#63 The Crucifixion of Jesus
Series: Mark
Chuck Sligh
February 27, 2022
NOTE: A PowerPoint presentation is available for this sermon by request at chuckcsligh@gmail.com. Please mention the title of the sermon and the Bible text to help me find the sermon in my archives.
TEXT: Mark 15:20-32 - "And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple from him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him. 21 And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. 22 And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull. 23 And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but he received it not. 24 And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take. 25 And it was the third hour, and they crucified him. 26 And the superscription of his accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 27 And with him they crucify two thieves; the one on his right hand, and the other on his left. 28 And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors. 29 And they that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, 30 Save thyself, and come down from the cross. 31 Likewise also the chief priests mocking said among themselves with the scribes, He saved others; himself he cannot save."
INTRODUCTION
Illus. – In his book, The Faithful Executioner, Joel Harrington tells the extraordinary story of a Renaissance-era executioner and his world, based on a rare and overlooked journal. In the late 1500s a Nurnberg man named Franz Schmidt began to do something unusual for his time: he started keeping a journal.
But what makes Schmidt even more interesting was his day job. For forty-five years, Schmidt was an efficient and prolific public executioner, employed by the state to extract confessions and put convicted criminals to death. In his years of service, he executed 361 people and tortured, flogged, or disfigured hundreds more. He recorded each day’s activities with dispassion and detachment as a dentist might record each of his or her day’s activities.
Fortunately, in our day, torture, flogging, chopping off digits, tongues, or limbs, and execution by horrific and ingenious ways to enhance pain and suffering are a thing of the past in the civilized world.
But things were even worse in Bible times. From the first slap on Jesus by the chief priest, to the gruesome beating by the Roman soldiers, to the execution of Jesus by the most horrific form of tortuous death known to man, the full weight of Roman brutality was meted upon Jesus. And He never swerved from His purpose to be our Savior. He took the full brunt of the physical suffering, as well as the spiritual suffering we’ll examine next week. Today we’ll look at the crucifixion of Jesus and next week—the death of Jesus.
I. NOTE WITH ME FIRST OF ALL THE CROSS IN VERSES 20-26.
Let’s start at the last phrase of verse 20, “…and led him out to crucify him.” Notice how tersely Mark speaks. After describing the awful beating Jesus experienced from the Roman soldiers, Mark does not belabor the details of the crucifixion of Jesus. He simply states, “and led him out to crucify him.”
The reason he’s so brief is because Mark wrote his gospel to the church in Rome. They needed no elaboration; they knew full well what a crucifixion was like. It was a common occurrence in Rome, and they did not need the gruesome details to shudder at the thought of such suffering Jesus endured.
Crucifixion was infamous for the pain and humiliation it inflicted and was usually reserved only for violent criminals of the worst sort, insurrectionists, and non-Roman citizens who were of the lowest and most defenseless classes of society, such as slaves and prisoners of war. Since no major arteries were severed during a crucifixion, victims did not bleed to death, but died slowly of shock, asphyxia, or heart failure—sometimes over the course of days.
Martin Hengel said, “in the death of Jesus of Nazareth, God identified himself with the extreme of human wretchedness, which Jesus endured as a representative of us all, in order to bring us to the freedom of the children of God.”
Mark goes on to say in verse 21, “And they compelled one Simon, a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross.”
Normally, a prisoner condemned to be crucified would carry through the city streets the crossbeam of his own cross, which could weigh as much as 100 pounds. But after almost expiring from the emotional strain of Gethsemane, being up all night for the Sanhedrin’s court trial around 3:00 AM, having the trial before Pilate around 6:00 AM, followed by the cruel and inhumane flogging, beating, and mockery by Roman soldiers, Jesus’ strength gave out. So the soldiers grabbed someone in the crowd name Simon and forced him to carry the cross the rest of the way to the crucifixion scene.
Unusually, Mark names him, which was usually only done when Mark knew his audience would recognize the name. Most scholars believe Alexander and Rufus were in the church in Rome. I suspect that at the time when Simon was seized that day to carry Jesus’ crossbeam, he bitterly resented it because it was just one more example of Roman cruelty and capriciousness. But he must have stayed and witnessed the crucifixion and heard later of Jesus’ resurrection and become a follower of Jesus—leading to his sons Alexander and Rufus following in his footsteps.
Verse 22 says, “And they brought him to the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, ‘The place of a skull.’”
Golgotha was an Aramaic word meaning, “The Place of the Skull.” It was a rounded hill that had the vague appearance of a human skull, and even after 2 thousand years of erosion, it still looks like a skull today. It was the place of the most awful and wonderful event in history.
Verse 23 – “And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but he did not receive it.”
This is the one humane thing the Romans allowed. It was customary to allow certain Jerusalem women to give a sedative drink to those about to be crucified to decrease their pain. Wine mingled with myrrh had anesthetic properties which could have relieved Jesus’ suffering somewhat. But Jesus would not drink it. He chose to face the full brunt of His suffering and death in a fully conscious state.
We continue in verses 24-26 – “And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots for them, to determine what every man should take. 25 And it was the third hour, and they crucified him. 26 And the inscription of his accusation was written above, ‘THE KING OF THE JEWS.’”
When people were crucified, the Romans stripped them of their clothing, exposing their nakedness to add to their shame Nakedness was the ultimate humiliation one could experience in Jewish society. One of the perks of being a Roman executioner was that they got to have the clothes of their victims, so the Romans gambled to see who would get each garment. Then they crucified Jesus and put an inscription of derision at the top of the cross that mockingly described Jesus as The King of the Jews.
II. IN VERSES 27-28 WE SEE THE CRIMINALS. – “And they crucified two thieves with him; one on his right hand, and the other on his left. 28 And the scripture was fulfilled, which says, ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’”
Who the two criminals were, Mark does not tell us. He only tells us they were thieves. But these were not just common thieves, for as mentioned before, crucifixion was normally meted out only on the worst of the worst; the most incorrigible criminals in society.
The picture of these two thieves, one on his right hand and the other on his left recalls the incident in Mark 10 when James and John asked to sit at Jesus’ right and left hands in the kingdom. But Jesus reminded them that such positions would be reserved for those willing to partake of the cup and the baptism of His suffering. What Jesus suffered—far worse than anything His disciples would ever experience—put Him between two robbers, the places James and John wanted.
That Jesus would be crucified between two criminals was a fulfillment of Isaiah 53:12 – “And he was numbered with the transgressors.” Jesus was crucified between transgressors, which means “lawless ones.”
III. IN VERSES 29-32 WE SEE THE CROWD.
In these verses, Jesus is again subjected to verbal abuse. The crowd that insulted Jesus on the cross was made up of three groups:
First was the RABBLE—those “who passed by” referred to in verses 29-30 – “And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads, and saying, ‘Aha! You who destroy the temple, and build it in three days, 30 Save yourself, and come down from the cross.’”
They were “wagging their heads” in a sort of mocking, “we told you so” way. They were repeating words apparently leaked out from the Sanhedrin trial—not what Jesus actually said, for Jesus never threatened to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. He said in John 2:19, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” but He wasn’t talking about the Temple in Jerusalem, but about his resurrection.
But no matter; the rabble believed the poisonous spin put on His words by the Sanhedrin. They derisively shouted to him, “Save yourself, and come down from the cross,” not realizing that their only hope of escaping hell was for Jesus to stay exactly where He was.
The second hostile group around the cross that day were the RULERS – Look at verses 31-32a – “Likewise the chief priests also, mocking among themselves with the scribes, said. ‘He saved others; himself he cannot save. 32 Let Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe.’”
Maybe you could excuse the thoughtless rabble, but what of these religious rulers? They were the moral leaders and the experts in the scriptures, but their actions show a lack of morality and ignorance of the scriptures. The entire sacrificial system from Genesis to Malachi pointed to the cross. They were supposed to know the scriptures.
Furthermore, they could not find one moral law He had broken. They should have been kneeling at His feet in worship and adoration, but instead they stood and sneered at Him.
They shouted, “…‘He saved others; himself he cannot save. 32 Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe.’”
They called on Jesus to perform a miracle in order to see and believe, but His ministry was filled with miracles enough to believe. Besides, the reality was that if Jesus was to save others from the power of sin, then He could not save Himself from the sufferings and death appointed to Him by God.
The third hostile group around the cross were the ROBBERS. – Verse 32 ends with these words: “And they who were crucified with him reviled him.”
Even the thieves, suffering on each side of Jesus, did not spare Him words of derision. Here was Jesus, the only perfect man on earth facing the insults from men so wicked that Rome condemned them to punishment reserved for the vilest of criminals. This “friend of tax collectors and sinners” died between those He came to seek and to save.
But to one of them Jesus became a friend like no other. Something strange happened to him while on the cross. Luke 23:39-43 describes what happened: “And one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed him, saying, ‘If you are the Christ, save yourself and us’. [Now remember that Mark told us that both of the thieves on the cross had been mocking Jesus, but now there was a marked change of heart in one of the thieves in verse 40 of Luke 23:] 40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man has done nothing wrong.’ 42 And he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ 43 And Jesus said to him, ‘Verily I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise.’”
By the time the crucifixion was over, Jesus opened the gates of paradise for one of the thieves…while the other died in unbelief.
CONCLUSION
The story of the crucifixion of Christ is not meant to just be academic. It teaches some two important truths to us.
First, Jesus’ crucifixion is AN EXHIBITION OF HIS LOVE.
Illus. – Years ago, the great pastor from Memphis, Dr. R. G. Lee was visiting Jerusalem for the first time and his group entered the grounds of the Garden Tomb where skull hill can be seen. Suddenly, Dr. Lee broke away from his group and ran ahead to the place where you can see the face of a skull in the rock face. When the guide and the rest of the group caught up to Dr. Lee, he was on his knees in prayer. The guide said, “Dr. Lee, have you been here before?” Dr. Lee looked up with tears in his eyes and said, “Yes, I was here 2,000 years ago because I was on the heart and in the mind of Jesus when He died for me.”
Dr. Lee was right: There was a time when you and I were on the heart and in the mind of Jesus.
Illus. – There’s a great recorded by the Gaithers titled, When He Was On the Cross (I Was On His Mind). – Ronald Payne wrote the words which go like this:
A look of love was on his face; The thorns upon on his head.
The blood was on that scarlet robe; Stained it crimson red.
Though his eyes were on the crowd that day, He looked ahead in time.
And when he was on the cross, I was on his mind.”
In Revelation 13:8 the Bible says Jesus is the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world. And it says in Ephesians 1:4 that God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world. So, I really think Jesus WAS thinking of you and me when He died that day.
The question is, have you accepted the free gift of salvation made available to you because of the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary? Jesus died for your sins. I challenge you to accept His gift of love and heaven and forgiveness of sins.
Second, Jesus’ crucifixion was A DEMONSTRATION OF HIS LORDSHIP. Pilate did not know it, but He unwittingly declared Jesus’ lordship when he wrote the inscription above His head, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” The Jewish leaders tried to get Him to change the inscription, but He wouldn’t.
He meant it as mockery, but it declared an eternal truth. In Jesus’ infancy, the Wise Men heralded Him as King (Matthew 2:2). In Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem at the beginning of Passion Week, the multitudes cried “Blessed is the King of Israel!” (John 12:13).
John also tells us a little bit more of Jesus’ encounter with Pilate. He says that when Jesus was before Pilate, Jesus declared that His kingdom was not of this world. Pilate replied, “So you are a king?” and Jesus said, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” (John 18:36-37)
Jesus WAS and IS the King of the Jews, indeed the King of all of us who are in the Kingdom of God that Jesus spoke so much about. Now His royal title was fixed to the cross, and there was nothing the Jewish leaders could do about it!
But that’s not the end of the story: Revelation 19 tells us that Jesus will return to earth someday on a white horse and those present will see that on His head would be many crowns and He will be declared “King Of Kings, And Lord Of Lords!” (Revelations 19:12, 16).
Jesus truly is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and worthy of our fealty, loyalty, love, and devotion. Bow your heart this morning before the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world who is our King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Make Him the King and Ruler of your heart, of your life, of your every thought and every action.
