As most know, the Queen of England died a few weeks ago. I haven’t been following much, just did bits here and there. I’ve never been a person that was interested in the death of people that I don’t know. When an act or actress dies, it doesn’t impact my life. But I thought I would at least keep myself up to date on the proceedings just because it’s a historical moment. But one of the things that I think is interesting is that there’s three sides to the coverage of this event.
On one side you have the funeral itself. There’s all this royal etiquette and procedures that have to take place. One another side, you have King Charles III and the changing of positions for the royal court. Finally the third side, and the side that I see the most in the various newsfeeds I follow, the drama that follows Harry and Megan. If you don’t know Harry and Megan have been very defiant in their rolls as royals, causing splits within the royal family. Megan I find the most interesting, because she’s an American who was brought into the royal family, but disregards the protocols of the that group.
Now I don’t care at all, but I find it interesting how many girls would love to be in that position. Many girls dream of being a princess. To be like Cinderella, or Snow White. To have Prince Charming sweep them off their feet. Yet here is someone that disregards that position, and there have been several times, that even her husband Harry, has had to correct her. Whether these rules are good or not, whether they need to be done away with or not, to a lot of people in the United Kingdom, they are tradition and should be held to a high respect. So when an outside comes and mocks these very sacred traditions of the people, it comes off as pretentious and disrespectful. And looks bad on the person seen as mocking, rather than on the situation itself.
And it’s this idea of mocking that brings us back into our Matthew series, where will be picking it back up in chapter 27, verse 1. And as we come back to Matthew 27:1, let’s bring ourselves back to the text, by looking back on the last couple of weeks.
In the last section of Matthew we have been looking at the authority of Jesus. We have looked how a disciple of Jesus’ must live under his authority. Because it’s there that we are satisfied and doing the will of the Father. Yet there is a trap that we can easily fall into. It’s where we think that we have enough strength on our own to live outside of the authority of Jesus. This usually happens when we see God’s great work, or we see great victories in our lives, and we begin to believe the lie that it’s because of us. When in reality it’s because of God working in and through us. We are shown to watch out for such a trap and instead to resolve ourselves daily to Jesus’ authority. Only when we resolve ourselves to live God’s will not ours, will we experience the satisfaction that our soul longs to experience. Because only God can satisfy us.
This brings us back to Matthew’s Gospel, where we’ll be picking it up in verse 1 of chapter 27. Let’s read together.
1 Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people made their plans how to have Jesus executed. 2 So they bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor.
3 When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. 4 “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.”
“What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.”
5 So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.
6 The chief priests picked up the coins and said, “It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.” 7 So they decided to use the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. 8 That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 9 Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, 10 and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.”
11 Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
“You have said so,” Jesus replied.
12 When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. 13 Then Pilate asked him, “Don’t you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?” 14 But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor.
15 Now it was the governor’s custom at the festival to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. 16 At that time they had a well-known prisoner whose name was Jesus Barabbas. 17 So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” 18 For he knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him.
19 While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.”
20 But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.
21 “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor.
“Barabbas,” they answered.
22 “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked.
They all answered, “Crucify him!”
23 “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”
24 When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”
25 All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children!”
26 Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
27 Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. 28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29 and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. 30 They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. 31 After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.
This is the second of two trials that Matthew gives us. The first is the one we read through last week, which focused on the Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin, or the ruling council of the Jews. But before we’re given the second trial, we are given a glimpse into what happened with Judas.
It seems that Judas comes to his senses when he sees Jesus being found guilty of false accusations. In trying to rectify the situation, Judas goes to those who he made the betrayal deal with, and tries to give them back the blood money. We need to notice a couple of things in this interaction.
First, Judas does not ask for forgiveness from God. By giving the money back, he isn’t repenting, but trying, like we saw before, by approaching the situation in his own strength. Even when Judas is feeling conviction, he continues to miss the need for Jesus. He continues in his own strength, though convicted of doing wrong. Which shows us that just because we might feel bad about something, true repentance is coming before God and asking forgiveness. We have an example of this in the life of David. The story comes from 2 Samuel 11, where we’re told that David slept with another man’s wife. Her name was Bathsheba and his name was Uriah. David gets Bathsheba pregnant and to cover it up tries to get Uriah to come home from war to sleep with his wife. But Uriah chooses to stay with the other troops and David has him sent to the front lines to die. David is then confronted by Nathan the prophet for his sin. David then writes Psalm 51 where he states, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.” This is repentance, truly understanding that we have sinned, that God is right in his judgment over us, and we lay down our life at the mercy of God. Judas has none of it. He is convicted of his sinful action, but never repents of it.
The second thing we need to notice, is the lack of justice from the priests and elders. Here is a confession of guilt, a confession to overturn the false claims against Jesus, but the ruling leaders reject it. One of the primary charges that God brings against Israel is a lack of justice. Listen to how Proverbs puts it, “Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent—the Lord detests them both (17:15).” The word “detests” is the word abomination. And it’s this type of abomination that led to God sending the Israelites into seventy years of exile in Babylon. These men are repeating the history of those who corrupted Israel before, and which led to the dispersal of the nation.
Yet, even so, the works of these evil men were used by God to bring Jesus to the cross, and salvation to all. This is why Paul states in Romans 8:28, “…God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
This brings us to the trial, where we get two sides, Pilate and the Jewish leaders. What’s interesting is that Jesus speaks to Pilate, but not to the Jewish leaders. In the other Gospels, we get a lengthy conversation between the Roman governor and the King of the Jews. But Jesus stays silence when accused by the the Jewish leadership, and we should ask the question why?
The silence before the Jewish leadership has parts to it. First, it’s a fulfillment of prophecy. This is a fulfillment of Isaiah’s suffering servant passage. In Isaiah 53:7, we’re told that the Messiah, “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”
The other part of it, is that there was no convincing these leaders. They had heard Jesus’ message and they had rejected it. In Matthew, we have seen Jesus quote from the Old Testament about the ears of people being shut. One of these places that Jesus quotes is from Ezekiel 12:2, where God address the prophet, “Son of man, you are living among a rebellious people. They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious people.” There’s no convincing the Jewish leadership, because they have shut their ears to the Word of God.
But Jesus isn’t silent before Pilate, why? Because this is a turning point. The work of God has never been for one people. It has been through one people, bringing about salvation through Jesus the Messiah, but the intention of God has always been to open the way to all people so that they can return to their Creator. Throughout Matthew we have seen Jesus interact with Gentiles, non-Jews. He never turned them away. Not the Wisemen, not the Centurion, and the not the desperate mother. Jesus is fulfilling another Servant passage from Isaiah where it states, “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth (49:6).”
Jesus speaks to Pilate because Pilate needs the Gospel, and now has the opportunity to either embrace the true King or reject him. But instead of embracing Jesus, even though everything in him knows that the Jewish leadership is there out of envy, and that his own wife has told him to not go through with it, Pilate thinks he has a way out.
Pilate gives the crowd a choice, Barabbas or Jesus. The criminal or the King. We can see it now that this is a fitting trade, because it is for the condemned that Jesus dies. It is for the sinful that Jesus takes their place, so why not free a criminal in the process? But Pilate, though he washes his hands, isn’t free of guilt. He has the power, he has the choice to not send a condemned man to death, but his choice is based on his own survival. Pilate sends Jesus to the cross, so that there wouldn’t be a riot. Politically, Judea was a hotbed for political uprisings. Pilate’s job was to subdue those uprisings. If he couldn’t do that, he would be stripped of his station. A fate, we know happened only a few years later. So the condemnation of Jesus didn’t save him in the long run.
It’s here that Jesus is then turned over to the Roman guards. Mocked, beaten, stripped of all dignity. This God who came down for the salvation of his creation, now mocked by it. Yet, again, a fulfillment of the suffering passage of Isaiah 53, “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem (v.3).”
And in another Servant Song passage of Isaiah, we see this moment prophesied. Isaiah 50:5-7 reads, “The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears; I have not been rebellious, I have not turned away. 6 I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting. 7 Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame.”
Again and again and again, the words of the Old Testament play out in the life of Jesus. The world rejecting the God who came for their salvation, resigns himself to the cross and all the pain that it entails. And the final words that we read from the passage in Matthew 27:31, “After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him…” should bring us joy. My God, my Savior, died for me. It is a proclamation of the love of God, wrapped up in the horrors of humanity.
All the evil in the world, comes not from the work of God, but through the work of each of us. We brought God’s creation down into our sin, and given the opportunity we even brought God down. Yet, God willing came to the earth, he willing was led to trial, he was willing led mock and beaten, and he willing led to the cross, all for us.
The words of Paul in Romans 5:8 would humble us and cause us to praise God, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Every single person from the runaway disciples, to Judas, to the Jewish leadership, to Pilate and his guards, we’re shown love through the cross and a pathway to God’s everlasting life. This was the purpose of Israel as a nation. That God would work out his will for this moment, when Jesus was being led to the cross through injustice and perversion of humanity’s sin. Yet he died for us, though he was completely alone while the world conspired against their God.
We see it today don’t we? There are three camps, those who recognize the great love of God and so fall willingly at his feet in thankfulness of the price that was paid and the debt that was forgiven. These are Jesus’ disciples, who live under his authority, who seek the will of the Father over their own, and are empowered by the Holy Spirit to be conformed into the image of Jesus.
Another camp are those who openly mock God. They conspire to strip him of the praise that’s due him. They stand in the way of the Gospel reaching ears. They make up lies and tell half-truths so that others would turn away from the salvation that is alone in Jesus. They are the Jewish leaders, the Roman guards.
And then there’s a third group, that are fence setters. They, like Judas and Pilate, think that in their own strength they can do enough to stay out of the way. That they will not bow to Jesus, but they won’t openly mock him either. They hope, if there is a God, that they can get by on their own merit, after all they were upset with the injustice of it all, isn’t that enough?
No, there is only one thing any of can do and that’s bow at the feet of Jesus. Like the modern hymn “How Deep the Father’s Love For Us” states,
“Behold the man upon a cross
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished.” (second verse)
When we recognize that it was our sin that led Jesus willing to the cross, that held him in place on that tree of aguish, then we can turn from our sin. Repenting with the understanding that we sinned against God, yet he loved us even while we were in that state, and now we must accept Jesus’ work on our behalf, turning away from our own strength and submitting to his authority over us. Here then can we now live, because we live not in ourselves, but in the life of Jesus himself.
As we pointed to last week, Paul’s words in Galatians 2:20, become a trumpet call in our lives, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Let us praise God all the louder, that I had nothing to do with my salvation. Jesus did it all, and willingly so. That all I do now is accepted and rely on the work of the Holy Spirit. That it is in his strength and by his will I live until the day he comes back for me, or I go to him.
My challenge this week is to read Isaiah 46-53. Read a chapter a day and re-read Matthew 27:1-31 with each chapter. See the prophecies fulfilled in Jesus work, and see what is yet to be fulfilled. Then praise God that he has done the work that you couldn’t. That he saved you though you didn’t deserve it. And pray for those who mock God, that they would see his greatness and bow willingly before they are made to. Also pray for those who who are fence setters; who think that can just slide through on their own merit. That they see their need for Jesus, before they can no longer willing choose.
Let us be a humble people, recognizing that Jesus did everything for us, so now we get to live for him in everything. Amen.
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