother after his death.
. He speaks kindly to the other prisoners even when one of them curses him and calls him names. He tells one of them that He will meet him somewhere after they die. Very compassionate but also very strange.
. Around noon all of a sudden the earth became dark, just like night for about three hours.
. Then I hear him cry out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani, (e'-loi, e-lo'i, la'-ma, sa-bakh-tha'-ni). That means my God my God, why have you forsaken me. What can He mean by that. If He is who He says He is, how could his Father abandon him. This all seemed very confusing. I realized that this man was different, but what I was seeing didn’t make any sense.
. Finally Jesus said in almost a whisper “it is finished” like he had completed a task that had been assigned to him.
. All of a sudden the Earth started shaking and rocks started splitting open and tombs were split apart and it looked like ghosts were coming out of the tombs.
. I have to tell you I was terrified but also amazed at what I saw.
. How could all of this happen if a God wasn’t causing it to happen. If God was causing this to happen right now, surely what they were saying about this man was true. Surely this Jesus was the Son of God. But I still didn’t understand how the Son of God could be killed. It was very confusing.
. Usually we would leave a body on the cross for several days after they died but the Jewish leaders had insisted that the people crucified be taken down before the Sabbath. Some kind of religious law they had. We were ordered to make sure the prisoners were dead before sundown so they could be removed from the crosses. We would usually just break their legs so they couldn’t push up and get air into their lungs to stay alive and we did that with two of the men but not Jesus.
. When I Got to Him, I could see that He was already dead so I just took my spear and thrust it into the area of his heart. Blood and water came out so I knew that He was dead.
. It was over, I was confused about everything I had seen but I had done my job. After all, I was a soldier, I was the exactor mortis.
. They took Jesus and placed him in a tomb that had been carved out of a hillside and rolled this big stone across the entrance to seal it.
. Me and my men went back to the “Antonia Fortress” where our barracks was located. We had just started to relax after the long day and Pilate sent for me.
. When I got to the Palace, he told me to place guards at the tomb of Jesus for the next several days. The Jews were afraid that someone was going to steal the body of Jesus.
. I placed some of my best men there at the tomb to guard it.
. On the third day, I was summoned to the Palace again and asked what had happened at the tomb. I didn’t know, I hadn’t heard. They brought my men in and asked them what had happened to the body of Jesus. You see, the tomb had been opened up and the body of Jesus was gone.
. They told us that there had been a great earthquake, much like the one when Jesus was on the cross and the stone had rolled away and an Angel had appeared and they became so afraid that they had fainted.
. When they came to, Jesus was gone and there were people around the tomb so they came back to report what had happened.
. They said that the Jewish leaders had given them money to say that Jesus disciples had come and stolen his body. They took the money but told us that Jesus’ disciples had not taken his body. The Angel of God had come and opened the tomb.
. After that we heard about sightings of Jesus for a little over a month. He was appearing to his disciples and to many others explaining why He had to die and be resurrected.
. He taught that only God could forgive the sin of mankind and that He required a punishment in order for us to be forgiven of our sin. Jesus came to Earth; the Son of God came to take the punishment for the sins of all mankind.
.Now things were starting to fall into place. Now I understood why this man, this Son of God, allowed us to kill him. It was either him or us. Either He take our punishment or we take our punishment.
. Now I understood why He felt that His father had abandoned him. Can you imagine taking the punishment for the sins of all mankind? What agony and pain and shame and suffering He had to endure. He was the Son of God.
. The love that He showed, the love that He had to have for all of us is immeasurable. That He would endure what we put him through on that cross three days ago voluntarily was absolutely amazing.
. Then when He was resurrected, brought back to life, I pushed that spear into his heart, I know He was dead. He said that He did that to show us that there was life after death.
. His resurrection proved to us that we could have life after death. Eternal life. What a concept. What a reality.
. He told His followers to tell us, you and I, that we could share in this eternal life with him.
. All we had to do is believe that He did come and die for our sin and the He was raised from the dead and that if we will confess that before men, then we can have an eternal life with him in Heaven with God.
. I am the Exactor Mortis and I can tell you this morning that Surely, Jesus the Christ is the Son of God and that He died for our sin and He is waiting for us to accept this fact and believe in Him.
. I speak to you again as your pastor this morning.
. Longinus came to the conclusion that Jesus was the son of God.
. Have you come to that conclusion yet?
. That is what Easter is all about. The Son of God dying for our sin and being resurrected, proving that He is God and that He and only He can grant eternal life.
. Invitation
*** Some liberties were taken to create this monologue. Longinus is not a historical figure but a historical legend. No one knows the name of the exactor mortis of the story. Some of the events after the cross were my own spirit filled imagination at work. None of this takes away from the fact that Easter is about the risen Lord. My prayer is that this sermon tells the story of Easter so that God can use this to bring him glory. Happy Easter.
*** To my Christian brothers and sisters, thank you for taking the time to read this sermon. I ask that you take another second and score this for me. I am always open to feedback so that I can continue to grow in the proclamation of God’s word.
May God bless you as you continue to strive to walk worthy of His calling.
Sources: The Holy Bible, NLT
Bill O’reilly; Killing Jesus, Publishers: Henry Holt, NY
John MacArthur, New Testament Commentary, Matthew 24-28
