John 19

Have you ever been bullied?  Jesus knows just how you feel.  You know what's funny about bullying?  Nothing really.  Its terrible!  People in position of power pushing people around that don't have power.  It's pretty cowardly.  The awful thing about bullying is that it doesn't necessarily end when you get out of school.  There are adults who have never really grown up.  Bullying is an epidemic problem.  Jesus willingly submitted Himself...to bullies.  A terrifying thought.  The Son of God knew that the only way to pay the penalty for sin, to clear us of judgment from it was to put Himself in the hands of cruel, Godless men.

In verses 1-3 it says that He was scourged.  There were 3 types of scourging that a prisoner could experience.  If it were a light crime, it would be beaten lightly.  This was for petty crimes. The second form was a little more severe and the third was brutal.  Apparently, at this time He received the first or second form and after His sentencing He experienced the third!  I won't go into the gory details of it but if you watch the Passion of the Christ, you'll get the picture.  Not only that but they mocked Him!  They put a crown of thorns on His head, because He said He was a king, and a purple robe and mockingly honored Him as king.  How humiliating!!!

Even after all of this, Pilate finds him not guilty AGAIN! (v6)  He had done the same thing in John 18:38. Jesus, who was completely innocent of sin much less, any crime was abused and then taken to die.  Just know that if you are at school, at work or wherever you are and you are being mistreated and you've done nothing to bring that on, Jesus knows how you feel.

After this ridiculous abuse of authority, and they had made a mockery of their own judicial system, they took Jesus to the cross.  It says in Luke that Jesus carries His own cross to the place where He would be crucified.  It was typical to make the prisoner carry His own beam.  It was so heavy that at one point another man steps in to carry it for Him (Simon of Cyrene).  When He arrives to Golgotha (literally "place of the skull") He is nailed to a cross and was left there to die.  Typically prisoners would not die from blood loss or the injuries inflicted but suffocation from their lungs filling with fluid.  It was a painful and slow death.  While on the cross, in typical Jesus fashion, He thinks of others.  He talks to His mother and says "Woman, behold, your son!"  Mary must have been in utter anguish.  Losing your son is terrible but losing Him the way Mary did was unthinkable.  Jesus, thinking of her made sure she was taken care of.  He then tells His close friend, "Behold, your mother!"  Being a woman that was alone in this culture was a very hard thing.  Jesus took care of her.

Jesus then dies on the cross.  Before He does He cries "IT IS FINISHED!"  His work on this earth had been successfully completed.  He had lived a perfect life, started a movement known as "The Kingdom", poured into the lives of the 12, performed miracles to authenticate His deity and now He had paid the ultimate price for our sin and separation from God and would conquer death and the power of sin.  WOW!!!  What an amazing Savior we have!  What a loving God and a merciful God we serve that He would go through hell to give us heaven and glorify the Father!

COOL FACTS:

In verse 12 the Jewish authorities were trying to get Jesus arrested for treason.  They couldn't get Him for anything else.  The angle they took was to say to the Roman authorities "Everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar."  They also said in verse 15,“We have no king but Caesar.”The irony in the statement is that they hated the Romans!

Not only that but when Pilate had a sign created to be put on the cross "King of the Jews" they objected. They wanted it to say "He thought He was king".  But Pilate wouldn't allow it.