Some of my favorite articles of clothing are slightly ironic.
When I was writing up this sermon manuscript earlier in
this week, I was wearing bright green socks that had mooses on
them. My mooses?
I don't know, it's funny. It's a little note of joy and
levity for the four inches between my shoes and my cuffed
up pant leg. Don't take it seriously.
The mooses don't mean anything. Another ironic article of
clothing that I enjoy will be a knit tie.
My favorite little knit tie. You know it's, it's cut off at
the at the bottom. It's straight, not pointed.
Might wear it a little bit shorter than a more formal time.
A mutual friend of mine and Joe Birds, who's about 35 years
older than me, once heard me preach at a pastor's conference
just a few years ago. Afterward, he reported to
someone else. That young man is a very fine
preacher. Where'd the rest of his tie run
off to? Some ironies are light, slightly
funny, just a little misfit between expectation and reality.
Something playful lightens the mood.
But some ironies are much darker and heavier.
You say something and someone takes it in the exact opposite
sense of how you meant it. You try to help solve a problem,
and you only make it worse. There's a fire burning.
You pick up water. You pour it on, and it turned
out it was gasoline, not water. That feels ironic, but bitterly
so, dangerously so. There's a misfit.
There's an incongruity between what you expect, what you hope,
and what actually happens. That irony leads to some pain or
suffering, depending how you look at it.
You could say that the whole Christian faith is built on a
central irony. God the Son Incarnate came to
earth to suffer and die for sinners in order to save us.
Now, many of us in this room are Christians.
Many people who aren't have been exposed to Christianity their
whole life. The western world is known of
Christianity for 2000 years. We're used to this.
It sounds familiar, but it is a bizarre statement.
It doesn't follow. It's not what you'd expect.
You can't. You can't predict it based on
the first part of the sentence, how the rest of the sentence is
going to end God, the sun comes to earth as a human being and
then he's killed. It doesn't make sense.
If Jesus is God Incarnate, why would he come to die?
If Jesus is the perfect, sinless one, why would he be handed over
into the hands of sinful men and killed?
What sense could that possibly make?
This morning we continue our series in Mark's gospel, and we
make big strides toward its conclusion.
We'll be studying chapter 14, verses 43 to 72.
So all the way to the end of the chapter, if you don't have a
Bible, you can raise your hand and someone will bring you one.
Feel free to keep that and take it home with you.
Here in our passage, Jesus's passion, his suffering in order
to save his people, begins to kick into gear.
And the ironies of that passion are the key to its meaning, the
incongruities between what we would expect to happen, in a
sense between what should happen and then what actually does
happen. Those reveal the hidden depths
of what Jesus came to do in saving us.
Please follow along as I read the whole passage.
Mark 1443 to 72. And immediately while he was
still speaking, Judas came one of the 12, and with him a crowd
with swords and clubs from the chief priests and the scribes
and the elders. Now the betrayer had given them
a sign saying, The one I will kiss is the man, seize him, and
lead him away under guard. And when he came, he went up to
him at once and said, Rabbi, And he kissed him, and they laid
hands on him and seized him. But one of those who stood by
drew his sword, and struck the servant of the high priest, and
cut off his ear. And Jesus said to them, Have you
come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture
me? Day after day I was with you in
the temple teaching, and you did not seize me.
But let the Scriptures be fulfilled.
And they all left him and fled. And a young man followed him
with nothing but a linen cloth about his body.
And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away
naked. And they led Jesus to the high
priest, and all the chief priests and the elders and the
scribes came together. And Peter had followed him at a
distance right into the courtyard of the high priest,
and he was sitting with the guards and warming himself at
the fire. Now the chief priests and the
whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put
him to death, but they found none.
For many bore false witness against him, but their testimony
did not agree. And some stood up and bore false
witness against him, saying, We heard him say, I will destroy
this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will
build another not made with hands.
Yet even about this their testimony did not agree.
And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked, Jesus, have
you no answer to make? What is it that these men
testify against you? But he remained silent and made
no answer. Again the high priest asked him,
Are you the Christ, the Son of the blessed?
And Jesus said, I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated
at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of
heaven. And the high priest tore his
garments and said, What further witness do we need?
You've heard his blasphemy, what is your decision?
And they all condemned him as deserving death.
And some began to spit on him and to cover his face and to
strike him, saying to him prophecy.
And the guards received him with blows.
And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant
girls of the high priest came. And seeing Peter warming
himself, she looked at him and said, You also were with the
Nazarene Jesus. But he denied it, saying, I
neither know nor understand what you mean.
And he went out into the gateway, and the rooster crowed,
and the servant girl saw him and began again to say to the
bystanders, This man is one of them.
But again he denied it. And after a little while the
bystanders again said to Peter, certainly you're one of them,
for you are a Galilean. But he began to invoke a curse
on himself and to swear, I do not know this man of whom you
speak. And immediately the rooster
crowed a second time, and Peter remembered how Jesus had said to
him before. The rooster crows twice.
You will deny me three times. And he broke down and wept.
Our passage has three sections, 3 movements and verses 43 to 52.
Jesus is arrested and his disciples abandoned him.
In verses 53 to 65, Jesus is arraigned at a hearing before
the Jewish Council. He bears witness to who he is,
and he's condemned to death for it.
Then in verses 66 to 72, just as he prophesied, Jesus is denied
by his disciple. Peter. 3 * 3 sections of our
passage. Each one reveals an irony of
Jesus Passion. 3 Ironies of Jesus Passion .1.
The peaceful shepherd is seized. The peaceful shepherd is seized.
We see this in verses 43 to 52. Please look again at verses 43
to 46. And immediately while he was
still speaking, Judas came one of the 12 and with him a crowd
with swords and clubs from the chief priests and the scribes
and the elders. Now the betrayer had given them
a sign saying, The one I will kiss is the man sees him and
lead him away under guard. And when he came, he went up to
him at once and said, rabbi. And he kissed him, and they laid
hands on him and seized him. Here Judas, one of Jesus 12
disciples, leads an armed band to Jesus so that they can
capture him and lead him away under guard.
Judas had pre arranged the kiss as the sign, the means by which
he would identify Jesus to the chief priests.
Now in ancient Judea a kiss was a common greeting, but it wasn't
universal or routine, maybe a little bit extra affectionate.
So it would have been a natural way for him to single out one
person to identify. And of course, the kiss
heightens the cruelty and the treachery of Jesus, of Judas's
betrayal. This is someone who he's showing
extra affection to, but he's actually treating with the
vilest hatred. Verses 47 to 49 But one of those
who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high
priest and cut off his ear. And Jesus said to them, Have you
come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to capture
me day after day? I was with you in the temple
teaching, and you did not seize me.
But let the Scriptures be fulfilled.
John 1810 identifies the disciple who cut off the
servant's ear as Peter. I'm not sure why Mark doesn't
make that identification since Mark is Peter's testimony.
Not sure. In any case, that's not Jesus's
endorsed response. This is not how he's going to
respond to this trial. It is not how he wants his
disciples to respond. Jesus is going to go with them
peaceably. Jesus is going to meet his fate
not with violent resistance, but humble submission.
Jesus points out to his captors how unfitting their actions are.
He's not armed, he's not dangerous, he's not violent.
What's he been doing all in the the lead up to the Passover?
He's been teaching publicly in the temple, out in the open
where anyone can access him. They couldn't seize him in
public or the people would revolt.
They couldn't seize him during the day, or they'd risk people
rising up and resisting. And so Jesus is pushing his
captors to try to see how dark and devious their actions are,
how unfitting with the person he is and who he has been to them
in public this whole time. They're treating him as if he's
a a rebel, a robber, an insurrectionist, but he's given
them no reason to suspect him of violence.
He has always humbly submitted to his Father, and he's going to
continue to do so. Now, what are Jesus reasons for
that humble submission? 1 is that he trusts the will of
the Father. Another is that he embraces his
role as Savior, even knowing it is going to cost him a violent
death and that he will suffer God's wrath.
Another angle on this is to say what Jesus says in verse 49.
But let the Scriptures be fulfilled.
God has ordained all of this. None of it is by chance.
None of it is by action. None of it is against God's
plan. This is the very unfolding of
God's plan. God, through His Spirit,
speaking by the prophets, has announced all this in advance.
What scriptures does Jesus have in mind?
I think 2 of the leading ones are the two passages we read
earlier in our service from Zechariah 13, especially verse 7
and all of Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 5312.
In the Greek version it says the suffering servant will be
delivered over to death. That's exactly what's happening
here. Why was Jesus delivered over to
death? Not because he deserved it, but
because you and I do. That's the central irony here.
That's the central paradox. That's the thing that doesn't
make sense, but only make sense if this is God's plan.
This is God's work. This is God's way to reconcile
people to himself. God has created each one of us.
God has given us all that we have, every moment of our lives.
What we owe to Him is wholehearted love, wholehearted
obedience, wholehearted gratitude and affection to
Orient our lives back to Him. Since he's given us all that we
have and all that we are. And yet we've rebelled.
We've turned against him. We've gone astray from Him.
As Isaiah 53 says, each of us has turned to his own way.
In our culture, we celebrate that.
We make a virtue of it, a value out of it.
But to Scripture, going your own way is the way of sin, of death,
of folly, because there's sin bound up in your heart.
By nature, we are all born slaves of sin.
To go our own way is to go deeper and deeper into sin, and
it's to reject God's way by definition.
So God has every right to reject us.
God has every right to judge us. God has every right to condemn
us and deliver us over to death, not only a physical death, but
an eternal, everlasting death in hell.
That's what we deserve. That's what we've earned.
And so the good news of the gospel is that Jesus takes what
we deserve so that we would get what he deserves.
Jesus suffers what we've earned so that we get what he earned.
That's the exchange. That's the only way to make
sense out of this. Jesus is already suffering this.
We're already seeing it play out, and it will play out fully
on the cross. Not only that, three days later
God will raise him from the dead, reversing humanity's
verdict against Him, installing him in indestructible life, and
holding him out to everyone as the only and all sufficient
Savior. If you've never turned from sin
and trusted in Jesus, do so today.
This great exchange, this great reversal, this great swap of
what you deserve for what He deserves is the only way to get
right with God. And the only way you can receive
that is by turning from sin and trusting in Him.
As I mentioned, in addition to Isaiah 53, Jesus also probably
has in mind another passage that he's already mentioned early
earlier in the same chapter. We read it in Zechariah 13,
verse seven. I will strike the shepherd, and
the sheep will be scattered. Jesus is going to be struck by
being killed. The shepherd did nothing to
deserve being struck. He was struck for the sins of
His people. The shepherd did nothing to
deserve being seized. Instead, he preached peace and
lived peaceably and ultimately came to make peace.
What would happen when this peaceable shepherd is seized?
What will happen when the shepherd is struck?
The sheep will be scattered. That's what we see in verses 50
to 52. And they all left him and fled.
And a young man followed him with nothing but a linen cloth
about his body, and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth
and ran away naked. Verse 50, They all left him and
fled. This is exactly what Jesus
predicted would happen back in verse 27.
Jesus said to them, You will all fall away.
Fruit is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will
be scattered. So when Jesus is arrested, the
disciples abandoned him. They don't want to be seized
along with him. As Jesus begins to suffer for
them, they run away from suffering with him.
In so doing, they act like undisciples, anti disciples.
The Christian life is founded on Christ's suffering for us.
That's what saves us. And then a key dynamic
throughout the whole Christian life is our suffering with Him.
We are God's adopted children, and just as his natural eternal
Son suffered for us, so we adopted sons must suffer too.
As Paul confesses in Romans 816 and 17, The Spirit himself bears
witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs
with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may
also be glorified with him. But here, when Jesus is
captured, all his disciples fail to suffer with him.
They run away instead, just as Jesus predicted.
And as we saw last week, they flee because they failed to
depend on God in prayer. The only way to suffer
faithfully with Christ is to depend on God in prayer
throughout all of that suffering.
So we learned in verse 50 that all the disciples fled.
But then what's the story of someone running away naked in
verses 51 and 52? Seems funny, odd, out of place.
What's going on there? People often suggest that this
might be an indirect or even ironic way for Mark, the author
of the gospel, to identify himself.
But I don't think there's any firm evidence for that.
I don't think there's any strong reasons for that.
Instead, I think this incident is simply showing the lengths
the disciples would go to to run away from Jesus.
It's kind of an exclamation mark on they're all abandoning him.
This anonymous disciple was so set on fleeing from Jesus that
when they grabbed his outer garment, he let him have it and
ran away naked. Whether that's literally naked,
like no clothes, whether it's undergarments, we don't know.
But it's not a normal thing you did, right?
They grabbed his coat. Rather than risking it, he keeps
running. It's a little bit like Joseph in
Genesis fleeing from Potiphar's wife.
Only Joseph was fleeing sin. This disciple is fleeing,
suffering, flee sinning against Christ.
Don't flee suffering with and for Christ.
The peaceful Shepherd was seized, and so will be his
peaceful followers. Why?
Why was he seized? To fulfill the Scriptures in His
Word, God laid out a detailed script that Christ's sufferings
would follow. If you want to see that, you
could also especially look at Psalm 22 and Psalm 69.
In those Psalms, David is describing his own sufferings,
but in ways where certain details go beyond what he
possibly could have experienced. There were specific, there's
certain details that kind of stick out.
There's certain things that happen.
That's because they're being announced prophetically.
It's based on David, but it goes beyond David we see in Psalms
like Psalm 22. Psalm 69 is a detailed script
for what the sufferings of Christ would look like.
Now God doesn't lay out as detailed of a script for the
sufferings that each of us will endure for His sake, but He does
lay out a general pattern in His word.
Just as Jesus suffered, then entered glory, so will we.
Just as Jesus was humiliated and then was exalted, so will we be
as Peter exhorts us in first Peter 5-6 and seven.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so
that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your
anxieties on Him because He cares for you.
Brother or sister, what anxieties do you need to cast on
the Lord this morning? What frustrated expectations do
you need to entrust to Him? What sufferings do you need His
help to faithfully endure? He has promised that you will
suffer, and He's promised to be with you in your suffering.
He has promised you'll suffer, and He's promised that your
suffering will end in glory. He has promised that you'll
suffer, and He's promised that your sufferings will fit you for
heaven. Why doesn't so much of what God
does in our lives make sense? It's as if you stopped Jesus
story right here. What, huh.
He's seized, he's arrested. How could this possibly work
out? Why doesn't so much of what God
is doing in our lives make sense to us right now?
Because he isn't reading from our script, but his own, and
because he isn't operating from our timeline, but from his, one
of the most profound Christian reflections on that point I've
ever heard. It's a man named Ian Murray.
Ian Murray is a British pastor. He was a pastor for a long time,
a long time ago. He's lived very long.
He's 94 now. He's he's mainly been a writer
and the publisher of the Banner of Truth Trust, and he's
published dozens of really spiritually enriching, edifying
books. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland
now and a couple of times over the years I've been part of
group phone calls with him. Most recent time, it's about two
or three years ago and he was reflecting at what must be near
the end of his very long and fruitful life.
He was reflecting on a biography he just finished writing of
another Christian leader who whom he knew for decades and
who'd recently passed away. And he was kind of considering
the whole legacy of this brother's life.
His ministry is teaching. And Ian Murray and the subject
of his biography had had some real sharp disagreements over
the years and decades, some real challenging debates, disputes.
And Murray said over the phone about what he was learning from
reflecting back over all those decades and the differences
they'd had, he said one thing became clear to him.
God is preparing men more for eternity than for time.
God is preparing men, men, women, all His adopted children
more for eternity than for time. The irony of the cross resolved
in the glory of the resurrection, the irony of your
sufferings will resolve in the glory of the new creation.
Why? Because if you trust in Christ,
Jesus bore the wrath you deserve, so that you'll receive
the life and joy that only He deserves.
That brings us to .2. The Son of Man is judged.
We see this in Jesus hearing
before the Sanhedrin in verses 40.
Excuse me, 53 to 65. Start with verse 53.
And they led Jesus to the high priest and all the chief priests
and the elders and the scribes came together.
This is the middle of the night. It's an it's essentially an
emergency session of the Sanhedrin.
That's the ruling body of Jerusalem.
It says they all assembled, which could mean literally every
single one of them came together, about 70 people.
Or it just means that everyone who is available came together.
So it constituted A quorum. They met the minimum requirement
to have an assembly of the whole.
Then the camera pans to Peter verse 54.
And Peter had followed him at a distance, right into the
courtyard of the high priest, and he was sitting with the
guards and warming himself at the fire.
So we know that Peter is nearby, but we don't yet know what he's
doing while Jesus is on trial. That'll come soon.
Look at verses 55 and 56. Now the chief priests and the
whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put
him to death, but they found none.
For many bore false witness against him, but their testimony
did not agree. Verse 55 tells us they were
seeking testimony against him, meaning they're already
convinced he's guilty. They've already made-up their
minds against him. They're already dead set on
finding a way to condemn him to death.
Now it's just a matter in this hearing of finding a charge
that'll stick. They looked for witnesses who
could testify against him, but that didn't turn up any
credible, confirmed charges. Verse 56 tells us that many
witnesses spoke against him, but their testimony did not agree.
So the Sanhedrin's faithfulness to the procedures they were
required to follow, even some from God's own Word, was a mixed
bag. On the one hand, they had
already made-up their minds against Jesus.
There's no sense in which this hearing was part of a kind of
Fair and free trial. But on the other hand, they were
abiding by the Mosaic Laws requirement that every legal
matter be established by two or three witnesses.
They hear these conflicting testimonies.
They don't have two or three witnesses who agree.
So that's inadmissible. They're not going to go forward
on that basis. Verses 57 to 59 tell us what
these false witnesses were testifying against him.
Here's the content of their testimony.
And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, we
heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with
hands, and in three days I will build another not made with
hands. Yet even about this, their
testimony did not agree. Now this false testimony
contains multiple grains of truth.
Jesus did predict that the temple would be destroyed, but
he did not say that he would be the one to destroy it.
Instead, God would just 40 years later in 70 AD when the Romans
overthrew Jerusalem. And what's that thing about 3
days later? Jesus did predict that something
dramatic would reverse three days later several times in the
Gospel, but it wasn't the temple being literally rebuilt, it was
his body being raised from the dead.
Now I think the truth behind these witnesses statement which
we see more fully in the Gospel of John, is that Jesus's
resurrection is the beginning of God's new end time temple.
He does refer to his body as the temple.
It will be destroyed. It will be rebuilt.
When Jesus was raised from the dead, his resurrection body
became the place where people are united to God.
It became the means of our union with God.
His resurrection body was created by God's power, not by
any human action. That's why it's contrasted with
the earth earthly temple. It is not made with hands.
And Jesus resurrection body guarantees that all who trust in
Him will one day dwell with him in a building not made by hand.
So even though this testimony against him contained elements
of truth, it was. It was garbled.
It was fundamentally false. It didn't get him right.
It didn't get his teaching right.
If you're not a believer in Jesus, maybe you're considering
whether to become a Christian. You should understand that
people have been getting Jesus wrong for 2000 years.
Not every witness to Jesus is true.
Not every witness to Jesus is reliable.
If you're not a believer in Jesus, whose testimony about
Jesus are you going to believe? Who do you trust to tell you who
Jesus is? And just under score, the
testimony in the four gospels is from eyewitnesses.
It's from those who were with Jesus.
Not only that, it's guaranteed by the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit. So after this conflicting
testimony is given, the high priest asks Jesus to respond
verse 60 into verse 61. And the high priest stood up in
the midst and asked Jesus, have you no answer to make?
What is it that these men testify against you?
But he remained silent and made no answer.
Why was Jesus silent? One reason is to fulfill the
Scripture Isaiah 53, seven we which we read earlier.
The suffering servant will be silent before his accusers, like
a lamb being sheared. But Jesus was also trusting that
the truth will out the truth and their false accusations would be
shown in his resurrection. It would be shown in God's
judgement against the temple. In the mere 40 years.
Jesus didn't need to defend himself by his words.
Why? Because he trusted that God
would vindicate him by his actions.
First, Peter 223 turns this into an example for us as believers.
When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.
When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued
entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
So Jesus doesn't respond to their false charges, but he does
respond next to the high priests direct question, verses 61 and
62. Again, the high priest asked
him, are you the Christ, the Son of the blessed?
And Jesus said, I am. And you will see the Son of man
is seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds
of heaven. So the high priest asks Jesus
outright whether he's the Messiah.
And his question might also imply even more.
When he asks Jesus whether he's the son of the blessed, he might
be asking Jesus about his claim to be the Son in a divine sense.
In other words, the high priest is asking Jesus about the source
of his authority. Jesus has been doing all kinds
of things that demonstrate A remarkable authority.
He he interrupted the whole exchange of, you know, animals
and money in the temple. He taught a parable about God
handing over his Kingdom to other leadership because of how
those leaders treated his beloved son.
He's been forgiving sins, raising the dead, teaching about
himself in high and exalted terms.
It all kind of adds up, and especially his actions in the
temple. To who are you?
Who do you think you are? Where do you get this authority?
That's what some of his opponents asked him a few
chapters ago. By what authority do you do
these things? And now the question that's been
driving all of Mark, who is Jesus, gets its fullest,
richest, most public answer. What Jesus has taught his
disciples, what he's had them keep quiet, What's been revealed
in his actions? What's been revealed in his
miracles? Now he's going to utter fully
himself before everyone. This is really the kind of
theological climax of the whole Gospel of Mark.
I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand
of power and coming at the clouds of heaven.
In his answer he quotes 2 passages of Scripture.
These are passages we've seen alluded to throughout Mark's
Gospel, Psalm 110 verse one and Daniel 713 which opened our
service. In Psalm 110 verse one, the Lord
says to David's Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your
enemies a footstool for your feet.
And in Daniel 713 one, like a son of man, that is a human
being comes to God on his throne and receives divine authority
and worship. So here at last, Jesus is fully,
publicly unveiling the secret of his identity.
He is God's divine Son Incarnate.
He is the Messiah. And by proclaiming these two
passages of Scripture before the High Priest and the whole
council, Jesus is also teaching them that the Old Testament
proclaims that the Messiah will be God's divine Son Incarnate.
If they understood the Scriptures, they would
understand him. If they rightly understood the
prophecies, they would recognize not only that he's the Messiah,
but that he's divine. Jesus is not claiming anything
for himself that Scripture doesn't already claim for him.
But notice that Jesus says you will see.
When will they see this? What exactly will they see?
I think the most immediate answer is at his resurrection
and then his ascension. 3 days after he dies, Jesus will rise
from the dead. Shortly after that, he will
ascend to heaven and take his seat at the right hand of God.
That will show God's verdict on Jesus.
The high priest rejects him. God endorses him.
The high priest condemns him. God the Father vindicates him.
Jesus is about to receive the sentence of death.
God is going to give him indestructible life.
But when will they see Jesus coming with the clouds of
heaven? In Daniel's prophecy, the Son of
Man comes with the clouds to God on his throne.
Coming with the clouds is approaching God in heaven.
And when Jesus ascended into heaven in Acts One, we learn
that a cloud took him up, fulfilling Daniel 713, coming to
God's throne in heaven in a cloud.
But I think there's likely a double meaning here.
Jesus entered heaven with a cloud, and he will return from
heaven to earth, coming with the clouds in glory.
That's exactly what He said he'd do in Mark 13, verse 26 and
again declaring what people will see and then they will see the
Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.
So the high priests, though they though most of them wouldn't
have eyes to see it and believe it, they would have been able to
witness his resurrection. It really happened in space and
time. They could have believed it.
They could have seen Jesus face to face.
They could have been there to see him lift up into heaven.
They could have been eyewitnesses of the ascension.
It really happened. They could have seen what
they've not yet seen, but one day will see is Jesus returning
in power and glory. And when he does, every eye will
see him. Jesus will return.
The ruling authorities are about to remove him from the earthly
scene, but he'll come back. They will not have gotten rid of
him. They're about to crucify him in
weakness, but he'll return in power.
Their rejection of Him won't be the end of the story.
He's being judged by them now, but He will return as their
judge. For all of us who believe in
Jesus, knowing the rest of the story ground our hope because
their verdict against him will be overturned.
Every verdict the world renders against believers will be
overturned. Jesus will return victorious and
all believers will share in his victory.
But the high priest refuses to believe it.
Look at verses 63 to 65. And the high priest tore his
garments and said, what further witnesses do we need?
You've heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?
And they all condemned him as deserving death.
And some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to
strike him, saying to him prophecy.
And the guards received him with blows.
An ancient Judaism, blasphemy was a capital offense.
Blasphemy consists of claiming for yourself what only belongs
to God. It's infringing on territory
that only God can occupy. One common source of blasphemy
in the ancient world around ancient Judea was the kind of
worship that emperors claimed for themselves.
They were happy to have their people worship them as gods.
Maybe when the emperor dies, he ascends to the status of a God,
and then you offer him sacrifices and all this kind of
thing. Jews are very sensitive.
This is this is, this is worship.
You can't give a human being worship.
Dead or alive, doesn't matter. That's the kind of thing that
the high priest is accusing Jesus of.
And if Jesus is only a human being, the high priest is right.
If he's a mere man, he can't say that he can't talk like that.
He can't talk about coming back to judge the whole world.
So the high priest rightly heard Jesus claiming divine power and
authority, but he wrongly. Rejected Jesus testimony about
himself. The question is, is it true?
There are only two options. Either Jesus is God Incarnate or
he's a blasphemer. Either the truth he's telling
his world shattering, or he's an evil liar.
Either you repent and believe in him, or you reject him as a
blasphemer and he ultimately will reject you.
It's this charge of blasphemy that becomes decisive in Jesus
condemnation and ultimately his death.
In the high priest view, they no longer needed two or three
witnesses. They heard it from Jesus
himself. They condemn him to death.
They pass an official sentence against him.
People will often say about Mark's Gospel.
Oh, and Mark's gospel. Jesus doesn't really claim to be
divine. He's more of a human miracle
worker. This is only stuff that happens
later, you know, 50 years, 60 years, 100 years after the
events, blah, blah, blah. Most scholars would recognize
Mark's Gospel as the earliest and right here.
The very reason why he's condemned to death is the charge
of blasphemy for claiming to be divine.
Nothing else can account for what got Jesus killed.
They didn't have a sufficient reason.
His disruptions in the temple, he's kind of stirring things up.
He's leading away the crowds. None of that was good enough in
their sight to get him killed. What did it was his claim of
unity and equality with the Father.
His very life and death turned on that claim to be God the Son.
Now, under Roman rule, the Jewish people didn't have the
right to put someone to death. That's why they're going to take
Jesus to the Roman governor next.
But they've heard all they need to They condemn him to die.
And so they begin to treat him as someone who has no dignity,
no rights, no life worth anything.
They insult him by spitting on him.
They remove his agency by covering his face.
They abuse him physically by striking him.
They mock him as a false prophet, saying prophecy.
Our Savior knows what it is to be verbally and physically
abused. The Son of Man was judged for
us. The one to whom all authority
rightly belongs was stripped of all authority and condemned to
death. The judge was judged in our
place, and he will return to judge and save.
So we should live our whole lives for him.
We should testify boldly to Him. We should love Him more than we
love ourselves. We should fear Him more than we
fear what any human being can do to us.
But that's not at all what Jesus first disciples did.
It's not at all what Peter did. As we see in the last part of
our passage .3. The true prophet is denied.
The true prophet is denied Verses 66 to 72 After giving us
that little glimpse of where Peter was during Jesus trial,
verse 66 returns the focus to Peter.
Look at verses 66 to 68. And as Peter was below in the
courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came.
And seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and
said, you also were with the Nazarene Jesus.
But he denied it, saying, I neither know nor understand what
you mean. And he went out into the
gateway, and the rooster crowed. This servant girl, somebody of
low status, low power, not a physical threat, saw Peter
coming along with Jesus. She witnessed his actions and he
lied. He denied it.
He denied it as emphatically as he could, claiming to have no
idea what she was talking about. When confronted by lies, Jesus
bore true witness. When confronted with the truth,
Peter bore false witness. Why does it mention a rooster
crowing? Because Jesus predicted Peter's
denial earlier in this chapter. Back in verse 30, Jesus said to
Peter, truly, I tell you this very night before the rooster
crows twice, you'll deny me three times.
Jesus prophecy is in the process of coming true.
Peter is bearing false witness against the true prophet.
He's denying the true prophet, and he'll do so again twice
more. Look at verse 69 through the
first part of verse 72. And the servant girl saw him and
began again to say to the bystanders, this man is one of
them. But again he denied it.
And after a little while the bystanders again said to Peter,
certainly you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.
But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, I do
not know this man of whom you speak.
And immediately the rooster crowed a second time.
The bystanders would have known that Peter was a Galilean by his
regional accent. Jesus and all his disciples, His
12 disciples were from Galilee, up in the north and standing
outside in a courtyard in the middle of the night.
There wouldn't have been a ton of people.
So if you're a Galilean, you must be with Jesus.
Peter denied the servant girl again, and he denied it to the
whole crowd of bystanders. Not only that, but he began to
swear it, to solemnize it. He began to invoke a curse
against himself, something probably along the lines of May
God do so to me, and more. Also if, why did Peter do it?
Fear. He feared them rather than God.
He feared personal harm more than he feared displeasing God.
He sought to preserve himself at the cost of his obedience rather
than preserving his obedience even at the cost of his life.
Jesus bore true witness under the greatest imaginable
pressure. When Peter was put under
pressure, he crumbled and as soon as he did, the rooster
crowed. The second time Jesus prophecy
was fulfilled to the T Thankfully for Peter and for us,
that's not the end of the story. The rest of verse 72 gives us a
little glimpse of hope. And he broke down and wept.
Now the text is not explicit here.
Not all remorse is repentance. You can be sorry for something
without actually turning away from it as sin in your heart
that you're rejecting and resolving not to do again.
But I think we're meant to see this as the beginning of Peter's
repentance. For one thing, it's immediate.
It happens as soon as the rooster crows.
For another, it's a response to Jesus's word.
The rooster reminds him what Jesus said and that that's clear
in our passage. Peter remembered it as we saw
two weeks ago. One more detail.
This is not the end of Peter's story.
When Jesus rises from the dead in Mark 16/7, he commissions an
Angel to tell the disciples. But go tell his disciples and
Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.
Peter singled himself out by his failure.
Jesus singles him out. By grace, Jesus will restore
Peter to himself. Peter's story doesn't end here,
but it is instructive to note where this portion of the story
ends before they move on to the Roman trial.
Jesus will now head to his death alone.
Why? In part because he bore true
witness to himself and his disciples didn't.
The truth out of his own lips about himself sealed his fate.
Peter will escape, but at the cost of his faithfulness to
Jesus. Under the greatest pressure,
Jesus bore true witness to himself.
He did it to save you. He did it alone.
Jesus is going to save us by Himself, and then he'll rise
from the dead victorious, ascend to heaven, and one day return.
Why? So that all who believe will not
be alone, but will be with Him in glory forever.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise You
for this plan of salvation in which so many things that seem
exactly wrong were exactly what we needed in order to be saved.
Father, we pray that we would trust in your wisdom, trust in
your Providence, hold fast to Christ and boldly confess him
before others. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.