Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

On June 2, 1953, Queen Elizabeth II was coronated as the queen of the United Kingdom at Westminster Abbey.

At her coronation, Elizabeth was draped with a robe of gold thread and a crown made of gold with 444 precious stones.

She received the Sovereign’s ring which is pure gold with an octagonal sapphire overlaid with a square ruby.

The ring alone contains 14 diamonds.

She was given two scepters.

The first was the scepter of the cross, which is symbolic of her role as the head of state.

The scepter of the cross contains 333 diamonds, 31 rubies, and 7 sapphires.

At the top, the Cullinan I diamond, the Great Star of Africa is placed which at 530 carats is the largest clearcut diamond in the world.

The other scepter she received was the dove scepter, recognizing her as the spiritual leader of the UK.

This scepter is made with 285 precious gems, 94 diamonds, and 53 rubies.

Housed at the Tower of London, the Crown Jewels are officially listed as ‘priceless’ and are given to the monarch for the demonstration of their glory, prosperity, and anointing.

This morning, we are going to see a coronation of a different type.

It is the coronation of a greater King, not in his glory, but in his agony.

He will not be crowned with gold, but thorns.

There will be not no robe of golden thread but the cape of a Roman soldier draped over his mutilated back.

In the place of diamond crested scepters will be the blood drenched cane that was used to stripe his back.

Yes, this coronation will be far different, but it will mark the end of a tyrant and the coming of a greater Kingdom.

God’s Word

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Picture 1: Mankind “Living Under” His “Curse”.

v. 29 “they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Jesus has just been scourged.

It was a process used by the Romans to weaken a man before he went to the cross and to expedite his death.

Very often, the condemned man didn’t survive the scourging itself.

They would strip him down, stretch his back over a post, and use a series of whips and canes to the point his entrails would be exposed through his now skinless back.

From there, it says it’s at that point that they brought him before the whole battalion, which would consist of about 600 Roman soldiers, in which they would perform their mock coronation of the “King of the Jews.”

It was a coronation that was dripping with irony for their mocking words were far truer than they could ever realize, and they were working in accordance with the plan of God to ultimately crown the King of Glory.

Beginning here, we see at least three pictures on display (headline) that are crucial for us to understand who this King is and why it matters to us.

The first picture that I want us to notice is that of Mankind “living under” his “curse”.

In , Adam and Eve made a decision that would affect them and all of their offspring to follow.

They decided that they wanted to be like God, as though they were entitled, and they rebelled against his good design.

As a result, earth and her inhabitants came under the curse of sin.

It was gracious in that they lived longer than they should have and the earth wasn’t destroyed, but it was a curse nonetheless that led to the corruption of all things, all minds, all people, culminating in a death that was physical, spiritual, and eternal.

There is no place in all of the Scriptures, or in any point of human history for that matter, that better displays mankind living under the influence of that curse than in .

We are “hateful”.

vs. 29/31/41 “they mocked him” You see, as a result of the curse, we are “hateful”.

You’ll notice three different times in our text that it says explicitly ‘they mocked him’, and two other times it says that they ‘derided’ him and ‘reviled’ him.

What does it say about mankind that we humiliated the King of Glory?

He wasn’t just rejected, and He wasn’t just exiled.

In fact, He wasn’t even ‘just’ killed.

He was humiliated.

He was publicly embarrassed.

He had been stripped completely naked, beaten within an inch of his life, paraded before the Roman cohort like a deposed king, and then spat upon by hundreds of men until the blood was watered down.

He could hardly lift his head as they shouted, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

“whole battalion…those who passed by…the chief priests, with the scribes and elders…the robbers who were crucified” And, there were four different classes of people that mocked Christ.

Everybody participated in his humiliation.

The unbelieving soldiers hailed him as a fake king, worshippers on their way to the Temple for Passover hurled insults and shook their heads, the religious leaders called him powerless, and even the criminals nailed on either side of him found the strength to mock him.

You see, this curse is universal and total.

There is no person, no class of person, no nation of people that are beyond it.

The religious, the cynical, the ordinary, and the criminal are bound together by this common curse, this common hatefulness.

APPLICATION: This is why Jesus didn’t say that He came only to save the Jew or the Gentile, the religious or the atheist, the rich or the poor.

Jesus came to save the world because it is the whole world that needs saving.

It is the whole world that bears the mark of this hate-filled curse.

It is every person, criminal record or not, Sunday school record or not that needs saving.

All of us find criticisms more natural that compliments.

All of us find dislikes before likes.

All of us latch on to negative stereotypes over positive character.

And, it’s because of the curse.

It’s because of the curse that clouds our minds and kills our souls.

We are “unjust”.

v. 31 “they…led him away to crucify him.”

Further, you’ll see that we are “unjust”.

It’s remarkable how simply Matthew describes what happens.

He says simply, if not poetically, “they…led him away to crucify him.”

It’s startling to hear a sentence so heinous described so simply.

And, it’s this moment that is the height of injustice on this created earth.

Jesus, the bedrock of justice, is crucified like a criminal and with the criminals, though He was in his very essence holy and righteous.

Jesus raised others up, and He was struck down.

He made others well; yet, He is afflicted.

He loved the very hardest to love, and it is returned to him as hatred.

He gave bread and fish, but He receives lashes and nails.

He brought healing and salvation by simply saying it, yet the voices declare in unison his own condemnation.

Oh, it is the height of injustice.

It is the very picture of our curse that Jesus did not reap what He had sown.

Rather, He reaped what we had sown.

APPLICATION: And, this is the gospel, brothers and sisters.

Jesus didn’t reap what He had sown; He reaped what we had sown SO THAT we might receive what was rightfully his.

Jesus received injustice so that we wouldn’t receive justice.

He died unjustly so that we wouldn’t die justly.

It is a traumatizing picture of holiness in the light of our injustice that should strike us to our knees.

We like Isaiah should see our King here, high and lifted up, only to respond, “Woe is me!

I am a man of unclean lips.”

Like a cockroach scurrying frantically from the light, the sinner recoils at the sight of the Holy Lord reaping the harvest of a sinner.

“I am so unloving, so hateful, so self-centered, so jealous, so dishonest.

Jesus, why would you ever take those nails instead of me?”

We are “unbelieving”.

v. 42 “let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe him” And, we see that we are “unbelieving.”

Jesus was murdered, first and foremost, by unbelief.

Before there was resentment, before there was contempt, before there was injustice, there was unbelief.

The Romans didn’t believe He was the King, the passersby didn’t believe He was the Prophet, the priests didn’t believe He was the Messiah, and the criminals didn’t believe He the Innocent.

The priests and elders shouted up to him on the cross, “Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe him.”

They saw what was, not what would be.

They misunderstood what Jesus had said, and they misunderstood what Jesus was now doing.

This is the essence of unbelief.

They saw the Temple still standing and believed that Jesus had gotten it wrong.

They saw Jesus on the cross, and believed that Jesus’ story was about to be finished.

But, on Sunday, the earth would shake, and the veil in the Temple would be torn, and the Christ they mocked and the Christ they had rejected would and the Temple they had torn down would be raised in victory over death and sin.

They could only believe what they understood, and they could only trust what they saw.

But, their eyes were deceiving them, for what they couldn’t know was that this earthly temple was fulfilled in the true Holy of Holies, and He would be raised to build up a nation of priests.

He was the new meeting place of God.