The Mockery

"The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him.
They blindfolded him and demanded, “Prophesy! Who hit you?”
And they said many other insulting things to him.
At daybreak the council of the elders of the people,
both the chief priests and teachers of the law, met together,
and Jesus was led before them.
Luke 22 v 63-66

Now that they have arrested Jesus, the religious leaders have a problem. Jewish law required that any charge which carried a death sentence be heard by an official meeting of the Sanhedrin, a group of 71 men including respected leaders, teachers of the religious law, and prominent priests (Luke usually refers to this group as “the assembly” or “the council”). Such a meeting had to take place during daylight hours; you can understand why the law would forbid trials and judgments carried on under the cover of darkness.

But Jesus is arrested late in the evening. And the leaders can’t afford to sit on Him for very long. Jesus has many supporters in the city, and religious fervor is already high due to the Passover season, so the leaders don’t dare wait and let the word get out that He has been arrested. They want to get things wrapped up, and have Him condemned and put to death as soon as possible.

But there is some delay before they can get the trial started, and under the cover of night and with some time on their hands, the guards who are watching Jesus begin to have a little fun with Him. They beat Jesus, mock Him, hurl insults at Him as they strike Him (the Greek word that Luke uses indicates that the beating went on for a prolonged period). Jesus has a reputation as a prophet, so they decide to put His skills to the test. They blindfold Him and punch Him, tauntingly challenging Him to guess who it was who hit Him.

Can you even begin to feel what it is like to be blindfolded, to be punched, to lose track of time as you wonder where the next bout of intense pain is coming from? It’s easy to become familiar with these events so that they lose their sting, but the cruelty that’s on display here is really stomach churning. How can people be this horrible to another human being? Jesus had never done anything to any one of them. But still they beat Him. Luke’s account spares us all the details, simply telling us: “they said many other insulting things to him” (22 v 65), but you can imagine the vile insults and cruel taunts they hurled at Him.

This is a story of gratuitous cruelty and fiendish delight at the suffering of an innocent man. And this innocent man was God the Son. So why does Jesus have to suffer this indignity before His crucifixion? Isn’t it bad enough that He will die a horrible death? Does He have to be subjected to this sickening treatment? Jesus will die to bear the penalty for the sins of His people. But He’s not paying that price here as He is spat upon and smacked and taunted. So why?!

It’s easier to answer that question if you remember who is in control here. We must be totally clear that Jesus could stop all of this torture if He wanted to. In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ arrest, He tells His disciples not to resist the men who have come to take Him into custody, saying:

Do you think that I cannot call on my Father,
and he will at once put at my disposal
more than twelve legions of angels?
But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled
that say it must happen in this way?
(Matthew 26 v 53-54)

Jesus could stop this mocking if He wanted to, but He doesn’t. The events of the next 24 hours must fulfill the Scriptures. Jesus is aware that His final hours have already been laid out centuries before by God’s prophets.

Isaiah, looking forward over seven centuries, says of Him: “There were many who were appalled at him—his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness” (52 v 14). Jesus knew for His whole life that He would be beaten to the point where He no longer looked like a human being. Isaiah 50 v 6 puts these words in the mouth of the servant of the Lord: “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting”. The Christ would willingly subject Himself to all kinds of humiliation and scorn.

So Jesus had to endure this ordeal in order to fulfill prophecy. But that’s a bit of a circular answer. Jesus had to endure this to fulfill prophecy… but why did it have to be prophesied?

The text doesn’t tell us. But think of it this way: what does it mean for us that our Savior—the Son of God, the One who we worship and pray to—has experienced this kind of abuse? What does it mean that He knew this kind of undeserved malice from other men?

It means that in all of your life, no matter what happens, you’ll never experience any kind of suffering that Jesus didn’t experience. He may not have endured the exact same abuse that you have encountered, but He knows fully what it means to be brutally mistreated by people. You can’t go through anything that Jesus looks at and says: “I don’t know what that’s like”.

That is a great comfort to us. We can “consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Hebrews 12 v 3).

This is an edited extract from Mike McKinley's book, Passion: How Christ's Final Day Changes Your Every Day