Sermon from March 3, 2002
During seminary days, one of my professors unfairly put down one of my friends in front of our whole class. It was uncalled for, and I lost a lot of respect for that teacher, and I harbored unkind thoughts about him for a long time. A year or so later, I learned that my professor had a child who was suffering from some kind of birth defect. As I found out more of the particulars, I realized how greatly that professor and his wife were suffering personal anguish over their child. My attitude toward the man changed.

My heart now went out to him. I no longer harbored unkind thoughts toward him. I forgave his treatment of my friend. If he had asked, I think I would have done anything to help him and his family. In trying to understand the change in myself I attribute it to a compassion toward those who suffer, which I learned from my mother in my childhood.

I still have vivid memories of my mother's voice and my mother's face, when she talked to me about the suffering of animals and of other people, as well as her own sufferings as a child. She probably exhorted me to be kind to those who suffer, but her stories and her own obvious compassion did the trick. Her compassion was also no respecter of persons.

That is why last fall, when the U.S. began to bomb Afghanistan, I had the same feelings toward Afghans as I did toward the helpless people in the Pentagon and the WTC, as well as in the airplans that crashed into them. It was easy to imagine something of the terror that gripped human beings in any of those settings, and my heart went out to them. I am thankful for that power in my soul, although I have to be careful that that it does not turn into a useless sentimentality.

Mark's long description of the events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus wakens these feelings within me. The way Mark does it only heightens them. Mark does not try to sanitize the sufferings of Jesus; neither does he sensationalize them. He walks us through those terrible events with a discipline whose brevity only heightens the horror that hangs over them.

He does not offer obvious theological interpretations that would help make sense of innocent suffering. He does not add details that obviously tug at our heartstrings. He had embedded his theology in the marrative so cleverly that we don't notice it, and he asks the events themselves to tug at our hearts.

He succeeds with me. The more often and the more slowly I read his account, the more they work on my emotions; the more they work beyond my emotions. Those words by which Mark interprets the meaning of events begins to worry mymind the way a dog worries a bone.

Of all the heart-rending moments in Jesus' last suffering perhaps none seems to me less necessary to include than the one we read about today. Why put this in? Mark never becomes gory in his description, but again his simplicity captures the horror of the moment better than gory detail. Apart from the irony in the story, he offers no help theologically. In 101 English words he takes us where none of us ever wants to go.

Throughout verses 1-15 we see Pilate doing all he can to absolve himself of responsibility for Jesus' fate. He knows Jesus is innocent.  He knows the chief priests' motives are base. He knows the chief priests are manipulating him to do the dirty work of putting Jesus to death. He tries to use an odd Passover custom to free Jesus, and He knows that ploy to get Jesus off his hands has failed. He hates them all, and he tries to put the final responsibility for the fate of Jesus on the mob. They oblige him in the most chilling way by calling for Jesus' crucifixion.

A true terrorist and killer, Barabbas, goes free, and a truly innocent man takes the punishment that he deserved. Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. The salvation of the world turned on a moment of bureaucratic caprice. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. That brings us to Mark 15:16-20 – five terrifying verses. Here is how it starts in verse 16.

The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. The Praetorium "was used of the official residence of a governor," (Cranfield, 452), such as Pilate. As many as 600 Roman soldiers may have been assigned to that location. The whole company of soldiers probably refers to the soldiers present in the Praetorium that morning (ibid.).

If there was no justice in what took place out in the open, what kind of justice took place inside the Praetorium among hardened soldiers and out of sight? We can be sure that some of them knew exactly what to do with such a prisoner with such a sentence upon him, who fell into their hands. Some of them would relish what lay ahead.

Verses 17-18 tell us what they did first with Him. Let's look at the action in these verses, their political overtones, and their irony. The action is mocking and sarcastic. First, they put a purpole robe on him, because that is the color that kings wear. But kings also wear crowns. What kind of crown shall we provide for Him? They then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. 

I have a feeling they have done this before to these would-be Jewish Messiahs. Cruelty is never far away from mockery and sarcasm. It is still early in the day, and no longer restrained by Roman law, these soldiers, spurred on by each other, can indulge their thirst for physical cruelty. Thorns provide such a nice touch. The "king" is now properly attired. Their homage can begin. And they began to call out to him, "Hail, king of the Jews!" 

Their action in these verses also has political overtones. Last week, we heard the sarcasm in Pilate's voice when he asked the crowd, "Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?" It showed how unconcerned Pilate was about Jesus' being a political revolutionary. He was counting on the crowd to see the humor in the situation and accept his offer. However, Pilate's language also pointed to the ground on which he could justify putting Jesus to death. The taunting homage of the soldiers points in the same direction. The inscription on the cross will point in the same direction.

From a Roman legal and political point of view Jesus of Nazareth died as a rebel agains the imperial authority of Caesar. It wasn't true, and due process, such as it was, was not just. "There is good reason to suppose that, although Jesus' accusers handed him over, and Pilate executed him, on (the) charge (of being a political rebel against Rome), both parties knew he was not guilty of it," (Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 544).

Finally, there is irony in the actions of those soldiers. It is not hard to grasp, if we will just keep their action in mind, as we read Philippians 2:9-10. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. 

The irony is that what they did to mock, we do to worship. For every military knee that bowed to taunt, a million knees bow to honor. We too would clothe Him, but in finest purple. We too would crown Him, the Lamb upon His thrown, with garland of olive leaf, laced with precious jewels from the four corners of earth.

The soldiers cannot know all this. They serve the interests of the state. Torture and crucifixion go with the job. Some may not like it, but there are just carrying out orders. They are not about to question those orders. Theirs is not to reason why; theirs is but to do and die. In this case theirs is to make sure the prisoner dies as painfully and humiliatingly as possible.

And so, says verse 19, again and again they struck him on the head with a staff. Was that really necessary? Nothing suggests that Jesus is putting up a fight. If Pilate had Him flogged with forty lashes of iron-tipped leather thong, then how He could even stand upright is amazing. Putting up a fight is out of the question. Their excesses open another window on to the capacity of human nature for cruelty to fellow human beings. The other action highlights the meanness of it all.

Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. People, normally, spit on the ground. If they spit on a person, it is their way of treating that person like dirt. It is their way of saying, "You are not a person. We can treat you like dirt and therefore with impunity and without guilt."

Verse 19 ends with this final desciption. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. I wonder if any of them started to tire of their charade. Cruelty is not the most satisfying thing on earth. Can you remeber ever taunting a weaker person at school? Didn't it turn out not to be as much fun as you expected? Or if you were the weaker person whom other people taunted, did you ever take out your anger on your parents or younger brother or even an animal? It is the rare person, who takes real, sustained pleasure in making another human being hurt. Let's hope that few of those Roman soldiers took such pleasure in their treatment of Jesus.

In any case someone brought this misery to an end so that a greater misery might begin. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clotes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. Whatever purpose their cruel charade served in the process of capital punishment, it had been served. The day before the Sabbath was moving along; it was time to get to the matter at hand. We will pick up the action there next week. Before we lay the story down for today, we should think about why Jesus' sufferings have such power with us.

First, they have power with us, because what happened to Him violates our sense of fairness. He did not deserve what He suffered. The Jewish court could not find corroborating evidence of wrongdoing. The Sanhedrin's charge of blasphemy seems thin, inasmuch as the Sanhedrin itself refused to carry out the death sentence they pronounced. The Roman authority did not care about religious blasphemy, but they did care about treason; and Pilate did not think He was guilty of treason against Rome and tried (unsuccessfully) to let Him go. The man was innocent, and most people don't like it when innocent people are tortured and killed.

Second, Jesus' sufferings have power with us, because what happened to Him awakens our pity. This has two sides. On one hand, our pity goes out to Jesus, because He is the Innocent in this story, and we cannot do a thing to help Him. No one could do a thing to help Him. We can only shake our heads and (in a certain mood) shake our fists at a system that can commit such injustice.

On the other hand, what do you think happens to frustrated pity? It looks for someone else it can help. When pity and a sense that Christ has been treated unfairly combine in a person's soul, and the person can do nothing abou tit, it is hard to command those feelings to disappear. They require expression. They create in many people a disposition to compassion. They now care a bit more about others who suffer unjustly. They care more about others who suffer for whatever reason.

This caring has become institutionalized in hospitals, halfway houses, relief agencies, refore movements and a million other acts of personal kindness. The Red Cross, Hospice, Habitat for Humanity, and the Salvation Army all arose from the heart of people whom the suffering Jesus had move to pity and practical help for others who suffer. Pity has entered deeply into the structure of Western Civilization, and we can find its headwaters in the Roman Praetorium where Jesus of Nazareth suffered terribly.

Third, the suffering of Jesus also turns attention toward the powers of this world that can inflict unjust suffering on people. In the Apostles' Creed the Church confesses, "I believe in Jesus Christ ... who suffered under Pontius Pilate." Karl Barth, a Swiss theologian, made a telling observation about the Lord's sufferings under Pilate.

He said, "But what else could the death-sentence from the mouth of Pilate be but at the same time the death-sentence of this age? What does it signify for the world-time that the eternal Son of God can only suffer in it, can only die in it? Is it He or is it not rather world-time that is judged?" (Karl Barth, Credo, 82).

If putting to death the Son of God is the best the justice system of the greatest power on ear can do, then the greatest power on earth is found wanting in the highest courtroom in heaven. In fact, every governmental power on earth, even the most benign, is found wanting in the courtroom of heaven.

The sufferings of Jesus Christ at the hands of Pilate and the soldiers of the Praetorium have more effectively subverted the haughty claims of human power than any haughty counter claim by another human power.

Where was the imperial power of Rome challenged and ameliorated but in the unarmed Church of Jesus Christ? Where was the divine right of kings successfully challenged but in the Christian politics of England? Where did liberal democracy arise but in the Christian West? The doctrine of the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances can trace their ancestry to the sufferings of Jesus Christ.

Finally, the suffering of Jesus serves as an example. The Apostle Peter put in this way (1 Peter 2:20-23): If you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

We Christians leave a lot to be desired, when it comes to imitating our Lord's refusal to retaliate against His enemies. Nevertheless, take a look at Afghanistan, e.g., with its deeply rooted culture of vengeance, and you appreciate the achievement of the Gospel in the nations where Jesus Christ has shaped the culture.

It is difficult to grasp how profoundly Jesus of Nazareth in His helpless sufferings at the hands of Roman law as changed the world. It points again, inexorably, to the truth that the sufferings and death of Jesus were the wisest and most powerful thing God could do to redeem the world. That redemption is nowhere complete, but already its achievements are impressive. Do not our hearts long for its full achievement?