The four gospels are very restrained in describing the physical suffering. Nor, from our perspective, as we look at the descriptions of His crucifixion in the Scripture, are we to be caught up in the physical suffering. “Remove this cup from me.” So from His viewpoint, it wasn’t the physical suffering that posed the horror of the cross. That’s why in three separate prayers, He prayed the same thing. What was so wrenching to Him that caused Him to sweat drops of blood was the anticipation of divine wrath falling on Him, drinking the cup of God’s wrath against sinners for whom He was the substitute and punishment. It was not the physical suffering that traumatized Jesus in the Garden. But as bad as that was, that is really not what the Scripture focuses on. When you add to that the horrors of scourging (flogging), one can only conclude that this is the most horrendous kind of torture that has ever been devised by men. People are repulsed by the idea of hanging virtually naked in the blazing sun and worse than that, for all the people to gape and gawk at. We have seen the image many, many times, and it is a horrifying image. We all have the images of Jesus that have been depicted for us, really for centuries, Jesus set up against the sky, hanging on a wooden cross, suspended by massive spikes driven through His hands and feet, blood flowing from His wounds, starting with the wounds to His head from the crown of thorns, blood running down His face and drying on His face and blood coursing down His body from His wounds. The usual images in people’s minds have to do with the profound nature of agony endured through scourging (or flogging) and being nailed to a cross. When you think about the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, typically speaking and traditionally, what most often people focus on is the physical suffering. They pressed into service a passerby coming from the country, Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear His cross.” “After they had mocked Him, they took the purple robe off Him and put His own garments on Him and they led Him out to crucify Him. And they began to acclaim Him, ‘Hail, king of the Jews.’ They kept beating His head with a reed and spitting on Him and kneeling and bowing before Him.

They dressed Him up in purple and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on Him. The soldiers took Him away into the palace that is, the praetorium, and they called together the whole Roman cohort. “Wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas for them, and after having Jesus scourged, he handed Him over to be crucified.

For this morning, I want you to look at the text beginning in verse 15 - verse 15 - Mark 15, verse 15. And as I said, a moment ago, we’re going to be looking at this in three parts. We come in our study of this gospel to Mark’s account of the crucifixion of Christ. Let’s open the Word of God to the fifteenth chapter of Mark - Mark chapter 15.

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