I invite you to turn with me this morning to John chapter 19 for a little broader portion of Scripture reading and also to Matthew chapter 27. As we all know, I trust our Lord Jesus Christ suffered at the hands of men to be sure, but that's not what saves us from our sins. It's His suffering, the wrath of God on the cross. Yet we still cannot overlook the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ at the hands of men. And in particular this morning, I want to draw your attention to His suffering at the hands of the royal soldiers. And we find very short accounts of that in Matthew 27, verses 27 to 31, and as well, almost identical in John chapter 15, it is, I believe. But then we find a little bit broader expression of it in John chapter 19. Our text from Matthew 27, 27 to 31, ends quite abruptly, you might say, as does Mark's account of it. John gives us a little bit broader version and gives us a little more detail following what the soldiers actually do to our Lord Jesus Christ. Before the soldiers take him, he has already been traded, as it were, for Barabbas. And it says there that he's been given over to be crucified, but that's not the final verdict yet. The final verdict comes after the portion with the soldiers. So the text this morning is Matthew 27, 27-31. We'll read that in a moment, but let's read from John chapter 19. And the last part of verse 15 also will serve as a portion of our text. And just remember that what we will read in Matthew 27 is included, that episode is included here at the beginning of John chapter 19. We begin at verse 1, reading through verse 16. Hear now the word of God. Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And they struck him in the face. Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews, Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him. When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, Here is the man. As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, Crucify! Crucify! But Pilate answered, You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him. The Jews insisted, We have a law, and according to that law he must die because he claimed to be the Son of God. When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid. And he went back inside the palace. Where do you come from? He asked Jesus. But Jesus gave him no answer. Do you refuse to speak to me? Pilate said. Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you? Jesus answered, You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore, the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin. From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar. When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down in the judge's seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement, which in Aramaic is Gabbatha. It was the day of preparation of Passover week, about the sixth hour. Here is your king, Pilate said to the Jews. But they shouted, take him away, take him away, crucify him. Shall I crucify your king? Pilate asked. We have no king but Caesar, the chief priests answered. Finally, Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. Turning back to Matthew chapter 27, beginning at verse 27 through 31. Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. Hail, King of the Jews, they said. They spit on him and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, no one, not any one of us, can identify with suffering the eternal wrath of God as a payment for our sins, as our Lord did. It's impossible for any one of us to understand or identify with that in any way, shape, or form. And by the grace of God, believers will never have to. But it is true that we can identify somewhat with the physical suffering and the embarrassment that Jesus endured. Not completely, though if we are honest, we will all admit that when we are struggling with something, no one ever has it as bad as me. It's impossible. But the truth is we've all been teased. We've all been picked on. We've all been made fun of in some way and at some time, yet not one of us has ever experienced even a fraction of the human hatred that Jesus experienced. Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered all the days of His life on this earth, but especially at the end. And this humiliation and suffering that He endured at the hands of men was somewhat, we might say, the crown of His rejection at the hands of men, which demonstrates the depth of the depravity of sin. It demonstrates the depth of human fallenness. And this last step leading to the cross for the King of Heaven included crowning Him the Lord of Shames. And this crowning ceremony took place with a public display of rejection. And as well, it took place with an unbelievable boast of rejection. And before we consider these two points together, it might be profitable for us to take just a moment to contrast a picture of this suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ at the hands of men with who He was and from where He had come. Now we know that in and of itself it was completely humiliating for the Son of God to become man, to come and take on human flesh. But then in that human flesh to suffer the mockery and the disgrace that He suffered is even far deeper. But who was this One? From where had He come? Well, we know He is God. As John says, He was the eternal Word by whom all things were made. He is the image of the Father. He is the Almighty, the all-powerful One. He is the One who is from everlasting to everlasting. He is the King of glory. He was and He still is. This is the One who came, who humbled Himself, who was humiliated. From where did He come? His home was heaven. With the Father, where He was adored by the cherubim and the seraphim, where He was perfectly obeyed by every single angel. This One who is God Himself, who was adored and cherished and obeyed, humbled Himself, did not consider equality with God, as Paul says, a thing to be grasped, but a thing to be held on to. When there was such a great work for Him to do. He humbled Himself and His humiliation included being treated worse than any criminal. He was made here the center of a comedy. He then became the victim of a tragedy. And beloved, when we remember who He is, we cannot help but to be amazed that He stooped so long. When we remember from where He came and how He was adored and worshipped and obeyed, we cannot help but to marvel that He became our substitute, the substitute for wicked human beings. And as He was crowned the Lord of shame, here, first of all, with a public display of rejection. Well, this wasn't the first time He was rejected. We know that He was rejected by His own people. That's why He was here, why He was put on trial. But here, He is rejected by these royal soldiers, the governor's soldiers, Pilate's soldiers. They take Him into Pilate's house, the praetorium. It's believed that most likely these soldiers were Syrian soldiers who were employed by Rome. The Syrians hated the Jews. They understood the Jewish culture. And these soldiers take advantage of this opportunity. They take advantage of the Jews' rejection of Jesus. And they considered Jesus to be, or at least treated Him to be, a fake. They treated Him as one who was trying to claim a throne that did not rightfully belong to Him. They join in on the ongoing mistreatment of this Jesus. You see, again, it wasn't the first time He was mistreated. This mistreatment was taking place already in the house of Caiaphas, the high priest at the hands of the Jews. Toward the end of Matthew 26, before the Sanhedrin, we read in verses 67 and 68, then they spit in His face and struck Him with their fists. Others slapped Him and said, prophesied to us, Christ, who hit you. That was by the Jews. And then here by the royal soldiers. It's somewhat amazing, I think, because in my mind, I don't believe the Jews would have ever stood by silently and let any other Jewish brother or sister be treated like this by the Romans without protesting. But here they desire it. Here they want it. Here they keep silent. These royal soldiers engage in a public display of rejection with mocking garments, garments of mockery. Boys and girls, they play dress-up with Jesus. You want to be a king? You claim to be a king? Well, let's play dress-up. Let's dress you like a king. Let's see how you do. What kind of a king you'll be. And they put a scarlet, or as Mark and John says, a purple robe on him. Now, this was believed to be an old, dirty, worn-out, faded soldier's jacket with a colored tint. And very simply, it was meant to represent a king's royal purple robe. And no doubt, as they put this crusty, old, worn-out jacket on him, it was terribly painful as it was put on fresh, torn flesh wounds. You know how it is when you scrape your elbow, and right after you do it, if you touch it and that skin is gone, it burns, it stings. His wounds from the beating, from the whippings. He had fresh wounds on his back and no doubt that crusty old jacket hurt. It hurt him, stung him as they laid it upon him. His physical suffering. But no king is complete without a crown, right? You've got to have a crown. You're not a king. Well, what can we use? Well, they make him a crown of thorns. And that crown was meant to satisfy their thirst, to mock him. He needed to have a crown, you see. but also to torture him because this crown was painful. And it's ironic, isn't it, that they used thorns? Because you remember that thorns and thistles were the effect of the divine curse for sin upon the earth pronounced in the Garden of Eden. Ironic. Or was it? Well, the king needs something else. He's got to have a scepter, right? So they give him a reed, some sort of a staff, some sort of a reed. And a scepter we know is a symbol of royalty. It's an instrument of power. Remember when Esther went in to see the king without being invited? If he had not raised his scepter toward her, that would have meant her certain death. It was an instrument of power. Well, they dressed Jesus as the king that he claimed to be, only then to move a little bit forward and crown him with mocking worship. The text says they knelt in front of him and mocked him. Hail King of the Jews! Now normally that would have been an expression of honor. But there was nothing honorable about this expression. There was nothing serious about this expression except to seriously make fun of Jesus. And boys and girls, this was not harmless teasing like we might do to each other. Oh, you think you're the best athlete or you think you're the best singer or whatever the case may be. and then we all have a good laugh about it. That's not what this was. But this mockery was intended to put Jesus down. It was intended to harm His reputation, to cause Him inner turmoil. It was a total display of not believing that He was a King. They wanted Him to feel in His innermost being every last bit of rejection. And their unbelief is magnified then as they crown Him with mocking gestures. Verse 30, They spit on Him and took the staff and struck Him on the head again and again. They spit on Him. If you've ever been spit on, you know how disgusting that is. That's the most disgusting of insults. To spit on someone is to treat them as the lowest form of life. Worse than an animal. And they hit him. And we need to understand here that this company of soldiers was possibly hundreds of soldiers. It wasn't just two or three or five or six that took him off into a dark room, into a dark corner, and picked on him for a while. It was possibly hundreds of soldiers taking turns, spitting on him. He was drenched, dripping with spit. And they took turns kneeling before him, hitting him again and again and again. The idea, it was continuous. It didn't stop. And each strike, beloved, pounded that crown of thorns harder on his head, piercing his flesh, causing him physical pain with blood dripping down. See, this was simply unthinkable to do to a king. You wouldn't dare look cross-eyed at the king, let alone say a word to the king without Him asking you to do it. The very One who could command your very life from you with your scepter. But here they treat His authority as less than nothing, as if to look Him in the eye and say, well, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? The word for hit there means to beat Him, to strike Him with a staff or a whip or a fist or a hand. And it's clear from Matthew 26, they did use their fists. And in John chapter 19, they hit him in the face. They didn't simply slap him around a little bit, you know, just hit him a little bit with no pain, but they hit him hard. They hit him hard with the full intention of giving him real physical pain. You see, beloved, all of this together, dressing him up like a king and offering mocking worship and drenching him with spit and hitting him again and again and again was as if to say, what a king you are. What a king you are, getting hit with your own scepter. It's disgraceful. And you can't do anything about it. We can't help but to step back and take a look at this overall picture. And this overall picture for the soldiers is that to them it's laughable. All of these soldiers to guard one man who was accused of being the king of the Jews, the Messiah. But look at him! Look at him! You see, even before playing dress-up, he looks like a peasant. And he claims the royal purple? He doesn't say a word. And he's going to arouse the Jews to take on Rome? He's covered with spit and fresh wounds and bruises and blood from the whippings and the beatings. He's going to inspire a nation to follow Him? No one's going to follow Him. No one's going to even look at Him. We'll give Him 15 minutes of fame. And they mocked Him over and over and over again. Beloved, these soldiers bowed before the only One who was able to save them from the wrath of God and from the torment of hell. Yet they did so in unbelief. They don't need Him. Look at Him. He is the one that needs help. He is the one that needs saving. They did not take Christ seriously. But we must also look at this overall picture for mankind in general. You see, this public display of rejection is a demonstration of man's need for a Savior. And beloved, I started out by saying that we can identify a little bit with the physical suffering and embarrassment that Jesus endured, but we must understand that we can identify a whole lot more with the actions of these soldiers. Their actions were our actions. We were guilty of this. We have done this to Him by our sin. And we know that hatred for the truth leads to mockery. It leads to an attempt to deface the truth, to make it look bad, to prove it wrong, to prove it unnecessary, to prove it as worthless. And we also know that the world constantly works to make believers and churches, true churches and Christian schools and Christian organizations look bad. The world loves to report things on the news and in the newspaper that might put our Christian integrity in question. they look for actions. They listen for words that maybe they can twist around or shamefully for us, maybe even not twist around, but that compromise our Christian testimony. Or the world works hard to undermine the Christian religion. You may remember just a few weeks ago that there was a claim out there that the burial place and the bones of Jesus and His so-called family, His wife and children, were found. all that does by that all the world tries to do is discredit the claims of his moral purity of his resurrection of who he truly is beloved sadly many still do not take their sin and their need for redemption seriously especially by a cross come on that's laughable and the fact that they don't take their sin and their need seriously it simply proves the truth of Paul's words in Romans 3 that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one. But we must also look at this overall picture for believers. You see, the believer by the grace of God recognizes those thorns, that very symbol of the divine curse, the thorns that He wore on His head. The believer recognizes by God's grace that that crown of thorns pointed to His victory over the curse of sin. it pointed to His victory that set us free. Even before the cross, as He was mocked, He was doing battle in His flesh. He still had to suffer the wrath of God against sin, but here He took the full cup of the hatred and the wrath of men, which pointed, which led to the cross and the wrath of God where He completely emptied the cup of God's wrath. Beloved, it's empty. The cup of God's wrath is empty for you and me. There is none left for us to drink. Not even one drop. Yet even more than suffering this public display of rejection as He was crowned the Lord of shame, our Lord Jesus Christ at this incident was also pierced in His Spirit with an unbelievable boast of rejection. In John 19, verse 15, but they shouted, Take Him away! Take Him away! Crucify Him! Shall I crucify your king? Pilate asked. We have no king but Caesar, the chief priest answered. We have no king but Caesar. How in the world would anyone dare to make a boast like that? And it's unbelievable, at least in part, because of their claim to be God's own, very own, special and chosen people. Pilate, as it were, rescues Jesus from the soldiers. Not really, but he rescues Jesus from the soldiers only then to parade him before the eyes of his accusers. He brings him out and says, Here is the man. Behold the man. Now we know that Pilate didn't believe that Jesus was guilty. He, it seems, didn't want to sentence him to crucifixion. We know he failed in the end. He's guilty for that. But it's very possible that as he brings Jesus out covered with spit and blood and these so-called royal clothing as He parades around this sorry-looking man. He does so with the hope that the Jews will see that He's only a man. He's only a man in Pilate's estimation. And He's not worth all this. He's powerless. He's no threat. But He wasn't only a man. And in reality, the heathen pilot, during the ushering in of this last Passover celebration, he insults the Jews' memory of God's redemption of Israel through the Passover lamb and he mocks their most cherished messianic hope. As he parades Jesus around in this way, he mocks their most cherished messianic hope as if to say, you expect a Messiah? Well, this is what I think of that. Your nation has no more hope of overpowering or gaining freedom from Rome than this despicable figure has of becoming a true king. It's utterly ridiculous. He mocked their most cherished messianic hope. And the problem is, the problem here is that the Jews didn't care. They agreed with him. The chief priests couldn't even stand the sight of this mock king. They cry out, we have no king of Caesar. Pilate, is he your king? He's ours. We have no king but Caesar. He's all we need. Beloved, what a pitiful cry of death. And this happened by the very heads of the Jewish nation. It wasn't simply a few radicals that shouted this out. It wasn't just some career protesters who travel around the country getting paid to stand in picket lines. They don't care what they're protesting. They don't even know what they're protesting about. These were the heads of the Jewish nation who represented the Jewish nation. And with this unbelievable boast, beloved, they betrayed their heritage. They were proud to be sons of Abraham. They were proud to have a covenant relationship with God. They were proud to be God's chosen people. They were proud that they hated Caesar. But now, they pledge themselves to Caesar and they reject God's promises of a Messiah. They turn their backs completely on God. And with this unbelievable boast, they also repeat history. In 1 Samuel 8, Israel demands a king. And God says to Samuel, boys and girls, you remember this, God says to Samuel in verse 7, it is not you, Samuel, they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. And they found out throughout their history, even with their own kings, how difficult that was. And later on, even in their history, they didn't have an earthly king. How difficult life is when you reject God as king. But also with this repeat of history, we can't help but to be reminded of the Garden of Eden when the serpent came to Eve and said, you want to be like God? This is how you do it. Dethrone Him. Dethrone Him. Take Him off of the throne of your life. Take His place. And here, the Jews give God's place to Satan's earthly king, Caesar. And therefore, ultimately, this unbelievable boast destroyed their hope. Because to reject Christ is to reject the very one in whom alone the salvation of the people was wholly contained. There is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. To reject Christ was to reject the very one on whom all of God's promises depended and upon whom the whole of their religion was founded. Their religion was founded on the promises of God and those promises depended on this Messiah. To deprive this Christ, or to reject this Christ, was to deprive themselves of the grace of God and every blessing because to reject Christ as King and Lord is to have no sacrifice for sin. It's to have no hope. And the Jewish leaders placed their hope at that moment in the fading glory of this world. But beloved, we cannot leave this text without seeing the warning that there is here. There's a warning, first of all, against those who deny His claims. A warning against those who say, well, He's a good teacher. He was a great man. He was a wonderful example. But He's not God. Or those who say that He's only one of many ways to get to heaven. And to them, Jesus responds, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one, absolutely no one comes to the Father except through me. But there's also a warning against those whose profession of faith is not genuine. Those who are hypocrites. Those who have made a profession of faith before the elders and before God's congregation. But they don't truly believe. Whose hearts are not right with God. Whose hearts are filled with hatred and selfishness. and they mock Him, they deny Him, they insult Him when they bow their heads as if to pray. And they do so when they come to the Lord's table to partake of something they don't truly believe. They cast shame on Him when they say, I believe in Him, yet they treat Him, they do not treat Him as the Lord of their life in all obedience. And to these, Jesus says, if you love Me, you will obey what I command. Or one day they will hear these words, Depart from me, for I never knew you. But there's another warning, and that's a warning against true believers, against you and me. We who dishonor our professions of faith whenever we sin. That includes all of us. Whenever we sin, especially knowingly, whatever way it might be, whether it's giving in to selfishness, or whether it's losing control of our tongue or our temper, or whether it's engaging in sinful conduct that the world says is okay, but God hates. Whenever we sin, especially knowingly, we crown Him the Lord of shame. We treat His shed blood as if it was no big deal. We reject Him all over again. You see, beloved, And so many people want to take this account of our Lord Jesus Christ and the humiliation and the suffering that He endured and they want to pity Him. Oh, poor, poor Jesus. But you see, beloved, it's not Him who needs our pity. It is we who need His pity. And our comfort is that He has pitied us. Our comfort is that even as He endured that humiliation in those days before the cross and then resolutely went to that cross for those who would believe on Him, even them, even for the shame and the mockery that we still assault Him with each and every day, He died. He died for all of it. And He is victorious over the sting of the thorns. He is victorious over the sting of the mockery. He is victorious over the sting of the suffering and shame and the sting of the cross, and He is victorious over the sting of death. And our hope is only in His blood and righteousness. The truth is we deserve to be spit on, to be drenched in spit for our ugly sinfulness. But He was. He was in order to present us as pure and unspotted to His Father. And the disgrace that He endured at the hands of sinful men leading to the cross. On that cross, He earned us favor with God. You see, the soldiers tried to present Jesus as the kind of king that they thought that He was. An imitation. A fake. But little did they know how true that picture was. Not that He was a fake. Not that He was imitation. But that picture truly showed what kind of king He was. The one who was despised, the one who went to the cross, demonstrated in that picture the kind of king he really is. One to go the distance for his people. He did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, a thing to be held on to, and to let God's people die everlastingly. He humbled himself. He humbled himself. And even before he humbled himself all the way to the wrath of God for sin and to the point of death, he humbled himself to the hatred and the rejection of mankind. A hatred and rejection that not any one of us would put up with and be silent about it. Yet when man wanted him to look and feel as bad as humanly possible, what did he do? He remained silent. He didn't say a word. It was only when he suffered at the hand of God for the sin of those who rejected Him that He cried out, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? So that God might receive us. Brothers and sisters, He suffered willingly. And those who have the sure comfort of victory in this Lord of shame also willingly suffer separation from and the rejection of the world that rejected Jesus. Those who are in Christ Jesus by faith are separate from the world in this life. In our business practices. In how we treat the poor. In how we respect authority. In how we view marriage. In how we raise our children. In how we go on a date. Especially in how we treat the Lord's Day. We are separate from the world. We are separate from the world in our allegiance. We have one King that is King Jesus. The one that the world mocks. the one that the world says is ridiculous is our King. And He is victorious, beloved. And we are called as His people to love and trust Him. We are called to show our love and trust for Him. We are called to daily repentance of the sins for which He shed His blood. Love so amazing, so divine demands my soul, my life, my all. And to show our gratitude we are called to crown Him with many crowns. A crown of praise, a crown of adoration, a crown of love and trust and obedience. And we are called to show our gratitude by finding shelter and protection in His crown of thorns. Just as a bird makes a nest in the thorny bush and those thorns become a protection for and a safety from harm for the baby birds, His crown of thorns is His crown of victory. And it is there we find protection for and shelter from the harm of sin. Beloved Christ's crown of shame in the eyes of the world and all the mocking and all the disgrace and everything the world can heap upon Him did not and cannot change the truth of who He is. He is the Lord of glory. He is the suffering servant. He is the victorious Savior. And that means that there's no sin too great for which He hasn't already suffered and died. There is no sin too great that God will not forgive for those who look to Him in repentance and faith. And if you're here this morning and that's been your difficulty, that you just can't seem to get past your sin, that certainly I'm too great a sinner. God could never forgive me. I'm just not worth it. Well, that's true. In Christ Jesus, you are worth it. Jesus Christ has taken every drip, every drop of the cup of God's wrath so that you and I don't have to. And beloved, He has been crowned as victor over sin, death, Satan, and hell. And our Lord Jesus Christ, who is crowned the Lord of shame, has opened paradise for you and for me. Alleluia. Amen. Let's pray together. heavenly father once again oh lord we are humbled we are humbled as we think indeed about the suffering and shame of our lord jesus christ sorry that indeed he endured that yet so grateful he endured it for us and that He endured it from us. For we must confess, Lord, that we too are to blame. It is our sinfulness which is the reason that He went to the cross. And therefore, Father, even as we are humbled, we are filled with joy to know that indeed this salvation has been accomplished, that He has taken every drop of Your wrath, that there is none left for your people. And may we respond to you with a song of joy, with joyful hearts and lives. May we never cease to give you thanksgiving and praise throughout this life as we are prepared by your Spirit for the life to come where we will give you never-ending joy and worship and praise. Father, may we sing our praise. May we pray our praise. May we live our praise, empowered by Your Spirit. And may You accept it all for Jesus' sake. In His name alone we pray. Amen.