Mark 15:16-20 - Homiletics

Christ mocked.

During this awful night and morning our Lord thrice underwent the suffering and indignity of public and vulgar derision. First before the high priest, at the hands of the officers and servants of Caiaphas; then again when he was set at nought and mocked by the brutal soldiery of Herod Antipas; and now yet once more, when Pilate delivered him into the keeping of the Roman soldiers, a company of whom were about to lead him forth to crucifixion. Insult was added to insult, and his bitter cup ran over.

I. THE MOCKERS . The whole band or cohort are said to have joined in the ribald sport in the Praetorium. What they did, it must be remembered, they did largely in ignorance. These Roman legionaries knew nothing of a Messiah, and were probably utterly unacquainted with the character and career of him whom Pilate had delivered over to them. Their insensibility to human suffering was equal to their indifference to human innocence and virtue. All they knew was that their master, though professedly convinced of Jesus' blamelessness, was yet content to give him up into their hands to ill treat and to put to a shameful death. We cannot, therefore, wonder at their insolence and cruelty. Yet we cannot read the sad story without feelings of shame and of sorrow, as we remember that persons belonging to our race , and sharing our nature, should have inflicted such indignities upon "the Holy One and the Just," upon the world's Friend and Savior.

II. THE MOCKERIES . These were many, base, and repeated.

1 . Jesus was invested with a purple robe. Probably this was a military cloak, whose crimson hue might render it an emblem of the imperial purple.

2 . He was crowned with a circlet of thorns, another symbol of royalty, doubtless roughly woven from the stem of a prickly shrub.

3. He was addressed as "King." Utterly incapable of understanding a moral sovereignty, a spiritual sway, these coarse soldiers, to whom force was all, insulted the meek and unresisting Sufferer by the use of a title which from their lips could be only derisive.

4 . He was saluted with the semblance of honor and homage; they" bowed the knee, and worshipped him."

5 . They smote his sacred head with the scepter-reed. How affecting this treatment! The very fact which should have been Christ's claim to respect, confidence, and adoration—his royal authority over the conscience and heart of humanity—was turned into a ground of reproach and a matter of reviling. Thus men treated their Divine and rightful King.

III. THE STERN REALITY TO WHICH THE MOCKERY WAS A PRELUDE AND A CONTRAST . Knowing what was before the Condemned, decency and humanity should have led them to spare him these insults. But when they were over, there was worse to come. The purple was stripped from his form; his own garments were placed on him; the beam of the cross was laid upon his shoulders; he was thrust into his place in the rude procession; and then was led away to crucifixion.

APPLICATION .

1 . Admire the meekness of him "who, when reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not." Never was sorrow like his sorrow, and never patience like his patience.

2 . Recognize the true royalty which a spiritual judgment may discern underlying the mockery and derision here recorded. See in Jesus a King, though crowned with thorns.

3 . Learn to confide in a Savior whose purpose to save was so resolute and so benevolent, as is apparent here. A salvation procured at such a cost is a salvation of which none should hear unmoved, and which none who needs it should hesitate or delay to accept.