Mark chapter 15 and verse 16. And the soldiers led him, that
is the Lord Jesus, away into the hall called Praetorium. And
they called together the whole band. And they clothed him with
purple and plaited a crown of thorns and put it about his head. and began to salute him, Hail,
King of the Jews. And they smote him on the head
with a reed, and did spit upon him, and bowing their knees,
worshipped him. And when they had mocked him,
they took off the purple from him, and put his own clothes
on him, and led him out to crucify him. And they compel one Simon
of Cyrene, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father
of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. And they bring him
unto the place Golgotha, which is being interpreted the place
of a skull. And they gave him to drink wine
mingled with myrrh, but he received it not. And when they had crucified
him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what
every man should take. And it was the third hour, and
they crucified him. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. It is impossible for us to understand
fully the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. We all experience
pain to a degree, and we may to an extent as we read these
passages imagine or sense a little of the pain of the physical abuse
that the Lord Jesus endured. What Christ suffered, even physically,
is much more than any of us will ever have to endure. But that was only the beginning
of the Lord's sufferings. The Lord was also prey to Satan
and to his demonic horde. Satan tempted and troubled the
mind of the Lord Jesus Christ and assaulted his spirit to the
very end. and we could hear those cries
and mockeries and those temptations being levied at Christ in this
passage and in other passages in the parallel sections of the
Gospels. These were serious trials that
the Lord endured. Nevertheless, by bearing our
sin and suffering in His soul under the intense fiery wrath
of God and all the judgment of the law, our Saviour uniquely
endured eternal punishment, separation and forsaking by His Father. so that in body, mind, soul and
spirit, our Saviour suffered like no other ever did. Jeremiah could write prophetically,
behold, take note, give attention to this fact. see if there be
any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith
the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. Well we have been following the
life of the Lord Jesus Christ through his ministry for some
months now in this little Gospel of Mark. In the past few months,
we've spent a lot of time in the Saviour's final week. And here we come now to the Friday
upon which the Lord Jesus Christ is crucified. This is that day
of fierce anger which Jeremiah spoke and prophesied of. And may it ever hold us with
a sense of awe and wonder. We may not be able to explain
all the Lord endured and the suffering with which he was afflicted. But it is clear that God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit would have us
return to contemplate and meditate on the sufferings of the Lord
Jesus Christ often, that we might remember both what
our salvation cost and what Christ's death accomplished for us. Every detail that is recorded
in the four Gospels, previewed in the Prophets and
later mentioned by the Apostles, deserves our careful attention. We who are the people of God
should dwell much on these scriptures for they open to our eyes and
ears and understanding when we approach them with faith and
with a prayerful heart the loveliness of the Lord Jesus Christ and
all that is love secured for us. Nothing documented here by
the Holy Spirit is without deep significance and great spiritual
meaning. And a believer feeds upon the
circumstances of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ for the
comfort of our soul and the strengthening of our spirit in our own life's
journey. Sure there was a blessedness
in getting manna given from heaven, but it was to the eyes and ears
and hearts and spiritual understanding of the Lord's faithful people
amongst the children of Israel that the true significance of
the manna was understood, for it pointed to the Lord Jesus
Christ as the bread of life. and at the cross we see something
of that spiritual dimension being worked out before us. Many might
say, oh, how much Christ suffered, but when we enter into that suffering
as being for me and understand the significance of what he endured,
how comforting it is for a people, a sinful people like you and
like me. Many think that the Christian
faith is strange and complicated, a bloody business. It is not at all. If we understand
what took place on the cross and what the sacrifice of the
Saviour entailed, what He secured in this suffering, then we are
well on our way to knowing the Gospel of God and the Lord Jesus
Christ. So today what I want to do is
to dwell briefly on a few of these details that are highlighted
in this little passage in these final few hours before the Lord's
crucifixion and glean what we can from the details that Mark
leaves with us. I want to think about the crown
of thorns, representative of the kingly garb with which the
Lord was dressed by these mocking soldiers. I want to think about
the burden of the cross that he carried. And I want just to
touch upon as well, the wine that was mingled with myrrh. So let us begin at the beginning
and think about the crown of thorns. It wasn't only the Lord's disciples
who cherished notions of Christ establishing a kingdom on earth. The disciples did even now Even
now, we're going to hear in the coming days how these disciples
were still mulling over in their minds how it was that this earthly
kingdom slipped from between their fingers. But it wasn't
just the disciples. It was the Jewish people in their
entirety. They were looking for the return
of David's kingdom. And the Romans were well aware
of this Jewish hope of a return of grand days, military power,
political significance once again. And you'll remember how Pilate,
in addressing the Jews with respect to Christ's innocence, had offered
to release to them Jesus called the King of the Jews. So even
Pilate was aware of this royal name and this kingdom aspiration
that the people had. so that when Pilate's soldiers
were given opportunity to harass the Lord Jesus Christ, his kingly
office, his kingly reputation was high in their minds. And this is something that is
very important for us to notice, I think. This is an example of
how the Old Testament prophecies are fulfilled by the enemies
of the Lord Jesus Christ quite unintentionally as they act out
their own sinful desires only for us to realise upon reflection
that they were fulfilling exactly what had been foreseen many years
ago. For example, to seal the fate
of Christ to ensure that he was crucified by Pilate. The Jews cried out, we have no
king but Caesar. Now that was a throwaway comment.
It was designed to cause Pilate to be concerned that news of
this incident might get back with this construction to Rome
and he could be in trouble. But in saying that, the Jews
actually were speaking the truth. They had lost all of their kingly
rule. It had gone from them. And thereby
they were fulfilling Jacob's prophecy from Genesis, the book
of Genesis chapter 49, where it says, The scepter shall not
depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until
Shiloh, which is Christ, should come. And unto him shall the
gathering of the people be. Now here, if they had had eyes
to see, they would realise that Christ had come because the very
Romans were in their capital city. They had lost that rule. They were a dominated and a suppressed
people. And it was now, right now, that
they should have been looking for Shiloh. It was now that they
should have been looking and expecting the Messiah to come. So much for the Jews fulfilling
Jacob's prophecy of so many years ago by their words to Pilate. at the exact same moment as the
Jews were declaring themselves to be without a king but Caesar,
what was happening in the other room, but that the Roman soldiers
were worshipping and bowing down and saluting Christ, albeit in
jest, as the King of the Jews, with the very words, Hail King
of the Jews. Thereby fulfilling David's prophecy
from Psalm 2, verses 2 and 6, the kings of the earth, Pilate
and Herod, set themselves The rulers, the scribes and the Pharisees
and the Sanhedrin take counsel together against the Lord and
against his anointed. Yet, says verse 6, have I set
my king upon my holy hill of Zion. And Zion was the place
where the Lord Jesus Christ was standing at that very moment.
And so here we see the prophecies being fulfilled despite the waywardness
and the wickedness and the opposition of the enemies of Christ. So
these Romans, they made a crown of thorns for the Lord Jesus. They dressed him in a purple
robe. They placed a mock scepter in
his hands. The robe was probably an officer's
old cloak. The sceptre was a reed. And I think it's very, very interesting
that someone had the idea and took the time and went to the
trouble of crafting a crown of thorns. even assuming that they
could find thorn trees readily available in the center of Jerusalem. What a lot of trouble somebody
went to in order to make a crown, albeit a crown of thorns, for
the head of the Lord Jesus Christ. All of these trappings were intended
to mock Christ's royal title, but they spoke too of the death
of Christ, the death that Christ was about to die. And we can
see symbolically in the actions of these Roman soldiers, pointers
to the significance of the Lord Jesus Christ's death in the garb
in which he was adorned. The crown of thorns is a picture
of the sins of Christ's people encompassing him, surrounding
him and hedging him about. Our sins were like thorns upon
Christ's body, hurtful and wounding to him. And here we see an interesting
parallel drawn from the early chapters of the book of Genesis
and that first Adam and the restorative work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the second Adam. The first man and the last man. Here we see the Lord Jesus Christ
taking away the curse that had come upon the earth at the fall
of Adam. When Adam fell, God cursed the
earth for Adam's sake and that curse manifested itself in the
production of thorns. And that thorny curse remained
until the Lord Jesus Christ took that curse, those thorns, on
Himself for us. So that for us there is a curse
no more. For those who are in Christ,
for those who have faith in Christ, there is no condemnation. No more for the Lord's elect. And there never will be again. And that's why there will be
no thorns in the new earth, because the Lord Jesus Christ has taken
away God's curse against all our sin. Christ has paid for
it, bled for it, and died and carried that curse away for us. There was a crown of thorns And
Mark tells us that there was a robe placed upon the Lord Jesus. Mark calls it a purple robe and
Matthew says that it was scarlet. Well, perhaps there were two
robes and maybe it was just the colour in the eye of the beholder. Either way, this robe speaks
to us of the Lord Jesus Christ being covered with the scarlet
sins of his people, carrying their guilt, being bruised like
that purple colour that the bruise comes up, being bruised under
the rod of God's justice. And the large view of this robe
that covered our Lord is that here in his vicarious death for
all for whom he died, our sins were laid on him. He took our
transgressions. our iniquity, our shortcomings,
our sin, our failures, our rebellions, our unbelief, the guilt of every
Godward offence, and he carried it all on his shoulders like
a cloak draped over him, so that our iniquities covered him from
head to toe. Brothers and sisters in the Lord,
may this view of Christ covered with our sins give us comfort. We are free from all our sin. We are free from all our guilt. We are free from all our condemnation
because Christ has taken all our sin and guilt and condemnation
to himself. So that when Satan comes to us
and accuses us, we may point to the scarlet robe of Christ
and see all our sins woven into its fabric and placed on the
shoulders of our substitute. There was a crown of thorns,
there was a robe of purple, and there was a scepter placed in
the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ. A symbol of power is a scepter. And in Christ's hand, it is the
power to provide and protect his people. Christ's power, that
sceptre, speaks of Christ providing for and protecting his people
because that's what he went to the cross to do. To provide and
to protect his people. Provide for and protect his people.
They gave Christ a reed. A reed. And you know what? I'm going to say something here
which probably you've never thought about. But Christ took it. Christ took it. He held it. He
held this reed. He didn't refuse it. He didn't
cast it on the ground. He didn't throw it away. He took
that reed into his hand. I wonder why he did that. I wonder
why he held it as they were mocking him in this dress. I think that shows us how tenderly
the Lord Jesus Christ holds and carries the weakest, neediest,
poorest and most fragile of his little lambs. The neediest amongst
us You remember what the Lord, or was said of the Lord in Matthew
12 verse 20? A bruised reed shall he not break,
and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment
unto victory. And that sending forth of judgment
unto victory was what the Lord Jesus Christ was doing on the
cross. and he held that bruised reed
in his hand. He wouldn't break us off, he
wouldn't let us go because he was going all the way to the
cross for us. Even in the Lord's own weakness,
even in His suffering and in His death, He never let go of
those whom He came to seek and to save. He saw you and He saw
me. He saw all His chosen bride for
whom He came. He saw those that He loved, those
for whom He bled. all that were committed to him,
given to him in that covenant of peace and grace, all for whom
his soul was in travail and he held us firm. He did then
and he will now. And that scepter, remember the
scepter that Ahasuerus held in his hand when Esther went before
him to the throne, that scepter that Christ holds is extended
to his people in their need to approach him and find that grace
that we require and that forgiveness of sins that we need. May we
have grace to go to the Lord in time of need and may we find
him to be God our provider. The soldiers bowed their knee
in mockery to a king. Little did they know Christ was
even then, at the moment they were bowing their knees in front
of this made-up king, Christ was then on his throne, valiantly
going to war against the enemies of his kingdom, meeting head-on
the foes who came to threaten his people, laying waste to them
all. And someday these men, with Pilate
and Herod and the chief priests and the Sanhedrin and all the
Jews and all the powers of this world will bow before the King
upon his throne of glory and the whole world will see the
Lord Jesus Christ as he truly is. I am a great king, saith the
Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful amongst the heathen. And these men mocked the Lord,
and yet he was that great king. I'm reminded of that moment just
a few hours before, when the Lord was arrested in the Garden
of Gethsemane and Peter drew his sword and the Lord says to
Peter, Peter, put it away. Put your sword away. Do you not
think that I cannot now pray to my father and he will presently
give me more than 12 legions of angels? And these men slapped
Christ in the face and they hit him with this reed, this scepter,
this cane, whatever it was. They spat on his face. And the
Lord Jesus Christ endured it all because he knew that the
scriptures must be fulfilled and that our salvation must be
accomplished. Let me also mention something
about the burden of Christ's cross because this is interesting
and there's much that we could say about the burden of the cross
in the Lord's own soul, but I want to think about what Mark refers
to here with respect to Simon, a man of the city of Cyrene. Simon was called upon to carry
the Lord's cross And it appears from Luke's account, the parallel
passage in Luke's gospel, that Simon may well have been compelled
to bear the weight of the Lord's cross at the back of it. Now, it depends on how you interpret
this. But Luke says these words, that
they laid on him, or on him, they laid the cross that he might
bear it after Jesus. Now it may be that Jesus walked
on ahead and that Simon carried the cross by himself. But I think
the other way of looking at that is that the Lord carried the
front of the cross and Simon carried the back of the cross.
And so in that picture, they both walked together. Jesus at
the front and Simon at the back. And two things strike me here
with respect to Simon of Cyrene. First is this, that Simon was
compelled to do it. Simon was compelled by the Roman
soldiers to carry the cross of Christ. No one takes up Christ's
cross to follow Him without first being compelled to do so. It's not in our nature to do
so. It's not in our will to do so. It's not in our heart to do so. But when God the Holy Spirit
compels a man or a woman or a boy or a girl to follow Christ, to
trust in Christ, to put our faith in Christ, He makes us willing
in the day of His power and we take up our cross gladly and
follow Christ. And that's conversion. It becomes,
where it was not our nature or our will or in our heart to do
so before, it becomes our nature and our will and our heart desire
to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and as it were, to bear his burden
in this world. Then said Jesus unto his disciples,
if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up
his cross and follow me. And the second thing about Simon
of Cyrene and bearing Christ's cross is this, that here the
Lord graciously teaches us that while Christ had to die alone
to bear the sin of his people, yet he calls his church to follow
him to the place of sacrifice, to join in the cause for which
he suffered. to bear one another's burdens
and so fulfil the law of Christ. And as it were, to engage in
this great work of the manifestation of the gospel in our lives as
Christ now reigns in his kingdom and his people are gathered unto
him. Now I'm going to make a supposition
here and I believe that it is supportable but it is not explicitly
stated in scripture. I believe that Simon of Cyrene
was probably a believer. If not at that moment when he
was compelled to carry the cross of Christ, which is perhaps why
he was right there at the very front of the crowd looking on
at his master being led to his crucifixion, but be that as it
may, I think he was probably a believer
shortly afterwards. And there's a couple of reasons
for saying that, not least of which we're told here in Mark
that Alexander and Rufus, his two sons, were men who were leading
lights in the apostolic church. So perhaps they were led to a
knowledge of the Lord by their father. Who knows? But Simon
walked with Christ to Calvary, and I believe he saw his sins
nailed to the cross in the person of his Saviour there. And if
we would be saved, we must follow Christ to Calvary, and there
we will understand all that he has done. That is why, even in
our communion, we are encouraged to remember the Lord's death
until he come. And I want to mention the wine
that was mingled with myrrh. These are just little glimpses
that I'm taking from this passage today just to perhaps open some
of the depth that there is in these verses for the believer
to meditate upon. This wine mingled with myrrh
was a drink that was given to condemned prisoners before their
crucifixion to help numb their senses and ease their suffering. It was reckoned to be an act
of mercy supplied by the friends of the condemned person who was
soon to die. And it may well be that some
of the friends of the Lord tried to give him this potion to ease
his pain as he was standing there at the place of crucifixion. Maybe it was some of the women
around the cross. But either the Lord rejected
it, knowing what its purpose was to stupefy his mind and ease
his suffering. Choosing rather to stay alert or else maybe it was withheld
from him. and he never received it, so
that received is that it was never given to him by the Roman
soldiers that were there. Either way, it shows that the
Lord's mind was not intoxicated, nor his senses dulled by this
concoction of wine and myrrh. Our Saviour was lucid, He was
alert and He suffered all that He had to endure without any
mitigating of His pain. And just a final word about the
Saviour being stripped of His garments and these being divided
amongst His executioners. This dividing of the clothes
of the prisoners was just an occupational benefit of the executioner. They got the prisoners' clothes.
But the dividing of Christ's clothes and the gambling on his
vesture was itself a direct fulfillment of David's prophecy in Psalm
22, verse 18. And it proves the authority and
veracity and the trustworthiness of the Word of God when we see
exactly what was foretold being shown to us here in this incident
at Golgotha. Our Saviour, in His love for
us, gave His all. for the life of his people, even
his clothes as he was crucified naked. And being naked amplified
his shame as our sin-bearer. But there's another thought in
that too. The soldiers divided Jesus' clothes
and that dividing of the things of Christ still goes on today. Some people have this part of
the Lord Jesus and some have another part of the Lord Jesus.
Some speak of Christ's love without any reference to Christ's holiness. Some speak of forgiveness without
reference to justice. For some Christianity is about
good works and people's best efforts without seeking Christ
and His righteousness. But we cannot have a divided
Christ. He must be a whole Christ to
be a whole Saviour. He must be a complete Christ
for a complete sinner. A full Christ for full redemption. The Saviour's coat was without
seam. It was woven from the top throughout. And our Saviour's
righteousness is a complete covering for our nakedness. It is a suitable
wedding garment in which to enter the presence of our Holy God. It is a finished product with
no need to be altered or added to or subtracted from or tampered
with in any way by man. and our Saviour was crucified
outside the city gate at about nine o'clock in the morning.
It's been a long night and there are still six hours of suffering
to go before the Lord Jesus Christ's work is complete. But the writer
to the Hebrews tells us Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify
the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. And then he continues, let us
go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. How blessed we are to be able
by grace to go outside the camp with our Saviour. It does not
matter that we bear the same reproach that he bore in doing
so. Outside of the camp of man-made
religion, it is our privilege to stand with Christ. To stand
by grace in the finished work of the cross. To stand in the
comfort of redemption by the blood of Jesus Christ. To stand
forgiven by the mercy of God. To stand in the liberty with
which Christ has made us free. And to stand complete in the
salvation and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. May the
Lord bless these thoughts to us. Amen.