Mark Chapter 15 Verses 16 – 18

•This is significant and would have affected Jesus deeply, more than physically, because at the dawn of creation, when man was created beautifully we have an implication in the Bible that thorns did not exist. Thorns had no place in a world created that was good, painless…harmless…but man opened the door to darkness by introducing sin into the bloodstream…and one of the results…

•God said to Adam in Genesis 3:17, “Because you have done this, cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you…” Jesus was there…

•He was present when the first Adam hid from Him, afraid of Him…the first time fear was ever felt by man…He was there. He was there when the first man wept as he was removed from the very presence of God…hungry, tired and empty for the first time ever…emotionally and spiritually. He was there when the first thorn sprang from the grass of the perfect Garden, defiling it in the name of sin. And Jesus is here now, in the Praetorium, with the entire Garrison of Roman soldiers…taking the result of that fall…as they twist those thorns and Jesus watches, remembering…

•And so what’s happening here..He is crowned the King of Sin…as they press the thorns of Adam, the thorns of Matt, the thorns of April, the thorns of Madison and Lincoln and Brantley, into the perfect ground of his flawless forehead…Jesus was the walking Garden, defiled again, and for the last time by the sin of man…Genesis 3:17…cursed is all because of man…John 3:17, Salvation from that curse now carries the sin...literally the thorns upon Him…”For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved!” Such a powerful scene…MOST powerful for Jesus Himself…

Mark Chapter 15 Verses 19 – 20

•This was the ultimate humility. The One true King…think of this…the only King there ever was, ever is, and ever will be and these mud clumps…allowed to live and able to live only because of Jesus Himself…their Creator and King…they mock Him and offer Him disgusting false worship…spitting on Him and accosting Him with a reed which is even a picture of a scepter…His Kingly robe now a rag, His crown now the crown of thorns and His scepter now a switch used to slap Him with…this is the ultimate in humility and mocking…

•Have you ever been mocked? By the world…? By even a brother or a sister in Christ? By your husband, by your wife? Strikes a deep chord doesn’t it? Can rock you to your core can’t it…can’t sleep, don’t want to eat, why? It’s a fair question. Why? How is it that the mocking of mere men can rock us so much? It’s been happening since the dawn of Christianity! Let them mock! The scorn is akin to the thorns! The King invites you to His garrison!

•I love what Spurgeon says on this topic, “Then, again, it is quite clear that we ought not to care about scorn. Scorn! Let us scorn scorn. Does the world laugh at us? Let us laugh at the world's laughter, and say to it, 'Dost thou despise us? It is not one half as much as we despise thee. Our fathers despised thy sword, O world, thy dungeons, thy racks, thy gibbets, thy stakes, and dost thou think that we shall tremble at thy scoffs, and jeers?”

•We have no record of Jesus trembling. Shamed by His own people. Struck blindly by His brothers. Delivered to Pilate and then to Herod to be defamed. Shamed in public as He was refused by the entire nation and rejected for the murderer. Scourged with 39 lashes and here He stands, solid and silent in the face of mockers…and they led Him out to crucify Him…

Mark Chapter 15 Verse 21

•This one verse is a crazy mystery to me. First though Mark mentions that Simon is the father of Rufus and Rufus shows up again in Romans 16…as Paul is greeting all of the believers…apparently Simon went home very affected, changed by this event and his family came to believe…, “Tell us again daddy…what did He say to you? What did you see…” Here’s the thing…he followed Jesus when Jesus had no followers…He bore the cross of the King as the King led him…

•Here’s the mystery…the stories of Jesus collapsing, the scenes in the movies…that’s not found in the Bible…all four Gospels simply say this…Simon bore His cross…Is it that Jesus could not? Mysterious. I don’t find that…the scene for me is that Jesus is still in control, and even in His final journey to the cross He is installing eternal truth in me and in you by showing us a great truth and teaching us an essential lesson…This blew me away…

•Jesus sat with His disciples and taught them…His head panning from one to the other, locking eyes as they hung on every word…Matthew 16:24, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me…” John tells us that Jesus, (John 19:17), bore His own cross and yet Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us that Simon carried His cross…what’s going on here? A fundamental of Christianity…A necessity of discipleship…

•Jesus carried His own cross, and yet the one sole follower of Jesus, closest to Jesus, forever changed and affected by Jesus, the savior of his sons Rufus and Alexander even…came up behind Him and lifted the cross off of His back…Here’s the secret, when we take up our own cross, on our own way to Golgotha where the flesh is finished…that is when they come…the followers of Jesus…the disciples…the true Christians…because one of the wonders of a walk with God…is that you never go it alone. And if you are alone, feeling alone, bearing your cross alone…are you sure you’re on the way to Calvary?

•Because this is what Christians do…they take up their own crosses and yet somehow in doing that they find the eternal strength and calling to take up the cross of others…is that you? Are you exhausted from your own cross or are you carrying the cross of another today? This blew me away! This lesson hidden in the Word of God for the Sons and Daughters of God to feed upon…and strengthen upon…

Mark Chapter 15 Verses 22 – 23

•This is interesting to me and I’m not quite sure why I took this route, why God most impressed upon my understanding what must have been going through Jesus’ mind…they gave Him myrrh to drink, yet He did not take it…myrrh…that’s what they brought Him when He was born…Matthew 2:11. How many times had Mary told Him the story? The story of the three wise men who defied the earthly king, Herod, to come and worship the new born King and present to Him their treasures of gold frankincense, and myrrh…

•Those items probably still in the possession of Mary at her home…where Jesus would walk in and the smells of simpler days would fill Him…where He would remember growing up and being held by His mother, playing on the floor in the evenings and enjoying meals with His brothers and sisters…and now that smell again…man I tell you what, we only have a glimpse of the suffering…and yet He would not take it…

•It would have comforted Him physically. Myrrh has an effect like a drug, a numbing affect, but here’s the thing, He will face the cross with a clear mind, unmediated, unsedated…with honor and dignity unto God…and man that charges me up! We scream for drugs! Placation! Service and satisfaction when we are offended or faced with a trial in life and yet in doing that, how on earth are we expressing all sufficiency in God alone? Jesus refused the diversion from the cross…so powerful!

Mark Chapter 15 Verses 24 – 26

•A wondrous image to leave you with today…an image of the Creator, the Almighty, trading His life for yours…John 19:19 (prime/prime) tells us more of this inscription. John tells us that Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross and the writing was, “Jesus of Nazareth, The King of the Jews.” And it was written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Now have you ever seen the acronym INRI? Sometimes you’ll see it affixed to the cross in older churches…it stands for Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum which is this inscription written in Latin…but superbly more wondrous is something that Chuck Missler pointed out years ago…that in Hebrew, the chief priests would freak out when they read this inscription because in Hebrew it reads, Yeshua Ha'Netzeret V'mlech Ha'Yehudim creating the acrostic YHWH. The unspeakable name of God, for which we transliterate Yahweh!

•Jesus, the Savior of the World, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God Himself, achieved our salvation…triumphed over the sin that we introduced, victor over the penalty…the grave…and He has made a way for us to join Him! All because of His uninterruptablelove for each of us personally!

•With the thorns that we established, we constituted, we initiated upon His head, from the dawn of creation to the dawn of salvation, He never went a moment without us being ultimately important to Him…and today, even now…that continues! Ultimately important…