Today we are right in the middle of one of the heaviest and saddest parts of Scripture: The crucifixion of Jesus. But, what’s interesting to me is that even though most of your Bibles’ title this section ‘The crucifixion of Jesus,’ there are only six words that talk about the actual crucifixion. Those words are, “And when they had crucified him.” That’s it. No talk about the process of nailing him to the cross. No talk about the excruciating pain. No talk about hanging in the sun and beginning the process of suffocating to death. No talk about what happened spiritually to Jesus on the cross. 

Now, in next week’s passage, we do get some of that. But, I think Matthew is wanting us to see something else here. He’s continuing something we saw in the previous passage: Jesus being mocked. When you look at Jesus’ trial with Pilate just before this passage and carry that into this passage, the main theme becomes clear: mocking. The soldiers mocked Jesus when they dressed him up, put a crown of thorns on him, gave him a staff, and bowed down saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And in this passage, that mocking continues. It’s not just the Jewish leaders and Roman soldiers though, it’s everyone.

Matthew is throwing this in our face. He’s challenging to to see who Jesus really is in this passage. Is he a fraud? Is he a failed prophet? Is he an odd example we should try and emulate? Or is this dying man the King we should bow down to? 

At some level, whether it’s subtle or aggressive, people who do not see Jesus as the Eternal King that Matthew is putting before us are going to mock him. The subtle mocking is more of a ‘bless your heart’ mocking and the aggressive mocking is more of a ‘how are you stupid enough or backwoods enough to believe this mumbo jumbo?” And there is, of course, a lot in between. 

As we saw last week, there is no middle ground with Jesus. He is either King over your life or not. You can try and be neutral for a time like Pontius Pilate, but at some point you will be forced to make a decision: is Jesus King or not. And if he is not, the inevitable result will be some level of mocking by us. So, I want to dive into this and look at 1) The reason for the mocking, 2) the irony in the mocking, and 3) our hope because of the mocking. 

1. The reason for the mocking

The people in this passage are mocking Jesus primarily for two reasons. They don’t like the claims of Jesus and they don’t like the weakness of Jesus. First, the claims of Jesus. They don’t like that Jesus claimed to be the King of Jews and God Himself. It’s so interesting to me in my own personal ministry with non-believers how many of them think that Jesus was a good man, a good example, or even some sort of prophet sent by God, but not God Himself. But, when you look at the way the crowd mocked Jesus, you just can’t get around the fact that they are mocking him BECAUSE he claimed to be both King and God. Let’s go back and look at the mocking.  “This is Jesus, vthe King of the Jews…. And ythose who passed by zderided him, awagging their heads40 and saying, b“You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! cIf you are dthe Son of God, come down from the cross.” 41 So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders,mocked him, saying, 42 e“He saved others; fhe cannot save himself. gHe is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 hHe trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” 44 iAnd the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.

Everyone is mocking Jesus. The religious leaders, the crowd, those who walked by, and even the other people being crucified. They hate the claims that Jesus is making so they are mocking him. And we see it still today. We are a few weeks away from Easter and every time Easter rolls around, you see the History Channel, Discovery Channel, and a few others showing shows like “The Search for The Historical Jesus.” Do you know what that means? We don’t believe what the Bible says about Jesus. We don’t believe Jesus is any kind of divine King, so let’s figure out who he really was. 

But, mocking Jesus isn’t something that only the unbelieving world does. We mock Jesus’ claims when we live in a way that challenges the kingship of Jesus. When we give ourselves over to addiction instead of Jesus. When we give ourselves over to pornography instead of Jesus. When we give ourselves over to anger, unforgiveness, lust, or greed, we are mocking the claims of Jesus who says love, forgiveness, self-control, and generosity are the ethics of his kingdom and the ways we find joy and satisfaction in him. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you aren’t a believer when we mock Jesus in this way. It just means that there is so much more joy to be found in Jesus than we are experiencing. 

There is another way we mock Jesus, but I want to be very careful how I say it. I want to be sensitive. We mock Jesus when life gets hard. I want to be sensitive because I know some of you have been through terribly hard things and I don’t want to minimize that pain in any way. But, I remember walking with a single mom, a Christian, through the loss of a job and she didn’t know how she could pay the bills and support her kids. This was a very serious situation. And she said, “How could God allow this to happen to me?” Again, I want to be careful here, but do you know what she was saying? I’m not sure that God is truly a powerful King. I’m not sure that God is truly a good King. 

Another reason I want to be careful is because the Bible gives us room to go to God with the hard things. King David did a lot of that in the Psalms. But there is a fine line between going to God to try and understand the hard things in our lives and griping about his Kingship over our lives. 

There is a huge difference between complaining to God and complaining about God. The Psalms model taking our struggles, our pains, our hardships to God. Honest, humble questioning when we are at our wits end is a good and right thing. But we cross that line when we complain about God. When we question the justice of God. God how could you do this to me? Why are you treating me in a manner less than what I deserve? When we cross that line, we are mocking God

The second reason they are mocking Jesus is because of what they perceive to be his weakness. What kind of a king would be crucified by his people? Tell me the last blockbuster movie where the hero dies without accomplishing his or her mission. Or where the hero dies marred in shame leaving everyone to question why this all happened. Maybe there is one, but I couldn’t think of it. That kind of a movie wouldn’t make any money because it’s not the kind of story we want. And we don’t even live in a shame/honor culture like the Jewish culture in the gospels. Whatever aversion we would have to a story like this, they would have much more. We live in a guilt/innocence culture. Although many sociologists are actually saying we are beginning to transition into shame/honor culture with the rise of cancel culture and certain aspects of the social justice movement. 

A shame/honor culture is a social system in which people's behavior is regulated primarily by shame (avoiding public disgrace) and honor (gaining respect and social standing). So imagine this scene through the lens of a shame/honor culture where your name is the most important thing. Your livelihood rose and fell based on your family name. To have your name ruined was basically the worst thing that could happen to you. To be crucified wasn’t just killing your body, it was killing your name. All your dignity was taken from you. Jesus wasn’t just being executed, he was being shamed in the worst possible way. 

Weakness wasn’t just looked down on in that culture though. One place we see it is in the rise of the manosphere and toxic masculinity. Many of you have seen Andrew Tate in the news recently. He said, "The universe has always ensured that the weak are conquered. Every weak nation. Every weak race. Every weak faith. Stop complaining about Islam and look in the mirror... I genuinely encourage Christians to stick up for themselves. Islam is not your enemy. Weakness is." 

But Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “...we preach Christ jcrucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.” Nothing about Jesus on the cross communicated kingship to them and that brought about mocking. But, what is fascinating is the irony in the mocking. 

1. The irony in the mocking

There are two ironies that Matthew wants us to see. First, he wants us to see that in their mocking, they are actually quoting Satan. They are echoing Satan’s words from Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness in Matthew 4 and Matthew wants us to see that. In verse 40, the mockers say, “Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” Well, in Matthew 4, Satan tempts Jesus by saying, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.”

The mockers also echo Satan’s words when they say, “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” Well, when Satan was tempting Jesus, Satan said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you.’ In both cases they are challenging Jesus’ identity as the Son of God by urging Him to prove Himself by performing a miraculous act. In both cases they are mocking Jesus’ authority and power to place themselves up higher than Jesus. The irony is that Satan knew Jesus was the Son of God, but the people did not. 

Jesus could have come down from the cross, but doing so would mean failing to save the world. The same taunts that Satan first spoke in the wilderness are now shouted by the very people he came to save. But, by staying on the cross, he defeats Satan’s temptations once and for all to save His mocking people. 

The second irony in the mocking is that as they mock, Scripture is being fulfilled. This is harder to see if you don’t know your Old Testament really well, but in this short passage, at least six prophecies of the Old Testament are being specifically fulfilled. The wine mixed with gall in verse 34 is a fulfillment of Psalm 69. The gambling for his clothes fulfilled Psalm 22. The thieves to Jesus’ right and left fulfill Isaiah 53 that said Jesus would be numbered with the transgressors. And the mocking by the Jewish leaders fulfills Psalm 22:8. And then the whole scene fulfills Isaiah 50 and 53. Isaiah 50:6 says, “wI gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. - Is 50:6. And Isaiah 53:3 says, “He was despised and rejected2 by men, a man of sorrows3 and acquainted with4 grief;5 and as one from whom men hide their faces6 he was despised, and lwe esteemed him not. - Is 53:3

Can you see the irony? As they are mocking him for claiming to be God and King, all the prophecies of who the Messianic King would be are being fulfilled. And to bring this all together, the cross is where Jesus fully rejects Satan’s offer of power without suffering and fulfills what God had been working through thousands of years of human history. This is the culminating moment in what we call redemptive history, but the people could not see it and they mocked Jesus in his moment of glory and their glimpse of eternal salvation. 

So, where can we find hope because of this mocking? 

1. Our hope because of the mocking

Jesus endured the mocking so we could be blessed. One of my favorite movies of all time is an Italian movie called Life is beautiful which stars Roberto Benigni who also produced and directed the film. I think everyone should watch this movie. I don’t know of another movie that pulls out every possible emotion inside of me. It’s a movie about a Jewish-Italian man during World War II who is deported with his son to a Nazi concentration camp. To shield his son from the horrors of the camp, the father pretends it’s all a game. He tells his son that they are competing for a grand prize which is a real army tank if they follow all the rules. Rules like hiding from guards and not complaining about being hungry. It’s so funny and so sad at the same time. 

Everyone in the camp thinks the father is crazy. The guards think he’s crazy. But he keeps up this illusion to protect his son from the trauma of the concentration camp. The situation grows darker and darker and the father is finally taken away to be executed. But even as he walks to his death, he keeps smiling and reassuring his son that all is ok until the very last moment. The next morning, the camp is liberated by Allied soldiers and the son sees their tank and thinks he’s won the game, never realizing the horrors he has been through or the extent of his father’s sacrifice. 

The irony, the tragedy, and the love all wrap together to save this boy. That’s a picture of this story. Jesus endured the mocking even as he was triumphing. But not for the love of an innocent boy, for the love of the mockers. For the love of us. So that we cannot be mocked for our sin, but be seen as innocent sons and daughters by God the Father who loved us before the foundation of the world. Not because Jesus loved us and made the Father love us. Not because of some good future version of ourselves. But simply because He loved us the way a father loves his boy and will do anything to bring him safely through the storm. So that we will never realize the horrors that await outside of Jesus Christ. 

So, where does this leave us now? Going back to the movie, I wonder what that boy thought of his father as he grew up and realized what his father had actually done for him. Likewise, when we see the love, power, goodness, and authority of Jesus and what he has done to save us, how should that shape our view of him? We should run to him and submit to him. We should recognize not only that he deserves our full devotion, but it is in that devotion that we will find our joy. When we see Jesus for who he is, we should want to submit our addictions, anger, unforgiveness, lust, greed, and every other chain on our souls to him… so that we can be free of them. 

When things get hard in life, we have a new lens through which we can view them. There is a book called the J-Curve by a man named Paul Miller. Miller was first known for his great book, The Praying Life. He was actually at my former church doing a lecture on praying when he first introduced the concept of the J-Curve which wasn’t a book yet and every question he got at the end of the lecture wasn’t on prayer, but the J-Curve. The J-Curve, Miller says, is the normal Christian life. It is a life that repeatedly reenacts the dying and rising of Jesus. Like the letter J, it demonstrates how Jesus’ life went down into death and then rose up even higher in resurrection. He writes that it is not only the pattern of Jesus’ life, but our lives in our everyday moments. And you can grab a copy of that book on our resource shelf in the lobby. 

The normal Christian life is a life given over to many deaths. We die to comfort, convenience, worldly success, approval, ease, expectations, resentment, cynicism, and despair only to be ‘resurrected’ even higher over and over again to repentance, love, humility, vulnerability, trust, and hope. He writes that just as Jesus substitutes himself for us, we substitute the pieces of our lives for others. So, when others mock us, we can endure it knowing that this is a way we substitute a piece of our lives, in some small way, and there is a promised resurrection in our hearts that will come. This is the essence of what Paul wrote in Philippians 3.  hthat I may know him and ithe power of his resurrection, and jmay share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may kattain the resurrection from the dead. - Phil 3:10,11

When things get hard in life now, we get to share in the sufferings of Jesus knowing that they will lead to resurrections in our hearts in this life and an eternal resurrection when he comes back. When we see Jesus in our minds and hearts on the cross enduring the mocking and the excruciating pain, we can see that he did that for us. And if he did that for us, what hardship in this life can we possibly blame him for? If we know that all our hardships are under his control, that they will be used in this life for our good and his glory, and that they will one day, when this life is done, be taken from us completely, we will be very slow to mock him when things get hard. 

Simon of Cyrene is a really interesting part of this story. Jesus was too weak from his beatings to carry the cross and the Romans randomly picked Simon in the crowd and made him carry the cross. That’s all we are told. So, why do you think Matthew recorded his name? Matthew wasn’t the diligent historian that Luke was. He recorded his name because his audience knew him. He became a Christian. He was known to the church. 

Mark gives us even more detail that would be odd if the church didn’t know him. Mark says that Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus. Why mention who Simon’s boys were if they were not known to the church? Well, Alexander is mentioned in Acts 19. In Ephesus Alexander stood between Paul and a mob. When Paul sends greetings to Rome in Romans 16, he greets Rufus…and his mother. Why mention Cyrene? Well, we are told that men of Cyrene came to faith on Pentecost in Acts 2 and that Paul went with men of Cyrene in Acts 11 to preach the gospel for the first time to the gentiles. Could that have been Simon? I deeply believe it was. 

Simon saw Jesus on the cross. He saw Jesus enduring the mocking. He saw the power of the Holy Spirit unleashed at pentecost and his literal carrying the cross became a metaphorical carry of many crosses for the rest of his life. Each of which would produce heart resurrections And Kingdom fruit. Simon went home after Pentecost and his wife and boys came to faith and the whole family carried on the mission of the church. Simon knew that Jesus wasn’t the king they were expecting, he was so much more. He was the King they needed. 

He was the honorable king who came to endure the shame of the cross to bring us, shameful mockers, to honor. We have the honor of receiving Jesus’ righteousness which means that when we stand before God the Father, we will not be mocked for our sin. He looks at us now and will on that day as if we had never sinned. In the words of Tim Keller, “Jesus Christ took the shame. He had his reputation destroyed. He had his name destroyed, so that we could have a name of honor with God forever.”