Sunday Worship Service April 13, 2025 (Passion Week)

Prelude
Call to Worship Isaiah 53:3
Hymn JBC # 232 On the cross of Calvary
The Lord’s Prayer
Hymn JBC # 230 On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross
Offering
Scripture Mark 15:16～32
Prayer
Sermon “Saviour who is insulted”
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 327 Lead on, O King eternal
Doxology JBC # 674
Benediction
Postlude
Welcome & Announcement

　In Christianity, we believe that God, who created heaven and earth and all things in the world, became a man, that is, God the Father came into the world as the Son, Jesus Christ.
　We commemorate and celebrate the fact that Jesus Christ was born as a human at Christmas. In the tradition of the Protestant Church, we commemorate Christmas every year on December 25.
　The birth of Jesus Christ was the coming of great hope that people had been waiting for.
In order to thank and rejoice that the One who is the true hope and true light from God has been born into the world, the church places great importance on Christmas.
　And the Christian church has also kept Easter, which commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ after his death, as a very important anniversary.

　This week (April 13-19) is called “Passion Week,” or “Holy Week”. Passion Week is the one week before Easter Sunday.
　Unlike Christmas, the date of Easter changes each year. The date of Easter Sunday is determined by the relationship between the vernal (spring) equinox and the date of the full moon that follows. This year, Easter is Sunday, April 20.
　The resurrection of Christ (that is, his rising from the dead) may sound in terms of the common sense like an incredible, even absurd, event to many people.
　But because of Christ's resurrection from the dead, the gospel of Jesus Christ was believed by people as news of great hope and joy, and that news was shared throughout the world.
　The Lord Jesus Christ has risen. So, how did Jesus Christ die before His resurrection?
　As you probably know, Jesus died by crucifixion, which was the most cruel method of execution in the Roman Empire at that time, about 2,000 years ago
　It usually should be assumed that Jesus was guilty of a serious crime that deserved that sentence.

So, what kind of crime did Jesus commit that led to his crucifixion?
　To get to the point, Jesus did not commit any sin that would warrant crucifixion.
　The Bible tells us that the very person in authority who ultimately sentenced Jesus to be crucified clearly stated, “I find no sin in this man [Jesus].”
　Today's scripture is from Mark 15. In Mark 15:14, Pilate, the then governor of the Jews, asks the Jews who demanded that He (Jesus) be crucified, “What evil has [He] done?”
　It was the Jewish leaders of the time (the chief priests, the scribes, and the members of the Jewish council) who strongly demanded that Jesus be crucified and killed.
　They accused Jesus of “blaspheming God,” and in fact, they were jealous that “many people believed in Jesus and followed him,” so they insisted that “this Man [Jesus] be killed.”
　We can imagine from the biblical account that a large crowd of others too gradually joined the Jewish leaders in calling to kill and crucify this Man (Jesus).

　As I mentioned earlier, Pilate, the governor, said to the people who were calling for the crucifixion,
　“What crime has this man committed? I have found in him no grounds for the death penalty.”　(Luke 23:22)
　Pilate himself could not find any crime in the man named Jesus.
　Pilate, however, finally gives his approval for Jesus' crucifixion. Pilate finally gave in to the voices (demands) of the multitude.
Pilate sentenced to death a man whom he himself believed to be innocent.
Pilate thought, “This man has done nothing wrong,” and he said so in his own words too. What made Pilate say that?
We all have a conscience. We also have a reason to try to judge things correctly. We are equipped with a heart that seeks justice.

All of these things are given to us by God. The mind hoping that things should be right, the mind that hates evil and seeks to oppose evil (conscience), were given to us by God.
And that God-given conscience led Pilate to correctly judge, “This Man (Jesus) has done nothing wrong.”
However, even if our conscience tells us that “this Man has done nothing wrong,” whether or not we can actually act in accordance with that conscience, the voice of God, is a different matter.
This is because there are forces and temptations of evil that try to pull us away from our God-given conscience. Our human weakness is also there.

A man of faith named Paul said in the Bible

Romans 7:15
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

The verse 17 says as follows.
17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.

What is right and how we should act is informed to us by our God-given conscience and by God's loving heart.
However, we have a conflict because of the sinful nature that lives within us, which prevents us from obeying it.
Pilate put an innocent man to death, preferring to obey the voice of the people and thereby safeguard his position as governor, rather than obey the voice of God, his conscience.
We must face up to the fact that we ourselves have that weakness and sin that Pilate's actions demonstrate, and the sin and evil nature of man that Paul moaned about in his letter to the Romans.
We cannot eliminate nor deal with that sin by ourselves. This sin must be forgiven by someone other than us, someone truly powerful and totally sinless.
To forgive us of such sins, the Bible tells us, Jesus Christ went to the cross and laid down His life on the cross.

　Today's passage, beginning in verse 16, describes how the soldiers drew Jesus inside the governor's palace, where the entire troop was called together.
　What was the reason for so many soldiers to gather there? They wanted to have fun together, making fun of and insulting Jesus.
　It is written that they dressed Jesus in purple. The purple clothes were a symbol of the authority as king. And instead of a gold crown, they insulted Jesus by putting a crown of thorns on him.
They dressed him in purple, but instead of gold crown, they put a crown of thorns on Him, saying and mocking, “He is a fake king!”
They saluted Jesus, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They beat him on the head with reed sticks, spat on him, and even kneeled down to worship him.
The soldiers who insulted Jesus show us the evil nature and emotions of us human beings who “seek to confirm our superiority over others by insulting and attacking those who are in a weaker position than we are.”

　The One who is truly God has suffered so thoroughly the insults and mockery of people. It means that God took our evil nature, our sin, in His shole person. Till the end.
And in today's passage, we read that two rebels (robbers) were also crucified with Jesus.
It says in the Old Testament in Isaiah 53:12, “He was counted as one of the sinners.” Jesus' crucifixion along with other criminals was the very fulfillment of that biblical prophecy and the will of God.
　Even after His being put to the cross, people continued to curse Him. Let me read verses 31~32 of today's passage.

31 In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! 32 Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

　The words “This man saved others, but he cannot save himself.” were thrown at Jesus.
Jesus could have saved Himself if He wanted to. He could have easily come down from the cross if God had so willed.
　However, it was necessary for our salvation that Jesus continued to hang on the cross with a figure of “saved others but can not save himself” without saying a word.
　In order to save us, Jesus remained to the end in the midst of all the insults from people.
　Here is the person who did not seek to save Himself but to save us, who gave up everything for us, who endured everything, who loved us to the end, and who sought to save us.

“Come down from the cross now. Then we may believe when we see it.” - Despite hearing such voices from people, the Lord Jesus Christ still offered His life on the cross for the salvation of sinners.
　In that figure, there was no image of the Savior that the Jewish people of that time had been waiting for and expecting for so long. He was not the hero who would overthrow the empire that ruled their country with strong military force.
　There was no figure of a strong man who came down from the cross and struck down the soldiers. There was only the figure of a man who continued to suffer on the cross without saying a word.

　We have to see ourselves in “the people who crucified the Savior and continued to insult Him.”
We are led to repentance with the thought, “It was I, we, who crucified Jesus.”
We are also taught that people created by God should not act in such a way.
We should not have put the Saviour Christ to the cross nor insulted Him. Still now should not we.
　In this week of Passion Week, let us continue to reflect on that event of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the ultimate insults He suffered there from the people.
　Through the Lord Jesus Christ, who endured everything and laid down His life on the cross, we have been forgiven of sins that we could not handle on our own.
　Let us walk through the days of this week, keeping in mind the last week of suffering that the Lord Jesus Christ went through for the forgiveness of our sins and the attainment of our salvation.