The Triumph of the True King

When I was a kid, I loved Palm Sunday because it was pretty much the only day when I was encouraged to play with sticks in church. Today, I still love Palm Sunday. But as I’ve grown older the reasons have changed (mostly).

This week, along with churches around the world, we will remember that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a humble beast of burden surrounded by crowds waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna! God save us now!” Many people call this event “The Triumphal Entry.”

Only a few days later, however, Jesus was rejected by the same crowds. This time, Jesus left Jerusalem carrying the burden of the cross upon his shoulders. He was surrounded by jeers rather than cheers. And instead of the glad multitudes stretching out their hands to pull palm branches from the surrounding trees, this time Jesus’ own hands were stretched out and pinned to the tree itself.

At the beginning of the week, he was welcomed as a conquering king.

At the end of the week, he was crucified like a rejected king.

But the question remains: Which event was the true triumph?

This week, we will learn from Mark 15 how to follow the triumphal King on the road to resurrection.

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Grace Fellowship Church
Jon Stallsmith
Series: The King in the City
April 13, 2014

The Triumph of the True King
Mark 15:1-41

If you have your Bibles, open them up to the gospel of Mark, chapter 15. Good morning. It’s good to see you. If you don’t have a Bible, slip up your hand. We will put a Bible in your hand. We will be reading that Bible and really seeing what the Lord has to say to us. If you need a sheet for taking notes, you can also get one of those from the guys coming down with the Bible carts.

As you know, we’ve been walking in this Lent season through a series on Mark, chapters 11-16, called The King in the City. It’s really about Jesus’ final week in Jerusalem before dying on the cross. It will culminate next week, Easter. This Sunday is, in the calendar of the church, traditionally known as Palm Sunday. We looked at the story of Palm Sunday from Mark, chapter 11, five weeks ago.

The reason this Sunday is called Palm Sunday is that when Jesus got into the vicinity of Jerusalem and was ready to go into Jerusalem itself… Of course this has been, in the gospel of Mark anyway, sort of an anticipated moment. Jerusalem is the place where it all goes down. It’s the capital city. Jesus, throughout the gospel, is drawing closer and closer.

Finally, when he gets to the Mount of Olives just on the other side from the actual city of Jerusalem, he gets on a donkey, you’ll remember, and he rides into the city, surrounded by cheering crowds. Like Aaron was saying, quoting from Psalm 118, “God, save us now.” They went over to the trees and pulled the palm branches off the trees and began waving them in the air. Those palm branches were like a symbol, a flag of revolution, of insurrection.

As they were waving them, they were really looking at Jesus and asking him to solve all of their problems. They were looking at him as he rode into the city, and they said, “That’s the guy who’s going to solve my problems.” If you think about the ancient world, where they lived in Israel at the time in the first century, they had some pretty significant problems.

First of all, their economy was junk. It was really hard to make a living that would provide for your family. You could be a really hardworking farmer or fisherman or maybe a craftsman, but the way the whole system was set up and the way the taxes worked, it felt like the harder they worked, the more they had to pay and the less they had for their families. So as Jesus is riding into Jerusalem, they’re going, “Save us now. Fix our economy.”

Then their religious status was also really challenging, because at that time Rome allowed them to worship as Jews, but they always made sure the Jews understood that Rome was in control. So as they’re looking at Jesus going into the city, they’re waving those palm branches, saying, “Save us now from the religious limitations we’re experiencing.”

In fact, as they were going through their day-to-day lives, they really felt more like slaves than free men and women, because the law at the time was such that if a Roman soldier came up to you and said, “Hey, I need to borrow your horse” or “I need to borrow your donkey,” you had to give it to him. Or if he came up and said, “Hey, I need you to help me carry this,” you had to walk with him for a mile.

It didn’t matter what you were doing. Even if you were cooking dinner and the pot is boiling and the spaghetti is going to be really sticky if you don’t pay attention to it, if the Roman soldier came and was like, “We have to go,” you had to go. So it really felt like they were living as slaves in their own land. They had some really legitimate problems.

Underneath all of those problems, there was this sense that they were the people of God. They’re the Jews. They’re God’s chosen people. “If we really are God’s chosen people, shouldn’t things be better than this?” Have you ever felt that way? You’re looking at your life and going, “Hey, I’m trying to follow God here and I’m loving Jesus, but things should be better than this.” Sometimes it crosses all of our minds.

So on Palm Sunday, as Jesus is riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, they’re all waving their palm fronds because they want Jesus to solve all of their problems. Before we go further and start reading our text for the morning, just think for a second. What are your problems this morning? What are you working out? What do you walk in here wrestling with? Economy, jobs? You don’t have to write it down, especially if your problem is sitting next to you. “What’s your problem?” “Nothing. Look at these announcements. Hmm.”

What’s your problem, and what’s your solution? How are you working this out? How have you been working on your problem? How have you been trying to solve it? What are you doing currently? What’s your plan? This morning we’re not going to solve all of your problems, but we are going to see the way God sufficiently, profoundly, solves things in general, the problems we face.

The Palm Sunday story is really ironic, because really the people were asking Jesus to overthrow the Romans. They wanted Jesus to deal with their immediate problems, the problems that were messing with their lives every day. The way they wanted Jesus to overthrow the Romans was a specific violent way. They wanted Jesus to take up a sword and drive the Romans out at the front of a mighty army. That was what they were doing.

When they were waving those palms, they were saying, “Deal with my problems right now, and deal with them violently.” But there is a problem with that. We saw it as we started with this series. We saw that Jesus going into Jerusalem was not going to solve their immediate problems. He wasn’t going to meet their immediate expectations, because he was going after something much deeper. He was actually going to exceed their expectations if only they would stay with him long enough to watch him work.

The example I think of… I remember a few years ago I was shopping for homes. You know, you look at a lot of different homes, and some houses you go into… They would be two-story houses, and there would be a bathroom on the second story. So you’d walk in on the first floor, and you’d look up at the drywall in the ceiling, and you’d see that big ring of water stains. Do you guys know what I’m talking about?

You can walk into a house and go, “Whoa, that’s a problem, definitely.” Have you ever had this happen in your house? One of the things I learned living with Buddy all of those years was that you should never ignore water in your house. That was a primary point of discipleship. It wasn’t all attributes of God and Bible memory. Living at Buddy’s house, some of the really useful stuff was, “If there’s water in your house, you have to fix it right away.”

Anyway, you’re looking at that going, “Okay, this is a problem.” How are you going to solve that problem? How are you going to deal with that issue? Well, if you’re in your house and your second-story bathroom… Let’s say the shower or the tub is leaking and you’re getting all this water stain happening in your drywall. One way to solve the problem would just be to call the drywall guy. He comes, cuts out the drywall, puts it back up, paints it, and it’s good to go. Right? Does that solve your problem? No, it looks okay, maybe…until you take another shower.

What do you need to do? You need to call the plumber. You need to get that shower fixed before you do anything with the drywall. It’s not a perfect illustration, but it’s really kind of what’s going on here. The people are looking at Jesus and saying, “Fix the drywall. Look at our immediate problem.” Jesus is saying, “You don’t understand. You really need a deeper repair. You need something else to be fixed.”

That’s what he has been showing us. Mark, chapters 11-16, is walking us through the deeper victory Jesus is going after. We saw that story of the triumphal entry, and then he shows up and takes the judgment, overturning the tables in the temple. We saw that, seeing the fig tree that was barren and the temple and all the rest.

What we saw in that passage is that Jesus’ deeper victory is going to be a victory that will overturn oppression itself, political and personal oppression. He’s going to take the things that sometimes we try to trust in and say, “Those are not trustworthy, but I am trustworthy.” Then in the next couple of chapters, Mark 12-14, we see people trying to work out, “Who is this Jesus?” because nobody really recognizes him except for one woman who shows up.

She has this jar of precious ointment, and she pours it over Jesus, the nard perfume worth a full year’s salary. Jesus says, “This woman has recognized me for who I am. She has anointed me for my death.” Jesus, as he’s coming in, is not going to overthrow the powers militarily. He’s not going to end oppression at the front of an army swinging swords. This victory is going to come through his death.

Then through his death, we saw the following week, he’s going to be gathering around himself a new community of people who are all broken yet forgiven, and at the center of that table will be the Lord himself reminding us of the sacrifice. Then after that Last Supper, he went out into the garden of Gethsemane, and there we see that this way of winning, this deeper victory Jesus is going after through his death, is the only way.

Jesus is not going to be able to win this victory merely by being an effective teacher, even though he went all through Galilee and taught about the kingdom of God. Jesus is not merely going to be able to win this victory by healing people, laying hands on them, or even casting out demons, which he does often in the gospel of Mark.

Rather, in that scene at the garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus is praying, he says, “Abba Father, all things are possible for you. Take this cup from me.” He’s talking about the cup of suffering, the cup of wrath he’s about to experience on the cross. Then Jesus concludes the prayer. “Not what I will, but what you will. Your will be done.” What we see there is that Jesus, in spite of all of the people fleeing away from him, the undependability of the humans around him, he sees the only way to win this victory is going to happen on the cross.

This morning we’re going to be spending some time looking at the cross. What is this deeper victory? What actually happened on the cross? My hope is that this morning, as we’re reading in the gospel of Mark, it will set us up for a full week of real deep and rich reflection on what Jesus did on the cross, what his resurrection means, and how it affects the way we live.

Traditionally, Thursday of Holy Week is known as Maundy Thursday. That word Maundy comes from the word command or mandate, because on the night before his death, Jesus, it says in the gospel of John, gave his disciples a new commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.” That’s why Thursday night is called Maundy Thursday.

We have resources for you guys to be able in your homes to celebrate Communion together, read a little bit of Scripture, have some discussion. I know we have some DVDs out there on the way out. If you have one or two other families you feel connected with, have them over and make a meal together. Maybe it’s just your family and your kids. I know we have some families here like just their kids and themselves make 10 people, so that’s a pretty big meal. Anyway, just be thinking about Maundy Thursday.

Then Good Friday we’ll have a 6:30 service here, a gathering to remember the crucifixion. Of course, Sunday we’ll be celebrating Easter. Oh man, it’s going to be great too. That 7:00 a.m. service, sunrise, with the baptisms incorporated… We’re just going to do the whole gathering outside. So if you want to get up early, worship God out in the open air, see some baptisms, I invite you to that 7:00 a.m. gathering. It’s going to be really sweet.

In the meantime, as we’re setting this up, what we need to do is really ask that question…What happened at the crucifixion? I’m going to read a large chunk of the Scripture. I’m going to read Mark 15, verse 1 all the way down to verse 42. The reason for that is this story is so compelling and so central to our faith it almost demands to be read in one chunk like this.

As I’m reading it, one of the major questions that arises is…Who is the true king? So just be thinking about that in the back of your mind. Furthermore, I’d encourage you, as I’m reading (you can either read along with me or maybe you just want to listen), just imagine the scene. I encourage you to let your imagination be informed by these inspired words of God, to think about the smells and the sounds and what would have been going on. So this is Mark 15, verse 1.

“And as soon as it was 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. And Pilate asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ And he answered him, ‘You have said so.’ And the chief priests accused him of many things. And Pilate again asked him, ‘Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.’ But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed.” (Mark 15:1-5)

Of course, Pilate is the Roman governor. After the trial before the religious leaders of the Jews, they have to bring him here, because he is the one who has the power to provide the death sentence. Verse 6: “At the feast Pilate used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas.

And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them. And he answered them, saying, ‘Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?’ For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release for them Barabbas instead. And Pilate again said to them, ‘Then what shall I do with the man you call the King of the Jews?’

And they cried out again, ‘Crucify him.’ And Pilate said to them, ‘Why, what evil has he done?’ But they shouted all the more, ‘Crucify him.’ So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters), and they called together the whole battalion.

And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him.” (Mark 15:6-20) It’s an interesting note. Perhaps his own clothes still smelled like that nard perfume, a reminder in the midst of the suffering of those who would recognize him and know him.

“And they led him out to crucify him. And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull). And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take.

And it was the third hour when they crucified him. And the inscription of the charge against him read, ‘The King of the Jews.’ And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!’

So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.’ Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

And some of the bystanders hearing it said, ‘Behold, he is calling Elijah.’ And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, ‘Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.’ And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’

There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.” (Mark 15:20-41)

Well, this is it. This is the story at the center of our faith. What’s going on here? What is happening? What happened on the cross? What does Mark in his gospel want us to see about this story and how Jesus is going after the deeper victory? Well, the first deep problem we come across in the gospel of Mark (we see it mentioned again and again as Jesus is going through his ministry, from the time he begins all the way up until this point on the cross) is the hardness of the human heart.

Jesus sometimes refers to it as the leaven of the Pharisees, the leaven of Herod. He says the religious leaders make it impossible to follow God. There’s just this element of wickedness that is deep within the heart of humanity as Jesus is walking around. This is a deep problem going all the way back to the book of Genesis in chapter 3 when God told Adam and Eve, “You can eat from any tree in the garden, but do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

Tempted by the Serpent, Eve and then Adam both ate together from that tree, rebelling against God. The phrase used again and again in the gospel of Mark is the hardness of heart of humanity. This is a deep problem: the resistance that is in our hearts to obey and do the will of God. That really is what the Bible calls sin. It’s rejecting the will of God. Maybe you didn’t grow up in a religious environment, or maybe you grew up in a place where that word sin falls on your ears a little bit strangely.

Really, what it’s talking about here is just the mistakes we make in our lives when we do not treat others the way they deserve to be treated, when we mess up, when we reject what we know is best from God. That’s really what’s happening here. The first thing that’s happening on the cross is that this deep problem, the hardness of the human heart, the deep problem of sin itself, is being dealt with in Jesus and in his death.

The penalty for that sin is being poured out upon Jesus so that we might be set free from it. We see it all around Jesus. We see it in the mockery, the hardness of heart of the people who make fun of him, even the criminals crucified on either side of him, in this story. Sin is a deep problem. What Mark wants us to see is that on the cross, that’s where sin goes to die. That’s where that problem is solved: on the cross.

When Paul is later reflecting on the significance, the meaning of the cross, what occurs right here, he says in Romans 5, verse 8, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son.” (Romans 5:8-10)

Paul is really clear. One of the major things that’s happening here on the cross is that sin is being dealt with. I don’t know what your strategies are. How do you deal with sin in your life or mistakes or rebellion or just those patterns of behavior and thinking that you know do damage to yourself and those around you? How do you deal with those?

Some of us undertake great programs of self-improvement. If we have some pattern or some brokenness in our lives, we think, “Well, if I can just make the right kind of plan and build the right kind of habits and really try to love people well, then I will solve the problem.” But that’s like getting a drywall guy to fix the plumbing leak. It doesn’t work. What we need to do is something much different, much deeper.

Some of us try to solve the problems of sin by punishing ourselves. We make mistakes, and we let those mistakes create misery and self-hatred for the rest of the day or the rest of the week or the rest of the month or the rest of the year. Some of us even hold on to our mistakes and punish ourselves for our mistakes for our entire lives. “Ah, I messed up.” That’s how we deal with sin.

What Mark and what really the whole New Testament is telling us is that the only way to effectively deal with sin is right here at the cross. This is the place where sin goes to die. This is the place where forgiveness is released. I remember the first time I really understood this at a deep level personally. It was about 10 years ago right after I had come on staff at Grace. I don’t even know exactly what my job description was. I was working on creative projects, helping with young adults ministry.

It was a worship night, and Aaron Keyes was leading, pre-beard Aaron. I was sitting somewhere right around in that kind of area. I had my New Living Translation. I was reading Psalm 32, and in verse 5 the psalmist says, “I confessed my sins to the Lord and all of my guilt was gone.” I don’t even remember what it was that was on my heart at the time that I was confessing. I guess that’s part of the point of forgiveness with God. Once it’s forgiven it’s forgotten.

I remember I was there and I was feeling bad about something, or whatever else, and I just read that verse, and suddenly the full weight of the cross and the forgiveness from God that’s available for sin just washed over me, and I went, “Oh, I don’t have to be guilty anymore. I don’t have to beat myself up anymore.” Yeah, maybe there is a way of changing our behaviors. We don’t want to keep making the same mistakes over and over, but any strategy that tries to deal with sin without first dealing with it on the cross is destined to failure.

Any program of self-improvement is going to fail unless it begins with that moment of confession and releasing those sins to Jesus on the cross. This is the only place where sin goes to die. What’s happening on the cross is Jesus is triumphing over sin itself. I just wonder as you’re working through your life… You think about the problems you’re working through. How are you dealing with sin? What’s your strategy?

The second major problem we see in the gospel of Mark, the second thing that’s going on on the cross… Again, it shows up very early in the gospel of Mark. As soon as Jesus is baptized and comes out of the water, it says the Holy Spirit leads him out into the wilderness, compels him into the wilderness, where he’s tempted by Satan.

Then, as soon as Jesus returns from the wilderness, he’s teaching in the synagogue with authority, and you remember what happens. One of the people in the synagogue cries out because he’s demonized. The demon actually says, “What are you doing? I know who you are. Have you come to destroy us?” As you keep reading through the gospel of Mark, again and again Jesus encounters these mysterious forces of evil, forces of darkness.

He encounters the demonic realm that is set in total opposition to the plans of God. In fact, Jesus talks about his ministry in Mark, chapter 3, and he says you can’t go into a strong man’s house and take anything out unless that strong man is bound. But once the strong man… Of course, here he’s referring to Satan and all of the forces of evil. He says once that strong man is bound, then you can plunder the house. People can be set free.

What he’s showing there is the picture of a world not just in the grips of human sin, but also in the grips of the prince of the power of the air, that Satan, the Enemy, is opposing the plans of God and wreaking havoc in our lives. Every single chapter of the first nine chapters, except for the second chapter, shows Jesus dealing with demonic encounters. This is a central aspect of his ministry. When he sends out his disciples in Mark, chapter 6, it says he gave them authority over unclean spirits.

If you go farther along into the New Testament, 1 John 3:8 says the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the Devil. In Acts, chapter 10, when Peter is preaching to Cornelius, he says that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the Devil, for God was with him. One of the central activities of Jesus’ ministry was dealing with the demonic, dealing with Satan, the principalities and powers that oppose God.

Now we don’t all like that, especially if you grew up in the United States and had kind of a Western upbringing. Maybe it has been a lot more familiar for you to think of the cross as the place where sin dies, but you haven’t thought so much of the cross as the place where Satan is defeated. But that is in fact what’s happening. Satan and the forces of evil are real. I don’t know if you’ve encountered them.

In fact, in our culture, the Enemy seems to be perfectly fine working away sort of under the radar, opposing our purposes, wreaking havoc in our lives, but never really overtly showing himself. You get into other cultures, and if you’ve traveled in other parts of the world, sometimes it’s a little bit more apparent. I remember one time we were in Syria. We were out in the desert of Syria, and there were some Bedouin tents. We wanted to connect and talk to some Bedouins.

So we drove up, and they invited us in, and we sat down. In the tent, they have the carpets out, and they’re serving us food and welcoming us. Then after the initial pleasantries have been covered… In Bedouin culture, they always ask you first thing to tell a story. That’s what a guest is expected to bring. So we started to tell the parables of Jesus, which was great. Just for future reference, if you ever find yourself in the Syrian Desert with some Bedouin Muslims and they say, “Tell a story,” my recommendation is tell a parable. They work really well.

As we’re telling these stories about Jesus, they recognized that we were men of God, so one of the family members said, “We need you to pray for our son.” We said, “Why?” They said, “Because he’s demonized.” It’s interesting, because in the New Testament the word for possession or demonization literally means to be demonized, influenced by demons, not fully possessed or overwhelmed.

Anyway, they said, “Just a couple of months ago our son was a really sweet normal guy, and then one morning we woke up and he was totally different. He has tried to kill himself several times. He’s violent. He’s incoherent. Outbursts and everything else. He has been demonized.” We said, “Oh, okay.” It was the first time I’d ever encountered that. They brought him into the tent and we prayed with him. It started raining in the middle of the desert. Crazy story. I’ll tell you that some other time.

The point is it’s real. Whether you acknowledge it or not, there is an Enemy who is out there who comes to steal, kill, and destroy, who opposes the purposes of God, who works his influence sometimes into our lives and messes things up big time. The question is…How do you deal with that problem? In other parts of the world, they’re very aware of the demonic influences around them. They undertake all kinds of strategies of sacrificing this animal or worshiping that tree or whatever else, just to try to get the demons off their backs.

The cross and the name of Jesus is the only thing that wields true authority over those demons. The cross is where Satan is defeated, finished. It’s not just the place where sin goes to die; it’s the place where Satan himself is defeated and all of the powers are overcome. In fact, Paul, in 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, is talking about this, and he said, “If the principalities and powers had known what they were doing, they never would have crucified the Lord of glory.” What happened on the cross? Oh man, they were undone. They were defeated.

You wonder, okay, in this story, Mark 15, where are the demons? We didn’t really see them show up. In fact, in Mark 11-16, we don’t see a lot of references to demons. Where are they? What Mark wants us to see is that the demons Jesus encountered along his way in Galilee are now behind the scenes. Satan himself is behind the scenes sort of orchestrating all of this rebellion against Jesus.

Then in the last moment, when Jesus himself dies, it’s as though Satan himself has unleashed his most devastating weapon upon Jesus. It’s death itself. Where is Satan in this story? Satan appears in the unleashing of death itself. Hebrews, chapter 2, talks about this. It says, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the Devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” (Hebrews 2:14-15)

I was talking to a friend this week. He’s a really brilliant theologian. He’s a professor at one of the really respected seminaries here in Atlanta. In fact, he was here at 9:00. Whenever I see him out here, I get very nervous, because I don’t want to mess things up. Actually, a lot of you guys. Just knowing you and your walks with God and your knowledge of the Scripture and everything else, when I look out and see you I’m like, “Oh, I hope I get this right.” A moment of vulnerability for you there.

I was asking my friend, who’s a professor, “What happened on the cross? What really happened on the cross?” He said, “One of my favorite…” His expertise is in patristics, the church fathers, several centuries of scholars and pastors who were working out what it meant to be a Christian and follow Jesus.

He said, “One of my favorite descriptions comes from Athanasius,” who was a fourth-century guy. Athanasius wrote a treatise or a booklet called “On the Incarnation,” where he’s working through all of these different questions, including what happened on the cross. It’s amazing, actually, because in the booklet he calls the cross God’s trophy over death. That’s what Athanasius says. I love that image.

As he’s writing, he says because the Word of God was in Jesus’ body, because Jesus is not just human but he is at once man fully and God fully and they’re unified… Because the Word was in his body, death and corruption were in the same act utterly vanquished. The idea is that as death, the most devastating weapon wielded by Satan, and sin are overtaking Jesus’ body, death actually met God in Jesus and was vanquished. It could not overcome it.

This is how Jesus wins the great victory over sin and Satan. As a way to see both of these themes together, in Colossians, chapter 2, Paul writes, “You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-14) There’s Jesus defeating sin.

Then in verse 15 it says, “In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.” (Colossians 2:15) Jesus on the cross dealt with our sin and also Satan, both decisively once and for all. What’s the result Mark wants us to see? The sky goes black, Jesus breathes his last, and then the veil in the temple is torn from top to bottom. A supernatural act of God.

What’s this about? Right after it says the veil was torn, it says the Roman centurion looks at Jesus and says, “Truly this was the Son of God.” The very first time, by the way, any human being recognizes Jesus verbally as the Son of God in the entire gospel of Mark. In fact, you could say this is the climax of Mark right here, when finally a human being looks at Jesus and says, “Aha! This is the Son of God.”

But what’s going on with this veil and with the centurion? Well, the veil, if you remember from the Old Testament all the way back to God’s instructions for how to build the tabernacle, and then the temple was built on the same model… The tabernacle and the temple were constructed in such a way that there was the Holy of Holies. That was the place where the ark of God and his manifest presence was believed to dwell.

Then, outside of that, there was a Holy Place, and then beyond that were the general courts and everything else. So each time you moved into a new place, you were getting closer and closer to God. But they had to put a very thick veil here between the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place, because they believed that anybody who walked into the Holy of Holies in an unrighteous manner would be immediately struck to death by the holiness of God. Only one time per year the high priest could go in through the curtain to the Holy of Holies.

Just imagine this. They’re looking at that temple structure, and there is a veil right there, and you can’t see through the veil. In a very real way, that veil keeps people from peering in and seeing the mystery of God’s nature. All through the Old Testament, people are going, “All right, I know he’s in there. What’s he really like?” Now we have this, the crucifixion, and that veil that keeps people from seeing what God is really like is torn.

You look through it, and what do you find when you see through the veil? What is God like when the veil is torn? The centurion is looking at Jesus and says, “Truly this was the Son of God.” Mark is challenging us. He’s inviting us to see God when we look at Jesus on the cross. He’s saying that the way we understand who God is, the defining aspects of God’s nature are revealed right there on the cross. The veil has been torn, and when we look in, the centurion sees Jesus hanging on the cross.

Now I don’t know about you. Maybe some of you have this idea that God is sort of in heaven, the “mighty smiter.” I remember there was a Far Side cartoon, the Gary Larson comic. It had a picture of God at his computer, and on the screen was a little video of a guy walking along the sidewalk, and over his head they were lowering a piano, like they were moving out of the house or something. So the piano is over his head. God at his computer had his keyboard, and in the center of the keyboard was just one button, and it said, “Smite.”

Maybe some of you think of God… If that curtain was torn, what you would expect to see behind it is God at his computer with a “smite” button or God angry in heaven with lightning bolts, ready to rain them down on injustice. Mark is saying, “Nope.” When the curtain is torn, do you know what you see? That God is like Jesus hanging on a cross, God in Christ reconciling all things to himself.

Does that mess with your perception of God? Does that challenge the way you’re thinking about God? Mark is saying, “You need to understand who God is first and foremost by looking at what happened on the cross and what happened at the resurrection.” This is it, the very core of our relationship with God.

So what do we do with this? How do we apply it? There are many ways into this story, many connection points for us. We see Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross for Jesus. You have the mockers around Jesus. You have the women, the only ones who are faithful in the gospel of Mark, watching from a distance. All of the other disciples and the men who followed Jesus have fled.

But to me this week it’s the story of Barabbas that has particular impact. What do we learn about Barabbas? In verse 7, when Pilate is giving the people a choice between Barabbas and Jesus, it says, “Among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas.” This is the one Pilate brings out and gives the crowd the option of choosing.

He’s a rebel. He is an insurrectionist. Insurrection means uprising. At that time, people would be so frustrated with the Roman Empire they would take up arms. They’d put together little militias, and they’d try to kill as many Romans as they could. Apparently, sometime recently before the crucifixion of Jesus, there was another little band of these guys who tried to overthrow the Roman Empire. They of course got arrested.

Now Barabbas is sitting in prison on a death sentence because he is a man of the insurrection. He’s the kind of guy who wants to solve the problems in the way the crowds at the triumphal entry wanted the problems to be solved. He was a man of the sword. He was a man of action. He’s the man who is a realist. He knows how the world works, and he knows you’re going to have to pull out your sword and fight for every last gain.

What does his name mean? Bar means son of. Abbas. Where else have we seen that word? The garden of Gethsemane, right? Jesus says, “Abba Father.” What is Barabbas’ name? Son of the father. On the other hand, Jesus, silent, willing to go to his death, Son of God, another Son of the Father. The crowds looking at these two choose Barabbas. They say, “Give us Barabbas. Crucify him.”

Why? Because they cannot accept that God could look like Jesus. They had an idea of God and what the Father was really like that lined up their lives much more with the strategy of Barabbas to deal with problems than the strategy of Jesus. Is this making sense? The people preferred the way of insurrection, fighting to the death, rather than the way of resurrection, where Jesus fought death by dying. Active, fist raised, kill everybody…surrender. What looks like defeat is actually victory in the kingdom of God.

Do you see these two different ways? The question for us as we read this story of the cross and we process Holy Week and we really ask God to speak to us and lead us more deeply into following Jesus… Which way do we choose? What’s our strategy to the problems we’re walking in here with? You’re thinking about, “What problems do I have?” Are you trying to solve them by the way of resurrection and trust in Jesus, or are you trying to solve them by the way of insurrection and effort? How does this play out?

Think about money. Maybe you have money problems. Probably all of us have money problems at one time or another. The way you’re trying to deal with your money problems, whether it’s because of your own mistakes or the mistakes of others or just living in a world that’s run by evil powers, how are you going to solve those money problems?

If you find yourself constantly in the grip of anxiety and doing everything you can to hedge yourself and to hoard and to hold on and to do whatever you can…maybe you even have to lie or cheat or violate a few things over here just to have money…then you’re in the insurrectionist camp. You’re over here with Barabbas saying, “Yeah, I think God is the kind of God who doesn’t really love us enough to provide for us, so I’m going to have to do it myself.”

On the other hand, how do you deal with money problems on the resurrection side? Well, I’m going to trust Jesus. Jesus was willing to surrender everything because he knew God would raise him from the dead. I can surrender and be generous. It’s a whole different way of thinking over here. What about your health? You know how people these days are all wrapped up in food. You have to make sure you eat the right things. You have to keep yourself healthy.

If your approach to the problem of health and staying healthy and whatever else happens to be connected to it is all about controlling every little bit of thing you bring into your life, every bit of exercise… I’m not saying you shouldn’t do your research when it comes to medicine or whatever else, but if you find yourself trying to deal with your problems over here, you’re living in the way of insurrection. Is it possible to come over here and trust Jesus, seek his wisdom, obey him in the best ways he has for you to live in health, not to be dominated and controlled by it?

Relationships are like this, the way we look at other people. Do we feel in our relationships like our main job is to impress everybody else? If somebody doesn’t like us, well then we exclude them as quickly as we can. We’re just going to get our little group together, just like Barabbas was trying to get his little group of Jews together who would be the true people of God. Or have we learned over here on the way of resurrection that we lay down our lives for one another, that we love as Jesus loved us, and that this is the way relationships flourish in the kingdom of God?

Our faith. How do you relate to God? Are you living over here where it’s all activity and effort and as long as you have the right things going on in your life, you’re attending the right Bible studies, you’re doing the right things for the right people, you’re giving the right amount of money, God is really going to love you? Or do you recognize that all the work and all the grace and all the forgiveness stems from the cross? Not in what we do, but in what Jesus has done so that we might live.

Jesus defeated sin and Satan at the cross. The question is, are we willing to follow him through the way of crucifixion and resurrection, or are we going to settle for Barabbas and a false idea of God in the way of insurrection that ultimately wears us out and gets us killed? This is what Mark wants us to see. Some of you have walked with the Lord for a long time, and maybe as we’re reading this text he’s inviting you to bring some of these other areas of your life over here to trust him.

Some of you may not even walk with the Lord yet. Maybe you’re in here because you came with a family member or against your will. I have news for you. Living this kind of life, the life of the insurrection, feels highly active. It feels like you’re accomplishing stuff, but it gets you killed. This is where life is: in Jesus. This is where freedom from your mistakes occurs. This is where freedom from Satan occurs.