Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.16UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.11UNLIKELY
Fear
0.16UNLIKELY
Joy
0.19UNLIKELY
Sadness
0.55LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.61LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.02UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.88LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.78LIKELY
Extraversion
0.13UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.7LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.78LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
*Hearing Jesus 7: Jesus and Pilate*
*Good Friday*
050-00748 John 19:10-12
I.
When we introduced the season of Lent this year, we spoke about taking a journey to the Cross.
A. That journey ends tonight.
1.
We have spent the past six weeks following Jesus.
2. He knew where he was going even when his disciples did not.
3.
He knew he had come to redeem his Father’s world and he knew that his blood was the currency to be used.
4. When we started this path following Christ, we also knew where it was going to end.
5. We knew that the road ends here, in the Sanhedrin, the court of Pilate, and the mount called Golgotha.
6.
We knew that Jesus’ trek was one of suffering, pain and death.
7.
And we chose to follow him anyway.
Not as curious onlookers.
We’re not like those who slow down on the highway so we can see the car wreck on the other side.
8.
We chose to follow Jesus because he called us to follow.
We chose to come to the cross because it is our cross too.
9. *Mark 8:34 (NIV) *Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
B. Along the road, we have heard Jesus speak and we have learned a great deal about the blessings of following.
1. Speaking to Andrew he taught us how he desires to dwell with us; how close of a relationship he wants us to have with him.
2. Speaking to Bartimaeus he taught us that our sin has made us blind and that he has the ability, and more importantly the desire to heal us.
3. Speaking to Martha he taught us about priorities and that loving God is the source of life, not busy activities that distract us from that love.
4. Speaking to Zacchaeus he taught us that he makes the proud humble and then he lifts up the humble receiving them into the Kingdom with hearts to worship and serve our God.
5. Speaking to his Father, our Father, he revealed to us the depth of his passion to save all the Father has given him.
He taught us that we are to be united with one another in the same way that he and the Father are united.
6. Speaking to the crowds in the Temple courts he laid claim to his kingdom as the Son of David and he revealed to us that he is a King and a Priest who is the supreme God and who identifies compassionately with humanity.
C. It has been a long journey.
It has been a learning journey.
It has been an emotional journey.
1.
I confess to you all that tonight I am tired.
2. I have realized that following Jesus is no easy task.
3.
In fact, following Jesus is downright impossible.
4. But I have not made the journey along – I have made it with all of you.
And we have made it with Jesus.
5. Now we stand in the shadow of death.
II.
The Bible says* **Isaiah 53:7 (NIV) *…he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
A. The silence that Isaiah wrote about was not the complete lack of sound.
1.
A sheep before her shearers is not silent at all.
a) She bahs and bleats more than she normally would.
b) But for all her noise, she is still helpless.
c) The shepherd is going to get his wool.
2.
Not much is recorded in the gospels about Jesus’ conversations during his so called trials.
3.
He was not totally silent, though.
4.
He did speak to his accusers.
a) He did not speak to defend himself.
b) God needs no defense.
5.
But he did speak to reveal himself.
His words are never empty or vain.
B. So when Jesus was brought before Caiaphas who was the Chief Priest, the highest office one could ever attain in the priesthood, the record shows that he did answer questions.
1. “Are you the Christ, the Son of God?”
And Jesus answered, “Yes.”
2. Luke gives more detail, though.
Jesus’ answer is more than just an affirmation.
According to his record Jesus’ first answer to Caiaphas was “If I tell you, you will not believe me.”
3.
All of the priests and rabbis gathered there continue to ask the question, “Are you then the Son of God?” Jesus says, “It is as you say, I am.”
C. In the same way, all the gospels agree that when standing before Pilate Jesus was asked, “Are you King of the Jews?”
And Jesus does answer, “Yes.”
1.
The Priests and Rabbis have their blasphemous confession.
2. Pilate has his proof of anarchy.
3. Jesus has provided all that is needed for his condemnation and judgment.
a) That is unless he is right in his claims.
b) It is not blasphemy for the Son of God to say he is the Son of God.
c) It is not anarchy for the King of the Jews who is also King of kings to say that he is.
d) In this case, Jesus’ admissions are not confessions of guilt but declarations of judgment.
III.
This is what John makes clear in his record of the events.
A. When Pilate decided there was nothing to the charge against Jesus, at least as far as Rome was concerned, he tried to diffuse the situation.
1.
Following a custom at the Passover, he offered to set a prisoner free.
2. If he chose the most feared and debased criminal he could find in the prisons and gave the people a choice, surely they would ask to let Jesus go.
Case over.
3.
But mob action had taken over.
Jesus’ accusers had worked themselves into such a state that they could no longer think rationally.
They wanted Jesus dead.
They could not believe there was even a possibility that he was the Christ, the Son of God.
B. Frustrated, Pilate had Jesus beaten and whipped.
1.
The guards dressed this bloody figure up in a royal robe of purple.
They forced a crown of thorns upon his head.
And they circled around him mocking him saying, “Hail king of the Jews.”
2. Now it wasn’t so much Jesus that the guards mocked.
With every “Hail” they hit him in the face.
3.
But the contempt they showed Jesus was the contempt they had in their hearts for all the Jews.
4. These people were a pain, a thorn in the flesh of the Empire.
5. Why had they been tolerated for so long?
Why didn’t Pilate just end the riot by killing them all?
6.
But Pilate took this humiliated and deformed king, a man who was so abused by this point that even he was beginning to feel pity for him, and he presented Jesus to the crowds again.
Surely now they would have sympathy and call an end to this mess.
7.
But no. “Crucify him,” was all they could yell.
“Crucify him,” was all that Pilate could hear.
C. Pilate became mixed with emotion and fear.
He could not let this go on.
He would lose his station, maybe even exiled to some nowhere post.
1.
On the other hand, in his own way he had tried to make a just ruling.
2. These evil people he was assigned to control were pushing him into a corner.
3. I believe that Pilate was still trying to diffuse the ticking bomb without having Jesus killed when he asked, “Where are you from?”
4. But Jesus gave no answer.
a) What?
Can’t Jesus see how Pilate has tried to save him?
He must know that even the beating and the mocking was only to prevent his death.
b) Pilate, the one man in all the world who held Jesus’ life in his hands and the one man who had any authority that could save Jesus, this Pilate was being ignored by Jesus?
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9