How Do You Handle Jesus? - Part A

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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. There are questions and answers that define a moment.

In fact, question and answers that define a person in a moment. There was a young man who went to the Super Bowl. Can you imagine how excited he was?

Got a Super Bowl ticket. He was really excited. When he got to the stadium, he realized that his ticket was for a seat in the last row in the far corner of the stadium. So it wasn't a great seat, but it was a free ticket.

He was happy. About halfway through the first quarter, he notices by looking that there's a seat on the field, I mean, right on the edge of the field, empty. So he thinks, I'd like to sit there. So he goes over to that seat. Next to the empty seat is an older gentleman. He says, is anybody sitting here? The guy says, no. Could I take the seat?

He says, you certainly may. So he finds his comfort zone and he says, man, I can't believe anybody would pass up this seat at the Super Bowl. And the older gentleman said, well, actually, that's my wife's seat. And she and I have been to Super Bowl since the year we wed, but she has passed away. This is the first year that we haven't been to a Super Bowl together since we married in 1967. The young man was sad and he said, I am so sorry.

I'm thankful, but I am so sorry. But then he said, now, couldn't you have found a relative or close friend to come with you to the game? And the older gentleman said, oh, no, they're all at the funeral.

It's pretty gnarly, isn't it? The question and that answer defined that man at that moment, right? It revealed a man who was selfish. It revealed a man who had his priorities all messed up.

It revealed a man who would honor a game more than he would honor the memory of his own dear wife, who accompanied him every year. So questions and answers to questions define a person in a moment. There is another man with another question that we want to look at today. Now, the question is not asked for us in our text, but it is asked by Punches Pilot at the trial of Jesus as recorded in Matthew's account.

Here's the question. Punches Pilot, looking at Jesus, then looking at the crowd, says, what shall I do with Jesus, who is called Christ? That question and the answer that he provides to the question will define Punches Pilot forever.

A Punches Pilot comes to us as sort of a tragic figure in history. He was a powerful figure 2,000 years ago, but because of his interfacing with Christ during this trial, he's come down to us as this tragic, pathetic figure in history because of the way he handles Jesus. He asks the question verbally. He answers the question experientially by his own actions in John chapter 19. And we want to look at how a person handles Jesus by looking at how Pilot handled them three different ways on this day. Now, for a moment, before we jump into our text and read it, just in your mind's eye, pick up on this scene. You have two men facing each other, a proud Roman, a humble Galilean, a man of the earth, a man from heaven, a man who's put all of his mind on earthly things, earthly honor, earthly power, and the God-man who abdicated all of that to come and suffer on purpose for the sins of the world.

And they face off with each other during this moment. And so, Pontius Pilot has to handle Jesus, and he does so three different ways. And so, we begin in verse one with the first way.

Jesus can be handled passively. Verse one, so then, Pilot took Jesus and scourged him. And the soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe. And then they said, Hail, King of the Jews! And they struck him with their hands. Pilot then went out again and said to them, Behold, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no fault in him.

Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilot said to them, Behold, the man. Therefore, when the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out saying, Crucify him, crucify him.

Pilot said to him, You take him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him. Just to jog your memory a little bit from the last time we were together, I mentioned that there wasn't one trial, but there were six different trials Jesus faced on this day. Three were before the religious crowd. Those were done. We've covered those. Three were before the civil courts. We are at trial number four and trial number six.

I'll explain. Trial number four was before Pontius Pilot. Trial number five was before Herod Antipas. Trial number six was again before Pontius Pilot. We start reading through this and combing through all of the material of the trial, and we discover Pontius Pilot is a guy who is pretty passive, noncommittal, doesn't really want to handle Jesus, doesn't want to make a decision, doesn't want to deal with him, would rather other people decide for him. So in dealing with Jesus passively, Pontius Pilot has a threefold strategy. Number one, he thinks, I'll let the politician decide what should happen with Jesus. You see, Pontius Pilot realizes that Jesus is not from Jerusalem, not from Judea, but he is a Galilean.

Therefore, the one who has jurisdiction over Galilee is the great politician, Herod Antipas. So he goes, I don't have to handle Jesus. I'll ship him off to Herod. Herod will make the decision. Herod is all excited. He meets with Jesus. Herod is hoping Jesus will do some trick, some miracle. Jesus says absolutely nothing to Herod at all, not a word, no miracle. So Herod mocks Jesus for a while, puts a purple robe on him, and ships him back to Pontius Pilot.

Now Pilot has to deal with him again. So his first strategy in dealing with him passively, let the politician decide, backfires on him. Strategy number two in dealing with Jesus passively, I'll let the people decide.

If the politician won't decide, the people will. So in a brilliant strategy, really, he remembers there is a custom we have worked out with the Jewish nation that during Passover, we release to them one of their own that's a criminal, somebody in prison. So he thinks of the worst possible insurrectionist in jail, Barabbas, thinking this crowd isn't going to want Barabbas.

They're going to want Jesus released. He's innocent. Barabbas is guilty. He's a known insurrectionist. He's a known rebel. So in letting the people decide, he's blown away when the people actually say, release Barabbas and kill Jesus.

Now understand something. The people who are in the trial, Pontius Pilot knows Jesus is an innocent man, and this is a rigged trial, and he is attempting to let him go. Three times we read that in our text. Go back to chapter 18 and look at the 38th verse. It says that he went out again to the Jews and said to them, I find no fault in him at all.

Case closed, he thinks. Verse 4 of chapter 19. Behold, I'm bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no fault in him.

Again in verse 6. You take him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him. He knows Jesus is innocent.

He knows Jesus is innocent. But he's trying to escape the responsibility, so he thinks, I'll let the politician decide. That doesn't work.

I'll let the people decide. That doesn't work. Here's his third strategy in dealing passively with Jesus. Perhaps if I let pity decide. So he thinks, I'll beat Jesus up a little bit, parade him before this bloodthirsty crowd kind of bloodied and beat up, and they're going to take one look at him and say, enough is enough, and they'll release him. That's what verse 1 and 2 is all about. And Pilate took Jesus and he scourged him. You're wondering, well, if Pilate knows that Jesus is innocent, why would he get him beat up?

Just so that the crowd would pity him and he wouldn't have to personally deal with it. Now a word about scourging. Scourging was a brutal punishment that the Romans enacted in their criminal justice system. A scourge was made up of, well, it was a wooden handle, six inches long, a wooden handle.

Attached to it were leather thongs and embedded tied into the leather thongs were bits of lead, glass, bone, designed to grip the skin and shred the skin. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig, Weekend Edition. Before we return to Skip's teaching, the question of God's existence has serious implications, from his presence and participation in our lives, to the reality of life after death, to the basis for human morality. And in his book, Is God Real?, Lee Strobel, former atheist and legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, weaves together the latest evidence from a range of brilliant scientific and philosophical minds to answer the most consequential question of all time. This resource will equip you to address your own doubts and respond to others' questions about God with confidence. We'll send you a copy of Is God Real? along with two messages Strobel preached on this topic at Calvary Church, as thanks for your gift of $50 or more to reach more people with God's love through Connect with Skip Heitzig.

Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give. Now, let's get back to Skip for more of today's teaching. Now, there were three levels of scourging. Level number one was the fustagatio.

This is for less intense criminal cases. If the guy was like a hoodlum, the Romans would take them, beat them a little bit, but give them a verbal reprimand and then let them go. Number two, level number two was called the flagellatio. That is where he would be brutally beaten because the case, the crime was more intense than just being a hoodlum. Level number three was known as the death before the death and the Latin called it the verbaratio.

It was the most intense. The prisoner was led with his hands bound to a courtyard, a low-lying pillar was in the middle, and the prisoner was forced to hunch over the pillar so that his back was exposed and taut hard like a drum. There were two lictors, men with whips, soldiers, one on either side who would administer diagonal blows on the back of the prisoner, usually until the soldiers were exhausted or the commanding officer said, enough is enough. At least keep him alive to get him crucified. Usually that last third tier, that verbaratio, was reserved for those who would be crucified. They're going to die anyway.

Let's give it to them in increments. Historians tell us that many of these prisoners never survive that flogging because it was designed to shred the skin, lacerate the muscles, and even eviscerate the subcutaneous tissues of the victim. Eusebius, a church historian, writes in his book Ecclesiastical History that many martyrs who were flogged, that people in the crowd could actually see down into the lower veins and arteries and that the entrails and organs were exposed to sight. It is believed that Jesus faced the second kind of flogging at first and then once the gavel went down and Pilate said, okay, take him to the cross, that he received that third type. So Jesus is pretty mangled by now, pretty beat up. Besides that, they mock him and they put a crown of thorns on him, a mock king, and they slap him around. And finally in verse 5, he is paraded on the balcony out in front of the people. And you'll notice Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe and Pilate said to them, as if to incur their pity, behold the man in his Latin tongue, eche omo, as if to say pity this poor creature. Look at this bruised and bloodied man.

Haven't you had enough? This is the one that you say is the big threat and is going to overturn the nation. Look at him now. He poses no threat. Now he's hoping they're going to say you're right.

Let him go. But like sharks who have gotten the smell of blood in the water, they're circling. They want nothing more than and nothing less than the death of Jesus Christ. Now as you yourself this morning in this message in your mind's eye are beholding the man, there's a scripture that is brought to mind, a prediction made by the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 52, in predicting this scene hundreds of years before it happened, Isaiah said, and many were appalled at him because his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form was marred than human likeness.

I'm sure that when people saw Jesus, at least a portion of the crowd just gasped like, oh my. This is Pilate, not wanting to make the choice, acting, dealing passively with Jesus, getting the politician to decide, the people to decide, pity to decide, but nobody's decided it. So here's Pilate. He believes in the innocence of Jesus, but he concedes to the abhorrence of the crowd, dealing passively. He doesn't really want to kill Jesus, but he didn't want to believe in him either.

He's not going to follow him. Jesus has talked about truth and another kingdom from heaven and Pilate's not interested in that. There's a lot of people who try to handle Jesus passively like Pontius Pilate. They'll say, well, I'm not like anti-Jesus, I'm not against Jesus, but I'm not like pro-Jesus either.

I'm sorry he got beat up and this is a horrible travesty. I'm not against the horrible travesty of justice, but at the same time, I really don't want to deal with Jesus. I'm neutral concerning Jesus and they try to live their life sort of, yeah, it doesn't really matter.

I just don't want to deal with them. I'm neutral. I'm a no vote. I abstain. Now Jesus himself said, you can't do that. He said, you are either for me or you are what? Against me.

Now think about that. You don't have to be opposed to Jesus to be against him. You're not for me, you're against me.

If you don't help me gather, you actually help me scatter, he said. I know people will say, yeah, but there's always two sides to every issue, always two sides to every question. You're right, but that's like telling a fly, there's always two sides to that fly paper.

You're right, but it makes a big difference which side he decides to land on. Let's look at the next way Pilate handled Jesus. Jesus can be handled fearfully. Look at verse 7. The Jews answered him, we have a law and according to our law, he ought to die because he made himself the son of God. Therefore when Pilate heard that saying, he was the more afraid and he went again into the Praetorium and said to Jesus, where are you from? But Jesus gave him no answer and Pilate said to him, are you not speaking to me?

Can you hear the pride in that? Do you not know that I have power to crucify you and power to release you? Now in hearing that, Jesus has something to say and he says it in verse 11. Jesus answered, you could have no power at all against me unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore the one who delivered me to you has the greater sin. From then on, Pilate sought to release him. Stop there. Finally, finally we hear the true motivation in verse 7 of the crowd that is bringing Jesus before Pilate.

See up to now they've sort of couched it. They said, well this guy's a real bad guy. He's an insurrectionist.

He's a tax evader and he's trying to cause an uprising. But now they finally admit the real charge, the real beef they have against Jesus is he claims to be God. He claims to be deity.

He says he is the son of God. That's the real beef they have. That's the real reason they want this crucifixion. Now when Pilate hears this, he's terrified.

He says he's the more afraid. Why does that frighten Pilate? Well let me help you understand the world view of Pontius Pilate, really of all the Romans and Pilate included. The Romans including Pontius Pilate, they were superstitious people. That is they believed not only in the world of humanity but they believed in the realm of the gods. And they believed that from time to time the gods could empower human beings with supernatural abilities or in some cases the gods could leave the realm of the gods and actually come to the earth, like Hercules, the Greek legend that was passed down to the Romans.

They believed that that could happen. So he hears that Jesus claims to be the son of God and Pilate gets terrified. Why?

Because Pilate just had him beat up. And if this guy has supernatural power or is indeed a son of one of the gods, I'm dead meat. I'm in hell. I'm in hell.

I'm in trouble. And so he is terrified. Now probably right about now I'm guessing that saying of his wife who warned him earlier that day comes to his mind. His wife had told him, Now I have nothing to do with this righteous man Jesus.

I have suffered many things in a dream because of him. And that comes to his mind and he's going, Oh no. So he goes to Jesus again and he asks him this question, Where are you from?

Now he's not asking his address. He knows he's the Galilean. He knows he's from Galilee, not from Judea.

And saying, Where are you from? He's saying, Do you come from the realm of the gods? Because that's what I just heard that you claim to be the son of God. So the claim of Jesus and the calm of Jesus unnerved him. Jesus says nothing to him. Doesn't say anything to him. Pilate asks him a question. Jesus answers it this way.

Pilate gets really unnerved. You're not going to answer me? Don't you know that I have power over you? Here's a question. Why didn't Jesus talk to him? Why didn't he answer him? Why did Jesus remain silent before Pilate? Let me give you three explanations. Explanation number one to fulfill prophecy. Isaiah chapter 53, anticipating this, said he was oppressed and he was afflicted. He opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter as a sheep before a cheers is silent.

So he opened not his mouth. We're glad you joined us today. Before you go, remember that when you give $50 or more to help reach more people with the gospel through Connect with Skip Heitzig, we'll send you Lee Strobel's book, Is God Real?, and two of his sermons on the same topic preached at Calvary Church to help you answer life's most consequential questions about God's existence. To request your copy of these resources, call 800-922-1888. That's 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. For more from Skip, be sure to check out the many resources available at connectwithskip.com slash store. We'll see you next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig weekend edition. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.