To believers, they are simple truth. Why not? You can peer from the side of a mountain at sunrise. The distance of the stars, the sun rising, birdsongs as the sun brightens the land, the busy-ness of nature that uncurls with the sun’s rolling warmth – these make it believable that a virgin can give birth, and the dead can live again. If nature came from nothing, what is impossible?
1. The most amazing passage in the Bible?
That’s why, more than the immaculate conception, or the resurrection, or the Exodus from Egypt, or the four horsemen of Revelation, this might be the most amazing passage in the Bible. And there’s nothing supernatural about it. It’s very human. It takes place after Jesus is arrested.
[A]fter flogging Jesus, [Pontius Pilate] handed him over to be crucified. Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort. And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him. And they began saluting him, "Hail, King of the Jews!" They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him. After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. [Mark 15:15-20 (NRSV).]2. Cruelty has reasons.
Why did these soldiers crudely disrespect Jesus? Maybe because:
He was a Jew. To Roman soldiers, that made Jesus an outsider. It’s the same when a White looks down on a Black; or a Muslim on a Christian; or an Indian on a Pakistani.
Also, he was weak. He was completely under their power.
And he was a law-breaker. So, as they saw it, he deserved the welts and bleeding slices on his back. Soon he would die a slow, painful death, and they were fine with that.
And he was a "king". And likely these Roman soldiers hated kings – or centurions, or emperors, or anyone else who they had to bow to, who kept them from having their own way.
3. Weakness.
It’s the weakness that most amazes. A cohort of soldiers pushed around, mocked, and spat upon the human expression of the God of gods.
And God permitted it.
This is the God who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire. This is the God who in one night slaughtered 185,000 soldiers besieging King Hezekiah’s Jerusalem. This is the God who calmed a storm with words.
This God stood by.
This forbearance was not an act of power. It was an act of character. The character, in its way, amazes more than the power.
Jesus’s act was an act of submission to humankind. And it was not submission to humankind in its nobility, wisdom, and compassion. It was not Good clasping respectful hands with Good. It was submission to humankind the shallow bully. It was submission to a cohort of soldiers that acted like a pack of jackals and debased a man about to suffer and die. They desecrated God, and God let them.
4. The Messiah.
The people waiting for the Messiah were waiting for a Psalm 66 Messiah. They were expecting, and wanting, a Messiah that would make his enemies "cringe", even if he also let others roll chariots over their heads.
They were expecting a Psalm 2 Messiah, who would break the kings of the earth with an iron rod and smash them like clay pots.
5. Jesus the un-God.
This Jesus was the Messiah? The world must wonder if we expect anyone to accept this. It goes against intuition. It does now. It did then.
But I choose not to fight that fight every day. The fight that breaks out in my mind more often than whether God is God or Jesus is Jesus, is this: what kind of Lord is he?
Everyone has a god. If they crave wealth, wealth makes them hop. If it’s beauty, or drugs, or liberalism, or learning, so be it.
But I want these words of Joshua tattooed on my heart:
Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." [Joshua 24:15 (NRSV).]Every day I pray for a pure heart, because I don’t have one. But the God of infinite might who gives his son over to treatment by we men described in Mark 15 – this God is perfect. He’s the God I want to serve.
6. The Jesus who is.
And this Jesus is the opposite of his oppressors.
They hated him because he was an outsider, and he was. But he spoke with the Samaritan woman. He told the story of the Good Samaritan. Jews hated Samaritans, but Jesus did not. And Jesus told his disciples to make disciples of all nations. There is no outsider with Jesus.
They hated him because he was weak, and he was. But he is close to the broken-hearted. He cares for the poor. And the blind. An the sick. And the dying.
They hated him because he was a law-breaker, and he was. But he kept company with sinners, and seemed to prefer them to the so-called righteous.
They hated him because he was a king, and he is. But Jesus loves his God and Father, and he submits completely to his father’s will.
I trust this Jesus. My salvation is safer in his hands than in my own.
7. Prayer.
Lord Jesus, day by day, bit by bit, please make me like you. Amen.
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