“Bullies, Cowards, and Thugs”

Mark 15:1-39

Once upon a time I was, for a very short while, a high school teacher. One of my responsibilities was to stand around during home football games watching out for trouble. My first game ever I was stuck in an isolated corner behind the visitors’ bleachers. I caught two guys trying to climb the fence in order to avoid paying for tickets, and as I was supposed to do, I told them that they couldn’t do that. Their response was to threaten to come over the fence and kick my you-know-what, and they were big enough and mean enough to have easily done just that. If that wasn’t bad enough, some of the fans on the back row started cheering them on. Yikes! I escaped without damage but I still remember quite vividly my one and only experience with a mob mentality.

In this morning’s long reading from Mark we get a first hand view of the mob mentality at work. Folks who only a few days before had waved palm branches and shouted out hosannas were now clamoring for Jesus’ blood. Crucify him was their new refrain. His guilt or innocence was of no consequence. The crowd smelled blood, and egged on by some supposedly good and righteous religious leaders, they were bound and determined to see Jesus die.

The Roman soldiers had no personal stake in any of this. They were – and this will sound frighteningly familiar – just following orders. Of course they did a lot more than simply follow orders. They teased and taunted Jesus. They mocked and humiliated him. They beat him and spat upon him. They jammed a crown of thorns down on his forehead. They heaped additional pain and misery on top of the sanctioned beatings that he had already received. Why did they do this? As is always the case with bullies, they did it because they could. They were soldiers of the mighty Roman Empire. As such they could bully those they had conquered. Their bullying was legalized. Simon of Cyrene carried the cross for Jesus because he had no choice. He was subject to their whims.

They weren’t the only bullies. The religious leaders of Jerusalem, those paragons of orthodoxy and propriety, inappropriately and illegally used their ecclesiastical authority to arrest, try, and beat Jesus. Again, why did they do it? Again, because they could.

They weren’t just bullies; they were cowards. They hid behind their pompously pious religiosity and ecclesiastical status. They badgered Pilate to do what they could not: execute Jesus. Only the Romans could administer capital punishment. The movers and shakers of Jerusalem’s business, politics, and religion dared not threaten the status quo. They could have stoned Jesus to death for his supposed blasphemy, but they didn’t want to risk the wrath of Rome. So cowards that they were, they passed the buck to Pilate.

Pilate could have stopped the whole thing right then and there. He had the authority. It was obvious that Jesus was guilty of nothing. But political animal that he was, Pilate didn’t want to deal with the angry mob that had gathered, and thus risk threatening his steady climb up the bureaucratic ladder. So he whiffed. When his feeble attempt to substitute Barabbas failed, in order to satisfy the crowd’s blood lust, he let Barabbas go and proceeded to crucify Jesus.

And then there was Barabbas: a zealot, a revolutionary, a so-called patriot, who was in fact a ruthless, murderous thug. He went free. Jesus died. The irony was that Barabbas was much more a threat to Rome’s peaceful occupation of Judea than was Jesus. He wanted a war. He would have welcomed the opportunity to kill a few Romans. Whatever, a thug lived. The Son of God died. Why? Pilate was too much of a coward to do the right thing.

Pilate and the religious leaders of Jerusalem weren’t the only cowards in this story. Jesus’ very own disciples had denied and abandoned him in his time of need. They ran for their lives, attempting to save their own necks. Even big, brave Peter, the one who not too long before had declared Jesus to be the Messiah, had denied ever knowing him.

So there we have it, a cast of characters who pretty much amounted to a collection of bullies, cowards, and thugs. Knowingly and unknowingly this cast of no-accounts had played a role in the murder of an innocent man. They had helped put the very Son of God to death on a cross.

If Mark’s text had been a live play, we would have booed and hissed at all those bullies, cowards, and thugs. Our righteous anger would have been stirred up. We might even be thinking that, if we had been there things would have been different. We would have stuck by our Savior come what may. We would have spoken up in court for Jesus. We would have confronted the soldiers with the reality of their brutality. We would have shamed those leaders of Jerusalem who had falsely accused Jesus. We would have tried to out yell or otherwise quiet the mob. We would have made sure that Pilate knew he was a coward. We would have told everyone around us what a thug Barabbas was. We would not have been bullies, cowards, or thugs.

And if Jesus were standing before us in the flesh this morning he would probably ask us just whom we were kidding. God? Ourselves? Our fellow believers? Haven’t we all at some point in our lives been susceptible to the mob mentality? Haven’t we all gone along with gossip and teasing that we knew was wrong? Haven’t we all stood passively by while someone else was being bullied, silently glad that we weren’t the target? Haven’t we all been silent in the face of injustice, going along in order to get along? Not wanting to rock the cultural boat?

If we’re honest, the answer to just about every one of those questions is yes. We’ve all been silent when we should have spoken up. We’ve all stood passively on the sidelines watching while others were taunted or teased. I can’t speak for you, but on at least one occasion in my life, I, the victim of bullies, joined in the bullying of another rather than standing up for him. Furthermore, although deep in the bones of my teenage self I knew that the segregation and blatantly mean racism going on in my hometown was wrong, I was too scared to say or do anything about it. And I was a professing Christian who sang in the choir and rarely missed Sunday school at our lily white church, the sanctuary of which is still ringed by a balcony that was once a slave gallery.

Would I have run away like Jesus’ other disciples that night he was arrested? Would I like Peter have cursed people for thinking that I was a follower of Jesus? O yeah, absolutely. Would I have been tempted to hide myself in the mob, yelling along with everybody else, crucify him? Quite possibly. Would I have risked my political or ecclesiastical ambitions? I like to think yes, but no would be a better bet. I’m not a bully. I’m not a thug. I am quite often a coward, who all too often keeps silent when I know I should speak.

We all are when left to our own devices. Fortunately we’re not left to our own devices. As followers of Jesus we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to do, in the words of the Apostle Paul, what is good and acceptable and perfect, whatever is true and honorable and just, pure and pleasing and commendable. We can, as Paul wrote to the Philippians, do all things through him who strengthens us. For ours is a risen and triumphant Lord.

It is he who strengthens us. It is he, who will not allow us to be bullies, cowards, and thugs. It is he, who enables us to stand up to the bullies and thugs of our culture (and sometimes our church), speak out against injustice, do what is right in the face of wrong, and not give in to the peer pressure of the culture that surrounds us.

And when we do, those who would see Jesus will see him in us. Sometimes even bullies and thugs recognize Christ when fully confronted by him. Is not the final verse of this morning’s text ironic? “Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son’.” He was a bully, maybe even a thug. He had had his moments of brutality. He may have even been one of the soldiers who mocked Jesus before the crucifixion. And yet it was he who saw and understood the reality of Jesus. Not the disciples. Not Pilate. Not the religious authorities. Not the fickle mob. Not some child of Abraham. But a rough, tough Roman soldier. Who woulda thunk it?

In a few moments we will gather at our Lord’s Table. There we will once again be reminded of the price that was paid for our salvation. As we approach the Table let us examine our hearts for any vestiges of the bullies, cowards, and thugs that we are tempted to be. And as we get up from the Table and go out into the world on this first day of Holy Week let us go forth to demonstrate Christ to the world, the world around us that is filled with bullies, cowards, and thugs who do not yet know the love of Jesus Christ. Amen.