The subject of Mockery

Matthew 27:27-31

Have you experienced the humiliation of being the subject of mockery?  To me it is one of the most dehumanizing things that can happen to a person.  I’ve never been one of those gifted people that always has a come back, but I’ve known many, both in business and out, that seem to say the right things.  As stated I’m a little slow, and often trying to reply without a lot of time to think about my response, will say the dumbest things.  It seems like I do it around people that I want to impress and guess what, especially in my family there is that person whose sarcasm cuts to the bone.  Ridicule or sarcasm is a dart that targets the very being of a person and leaves wounds that only God can heal. 

This is what Matthew’s gospel records of the Scripture listed above; “Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him.”  I hope you do not miss the disdain that was shown to our Lord on this day, it was not a battle with flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 

Often, we look at who was present, about 600 men, a Greek cohort; a tenth of a Roman legion, and overlook who was running the show, but they were just the tools being used by the forces of evil.  What if I had the ability to know before I spoke it would bring sarcasm, more than likely I would reframe from speaking?   But Jesus being totally God and totally man was totally aware of what happened next.  Look with me at Matthew 20:17-19, “And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice