Sermon 3: Jesus’ Trial and Torture
82 Hours: Countdown to the Resurrection
Chuck Sligh
Preaching April 7, 2019
NOTE: A PowerPoint presentation is available for this sermon by request at chucksligh@hotmail.com.
Skeleton outline, the idea of a retrial for Jesus, and some other elements are borrowed from David Dykes’ sermon, The Trial And Torture Of The King, on SermonCentral.com. The rest is all my fault.
TEXT: Please turn in your Bibles to Mark 15.
INTRODUCTION
The right to a fair trial is a cherished American freedom.
Illus. – A cowboy who lived in the Wild West days was arrested for stealing horses.
The judge said, “You are accused as a horse thief, how do you plead?”
The old cowboy said, “Not guilty, Your Honor!”
The judge said, “Alright then. You have a choice: You can be tried by a panel of three judges or by a jury of twelve of your peers.”
The cowboy said, “I don’t understand that word ‘peers.’ Who would they be?”
The judge explained, “A jury of your peers means people just like you.”
The cowboy thought for a second and said, “I’ll take the judges. I don’t want twelve horse-thieves judging me!”
Jesus was not given a fair trial. In fact, it was one of the great legal travesties in history.
Just three weeks from Easter in our series titled 82 Hours, a walk with Jesus from the Last Supper to Jesus’s resurrection, we want to examine the trial and torture of Jesus and see what we can learn from it.
I. FIRST, IN VERSES 1-5, WE SEE SILENCE: AN INNOCENT MAN FALSELY ACCUSED – And immediately in the morning the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, and they bound Jesus, and led him away, and delivered him over to Pilate. 2 And Pilate asked him, Are you the King of the Jews? And he answered and said to him, ‘You said it.” 3 And the chief priests accused him of many things: but he answered nothing. 4 And Pilate asked him again, saying, “Do you answer nothing? See how many things they testify against you. 5 But Jesus still answered nothing; so that Pilate marveled.
Jesus’ trial had both a Jewish and a Roman phase, fleshed out in more detail in the other gospels. After His agony in Gethsemane, Jesus was betrayed by Judas, arrested and bound by temple officers, and carried Him to the house of Caiaphas, the high priest. The 23 members of the Jewish Sanhedrin were summoned from their beds to conduct a hasty trial for this rabble-rouser, Jesus.
Because trials at night were illegal, this was nothing but a kangaroo court. False witnesses were found to testify against Him, while He was not afforded the right to call witnesses in His favor or to cross-examine His accusers.
But Jesus would not have called any even if He had been given the opportunity, for silence is the primary thing you notice about Jesus during both phases of His trials. Caiaphas accused Him of blasphemy, and Jesus said nothing in His defense, so the Sanhedrin gave Him the predetermined verdict—guilty and deserving death.
Only the Romans could issue a death sentence, so early the next morning, Jesus was taken to Pilate, the Roman governor representing Caesar. As before, in the Sanhedrin, the most notable feature about this encounter before Pilate was Jesus’s silence in His defense. Three times in this passage, we find the phrase, “Jesus answered nothing”—in verses 3,4, and 5. It’s not that He didn’t answer ANY of Pilate’s questions, but that He answered nothing in His defense.
In fact, He complicated His case. When Pilate asked, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You said it” which most interpreters understand Him as meaning, “It is as you say.” So, Jesus wasn’t taking the fifth here; He was admitting to the one crime that actually justified the death penalty of all the charges brought before him—the treasonous crime of usurping Caesar by claiming to be a king. Right here, Jesus could have avoided torture and the cross that was to come. But He said nothing in His defense. He gave Pilate the one legal excuse He needed to execute Jesus.
Look again at verse 3: “And the chief priests accused him of many things: but he answered nothing.” In the face of these withering accusations, Jesus did not even say another word. He didn’t try to defend Himself; He was silent before His false accusers.
This was in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy found in Isaiah 53:7 – “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, Yet he opened not his mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.”
Illus. – When we lived in England, I witnessed sheep being sheared a few times. The sheep farmer roughly grabs the lamb and pins its head between his legs and then in a systematically shears the wool off one section at a time. The sheep just sits there lamely, never making a sound. One time I watched, and the sheep stared directly into my eyes with a sad look. I was suddenly shaken to realize that this was how Jesus faced His accusers. “As a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.”
When we ended last week’s sermon on Jesus’s agony in Gethsemane, you’ll recall that suddenly Jesus, after grappling with enormity of the suffering He would experience, suddenly stood up and courageously rushed to His captors rather than cower in fear. Now here, before the Sanhedrin and before Pilate, Jesus had a chance to speak up and make His case and turn away from the torture and death that lay ahead. But He did not. The eternal Son of God, who could have called ten thousand angels to destroy the world and set Him free, stood as a sheep before its shearers and remained silent.
Why?—Because He was committed to one single goal—to go to the cross, and suffer whatever necessary to get there—to die so that we might have forgiveness for our sin.
II. IN VERSES 6-15a WE SEE SUBSTITUTION: A GUILTY MAN GRACIOUSLY EXCUSED. – “Now at that feast he used to release one prisoner whom the people requested. 7 And there was one named Barabbas, who had been imprisoned with the insurrectionists who had committed murder…. 8 And the multitude, crying aloud began to ask Pilate to do as he had always done for them. 9 But Pilate answered them, saying, “Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” 10 For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him over because of envy. 11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd, so that he should rather release Barabbas to them. 12 And Pilate answered and said again to them, “What then do you want me to do with him whom you call the King of the Jews?” 13 And they cried out again, “Crucify him!” 14 Then Pilate said to them, “Why, what evil has he done?” And they cried out the all the more, “Crucify him!” 15 … so Pilate, willing to satisfy the people, released Barabbas to them…”
It seems Pilate wanted to release Jesus, so he figured out a plan. Every Passover, there was a custom to release a guilty prisoner to the Jews. After all, Passover was all about averting judgment, and this was a way for Rome to do a little PR and tip their hat to Jewish religious sentiments. In the Exodus story, when the death angel saw the blood of the Passover lamb in Egypt, he passed over, and judgment was averted. Pilate asked if he could release Jesus as the Passover Pardon, but the religious leaders were stationed in the crowd.
Verse 11 says they stirred up the mob to cry to release Barabbas, not Jesus. Mark and Luke describe Barabbas as an insurrectionist and a murderer, and John’s gospel adds that he was a robber (John 18:40). He was a bad man, and there was a Roman cross waiting for him. But at the last moment, he suddenly found himself free, and Jesus was sentenced to die on the cross that had been prepared for Barabbas.
This violates our inborn sense of justice. Jesus was innocent of ALL sin, yet He went through the trial, the torture and the crucifixion. Barabbas was a rebel and a murderer, and a robber, yet he got off scot-free. Were we there and truly wanted justice, we would want the crowd to yell, “Release JESUS! Crucify Barabbas! He deserves it!” But instead, the mob yelled, “Release Barabbas! Crucify Jesus!”
Think of it: Barabbas, a scoundrel, a sinner, a criminal, a robber, a murderer, a rebel, …was set FREE, and Jesus took his place on a cross meant for BARABBAS! When I look inside myself, I realize that I am Barabbas—And so are you! We’re all in the same sandals; we’re all guilty; we’re all scoundrels and sinners. But we get to go free because Jesus died in our place. Like Barabbas we deserve the punishment for our sins, but Jesus became our substitute, just as Jesus became Barabbas’s substitute.
Illus. – You don’t have to understand the Bible to understand what a substitute is. If you’re a basketball player on the bench and the coach says, “Go in and take #12’s place.” you run onto the court and #12 sits on the bench. You become his or her substitute. We deserved to suffer for our sins, but Jesus came into the game and we got to sit on the bench of grace!
Author and theologian John Stott said, “The concept of substitution lies at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.”
Peter put it this way in 1 Peter 2:24 – “Who Himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we might die to sins, [and] live to righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed.”
I wonder what happened to Barabbas after he was freed. Did he see Jesus being scourged and say, “Thank you”? Did he follow Jesus to the cross and say, “Thank you”? Did he think, “That should have been ME. That should have been MY blood.”?
We’ll never know, because after his brief mention in the Easter story, Barabbas literally walks off the pages of history. There is no BIBLICAL accounts of what happened to Him after this, nor any HISTORICAL record, nor even a CHURCH TRADITION about him. He just vanishes from history.
I wonder why that is. Maybe God never intended us to know his response to what Jesus had done for Him. Maybe it’s to remind us WE have a decision to make about what Jesus did for us. We can spurn His free gift of salvation out of sinful ungratefulness. Or we can look at all Jesus did in our place and say, “Thank you! Thank you, Jesus. That should have been ME being scourged, mocked, and tortured, carrying my own cross to Golgotha and hanging for my own sins.”
III. LAST IN OUR STORY, IN VERSES 15-20 WE SEE SUFFERING: THE GOD-MAN SHAMFULLY ABUSED. – “…so Pilate, willing to satisfy the people, released Barabbas to them, and…after having Jesus scourged, he delivered Jesus to be crucified. 16 And the soldiers led him away into the palace, called the Praetorium; and they called together the whole garrison. 17 And they clothed him in purple, and twisted together a crown of thorns, and put it about his head, 18 And began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 19 And they kept striking him on the head with a staff, and…spit on him, and kneeling on their knees, they paid homage to him. 20 And when they had mocked him, they took…the purple robe off him, and put his own clothes on him, they led him out to crucify him.
Before the cross, Jesus faced unspeakable torture by the cruel Roman soldiers. A squad of three soldiers usually performed a flogging. The prisoner was stripped, and his hands were tied to a ring in a wooden post. Two soldiers stood on each side with a Roman whip, call a flagrum, in their hands. This was a leather whip of nine thongs with pieces of sharp metal or stone embedded in the end of each thong.
Dr. C. Truman Davis, a physician who has studied the medical aspects of the crucifixion published this report about the flogging of Jesus: “The heavy whip is brought down with full force again and again across Jesus’ shoulders, back, and legs. At first the heavy thongs cut through the skin only. Then, as the blows continue, they cut deeper in the subcutaneous tissues, producing first an oozing of blood from the capillaries and veins of the skin, and finally spurting arterial bleeding from vessels in the underlying muscles… Finally the skin of the back is hanging in long ribbons and the entire area is an unreognizable mass of torn, bleeding tissue.” [“The Passion of Christ from a Medical Point of View,” Arizona Medicine, 22, no. 3, March 1965, p. 185]
There are accounts of Roman soldiers flogging prisoners to death. But the point of flogging was to bring them as close to death as possible so that the crucifixion time would be shortened. If you ever saw the movie, “The Passion of Christ,” you have an idea of what it was like, but no movie could truly portray the horror of the Christ’s torture.
After the flogging, Jesus was taken inside the fortress where an entire company of Roman soldiers came and continued to torture him. In mockery, they put a purple robe on the bloody back of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the very God of the universe, and twisted a crown of long, sharp thorns and then crushed it on His head. They blindfolded Him and struck Him in the face and head with a club.
At the end of His torture, Jesus was unrecognizable. We know that because in Isaiah 52:2, Isaiah prophesied this of the suffering od rhw Messiah: “…many were astonished…; His appearance was… marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.” And Jesus was not even near the end of His suffering.
CONCLUSION
Legal experts agree that Jesus didn’t receive anything close to a fair trial. In 1948, when Israel was established, a Supreme Court was created. Some of the first cases filed before it were petitions for a retrial of Jesus Christ. The court ruled they no longer had any jurisdiction over the case.
So, this morning, I’m calling for a retrial of Jesus. I’m going empanel all of you as members of the jury. You must decide what you will do with Jesus—who He claimed to be, and what He did.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the evidence I present to you are Jesus’s own claims. I present to you exhibits Alpha through Omega: Jesus went about claiming to be God, that He had the power to forgive sins, that He has always existed, and that He will judge the world at the end of time, all claims reserved only for God. Many witnesses verified these claims. The question is not that Jesus made these claims, but are they true?
What is your verdict? There are only four choices:
CHOICE 1: WAS JESUS A LIAR?
He clearly claimed to be God, but if He knew He were not, that makes Him nothing but a liar and a deceiver. Liars have selfish motives. Either they want personal gain, or they want to protect themselves from harm.
But if He were a liar, WHAT did He gain? Jesus died owning nothing but the clothes on His back, and when faced with the opportunity to defend Himself, He deliberately kept silent. That would have been the perfect time for a good lie. Some people say, “Well, Jesus wasn’t God, but just a great teacher.” But if Jesus was intentionally deceiving people, that doesn’t make Him a good teacher; it would make Him one of the evilest teachers of history.
He spoke against hypocrisy, yet He taught honesty. If he was a liar, He was also a hypocrite. Yet when you study His teachings, you discover a moral standard based on kindness, unselfishness, mercy and forgiveness. How could someone so sublimely honest and innocent and good be the biggest deceiver in all of history?
Your second choice: was Jesus a LUNATIC?
Jesus made outrageous claims about being God, and if He believed He was God, but really wasn’t, then He was a deluded lunatic. But if you listen to all the testimonies about Jesus in the Gospels, He is without a doubt the sanest person who ever spoke and lived.
How could a crazy person be such an extraordinary wise teacher and guide. When you look at the symptoms of people in psychiatric wards, you see that every other part of their life is out of balance, and they are totally self-focused. When you look at the life and teachings of Jesus, you see extraordinary wit, calmness and control in adversity and opposition, unparalleled wisdom, and monumental love and mercy and compassion for OTHERS. This man exhibits the opposite of lunacy in every possible way.
Your third choice is, Was Jesus merely a LEGEND?
Postmodern atheist thought-leaders say Christ’s followers invented His supernatural claims after His death. They turned a simple man into a myth. This theory is being spoon-fed to college freshman all across America. And freshmen, in their great wisdom, spout out, “Oh, okay, now I understand. Jesus was just a legend like Hercules or Superman.”
Illus. – The famous atheist, Richard Dawkins, points out in his book, The God Delusion, that the four gospel accounts have several discrepancies—that is, they don’t agree on all the details.
Does he think this thought never occurred to anyone in 2,000 years? We can dismiss the daunted genius, Richard Dawkins literally in two easy steps:
First, the fact that we have four slightly different accounts of the life of Jesus actually is evidence that they were genuine descriptions of events.
If there had been a plot to promote a myth, they would have plotted to get the details right. Lawyers tells us that when witnesses tell all the same details as other witness, that’s a dead giveaway of collusion. Slight variations, explaining the same events from the point of view of different witnesses, only buttress their authenticity. There are no contradictions in the Easter story; just different tellings from differing witnesses from their particular points of view.
The second answer to the legend theory is this: If the followers of Jesus fabricated this story, what would have been their motive?
Deception is motivated by greed or self-promotion. What happened to these early Christians? They were arrested, tortured and killed. They died penniless and, except for John, were all martyred. And not one of them ever recanted their belief in the resurrection of Jesus! Paul Little wrote, “Men will die for what they believe to be true, though it may actually be false. They do not…die for what they know is a lie.” Our final choice: Is Jesus the LORD?
The last and only other option we have is that Jesus IS who He claimed to be.
He is the one and only Son of God who existed before Abraham was born; who forgave sins, who performed miracles witnessed my multitudes of people. He lived a life so exemplary that even His enemies could not claim any sin He ever did other than the trumped-up charge of blasphemy because He claimed to be God. In every way imaginable, He was the exact replica of what God would be if He came to earth to live as a man. And He not only claimed to be God, but He claimed He would die for the sins of mankind and that He would rise up from the dead. And then HE DID IT!!!!
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, it’s time for you to announce your verdict. Be careful how you decide, for Jesus was clear about those who reject His claims. In John 8:24, He said, “…If you do not believe not that I am he [that is, who He claims to be], you will die in your sins.”
As you decide your verdict about Jesus, remember, one day the situation will be reversed. He will be the judge and we will be the ones on trial.
There’s an old Southern song that talks about answering the question Pilate asked in verse 12, “What will you do with Jesus?” – The chorus says, “What will you do with Jesus? Neutral you cannot be; Someday your heart will be asking; What will He do with me?” The 82 hours from the Last Supper to the resurrection changed the world! When you vote to crown Jesus as your Lord and Savior, they will change your world as well.
