Christ Rules As My Substitute

Christ Rules! Gospel of Mark Series (Part 31)

A Sermon By Jim Hammond from Mark 15:1-20

I heard Lee Strobel, one of the teaching pastors at Willow Creek in Chicago, tell a moving adoption story.[i] The story began in Korea shortly after the Korean war. A Korean woman had an affair with an American Soldier and became pregnant. She gave birth to a little girl, whom I presume the soldier never even knew she had. This little girl did not look Korean. She had fair skin and lighter curly hair. In Korea a child of such a mixed race is treated terribly. In fact because of the extreme rejection that is experienced many mothers in Korea with children have been known to have killed their child. This mother didn’t do that. She attempted to raise her child in a hostile world. The Koreans called this child horrible names. The worst name they could think of to call her was “tooki”—“Alien devil.” You can imagine what this was doing to the child. You probably can’t imagine what this was doing to the child’s mother. Eventually she could take it no longer and after raising this child for 7 years she gave her up to the streets. She abandoned her 7 year old. The little girl lived on the streets with other street children for two years. Foraging through trash for food and living in any make shift shelter she could find. Eventually she found her way to an orphanage.

This little girl, at age 9, was the oldest child in the orphanage. One day she heard that an American couple was coming to adopt one of the little boys. Everyone was excited, and this girl helped bathe and prepare the boys for the big day. Listen to her words now as she tells of the visiting couple.

It was like Goliath had come back to life. I saw the man with his huge hands lift up each and every baby. I knew he loved every one of them as if they were his own. I saw tears running down his face, and I knew if they could, they would have taken the whole lot home with them.

He saw me out of the corner of his eye. Now let me tell you. I was nine years old, but I didn’t even weigh 30 pounds. I was a scrawny thing. I had worms in my body. I had lice in my hair. I had boils all over me. I was full of scars. I was not a pretty sight. But the man came over to me, and he began rattling away something in English, and I looked up at him. Then he took this huge hand and laid it on my face. What was he saying? He was saying, “I want this child. This is the child for me.

Freeze that frame in your mind for a moment. Can you imagine the thoughts and feelings? We can’t help but think of how this American Couple are like God who reached down to us. Maybe you find it difficult to imagine an unconditional love like this. This is precisely what Jesus did for us. You know the truth about yourself. You know your secret sins, and you know what thoughts you have. Perhaps you have even thought, if people really knew me they would reject me. I’m here to tell you, God does know your secret sins. He knows every failure. But he says to you, I want you.

This was not the end of the Korean girls story. She did something rather startling. Here’s her words again:

“The hand on my face felt so good, and inside I said, ‘Oh, keep that up. Don’t let your hand go.’ But nobody had ever shown that kind of affection for me before. I didn’t know how to respond. So I yanked his hand off my face, and I looked up at him and spit on him. I turned around and ran away.”

Maybe we can’t even imagine why she would do this in the moment of such an opportunity. How could she do this? Wait a minute. Don’t we do this to God also? Haven’t you spit in his face while he is doing you nothing but good? I have. Haven’t you run, when he is pursuing you? I have. In fact, I’ve known people who have been very excited about what they are hearing in church, or from a friend about Christ, who get suddenly scared. At the same time that they want more, from fear of change, they run.

It is a good thing the young American Couple knew the Lord and had a love like his. They came back the following day. They continued to let the young Korean girl know they wanted her. They chose her. The barriers finally came down. They adopted her and named her Stephanie. They gave her the medical attention, and the love she needed. They loved her like she was their very own. Stephanie grew to love their Lord, and is following him today. She is now married and has kids of her own and lives in the United States.

Focus: Christ knows everything about me, my ugly secret sins, my terrible failures, even my blatant raised fist of rebellion against Him, yet he reaches out to me, never giving up to claim me as His own.

Romans 5:8 (NIV) But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

I. Jesus was Crucified because of:

A. His Choice

Mark 15:1-5 (NIV) ¹Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.

²“Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate.

“Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied.

³The chief priests accused him of many things. ⁴So again Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.”

⁵But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.

B. God’s Will

C. His Claims

In the Jewish Trial (CHAPTER 14), it was because of his claim to be equal with God—Blasphemy.

In the Roman Trial (CHAPTER 15), it was because of his claim to be King—Insurrection.

D. Their Sin

Mark 15:6-20 (NIV) ⁶Now it was the custom at the Feast to release a prisoner whom the people requested. ⁷A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. ⁸The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did.

⁹“Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate, ¹⁰knowing it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. ¹¹But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.

¹²“What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them.

¹³“Crucify him!” they shouted.

¹⁴“Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.

But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”

¹⁵Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

¹⁶The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. ¹⁷They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. ¹⁸And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” ¹⁹Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. ²⁰And 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.

E. My Sin

II. Jesus was Crucified Instead of Barabbas (15:15)

A. How do I handle injustice?

Like Barabbas? Like Pilate? Or Like Jesus?

Like Barabbas? Some problems are too big for us to handle on our own. When you try to handle them with your own efforts you eventually find yourself stuck. Barabbas found himself stuck in jail. He tried to handle the super human problem of the Roman Government through insurrectionist violence.

Humanistic Answers to Super Human Problems will eventually get you stuck. Let’s reflect. Do I unleash MY wrath and MY power against injustice? Do I take matters into my own hands? Do I dole out violence for violence, tit for tat? Does my heart cry out “Oh yeah, I’ll show them!”

Let me tell you a secret, something I wouldn’t have known apart from revelation: Sin is a super human problem. People cannot solve the sin problem on their own. Humanistic answers will only get you stuck.

Pilate—asked the right question, “What shall I do, then, with [Jesus]?” (15:2), but came up with the wrong answer.

Many are like Pilate, they Prefer Him but Defer Him to others: They prefer Jesus to the envious, pious priests, and the wicked Barabbas, but preference is as far as it goes. Do I see no harm in Jesus, yet I see not enough in him to have any claim on me? Do I see him as “king of the Jews” but not the “king of kings” who has a claim on my life as well?

Barabbas’ Way: Violence, Power, Murder, Mayhem. Barabbas struck power with power. He doled out violence for violence, perpetuating the never ending cylcle.

Jesus’ Way: Meekness absorbs evil, and soaks up the injustice like the poisonous venom of a bite and unleashes a far more powerful transforming force.

Jesus urges us to be like him. The next time a malignant wad of inky black evil smacks you in the face and oozes down your cheek, pick up the black inky wad of evil and pocket it, soak it up, absorb it rather than release it back into the world. Unleash good to those who harm you. That is what Jesus calls us to. He asks us to take the sting out of the poison, even while acknowledging that it hurts, and refuse to hurt back.

If this is something you have been able to do at all, you do it by the power of love that was unleashed upon you. The claim Christ has on you fills you with that which is not your own. Because He forgave you, you are able to forgive. Because he loves you, you are able to love.

III. Jesus was Crucified as My Substitute

Isaiah 53:5 (NIV) ⁵But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

Here’s what I want us to do this morning. You have each been given a small slip of paper. I want you to write down sins you want to have forgiven. I want this to be meaningful, so write down the ones you are afraid to write down for fear someone might find out. Don’t put your name on it. Nobody is going to read these. Write it in code if you want to, this is between you and God. Just list the sin you have committed. Write down the specifics for which you wish to be forgiven. After you have written something down, I want you do fold it in half so that it will not be read. I want you to walk up to that old wooden cross on the stage, and hand your slip of paper to our stand-in “soldiers” who will nail it to the cross. Later, at the Easter Sunrise service, we will be witnessing the removal of these sins in a ceremony. But for now I want you to see vividly that Jesus was crucified as your substitute. It was for my sin, and for your sin, that he was crucified. He took the penalty for us. He absorbed the evil, the sin, and released forgiveness. The way I see it, our sin will either be pinned to the cross or they will be pinned to us for all eternity. Those are the only possibilities for sin. If they are pinned to the cross, we are free to enjoy a relationship with God forever in his perfect heaven. If they are pinned on us, they will be pinned there forever apart from God. While the music from Ray Boltz, “The Hammer” is being played, bring your sin list to the soldiers.

(After nailing the notes to the cross)

Focus Again: Christ knows everything about me, my ugly secret sins, my terrible failures, even my blatant raised fist of rebellion against Him, yet he reaches out to me, never giving up to claim me as His own.

Romans 5:8 (NIV) But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God is saying this to you this morning. I love you so much. I already showed you how much. I demonstrated my love for you this way: That while you were still sinning I sent my only Son to die for you. I didn’t wait for you to clean up your act first, I sent Him for you to take your place while you were dirty, and altogether unlovely. He has absorbed your evil and made you clean. I adopt you and love you as my own because you have accepted what I have done for you.

[i] Lee Strobel, “Meet the Jesus I know” Preaching Today Tape 211.