Mark 15:16-20 The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.
A company of soldiers, approximately one hundred men, gathered around Jesus to degrade, persecute, and afflict him, the true King of the Jews. These soldiers gained pleasure from mocking him, pretending homage to him as king. Jesus' humiliation, degradation, and suffering brought joy to them as they exerted their earthly power over this man they saw as powerless to defend himself. As Jude writes, this kind of men are like unreasoning animals, they don't understand anything about what they are doing, even boldly coming against the divine world of God, not understanding the authority and power of those who reside in the heavenlies. As Jude indicates, even the devil has considerable power in spiritual battles: Michael, the archangel, could not come directly against the devil when disputing over the body of Moses. Instead, he said, “The Lord rebuke you!" (See Jude 8-10) Michael's situation reveals that in all events, on Earth or in heaven, only God has the authority and ultimate power to determine what will happen. These soldiers in their finiteness had their fun, mocking the Creator of all things, believing they were in control of the day's events. They did not realize Jesus could have called down thousands of angels to annihilate them and everything else on the face of the earth. God tolerated their abuse of Jesus only because He had a plan much bigger than any man could understand. Going forth from the actions of that day, God intended to rescue his fallen creation from the death that resides in each person, giving all mankind a chance to walk on the path to eternal life. As Isaiah predicted: He (Jesus) was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. (Isaiah 53:7) God's Son had to pay the complete price for man's waywardness from God, for man's sins. Therefore, God allowed despicable acts against his Son. He allowed mere men to lead Jesus, the light of heaven, to the slaughter for the transgressions of all humanity. He was without sin, but he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. (Isaiah 53:5) Of course, the soldiers did not understand his divinity, but someday each of them will bow his knee in homage to Jesus Christ, for every knee will bow when He judges all men.
As with the Roman soldiers, sometimes we Christians do not fully understand or appreciate who Jesus should be to us. We may not spit at him or abuse him, but we do treat him somewhat like the soldiers treated Jesus when we pay homage to him without the sincerity He deserves. We call him Lord, but do not do what He says. We say we love him, but rarely think of him as we go through our daily lives. We claim to be interested in his interests, but we don't think about the poor or needy: our thoughts are mostly consumed by our own needs and desires. We design our lives to revolve around us, not him. In our imagination, we put a crown on his head, a royal robe around him, and place him on a throne. We call him the king of kings, and we claim we are citizens of his kingdom, but in reality our feet are planted firmly in our own kingdoms. We pray when we have a want or a special need, begging God to better our kingdom. We sing songs with a fervent heart when we feel like it. We search his word or listen to his still quiet voice only when we have nothing else to do. Of course, we would never strip Jesus naked and laugh at his nakedness. But in so many ways we treat him the way we want for our own good pleasure. We use him as a trump card to get us out of trouble and into heaven. He is to be there when we want him to be there, our rescuer, healer, and helper when we are in need. Often our ears are stopped to his voice; our mouths lack words to glorify him in songs; our activities center on us, not him. We even fail to consistently gather together to worship him. We would not use coarse language or guffaw at his awkwardness and humiliation, but we mock him when we carry on with this charade that we love him as the center of our lives, the supposed captain of our souls. Sadly, we wear the robe and the crown as we occupy the throne of our lives. "Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?" (Luke 6:46) We make Jesus into our image and do not allow the Holy Spirit to make us into his image.
When we read the above verses about Jesus' persecution, many of us cry because we are emotionally touched by what Jesus endured for each of us. We are saddened that He suffered such an abominable experience. We wonder why a man of such kindness and goodness had to face so much. Why would He be placed into the hands of the wicked soldiers? Jesus went to the cross so we humans might be transformed from a condition of darkness to light. Jesus knew his purpose on Earth, and He told his disciples ahead of time, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.” (Matthew 17:22-23) As Christians, we are light in a dark and dying world; we are the salt of the earth; we are goodness in a world of turmoil, pain, and sin. Our lives ought to demonstrate God's salvation plan to others by displaying his love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control; all of these are God's attributes, the fruit of the Spirit in our lives when we keep in step with the Spirit and seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. (See Galatians 5) We can do this if Jesus is truly the Lord of our lives, Lord of everything. If our choices and actions revolve around us, we mock him as surely as the Roman's mocked him. We hold to our religious emblems of authority concerning Jesus, but our service to him will determine whether we are serious about him as the Lord of our lives. Imagination and reality can be two different things. We cannot live our lives as we wish, substituting our control over his lordship, dressing ourselves in a robe of self-rightness over his robe of royal righteousness, wearing our crown of self-direction over his crown of absolute authority in our lives. Living for Christ as Lord has nothing to do with self, but everything to do with him, Lord of all. We are to be his servants and to express his servant's heart to the world.
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