Aaron Capito
This week's message looked at John 19:1-16, the first part of a two part study on the Crucifixion. It covers Jesus' flogging, His trial in front of Pilate, and Pilate finally handing Him over to be crucified.
Passages: John 19:1-16
The message opened with a recent UFC title fight. To someone without any background on the sport, a photo of the two fighters afterward would make it look like the wrong man won: one fighter looked barely touched, the other looked beaten up. But anyone who knew the full fight understood the beaten up fighter had actually dominated. Having the full picture changes how you read what you're looking at.
That's the lens for John 19. Jesus' beating and mocking before the cross can look like a loss. But knowing who He is and what He was accomplishing shows the opposite: He wasn't losing. He was winning, decisively.
Pilate had Jesus flogged: struck repeatedly with a multi strand leather whip, sometimes fitted with pieces of bone or metal, designed to cause serious injury, not just pain. Soldiers forced a crown of thorns onto His head and dressed Him in a purple robe, then mocked Him as "King of the Jews" while striking Him with their hands.
The point: Jesus, as God, could have stopped it at any moment. Like someone tapping out of a chokehold to signal they've had enough, Jesus could have tapped out of suffering He didn't deserve. He chose to endure it instead.
Pilate brought the beaten Jesus out, still wearing the crown and robe, to show the crowd he found no guilt in Him. The chief priests and officers still demanded He be crucified. The Jewish leaders pointed to their law: claiming to be the Son of God was, in their eyes, blasphemy worthy of death (see Leviticus 24:16).
But Jesus never blasphemed. He lived a perfect life, performed miracles people saw with their own eyes, and quoted Scripture with total understanding. When Pilate heard the claim that Jesus said He was God's Son, John says he became even more afraid. Even a man who didn't believe was shaken by the possibility that it was true.
The takeaway: how you see Jesus determines how you respond to Him. If He's just a good teacher, you can shrug Him off. If He's the Son of God, He's not someone you simply listen to. He's someone you surrender to.
Pilate asked Jesus where He was from, and Jesus stayed silent, which confused and angered Pilate. He reminded Jesus he had the authority to either release Him or crucify Him: the choice was his. Jesus answered that Pilate's authority only existed because it had been given to him from above.
The point: God is sovereign even over the actions of sinful people. Jesus' beating and the crucifixion ahead of Him were genuinely evil acts committed by sinful people, and yet God used them to accomplish the greatest good imaginable: the salvation of sinners. When we go through suffering or situations we don't understand, we can trust God hasn't lost control, even when we can't see what He's doing.
The Jewish leaders pressured Pilate by threatening his loyalty to Caesar: releasing someone who claimed to be a king would make Pilate look disloyal to Rome. Pilate presented Jesus one more time, saying, "Behold your King!" The leaders answered, "We have no king but Caesar," even though they claimed to follow God. That's the irony of these verses: people who said they served the Lord chose an earthly ruler over Him, then demanded the death of the very God they claimed to serve. Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified.
The message pointed out that it wasn't only the anger of that crowd that put Jesus on the cross. It was our sin too, and it's His finished work that gives us life.
Main point of the message: Jesus endured what He did not deserve so that we could receive what we could never earn. He wasn't a helpless victim. He was the King who endured, the Son of God who willingly suffered, the innocent man who took the place of the guilty, because of His love for us.
Use these to keep the conversation going after service:
A few easier openers if you want to start smaller: