The Joy of Redemption: Understanding Christ's Crucifixion | Steve Marsh- 06/08/2025, Mark 15:21-32

You know, the chief priests and the Pharisees had met together and said, "This guy has to be killed. He's got to die." So that was their plan. And so they organized the court before the chief priests and they said, "Yeah, this is true. He's got to die. He claims to be God and yet we know he's just a man."

Then they trucked him over to Pilate. He found him innocent under Roman law, but gave into the crowd and said, "Here, do whatever you want.", so that's where we pick up the story this morning. And when I was preparing long time ago, Cody told us, "Okay, I'm we're going to be on vacation these days." And fool me. I said, "I'll cover that one." Didn't know what the topic was. Now I know. And I'm looking at it and preparing and, man, this is depressing. You just keep going and going and going and it just keeps going down and down and down. And so we were having an elders meeting one day and one of the other elders said, "Well, have you forgotten about Hebrews 12:2? I mean, there's a reason God went through all of this. It's not just all depression. He did it for a purpose." And so, we're going to start there and look at the purpose that God had in the crucifixion. And we really are going to do it. I guess you got to do it manually. Bummer. Okay, there's Hebrews 12:2 which says, "Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." Okay. Joy, cross, crucifixion, joy. What? That joy is still out there for our Lord. It hasn't yet happened. It is happening now, has been for 2,000 years, and will continue to be happening up until he comes again. But there's a point in time that this is leading up to for the Lord. Have you heard of the marriage feast of the lamb? That's where Christ is the lamb of God will be united forever with his church. And that got a bunch of married people out here. Looks

Like either that or close friends. How many of you have been married 60 years? You don't have standup. Raise your hand. Got a few. That's a long time. Look back though from 60 years or more recently for most of us. Was there joy involved in a marriage? From the guy's perspective, you're standing up there in front and here down the aisle comes your bride. And it's like, wow. That's what Christ is looking forward to. He's the bridegroom. His bride is the church. We're going to take a look at that here. But the church itself isn't formed yet. It's being formed. We're part of it. But there are others that are still out there that aren't yet part of God's church. That's our job along the way. But one at a time, the bride of Christ is being prepared. And if you could flip to 1 Peter 2. Yeah. This is part of the process because on the cross, Jesus, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness by his wounds. We, you, me, us are healed. Okay, that is happening one person at a time. But as each person becomes a believer, becomes part of the body of Christ, we now are forming the church, and this process is going to continue until the Lord says, "Okay, it's time." We don't know when that'll be, but that's coming. And at some time in the future, we'll see this marriage feast of the lamb. Can you give me Ephesians 5? One before that. Before that, I'll read it to you. Ephesians 5:27 says, "So that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that

She might be holy and blameless." We just sang about how the angels cry holy to the Lord. We're going to get to be part of that. Just amazing. That's the joy that was out there that Christ could see. No one else could when he was being crucified. He knew where he was headed. Okay. So, that's yet to come. Okay. In the here and now. We're going to look at some of the things that God did over centuries of time to prepare for the crucifixion, that event that we're going to be looking at this morning. I think I just saw this verse flip by. Psalm 22 verses 14- 16. It would be more convenient if this thing would work. Yeah. I just isn't going to do it. Okay. Now, this is written by David, the king of Israel, about Thank you. There's a trash can right down there. You're kidding. You are kidding. All right. Yeah. Thank you. It defeats me. Okay. In King David's time, he wrote a lot of psalms and the Lord used him as he wrote those as a prophet. Now, David had no clue about crucifixion. We're going to kind of look at that as a way of executing people. But at David's time, a thousand years before Christ, nobody did crucifixion. It wasn't invented yet, if you will, as a torturous way to kill people. So, the Lord gave him these words, and I can kind of imagine him writing this psalm. I don't know what that's going to look like, but it says this, "I'm poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It's melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potshirt. My tongue cleaves my jaws and you lay me in the dust of death. For

Dogs have surrounded me. A band of evildoers has encompassed me. They pierced my hands and feet. And it goes on in Psalm 22 for a ways. But it's a good description of what happens when somebody's crucified. Now, David had never seen that, but the Lord knew what was going to happen. And so, that was predicted a thousand years before the time of Christ. About 200 years later in Isaiah's prophecy let's see. Oh. Oh, okay. You did that for me, didn't you? All right. In Isaiah chapter 53, prophesying about the Messiah to come, it says this, "Therefore, I will all lot with him a portion with the great, and he will divide the booty with the strong, because he himself poured out himself to death, and was numbered with transgressors. Yet he himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors." Okay, that was another just glimpse of what it was going to be like when Jesus was crucified. And you can go on and read the whole chapter 53 of Isaiah. There's other glimpses in there. We're not going to take the time to look at all of them, but that was 800 years before the time of Christ. So, you know, the Lord knew what was coming at the time these prophecies were written. No men knew what was coming. They just knew there was a Messiah that was promised was going to come. But here's some of the things it's going to look like. And we can't really tell you what it's going to look like. Now, have any of you ever read in the book of Revelation about what heaven is going to look like? The new heaven and the new earth. Can you picture it? I sympathize with John. He was the guy, the apostle John, that the Lord revealed this picture to. And

John is a man. He's got the mind of a man. He's got the language of a man. And he has to describe something that we're told in the word, we can't even imagine it. It's going to be so good, so big, so beyond anything that we can even imagine. So he had to describe that in words. So, we read that and we try to picture it and man, I guess it's just going to be really good. That's kind of what these prophets were doing. They were given a message by God and they were trying to explain it even though they themselves couldn't really see what it would look like. So all of these things were taking place over the years and, okay, back to crucifixion here. It was invented in about 400 BC by the Persians. Okay. They were looking for cruel ways to kill people and they're quite good at it. And they came up with crucifixion. It didn't stick for them. But at that point, crucifixion as a means of execution started being used. Okay, the Romans came along about 200 years later and said, "Woo, we'll do this." And they are the ones that put it into widespread use. So before the time of the Romans, crucifixion wasn't at all common. In fact, it wasn't heard of before the Persian Empire. And just as kind of an aside, now hopefully none of you will be in this position, but if you ever are committed, if you ever are convicted of murder, okay, put yourself there, and you're in a state that allows you to choose your method of execution. Several states in the US do that. They have a choice of ways that you can choose to be killed. If you're in that situation, do not choose crucifixion. It is it's a it's an a torturous way to kill people. And the Romans said, "We like this." And they practiced it. So, if we get back to King David's time in Psalm

22, I'm going the I'm going the wrong way. Whatever. I'll read it. Psalm 22:7, back to that psalm that is a messianic psalm predicting the Messiah. Says, "All who see me sneer at me. They separate with the lip. They wag the head, saying, commit yourself to the Lord. Let him deliver you. Let him rescue you because he delights in you.", and again, David wrote that a thousand years before this took place. But all of those kind of come together somewhere. Come on. It was up there. There it is. Good. In Galatians 4:4 it says, "When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law." And it goes on to describe the coming of Christ. But what I want to look at there in a minute is the fullness of time. Okay? You read that and what does that mean? And that means when everything was ready and God had ordained that his son, the Messiah would come, live, die, be buried, and rise again. But he had to put in place all of the let hide his thing since it doesn't work. He had to put in place all of the mechanisms for it to work. One of those was crucifixion. There were a lot of other things that had to be put in position, but crucifixion was one of them. And that's our topic this morning in Mark chapter 1 or chapter 15. Everything was right then for this to take place. So we're going to take a look at it if I can find it. I keep going the wrong way. There. I would like for you guys to stand with me. We're going to take a look at God's word. This is our passage. I'll read it, but you guys follow along and we're going to see what the Lord has for us. So Mark 15:es

21-32 they pressed into service a passer by coming from the country Simon ofSirene the father of Alexander and Rufus to bear his cross. Then they brought him to the place Golgatha which is translated place of a skull. They tried to give him wine mixed with myrr but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided up his garments among themselves, casting lots for them to decide what each man should take. It was the third hour when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, "The king of the Jews, and they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left." And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "And he was numbered with transgressors. Those passing by were hurling abuse at him, wagging their heads and saying, "Ha, you who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Save yourself and come down from the cross." In the same way, the chief priests also along with the scribes were mocking him among themselves and saying, "He saved others. He can't save himself. Let this Christ, the king of Israel, now come down from the cross so that we may see and believe. Those who were crucified with him were also insulting him. So let's thank the Lord for his word. And we do that, Father. We thank you. You've given us your word. You've told us in your word what has taken place, and you've also told us what we are to do with it. So we pray that as we look into this passage this morning that you will guide us, guide our thinking. Help me to be faithful to the passage so that your thoughts can become our thoughts as you work within us to change our thinking to become more like yours. So we commit this time to you for that purpose and thank you for it, Father, in Christ's name. Amen. And you guys know what amen means, right? Sit down.

Always works. Okay. So I had made my sales pitch for the Harmony of the Gospels. We're going to do that this morning. Because Mark's account of the first three hours of Jesus crucifixion is one of the shortest accounts. A lot of other things took place beyond what's in that passage that we just read. So, we're going to blend the events from all four Gospels into the continuous account just so we can see what took place here. And we're going to start there. Okay. In John's account, it says he went out bearing his own cross. Now Mark didn't say that u to the place called the place of a skull which in Aramaic is called Golgatha. Okay. So Jesus started out carrying his own cross. But what did he just endured three hours of? Mockery, abuse, mental torture, physical torture, beaten beyond recognition. He couldn't handle the cross. So, that's where verse 21 comes in. Jesus was be beaten badly enough they had to have somebody else carry the cross. And that's Mark 21 or 15:21. They compelled the passer by Simon ofSirene who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus to carry his cross. So now you've got two guys headed up to Golgatha along with all the soldiers. One is Jesus walking. He made it. But you have Simon carrying his cross. Now he was in town for the Passover celebration. Lots and lots of Jews from all around came to Jerusalem for that time. Simon came all the way from North Africa. That's where Ssirene is located. And so we have this progression going to the hilltop. And I guess I got out of range. Ah yes. Okay. In Luke's account, it wasn't just Jesus and Simon

And the soldiers. Luke chapter or chapter 23 verse 27, it says there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. So this is quite a crowd leaving Jerusalem going to Golgtha. Nobody really knows today where that was, only that it was near Jerusalem. We think it was a little bit off to the north. And a couple centuries back, a church was built on what was thought to be the site. And it might be, but nobody really knows for sure where it was. But it was within walking distance, and that's what they did here. Jesus in his beaten, bloody, worn down state turns to that multitude that's mourning and calms them. In verse 28, turning to them, Jesus said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children." And that passage goes on to describe some of the bad things that are coming. So Jesus, even in the midst of all of this treatment he's had, is still looking out for others. We'll go on here. We think we will. Yes, we will. This is from our passage in the u 15th chapter of Mark. It says it was the third hour when they crucified him. We would say it was 9:00. In the Jewish reckoning, the day started at 6:00 a.m. And 3 hours later it was 9. And then you know if they say the sixth hour or the 9inth hour which is coming up in the passage here that would indicate noon or 3:00. So this took place at 9 when Jesus was crucified. And there was prophecy involved here as well. In Luke's 23's account says when they came to the place that's called the skull there they crucified him and the criminals one on his right one on his left. Jesus said father forgive them for they know not what they do. And they the soldiers cast lots to

Divide his garments. Okay. Jesus still conscious of people and what's going on around him asked the Lord to forgive the soldiers who were the ones presently working him over. And they were clueless and Jesus knew that. They were just doing what they were told. So he asked the Lord to forgive them which kind of blows my mind really. But the soldiers were also fulfilling a prophecy. Back in Psalm 22 it says they divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots. You know they roll dice to see who would win. Who gets the jacket? Who gets the cloak? Who gets whatever. And that went on until until they decided who got what and then they sat down and kept watch. This is the soldiers again. They were on guard so that nobody would mess with the crucifixion. Okay. In the meantime, Pilate had directed that they put a sign above his head. This is in Matthew's account. They put the charge against him which said, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." All right. Where did that come from? Did Jesus go around saying, "I'm the king of the Jews?" No. The Pharisees accused him of it and they accused him of that in front of Pilate when they were trying to get him killed. So Pilate took their own words and said, "Okay, we'll say this is who it is." So he put it up there in a sign and the Jews. Yes. Who had come up with the phrase actually many of the Jews read this inscription. This is in John's account. For the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin and in Greek, the three major languages. So the chief priests of the Jews said to

Pilate, "Do not write the king of the Jews, but rather this man said,"I am the king of the Jews." And Pilate answered, "What I've written, I've written.", he put that up there and everybody saw it. Remember this big crowd that came up there and there were a lot of people passing by and the chief priests weren't pleased with that, you know, because they didn't want Jesus to be identified as the king of the Jews. They just used that as a accusation to get him killed. But now Pilate is proclaiming that he is the king of the Jews to everybody that comes up. So the Pharisees had to kind of deal with their own words. While this was going on you have the criminals u in Mark's account here verse 27 with him they crucified two robbers one on his right and one on his left now these guys some translations some of the Gospels call them robbers some of them call them criminals u they deserved what they were getting under Roman law what they had done was worthy of death. So this was just basically an execution for them with no outside influences of any kind. This also was a fulfillment of prophecy from hundreds of years before. Now this verse may not be in some of your Bibles. The ESV for instance does not include Mark 15:28. Several other translations do and this is because of Bible translators trying to be faithful to the original texts that they worked off of to do the Bible translation. Some of the earliest texts do not include this verse. Some others do. So when groups of Bible translators get together to produce a translation, they have to choose is this really part of Mark's Gospel or not. I put it up here because it is faithful to the prophecy.

Also Luke's account includes this passage as well that he was numbered among the transgressors. So back to Isaiah 53. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Okay, so Jesus is in the center. Two other guys, criminals were crucified with him, one on each side. And still moving along while this they're hanging up there on the cross and you've got a lot of people remember that whole crowd that followed him and you've got others just passing by. So we have here in Mark's account these verses those who passed by derided him wagging their heads and saying and you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days save yourself come down from the cross. So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another saying he saved others but he can't save himself. Let the Christ, the king of the Jew of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe. Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. Okay, so this is going on and this is the crowd, the chief priests are, you know, the he's hanging on the cross dying and they're making fun of him. One of the things they said was that if he comes down off the cross, we'll believe him. Earlier Jesus in a parable had said, he was teaching the crowd. He said to him, "If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead." The Pharisees were just saying words. They were not going to believe in Christ even if he did come down from the cross. And beyond that, even if he rose from the dead, they just were not

Going to believe. So there was pure mockery what they were saying. It wasn't like honest. If he can come off the cross, I really will believe in him. They weren't going to. Okay. So you got the chief priests, the crowd, the soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, "If you're the king of the Jews, save yourself and yes, the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way." So you've got Jesus on the cross. You've now got four groups of people, if you will, all mocking him, making fun of him, deriding him. But this is in Luke's account. One of the criminals who were hanged there with him was excuse me was hurling abuse at him, saying, "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. But the other answered and rebuked him, saying, "Do you not even fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And indeed, we indeed are suffering justly, for we're receiving what we deserve for our deeds." But this man has done nothing wrong. And he was saying, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And he said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise." Okay, this is an amazing account. Because remember the criminals, both of them were mocking Jesus just like the rest of the crowd. But one man had a change of heart. And we look at that. Find out where I am here. And we call we use a church word to say what happened here. The church word that we use is called repentance. Do you ever hear that word outside of a church? It's it's a church word, but

It's a real thing. The literal translation for the word that's translated repentance is think differently. And that's what this criminal did. He recognized what was really happening here. This really was the son of God on the cross right next to me. And instead of mocking him now, he's saying basically, Lord, save me. So, he had a change of heart, change of thinking, and he acted on it and said to the Lord, "Save me." And the Lord said to him, "Yep, today you'll be with me in paradise." So that is kind of a great example of what repentance looks like. Right in the middle of being a wretch, this criminal, the robber changed his thinking and recognized I'm wrong and he's right. And he acted on that. And that change of action was driven by his change of thinking and that resulted in his salvation. Wow. So, we're going to wrap all of this up because this is Christ is still hanging on the cross, but this is the first three hours. And at this point, we're going to stop and the next message here in Mark 15, we'll pick up the last three hours and more events that took place during Jesus' time on the cross. But at now, at this point, we want to say, okay, so what's in it for us? And we do the head, heart, hand. And the head is an understanding. It's the change of thinking. So what the Lord would have us understand is that Jesus Christ suffered on that cross and died for us because he loved us. Remember he's doing all of this for the joy that was set before him. And that joy is his union with his bride, the church, us. So we need to fully understand that in order to appreciate this whole scene of the conviction of the

Crucifixion and a Scripture that just nails that down. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Okay, that's Romans 5:8. So understandingwise, if we look at the whole picture of the crucifixion, we need to realize Christ went through all of that for me, for you. For you, for you. I'm trying real hard not to point at an individual person there, but it's true. All of us individually, the Lord died for us, for our sin. We need to just understand that he went through all of that for this purpose. Heart. Once we come to that understanding, we need to believe it. We need to believe that no matter how bad things may look to us, God's in control and he still loves us. Okay? Put yourself back 2,000 years. You're one of his followers that came up the hill. You see him hanging on the cross. How bad do things look? Terrible. You know, we're not going to be in a situation like that. But as we go through our lives, stuff happens and things look pretty pretty dark sometimes. Even then, realize God's with us. He loves us. No matter what it looks like to us, he's still God. He's still on his throne. And a verse that I like to keep handy in my thinking, Romans the whole end of the chapter there, chaph that says five, it's chapter 8, 35 to 39. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine, nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written, for your sake we're being killed all the day long. We're regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we're more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure

That neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Hold on to that. You guys, me, all of us will face hard times. It probably be different for each one of us. But that's true. Then we want to follow the example of that criminal that repented. So with the understanding that God ordained this in his love for us, that he is still with us, he still loves us, he's still in control. Act on that belief and walk with God, following him day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, even as we go through tough times. He's with us. He's walking through those with us. And we're reminded of that in Galatians 5:25. If we live by the spirit, which is how we live spiritually, let us also keep in step with the spirit. So walk with him step by step by step. And that's the challenge that the Lord puts before us that he's laid out facts. We've seen them in the Scripture here. Our task as we see those facts is to believe it. God's word is true. If we have a problem with that, that's the problem we need to deal with. God didn't make any mistakes. No typos, no blotss, ink blotss, anything like that. He gave us the truth. So, our job then is to, do I believe it or not? Our task is to believe it. As we believe his word, then the follow through is that we act on that belief. And that means walking with God day by day. And he will use that to grow us in him because he is remember his work. The joy that was set before him is that the church, holy and blameless, will be presented to him in the marriage feast of the

Lamb. So that's where we're headed. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. We can't really grasp what you have for us ahead. We don't know the future. We don't know the near future, let alone eternity, but we trust you. We know that you love us. We know that you're with us. We know that you have a plan that includes us. We are part of your bride. And we thank you so much for that, Father. Help us really be able to grab a hold of that and let that drive our thinking, our decisions, our words, our actions, so that we are your ambassadors in this world that just desperately needs to hear the truth. So I thank you for the privilege that you've given us that ministry and we commit ourselves to you to follow you in that. Thanks again in Christ's name. Amen. And so because of what Christ did on the cross for us, we not only have hope in the future for our destiny, but hope in the present, hope in our life and in death. And so we're going to close out with a verse and a chorus. I invite you to stand with me. [Music] What is our hope and life cry? Let our souls to him belong. Who holds our days within his hands. What comes apart from his command and what will keep us to the end. The love of Christ in which we stand. Oh sing hallelu our hope springs eternal. Oh, sing hallelu now and ever we confess Christ our hope. We'll sing hallelujah. Oh sing hallelu our hope springs eternal. Oh, sing hallelu now and ever confess. Christ our hope life and death.

So I believe I have the final words. So God bless you all. Thank you for being with us and worshiping this morning. Have a great Sunday. Amen.