MPC, 13th April 2001. [Good Friday]Mark 15 - "Decision Time!"
Maurie Cropper MPC, 13th April 2001. [Good Friday]
I reckon one of the toughest things we ever have to do is make hard decisions. They're never easy. There's often too many alternatives. And there's always consequences.
Hard decisions vary from which house to buy ...or which car or shirt or even which lunch to buy.
Or what about the huge decisions that students and their parents face? Often as early as grade nine.
"Having to decide which subjects they should take that will lead them to a career?" ....often when careers are the furthermost thing from their minds!
And what about the big decisions facing George W. Bush and his Chinese counterpart Jiang Zemin over the past couple of weeks ...and still need to be worked out?
Some years ago when working as a hospital chaplain I spent the better part of two days and nights with a family who were facing the decision of turning off a life support machine. What a decision to have to make! An agonising life and death decision.
This fifteenth chapter of Mark is also about life and death decisions. In fact the whole book has been about one big decision. DECIDING HOW TO RESPOND TO THE QUESTION THAT THREADS IT'S WAY RIGHT THROUGH MARK. WHO IS THIS MAN?
WHO IS THIS MAN THAT CHANGES WATER INTO WINE? WHO IS THIS MAN THAT WALKS ON WATER, ...HEALS THE LAME, THE DEAF AND THE BLIND? WHO IS THIS MAN THAT THE WIND AND THE WAVES RESPOND TO HIM? JUST WHO IS THIS MAN THAT CAN BRING THE DEAD BACK TO LIFE, ....and EVEN FORGIVE SIN?
Mark notes in chapter 8 [v.27] that Jesus asks: "Who do people say I am?"
What will they decide about Jesus and what will they do about him? WELL BY CHAPTER 15 IT'S CRUNCH TIME!
Some of course have already made up their mind about Jesus. For them any notion of accepting Jesus as anything other than a nuisance to their agendas long went out the window!
I want you to note who decides what and when and where.
I want you also to see where you are on the Decision-Making Scale about Jesus, ...with 1 being I'VE DECIDED AGAINST JESUS .....10 being I'VE DECIDED FOR JESUS ...and 5.5 I'M UNDECIDED.
BECAUSE EVERYONE OF US HERE TODAY FITS SOMEWHERE ON THAT SCALE.
With that in mind let's return to Mark 15.
Right from the beginning of his ministry the Pharisees and the Herodians had decided to kill Jesus [3:6]. Now the chief priests, along with the elders, the teachers of the law, and the whole Sanhedrin came to the decision to hand Jesus over to the civil authorities. To hand him over to the Romans who occupied Israel, ...with Pilate as Governor.
Let's pick it up again at v.1
"Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole of the Sanhedrin, REACHED A DECISION. They bound Jesus, led him away and turned him over to Pilate." That was their decision! Tie his arms together and drag him off to the Romans.
Under Roman occupational law it was up to the Roman authorities to make the final decision of whether or not to execute someone. And so the decision now literally lay at Pilate's feet. What would he decide?
Pilate could have simply set Jesus free. In v.9 we are told that Pilate knew that it was out of envy to Jesus' vast following and his teaching with authority that his execution was being demanded. He knew Jesus was an innocent man. In v.14 Pilate asks: "What crime has he committed?"
Pilate could have followed an age-old custom and at the request of the people released Jesus. But the crowd were stirred up by the envious Jewish leaders to request the criminal Barabbas be freed and Jesus to be crucified!! Decision time for the crowd had come ...and they wanted a straight swap. Free Barabbas! Crucify Jesus!
V. 9 "do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews? asked Pilate, knowing it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead. "What shall I do then, the one you call the king of the Jews? Pilate asked them.
Crucify him! ...they shouted. Why? What crime has he committed? ...asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, CRUCIFY HIM!
...And the decision of Pilate? >>>>v.15 "Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus FLOGGED, and handed him over to be crucified." What a weak-kneed leader Pilate turned out to be. Couldn't even stand by his own conviction. Knowing Jesus to be innocent he still decided to appease the crowd.
It must have been a frightening scene.
FALSE ACCUSATIONS BEING FLUNG AROUND BY JEWISH LEADERS BAYING FOR BLOOD.
THE ESCALATING ANGER OF THE CROWD, SO MUCH SO THAT EVEN A ROMAN GOVERNOR GIVES INTO THEIR DEMANDS.
It must have been also a pitiful scene.
WITH JESUS BEING FLOGGED, AND SPAT UPON, AND MOCKINGLY HAVING A CROWN OF THORNS, something like bougainvillea thorns, BEING JAMMED ONTO HIS HEAD .....as they lead him out to be crucified. The pain ....the incredible pain.
The righteous for the unrighteous!
If you were there, ...where would you be on that Decision-Making Scale?
At ten? Trying to stop the cruelty and the lies?
At 1 or 2? Hurling abuse at Jesus?
Or maybe a 5.5? Undecided?
Mark tells us in v.22 that Simon from Cyrene helped Jesus, ...but it wasn't his decision. He was forced by the soldiers to carry the cross that Jesus was about to be crucified upon.
The soldiers? Their only decision was to follow orders.
Those others crucified with Jesus. They heaped insults on him.
Those who passed by as Jesus hung on the cross. They also decided to hurl insults at Jesus.
Let's hear how Mark described it. V.27
"They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. THOSE WHO PASSED BY HURLED INSULTS AT HIM, SHAKING THEIR HEADS AND SAYING, ..SO! YOU WHO ARE GOING TO DESTROY THE TEMPLE AND BUILD IT IN THREE DAYS, COME DOWN FROM THE CROSS AND SAVE YOURSELF!
In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. 'He saved others, but he can't save himself! Let this Christ, ...this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, ..THAT WE MAY SEE AND BELIEVE.
Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him."
There Jesus died. Humiliated, insulted, abused, tortured. In what can only be described as an agonising death.
And yet ironically, it was in his death that one person, the centurion soldier in charge of the crucifixion, himself a non-Jew, a pagan, someone who not only didn't know the Scriptures that spoke of Jesus's coming and his death, ....and had probably been standing at 5.5 on the Decision-Making Scale, ....ironically it was this Roman Centurion ...on seeing how Jesus died .....confessed: "SURELY THIS MAN WAS THE SON OF GOD!"
Picking it up at v.37
"With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said: "SURELY THIS MAN WAS THE SON OF GOD!"
This is truly a shocking narrative. A heart-wrenching story. It's a story of cowardly behaviour. A story of betrayal, humiliation and abuse. A story of REJECTION, ...of suffering beyond all imagination. A story of forsakedness, and of judgement!
The CROSS is central to all things. Everything that happened in the time before the Cross ....and everything that has happened since ...can only be truely understood, and found to have real meaning; IN THE CROSS OF CHRIST.
Yet it was a story that was not sprung upon the people of the day. For God had made it known years before through the prophet Isaiah. Where it is recorded in Isaiah 53.
"..he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace [with God] was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all like sheep, ..have gone astray, each one of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him [Jesus] the iniquity of us all."
An incredible story.
But this is also a story of love. An amazing love. A love best described by Jesus's friend John. And I quote.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."
So just where do you stand on that Decision-Making Scale for Jesus?
If you are not already at 10, ...ask yourself: What would it take to shift you from where you presently stand, ..to 10 on the scale?
Because John goes on to reveal what the consequences are for being in any other position ...than a 10 on the Decision-Making Scale for Jesus. Consequences that almost everyone in this story were one day face, including the chief priests, the elders and the teachers of the law, the members of the Sanhedrin, ...Pilate, the crowd, the soldiers, the robbers and the passers-by. What about you? Are you going to join this bunch? Are you going to have to face the same consequences as them?
I'm going to finish with those very revealing words from John 3:36. So listen very carefully to the consequences. The first sentence is directed to those people who are at 10 on the scale. The rest of the verse speaks to any other point on the scale.
Here it is.
"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, ...but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."
On a day when we remember the Son of God being rejected because of ..and for us, we are once again reminded that we can have eternal life if we believe in Him. If you're not already at 10 ....don't wait a moment longer.
Believe in Jesus, accept Jesus as your King and Saviour, ...and be assured that from that moment on ...you have entered into the Kingdom of God.
And eternal life with God is then yours.