Gospel of John 09.vp

Session 8 The Crucified King, the Risen Lord, and the True Testimony (John 19-21)

Priorities and Loyalties in the Wrong Place Altogether

The Irony of the Crucified King. In introducing the flogged and abused Jesus of Nazareth, Pilate pronounced “Behold your King!” For those of us who know Jesus to be the Lord and Messiah of God, this is another example of supreme irony that John highlights throughout his book. Of all the Gospels, the Fourth Gospel is the only one that mentions this incident. It raises questions regarding Pilate’s understanding of who Jesus of Nazareth was. Was he in fact introducing our Lord as the true King of the coming Reign of God that the Father would establish in the earth, or did Pilate believe Jesus to be a charlatan, a nobody, a confused religious extremist, and call him King only to spite the Jewish nation. Jesus of Nazareth, even up till the end of his death, was not someone to be pigeon-holed or treated as nothing. Even in his trial, he never gave in to despair, or fear, or intimidation. For all Pilate’s fear and trepidation about Jesus, he still goaded the crowd by saying: “ Shall I crucify your King? ” Amazingly, the people embraced a weird, secular vision of kingship: “ We have no king but Caesar! ” The true King of glory, the promised King of Israel came to his own, and they rejected him in place of a twisted loyalty to Rome.

In what way do we shift our loyalty from the living King of Israel to serve the false gods of this corrupt and decaying world?

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I. The Crucified King, 19.1-42

A. Jesus of Nazareth found guilty of blasphemy, 19.1-7

1. Jesus is flogged and humiliated by the soldiers, 19.1-3.

a. A worm and no man, despised, Ps. 22.6 – But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people.

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