Jesus Delivered to Pilate

Mark 15. And that is page 852, if that of help to you—page 852, if you’re picking up one of the Bibles beside you there.

“And as soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate. And Pilate asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ And he answered him, ‘You have said so.’ And the chief priests accused him of many things. And Pilate again asked him, ‘Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.’ But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed.

“Now at the feast he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas. And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them. And he answered them, saying, ‘Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?’ For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release for them Barabbas instead. And Pilate again said to them, ‘Then what shall I do with the man you call the King of the Jews?’ And they cried out again, ‘Crucify him.’ And Pilate said to them, ‘Why? What evil has he done?’ But they shouted all the more, ‘Crucify him.’ So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.”

Amen.

Gracious God, we are entirely dependent upon the work of the Holy Spirit to enable us to speak, to listen, to understand, to believe, to obey the Bible. And so we look away from ourselves. As we turn to the Bible, we look to you, the living God. You wrote this book. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, we pray that you will illumine its pages to us, so that we might know that beyond the voice of a mere man, we actually are receiving from you what is your very Word. For we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, I take it that a number of you will have read the article in the review section of yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. It was announcing the revolution in technology which is allowing previously inanimate objects, such as cars or trash cans or teapots, to talk to us, and not only to talk to us but to guide our behavior. If you didn’t see the article, you’ll be staring at me, I’m sure. If you did, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. I commend it to you; it is worth tracking down.

The article quoted the CFO of Google giving an interview to an Australian magazine or newspaper in 2010. And in that interview, he announced to the journalist that Google “is really an engineering company, with all these computer scientists that see the world as a completely broken place.” That was the first quote that got me—all these scientists sitting around viewing the world “as a completely broken place.” Last month, in Singapore, he repeated and reemphasized “Google’s notion that the world is a ‘broken’ place,” suggesting that many of those problems “can be solved,” of course, “by technology.” The article also quoted Jane McGonigal, who is a futurist and a video game creator, designer, as being identified with those who “[like] to talk about how ‘reality is broken’ but can be fixed by making the real world more like a videogame, with points for doing good.”[1] It’s quite remarkable. I mean, if our grandparents could come back and listen to this kind of thing, it really… And it’s all deadly serious. I mean, there is a funny element to it, but it’s deadly serious.

So, you know, the front page, if you didn’t see it, of the review section looks just like this. And it has these inanimate objects. This is your washing machine, your steering wheel, trash can, teapot, your bathroom scales, and a toaster. And they’re all speaking. I can’t go through them all, but the teapot is saying, “Power usage is too high right now nationally. Please stand by for teatime.” Okay?

So you go to make yourself a cup of tea, and it says, “Be a good soldier. Don’t make a cup of tea just now. There’s a big power shortage on the Eastern Seaboard. We’ll let you know. It will beep when it’s teatime.” Okay?

You go put your stuff in the trash can. The trash can says, “I see you failed to separate plastics from metals. Haven’t we been over this before?” Now, this is actually no joke. This is an iPhone, embedded in the top of the trash can, that takes a picture of the trash as it goes in, hits the social media with it, tracks through, whatever it is, and if you’re a good girl, you get points; if you’re a bad girl, who knows what you get?

“Your water usage is high. Could you go a couple of days between loads?”

“Toast? Really? Don’t you think you should be laying off the carbs?”

Now, so, these smart objects, this smart technology, are being dead-honestly seen as a mechanism to help fix individuals—to fix, particularly to constrain, and in many ways to control the behavior of individuals in a broken world.

I was reading this yesterday as I was traveling, and I said, “This is a fantastic article. I like this article very much.” I have to go next week to London and preach evangelistically for a week, and I said to myself, I said, “That article will really help me. ’Cause I’m going to speak to people about living in a broken world and how Jesus came to fix it.” And then I said to myself, “Well, why wait till next Monday? Why not use it tomorrow morning? Because you’re doing the Gospel of Mark. And the story of the Gospel writers is exactly that: the story of what God has done in the Lord Jesus Christ to come into our time and into our space, into a world that is broken.” Because this is accurate. These computer scientists get it. They perhaps don’t get the extent to which it’s broken, but they know it’s broken.

And the Bible has told us from the beginning that it’s broken. God creates man for fellowship with himself. That fellowship is broken by man’s rebellion. Before you know where you are, there is dislocation, and there is confusion, and there is dysfunction. Adam and Eve are arguing with one another; their children, Cain and Abel, are killing each other; and it’s absolute mayhem. And it all spins out from there—brokenness at every level.

One of my friends in the ’60s wrote a song. It wasn’t a great poem, but I remember it, and it came back to mind again when I read the article. The beginning of it went something like this:

Broken up people [with] broken down lives,
Broken up homes, broken husbands and wives.
All the world around us is falling apart,
Broken up people with broken up hearts.

… People need brand-new lives.[2]

Now, let’s look at the way in which Mark now advances this story on the day of Christ’s crucifixion. One of the dangers in pausing as we’re doing, in short bites, as it were, in taking the material is that we might fail to grasp the speed with which these events unfolded on this particular day. We have reached the point where Jesus has been betrayed by Judas. He has been denied by Peter. He has been arrested by this unruly mob that has been led by the religious establishment of his day.

And now you will notice that Mark tells us that “as soon as it was morning…” Mark loves these fast-paced developments. You can check it later on. But for example, in verse 72, we saw he doesn’t just say, “And the rooster crowed a second a time.” He says, “And immediately the rooster crowed a second time.”[3] And now you get to verse 1: “And as soon as it was morning…” In other words, without any delay at all, they are now pressing the charge, they are now seeking to bring this conspiracy to bear upon the Roman authorities.

And so, Mark actually takes us, in chapter 15, through the day of Christ’s crucifixion with an explicit time frame. I want to point it out to you. You can do with it as you choose. But, for example, verse 1 says, “As soon as it was morning…” The Jews marked the beginning of days and end of days very clearly. In verse 25: “And it was the third hour when they crucified him.” So a tremendous amount takes place between dawn and the third hour. Then, in verse 33, darkness falls over the earth, remember? “And when the sixth hour had come”—three hours later—“there was darkness over the whole land.” Verse 34, and three hours later: “At the ninth hour Jesus” cries out “with a loud voice.” And then in verse 42: “And when evening had come,” he was buried.

So, here we are at the very threshold of this day—the day that is going to end with the burial of Jesus and lead into the wonderful triumph of the resurrection. As I say, we’re only going to look at these first five verses. I don’t have distinct points this morning; I hope my sermon is not pointless. But if you’re looking just for words to hang on, you’re going to have to hang on and create a few of your own.

We’ve seen that what has taken place with these religious people is really a kangaroo court. There’s nothing that marks legality about it at all. It is completely trumped up. It is, in every right sense, a conspiracy. And so we ought not to be surprised that as we come now to their attempt to bring the Roman authorities into this—something that they absolutely require—that what we are confronted with is just political maneuvering. We’re familiar with political maneuvering. You can’t live in America, or really in any place, without being aware of political maneuvering. We all read the newspapers and see the way, apparently, somebody becomes the foreign secretary or the secretary of state or whatever it is. It’s really quite remarkable.

But anyway, we ought not to be surprised, because it’s been going on forever. It’s part of our brokenness. It’s part of our brokenness. And these fellows are at their best here, aren’t they? They’d already concluded in verse 64 that Jesus should die.[4] Remember, we said they came with a verdict. They came with the sentence, which was death. All they were looking for was a legitimate kind of charge.

And now here they are before the Roman authorities, and what they have to do is not so much get Pilate to try the case as to coerce him to pronounce the verdict. They’ve already decided the verdict. And I think it’s fair to say that if these Jewish leaders had been able to carry out the evil deed on their own, they would have done so, but they couldn’t, because they were living in subservience. They were under the domination and control of the Roman authorities. And if, then, they were going to do away with Jesus by death, then it was imperative that they brought the clout, if you like, of the Roman judicial system to bear upon the proceedings. It wasn’t going to be enough for them simply to talk about the fact that Jesus was a blasphemer. What did the Roman authorities care about Jewish concerns of blasphemy?

No, they were going to have to manipulate this in some way to make it sound as though it was a threat to the Roman Empire. Then, perhaps, Pilate would listen. Because from what we know of Pilate, he wasn’t really interested in listening to these Jewish people. He was there to keep them subjugated. He was there to dominate them and make sure that they stayed in line. He wasn’t really interested in their trumped-up charges. As we saw in our reading, he knew that it was out of envy that they showed up, and he knew that they didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to what they were saying—which makes, of course, his ultimate decision all the more reprehensible.

So, that’s really what we have in verse 1: that the morning has come; the chief priests are now leading the charge; Jesus is bound; he’s led away; he’s delivered over to Pilate. And then in verse 2 and 3 and 4, we have this encounter with Pilate himself. And Pilate asks him the question that we might anticipate: “‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ And he answered him, ‘You have said so.’”

Now, that’s enigmatic, isn’t it? And great debate takes place over just exactly what Jesus meant here. Let me tell you what I think he meant. Let me tell you, I think, what is a faithful paraphrase of it: that instead of it reading, “You have said so,” it might read, “It is as you say.” “It is as you say.” In other words, Jesus is not dodging this. He is affirming the fact. That was his very purpose. He tells the gathered assembly on that occasion—it’s not recorded here in Mark, because remember, Mark is moving quickly—but he had explained to the people on that day that it was “for this purpose that I was born and for this purpose [that] I … come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”[5] That’s quite a statement! It’s no surprise that elsewhere, it is recorded that Pilate responded by saying, “What is truth?”[6] But we’ll come to that at another time.

Jesus was not suggesting for a moment what contemporary, pluralistic philosophy in America suggests routinely. Jesus was not suggesting that he was here for a short period of time to say something that was kind of Godlike and helpful, as if he was only one of a number of those who would come throughout history, each one building upon the other and each one able to speak with equal clarity concerning what it means to know God. Jesus does not allow us that as a possibility.

Jesus stands in the hall of Pilate, waiting for Pilate to make a decision. One day Pilate will stand in the hall of Jesus, and Jesus will pronounce the verdict.

No, Jesus is absolutely straightforward. He personalizes it. In the middle of John’s Gospel, it’s recorded, remember: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father, but by me.”[7] He is back affirming the same thing, isn’t he? “This is the purpose for which I came into the world.” Why don’t you just turn to John chapter 18? Because that’s really what I’m quoting, and you can say, “Well, now I know where he got it all from.”

John chapter 18. Look at verse 33: “So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?’” He’s just poking back at him, isn’t he? He says, “Did you come up with this on your own, Pilate?” He knew, of course, he didn’t come up with it on his own, because these religious rascals had been feeding him his lines.

“Pilate answered,” in a surly tone, “‘Am I a Jew? Your own nation and … chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.’” And then you have the statement that we have just rehearsed about the truth.

You see what he’s saying? “Yes, it is as you say. I am the King of the Jews. But if what you think it means to be the King of Jews is a threat to the Roman Empire in terms of treason or insurrection, then you don’t understand what that actually means that I am the King of the Jews. And I know that these characters have put you up to this, suggesting that that is what it is you’re facing.”

So actually, what we have in this little encounter that goes on for a while is not so much the trial before Pilate as the trial of Pilate. Because as we’re going to see, Pilate is pushed to make a decision, as is every man and woman pushed to make a decision when they come up against Jesus of Nazareth.  He’s forced, now, to have to come to terms with who this person is. “Who are you? What do you mean, for this purpose you’ve come into the world, that everybody who listens to you knows the truth? Are you saying you’re the truth? That truth is embodied in you? What is the truth?”

And, of course, you know that he pushed back, and he tried to dodge, and he tried to weave. And he’s down in history on account of that. Do you think we would have known this one particular Roman governor were it not for his encounter with Jesus here? He is immortalized in the saying of the creed. We said it this morning. We mentioned his name: “suffered under Pontius Pilate.”[8] That’s the only reason we know him: because he was confronted by the challenge of Jesus as men and women are this morning—as you are, in listening to the sound of my voice. You and I, each of us, have to come to the point where we determine: Who is Jesus, why did he come, what did he do, and does it even matter? It will not be enough for us to try and fudge the decision off as Pilate did. There are no bowls available in the auditorium at the moment for the washing of our hands of the responsibility.[9] There is no place for us to hide. There is no place that we can ultimately hide from God.

Jesus stands in the hall of Pilate, waiting for Pilate to make a decision. One day Pilate will stand in the hall of Jesus, and Jesus will pronounce the verdict. 

Now you see that Pilate comes back to him, and he says, “Have you no answer to make?” Because actually, this little phrase “You have said so” is the last recorded statement of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark before the words that we hear from the cross. So this is it. This is the end: “It is as you say,” or “You have said so.” Pilate says, “Don’t you have an answer? What about all these charges they’re bringing against you?” And then look at this, how stunned he is by the sound of silence—verse 5: “But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed.”

Pilate must have gone home and said to his wife—remember, in one of the other Gospels, she has a part to play as well—and said to his wife, “You know, I don’t know what it is about this Jesus of Nazareth.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I mean this: somebody who is up on a charge that may end with crucifixion you would anticipate arguing his corner, seeking to defend his position, doing whatever it possibly takes to make sure that he doesn’t face the eventuality of death.” He says to his wife, “I’m used to people cowering before me. I’m used to people pleading with me.”

She said, “Well, what was he doing?”

He said, “Nothing!” He said, “He only gave me a one-phrase answer. I asked him, I said ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ He says, ‘Well, you’ve said so.’”

His wife says, “I’d be careful of that guy. He’s something else, you know.”[10]

Yes, he is. Yes, he is. This is no ordinary criminal. He is something else.

Now, that’s really where it ends, isn’t it? You have to go on into verse 6, and we’re not going on into verse 6. We’re going to stop. But before we stop, let me remind you of what we’ve always said: that the Bible is a book about Jesus, and in the Old Testament, Jesus is predicted; in the Gospels, he is revealed; in the Acts of the Apostles, he is preached; and in the Epistles, he is explained. Okay?

So, when we think in terms of where we are right now, which is in the Gospels, we have Jesus being revealed to us. He has been anticipated as the Priest who will come, as the Prophet who will come, as the King who will reign. Classically, as we saw a couple of times ago in Isaiah 53, as the Suffering Servant, he will appear… “Like a lamb being led to the slaughter is silent and as a sheep before its shearers is dumb, so he will not open his mouth.”[11] That was part of the prediction of what would happen. That was the prediction before the revelation.

Now we have the revelation. What has happened? Exactly what was predicted. “You’ve got all these charges. Do you have nothing to say? Why are you saying nothing?” Well, there was nothing to answer in terms of the trumped-up charges, but it was more than that. Jesus was not being manipulated into death. Remember, elsewhere he said, “No one takes my life from me. I’m not like anybody else. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to pick it up again.”[12] People must have said, “You got to be crazy. There’s nobody who can lay their life down and pick it up again. Even if you could lay it down, you definitely can’t pick it up again!” Wait a minute! It’s Friday night, but Sunday’s coming, you know.

So, here he is. And he is “delivered … over to Pilate.” That’s the verb that’s used at the end of verse 1. Now, I don’t think there’s any theological connotation in the use of that verb there. But that verb does have theological significance. Those of you who have been paying attention as we’ve gone through Mark, which I’m sure is a vast company, will remember that Jesus uses that very phraseology when for the third time he foretells his death. This is 10:33: “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death.”

“Oh, we see. So that’s what he anticipated. This is now what he is experienced. So it’s the responsibility ultimately and solely of these individuals.” Well, no. You need to go from the Gospels into the Acts, and into Acts 2:23. And now Peter is preaching on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit of God has come, Peter has been restored, he’s back in action, and he is doing a wonderful job of explaining just what has happened in Jesus. And so he says, verse 22, “Men of Israel, hear these words.” This is verse 22. “Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus”—here’s our verb again—“this Jesus, delivered up…”

Now, he doesn’t say, “delivered up by the scribes and the Pharisees.” He says, “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” Telling us what? That the hands of lawless men were automatons? No. That the hands of lawless men acted as lawless men, but they did so underneath the sovereign, overarching plan and purpose of God. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believe[s] in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”[13] God is providing a Lamb for the sacrifice.

And if he is then preached in the Acts, he’s explained in the Epistles. So, Romans 4:25 will see us right. Paul is explaining the nature of justification, and as he speaks of Jesus being raised from the dead, he says in Romans 4:25—and here’s your verb again—“who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” He was delivered up to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and he was raised so that our justification may be obvious and declared in his resurrection. 

You see, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ are inseparable, because they are one redemptive act. One makes no sense without the other. If you have the death of Jesus without resurrection, it makes no sense. If you have the resurrection of Jesus without death for sinners, it makes no sense. He was “delivered up for our trespasses,” and he was “raised for our justification.”

“So, you don’t have an answer?” Pilate says. “What would I answer?” No, he has been going steadfastly towards Jerusalem. What has taken place? Well, think about it. Think about it right now, and think about it as the day unfolds. The scene that is recorded for us here is a scene in which they bring Jesus “bound” before Pilate. Did they tie his hands in front of him? Did they tie them behind his back? What did they do? We don’t know. Some historian will be able to figure it out. But they brought him bound. He was in a particular position of weakness. He apparently could do nothing before the authorities of [earth]. His disciples didn’t get it; that’s why they were fiddling around with swords. Jesus has explained to them, “Listen, we don’t need to worry about this. I could call twelve legions of angels, and we could sort this out in a nanosecond.[14] Put away your sword. It’s not my purpose. For this purpose I came into the world.”[15]

See him go bound. Why is he bound? In order that we might be set free. He is bound so that that which binds us may be broken. The ties and knots of the brokenness of our sinful lives are to be set free in and through the work of Jesus.  He we see delivered up to death. Why? In order that we might be delivered from death. He, we discover, is about to be broken in order that we might be restored.

So we come full cycle. It’s a broken world. Technology, theology. There is no doubt that many of these inventions will be very helpful. I like the idea of a chip on my steering wheel that goes, “Oh-oh, you’re about to fall asleep,” or a little bell that says, “Maybe you should get yourself a Diet Coke.” ’Cause I’m sure the advertisers will be on it in a moment. “Red Bull. Stay alive on 75 with Red Bull!” These people should be in touch with me; they really should.

But technology can’t fix your marriage. Technology will not cure your selfishness. Technology will not free you from the addictions that bind you. Technology will not restore your joy or grant you freedom. No, the brokenness is far deeper than this superficial stuff. And the story of Mark is the story of how Jesus comes to deal with our dislocation and our alienation and our brokenness.

You see, the story of the Bible is essentially this: Jesus saves us; we don’t save ourselves. And one of the reasons that some of you have never come to admit to Jesus just “Jesus, I am broken, I am dislocated, I am messed up” is because you still cherish the forlorn notion that you can fix yourself. And until you face the fact that you can’t, you will never find Jesus to be a Savior.

Do you remember the old song? I think the Gaithers wrote it. We’re not going to sing it; you can relax.

Something beautiful, something good,
All my confusion he understood;
All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife,
[And] he made something beautiful of my life.[16]

That’s the story of Christian conversion; it really is.

There was a verse with it that I never knew till this week, when I went looking for it. It goes like this. I don’t think it’s particularly good, but I’ll read it to you anyway:

If there ever were dreams
That were lofty and noble,
They were my dreams at the start;
And hope for life’s best
Were the hopes that I harbor[ed]
[Way down] deep in my heart.

But my dreams turned to ashes,
And my castles all crumbled,
My fortune [all] turned to loss;
So I wrapped it all [up]
In the rags of [my] life,
And [I] laid it [all down] at the cross.

It’s a wonderful metaphor isn’t it? ’Cause all of our best stuff, “all [of] our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.”[17] I took it all, and I took it to the only place where Jesus keeps appointments—not in an office but at a cross. For there he pays the penalty for my sin. He bears the punishment that I deserve in order that he might grant to those who come to him in penitence a forgiveness that we don’t deserve.

Only the gospel deals with our pride by humbling us and with our despair by lifting us up.

Have you ever told God you’re broken? Earnestly, honestly, in a way that says, “I have fallen off the wall, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men cannot put me together again. Lord Jesus Christ, I need you.” You can do that today, just where you’re seated. You don’t need a special prayer. You don’t need special language. You need special nothing. You just need to be gut-wrenchingly honest and say before God from your heart, “I am broken. Please fix me.” And he will.

That’s the good news.

Let’s pray:

Father, thank you for the Bible that we can turn to and read. Thank you for the wonder of the healing and the restoration that comes in and through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I do pray that you will grant us mercy this morning that we will not run away from you as you come seeking us, that we will not harden our hearts when we hear your voice,[18] but that you will set us free from our proud boasts, that make us think that we have no need of this, or from our sense of such dreadful failure, that we conclude we have no chance of this. For only the gospel deals with our pride, by humbling us, and with our despair, by lifting us up . Help us to be able to say,

I came to Jesus as I was,
… Weary, worn and sad;
[And] I found in him a resting place,
And he has made me glad.[19]

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with all who believe, today and forevermore. Amen.

[1] Evgeny Morozov, “Is Smart Making Us Dumb?” Wall Street Journal, February 23, 2013, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324503204578318462215991802.

[2] John Daniels, “Broken Up People” (1976).

[3] Mark 14:72 (ESV). Emphasis added.

[4] See Mark 14:64.

[5] John 18:37 (ESV).

[6] John 18:38 (ESV).

[7] John 14:6 (paraphrased).

[8] The Apostles’ Creed.

[9] See Matthew 27:24.

[10] Matthew 27:19 (paraphrased).

[11] Isaiah 53:7 (paraphrased).

[12] John 10:18 (paraphrased).

[13] John 3:16 (KJV).

[14] Matthew 26:53 (paraphrased).

[15] John 18:37 (paraphrased).

[16] Gloria Gaither and William J. Gaither, “Something Beautiful” (1971).

[17] Isaiah 64:6 (KJV).

[18] See Psalm 95:7–8; Hebrews 3:7–8, 15; 4:7.

[19] Horatius Bonar, “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” (1846).