Jesus,
the founder and perfecter of our faith,
who for the joy that was set before him
endured the cross,
despising the shame…
HEBREWS 12:2
As we continue our preaching series in Mark, the specifics of this verse from Hebrews become shockingly apparent as our Lord is dragged into Pilate’s hall and mocked. All of this had been predicted by Isaiah the prophet.
He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters), and they called together the whole battalion.
And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him.
And they began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!”
And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him.
And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him.
MARK 15:16-20
Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, thine only crown:
How pale thou art with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How does that visage languish which once was bright as morn!
What thou, my Lord, has suffered was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! Tis I deserve thy place;
Look on me with thy favor, vouchsafe to me thy grace.
What language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend,
For this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end?
O make me thine forever; and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love for thee.
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