One
of the greatest joys of my life is being a father. Each of our three beautiful children are
truly gifts from God. Each of them have
changed my life in their own special way, and each of them have come into this
world with their own unique personalities.
I’m going to pick on one of them for a second this morning as a means of
explaining something about our text: our
beloved middle child, our oldest son, Thomas.
You see, Thomas is in more ways than one the spitting image of his
daddy. However, there is something that
Thomas has that his daddy didn’t have:
an older sibling. Now, Thomas
doesn’t really listen to folks all that well.
Sure, he listens to me and his mama after we’ve told him to do something
several times or after we’ve threatened him with something, but for the most
part he just does his own thing.
However, there is one person that he will listen to no matter what: his big sister. Thomas will listen to Ashby and do absolutely
anything she tells him to. It’s really
quite scary that one little girl holds so much power. Now, the connection that I want to make here
between my son and the Roman soldiers who crucified Jesus is in this: when Thomas gets in trouble, his excuse is
that his sissy told him to do whatever it is that he is guilty of doing. He simply says that he was just following
orders. Well, many times this same exact
excuse is used when dealing with the Roman soldiers in our text. Folks have tried to take some of the blame
off of them since they were just doing what a superior told them to do. We could also just as easily use that same
excuse of ourselves many times today, but we’ll deal with that in just a
moment.
The
Roman Soldiers were indeed following orders.
They were following the orders of Pontius Pilate, who, might I add, was
very reluctant himself to have Jesus crucified.
After Jesus had been sentenced to death, someone had to carry out the
sentence. It was part of their job as
soldiers of Rome. Now, we’ve all been
there. We’ve all had things that we had
to do as part of our jobs that we don’t/didn’t enjoy. Just like I mentioned a moment ago, I don’t
like disciplining my children. However,
it is my job as a father to teach them how they are to act, and sometimes that
means doing things that I don’t particularly enjoy. The same could be said also for any job in
the secular world. Now, before we just
brush off all responsibility from the Roman soldiers, I want us to look a
little more closely at their exact actions there at the scene of the cross.
We’re
told at the beginning of our text, after the crowd confirms that they want
Barabbas release and Jesus crucified, that the soldiers take Jesus inside the
Praetorium, the governor’s headquarters.
Once inside, they strip him of his clothes and place a purple cloak on
him. They then fashion a crown of thorns
all twisted together with spikes that are suggested to be somewhere between 1
to 2 inches in length. After making the
crown, they didn’t just place it on his head, but drove it deep into his
skull. They put a staff in his hand and
then mockingly knelt before him saying “Hail, King of the Jews!” All the while, they were spitting on him,
hitting him, and beating him with a whip-like instrument. After beating him, they removed the purple
cloak, and placed his original clothes back on him. No, these weren’t men who were reluctant to
carry out their orders in the least.
These were men who were displaying the same anger and hatred that we saw
last Sunday coming from the scribes, chief priests, Pharisees, and the people
of Jerusalem. However, just like the
groups that we looked at last Sunday, these Roman soldiers were fulfilling Old
Testament prophecies about the Messiah. The
prophet Isaiah spoke of the Messiah being spit upon and struck in the
face. So, his being spat upon, beaten,
and openly mocked were all fulfillments of prophecy about the Messiah.
Now,
the beating and the punishment that Jesus received was obviously so severe that
he couldn’t carry his cross by himself.
He had to have the help of someone from the crowd. The soldiers selected a man named Simon to
assist Jesus. If you’ve ever reached the
point of complete exhaustion, then you know that it isn’t pleasant. It seems like every year there are high
school and college age football players who die from dehydration, heat stroke,
or exhaustion. These kids, ranging
anywhere from 15 to 24, who are in peak physical condition, are asked to push
their body to a level that it simply cannot go.
The human body does indeed have a breaking point, and I have to believe
that Jesus’ physical body was there.
However, there was still work to be done.
Jesus,
along with the Roman soldiers and rest of the crowd, finished their ascent up
the mountain. Once they had reached the
top, the Roman soldiers offered him a mixture of wine, gall, and myrrh. This mixture was in essence a pain killer,
and was commonly given to those being crucified in order to numb at least some
of the pain. However, Jesus refused
it. He took on fully and consciously all
of the pain of the crucifixion. This no
doubt draws the comparison of his taking on fully and consciously all of the
sins of mankind as well; a point that we don’t have time to fully discuss, but
is very much in need of being pointed out.
After reaching the top of the mountain and the place known as Golgotha
and refusing the pain-killing mixture, the Roman soldiers then divide Jesus’
garments and cast lots to see who received them. In this, we find another fulfillment of Old
Testament prophecy. It fulfills the
words of words of David, inspired by God, who wrote in Psalm 22 on the
crucifixion of the coming Messiah. Psalm
22:18 reads, “they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” What comes next is the placing of a sign above
Jesus’ head that stated his crime. The
sign read “ The King of the Jews.” This
wording was indeed his crime, seeing as he had been convicted of claiming
himself to be the king, but it was also mocking him a little further as well. The soldiers then placed him in the midst of
a few criminals (who we will look at on Palm Sunday next week), and then
proceed with the events that we looked at last week. In essence, it’s as if the soldiers take a
break so that the people and the chief priests can have a turn at mocking him. It’s also worthy of noting that his being
placed with criminal fulfills yet another Old Testament prophecy; it’s a
fulfillment of Psalm 69.
Ultimately,
we are left asking ourselves what significance we can take away from the role
that the Roman soldiers played in the scene there at Calvary. Well, we’ve already seen that they fulfilled
Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah.
That is first and foremost their primary role in these events. In fact, later on, in one of the texts that
we will look at during our Maundy Thursday service, we will see that they
fulfill yet another prophecy when they offer him wine vinegar to drink shortly
before he dies. However, there is
something else that I think we can take away from the example of the Roman
soldiers. I mentioned back in the
beginning of the sermon that we often excuse our actions by saying that we are/were
just following orders. Now, I want to
take a few moments and flush that idea out a little bit more. I opened by giving you the example of my son
saying that it’s never his fault, but the blame always rests with the person
who told him to do something, typically Ashby.
You know, as humorous as this may be, it gets pretty old. It gets even older when people continue to do
this well into their teenage and adult years.
However, it is an ever-growing problem in our society: people not taking responsibility for their
actions. Now, I’m not going to get into
this completely, but I want to speak to the faith side of this argument and
growing epidemic.
Let
me ask you this, “If your boss asked you to do something as part of your job
and you knew that it wasn’t in line with your faith or your morality, would you
still do it?” In other words, if you
knew something to be morally and spiritually wrong, yet a superior asked you to
do it, would you do it? Well, the
reality of this is that many of us can’t say definitively what we would
do. We would like to be able to say that
we would stand up for our faith, but we also like our houses, cars, vacations,
and we really like being able to eat and pay our bills as well. For many of us, and I’m guessing that it
would be more accurate to say all of us, we have not made the choice that most
coincides with our faith every time.
We’ve hidden behind this same notion of just following orders. We’ve tried to shift the blame from ourselves
to the ones who told us to do whatever task it was that was not in line with
our faiths. So you see, we have no
position to be able to sit here and cast aspersions on the Romans soldiers. Now before you say, “Well, I never did
anything like kill someone when I followed orders. When they followed orders, it lead to Jesus
being killed.” I want to think about
what was accomplished in both situations.
Regardless of what the outcome might have been in your case, in the case
of the Romans soldiers it lead to the crucifixion of Christ, which is the
achievement of our salvation. Remember
what we said last Sunday, God used that hatred and violence and those horrific
events to save us from our sins. I’m
pretty sure that when we found ourselves “just following orders”, it lead to
the spread of evil.
Friends,
I’m not going to stand here today and tell you that you ought to be ashamed of
yourselves for not dying upon your sword when asked or ordered to do something
that was morally questionable. I realize
that we live in a fallen world in which the worldly and earthly desires of the
flesh so often reign supreme. However,
I’m just asking for each one of us to own our faith. I’m asking each one of us to take
responsibility for our actions. Don’t
shift the blame for your lapse in faith to busy schedules, demanding bosses, or
anything else. Your faith is your own. Many folks say that their faith is a personal
relationship between themselves and God.
Well, I’m not going to address some of the issues with that statement,
but I will point out one very truthful statement about it. If the primary parties that are involved are
you and God, then there is no excuse for being separated from Him. It’s not as if God is every too busy for His
children. God is omnipotent and
omnipresent. There is no limit to His
reach. Friends, own your faith. Wear your faith. Show your faith. Don’t allow your faith to remain hidden
because you were simply just following orders.
Glory be to God; in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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