Bible Passage: Mark 15:17-21
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: March 26, 2025

Bulletin – March 26 Lenten Service

Passion History Lesson 3

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

The prophet Isaiah foresaw our text tonight.  Isaiah famously prophesied about Jesus:  He was crushed for our iniquities. (Isaiah 53:5)  He says Jesus was “crushed.”  It’s a vivid word.  Picture taking a hammer to a Ritz cracker or a piece of glass.  That cracker or glass would be smashed into a million pieces.   That is the idea of being “crushed.”

In our text tonight, Jesus is “crushed.”  There is not much glory to see here!  The “hammer” of a company of Romans soldiers smashes him.  Our text takes place after Pilate has washed his hands of Jesus and turned him over to be crucified.  Before taking him out to Calvary, the Roman goons have little fun with the condemned Jesus.  Our text tells us they put a purple robe on him and put a crown of thorns on his head.  They mock the claims that Jesus is king.  They fall on their knees in front of him and scornfully they say, Hail, king of the Jews! (v. 18)  They have a stick on hand.  Again and again they take turns whacking Jesus on the head.  Many of them spit in Jesus’ face.  Can you imagine how gross and disgusting it would be to have filthy, smelly Roman soldiers spit in your face?  When they had all had their fill of this savagery, they put Jesus’ clothes back on him and began the march out to Golgotha.

I am not a doctor so am unqualified to “code” or diagnose all that Jesus would have been suffering at this point.  Certainly he had experienced trauma to his body, blunt force trauma and deep lacerations to his back due to the scourging.  He would be suffering massive blood loss and perhaps dehydration.  Perhaps because of the repeated blows to his head he had a concussion by this time.  Added to this is the fact that he had been awake all night.  Even without the physical trauma he would have been exhausted.

It is little wonder, then, that when they place the cross-beam of the cross upon Jesus for him to carry out to Calvary, Jesus cannot do it.  He struggles.  He stumbles.  The Roman soldiers grab a man from the crowd, Simon from Cyrene, and they force him to carry Jesus’ cross behind him.   What we see seems surreal.  He can’t do it.  He “can’t.”  But Jesus can do anything!  He changed water into wine!  He healed all kinds of sickness and trauma!  He restored the health and vigor of hundreds if not thousands in his three years of ministry!  He even raised three people from the dead!  Now he can’t carry his cross?  It wouldn’t even have taken a miracle to carry it!  Simon is able to carry it!

Our minds go back to the words of Isaiah 53.  There Isaiah said of this crushed Jesus:  It was the Lord’s will to crush him. (Isaiah 53:10)  This is what the Father wanted.  It was his will.  And Jesus had prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, Thy will be done.  Jesus shared one will with his Father.  And so Jesus willingly struggled and stumbled.

Jesus does what we so often do.  Jesus struggled and stumbled.  We struggle and stumble.  That is a term I heard long ago while reading a commentary by Martin Franzmann.  Martin Franzmann called us Christians “struggling, stumbling saints.”  But there is a big difference between Jesus’ struggling and stumbling and our struggling and stumbling.  Jesus struggles and stumbles PHYSICALLY.  We struggle and stumble MORALLY.

Paul sketches the “struggling, stumbling saint” in Romans 7.  It is a self-portrait.  I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing…So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me…What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? (Romans 7:15-24, excerpts)  Behold!  The struggling, stumbling saint!  Conflicted!  Disappointed in their performance!  To use Paul’s word, “wretched.”  Remind you of anyone you know?

It’s our struggling and stumbling as Christians that gets us most of all, isn’t it?  We almost find it easier to say to the vilest offender, “Jesus loves you and forgives you” than to say those words to ourselves!  We know better!  We should be better!  “Why, why do I still struggle and stumble over things I should have long-ago been done with?”  Why don’t I have better powers of resistance?  It feels like we are spitting in Jesus’ face, doesn’t it?  The power of sin and the feeling of disgust in ourselves can feel crushing, can’t it?

Here is the hidden glory of what we see!  Jesus struggles and stumbles because we struggle and stumble.  Jesus struggles and stumbles out to the place where they nail him to the piece of wood Jesus was too weak to carry.  There the Lord Jesus is completely crushed beneath the hammer of God’s Law.  There he is broken into a million pieces, so to speak.  He does it so that the struggling, stumbling saint – you and I – can say the rest of what Paul, the struggling, stumbling saint said:  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:24-25)

There in the struggling, stumbling, crucified Jesus is VICTORY.  Victory over sin and guilt.  Victory over shame and feelings of self-loathing.  Victory over an accusing conscience.  Victory over our inner conflict and inner turmoil.  Victory over the devil.  Victory over death and the grave.  Victory that will be fully realized, and last forever, in heaven.  There is the glory that is hidden tonight!  There is the victory in the struggling, stumbling Savior!

Amen.