When I bought our first computer in 1996 one of the extra pieces of software that came with it was the video game called "Myst." I had never played a video game beyond five minutes of "Mario Brothers" and thought I would try it out. Not understanding the way the game was played, I started looking for the rules only to discover that there were none. The object of the game was for the player to explore the seemingly deserted Myst Island. As you explore the island you get clues, which take you to other clues, which take you to other clues and so on. You aren’t given much background story and there aren’t any goals that are laid out. In a way the primary objective of the game is to discover the objective of the game! I don’t think I need to tell you that I didn’t play "Myst" very long—maybe 15 minutes because I am a guy who wants to know the rules, the goal and the score, if I am going to play a game.

The video game Myst is a perfect analogy of the culture in which we find ourselves in 2008. We have landed on what seems to be a deserted planet and discover we are in a predicament, most of which we have made ourselves. Our culture and our human lives in that culture are in a mess. What further complicates the mess and the predicament is that it seems that the goal of living is just to somehow stumble along and discover the goal or reason for living. All the coordinates that once told you what the purpose was are seemingly worthless and distrusted. The road signs and maps that once guided a person in life are said to be only meaningless charts for a world that no longer exists. So when it comes to playing at the game called life each player is left to discover their own path, their own way out of this predicament, this mess, we call "today."

Then somewhere out of the ancient past is a story, a story about a man, a man from another world, who claimed to be the unique Son of God, who by his life showed people the purpose of living, how to live and what was worth living for. He came to tell people that there was One on the other side of this mess that loved them and wanted them to join him in living forever. The only problem was when he told them this amazing story, people just couldn’t accept it or accept him. His life and his message were such a threat to all of them that they found a way to charge him with a capital crime and execute him on what we call the cross. His name was Jesus from a place called Nazareth.

In all of this rejection of the man named Jesus there were individuals and groups who were faced with a decision about this man. Would they line up their lives with this one who told them the truth about themselves and about God or would they deny the reality of which he spoke and lived? In fact the one central figure in the drama, a Roman ruler named Pilate would ask a question, a question that is timeless: "What should I do with this man…?" He was a man who had lost his own way and was without coordinates to guide his choices so he asked, "What should I do about Jesus?" Failing to realize he was faced with the most critical decision of his life, he merely passed it off to others and sentenced Jesus to die. He was confronted with the reality of Jesus but decided to ignore it rather than accept it.

This season of Easter we find ourselves once again at the cross. We find ourselves in a mess, a predicament, morally, spiritually, relationally, politically, economically—everywhere you look, it is a mess. Yet out there in front of us is a cross, a cross that is the one true coordinate on a landscape without landmarks. On that cross is a pathetic figure of a man "lonely, twisted, tortured…nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wretched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness." (John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ). We as believers dare to say that he was and is the reality of God and that the only way, the only way to make it out of this world is to line up our lives with the reality of Jesus. That is the most critical decision any human can make. The most critical question we can ask is, "What should I do with Jesus?" The most critical decision we face when we look at the cross is choosing to line up our lives with the reality of Jesus

We are now visiting Jesus’ final hours before his crucifixion. The text takes place after he has shared his final meal with the disciples, gone to Gethsemane and, at last, was betrayed by Judas, one of the twelve. In the chaos of his arrest everyone has left him. The soldiers march him through the darkened streets of Jerusalem to the home of the Jewish high priest for a trial, then examined by Pilate and in the end turned over to the soldiers for crucifixion. As Jesus is examined by the Jews, then by Pilate and finally tried by the multitude, the question that comes back to me is: Who is really on trial? Is it Jesus or is it humanity? Was Jesus the one to be judged or is it us—judged by God as to what we would choose when faced with the reality of Jesus.

I want us to spend some time first examining the trials of Jesus by those involved. Mark 15:1 says, "Very early in the morning the leading priests, the elders, and the teachers of religious law—the entire high council—met to discuss their next step." If they were meeting to discuss their "next step" it makes you wonder what the first step was. To find that out we have to go back to Mark 14: 53-65 which is the record of Jesus’ first trial which takes place before the Jewish religious leaders who had been looking for a way to kill him.

Sometime after midnight on Thursday Jesus was taken to the home of the High Priest whose name was Caiaphas. A Jewish court of about 70 men is assembled called the Sanhedrin. They are the elite of the Jews: Chief priests, elders and scribes. Their purpose was simple: find an excuse to kill Jesus. What they tried was first to get people to come and tell about things they had seen or heard about Jesus. The problem was the witnesses couldn’t agree. Then some tried to accuse him of wanting to destroy the Temple and that proved futile. Finally, Caiaphas had had enough challenging him directly; he asks, "Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?" Jesus said, "I Am. And you will see the Son of Man seated in the place of power at God’s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven." (v.60-61) Jesus’ response gives him what he was looking for "Why do we need other witnesses? You have all heard his blasphemy. What is your verdict?" "Guilty!" they all cried. "He deserves to die!" (v. 62-64) He, they said, had committed the capital crime of blasphemy—saying he was the Messiah. They still had a problem—they couldn’t kill him. Somehow they had to get the Romans to do it for them. So they take him to Pilate. What is shameful about what these chose to do to Jesus was evidence that they had completely lost all the moral coordinates of their lives. Instead of following the way of right and justice they were following the path of getting what they wanted regardless of the cost.

The trial before Pilate was the second trial Jesus faced (Mark 15:1-5). Pilate’s policy was to hold court as soon as it was daylight so I’m sure they wasted no time getting to his residence on time. Pilate was despised by the Jews and he despised the Jews. They knew that a charge of blasphemy would not mean anything to Pilate so in the shuffle they changed the crime: treason! Pilate asked Jesus, "Are you the king of the Jews?" Pilate’s question to Jesus concerned his being a threat to the stability of Rome’s government. Rome allowed only Herod to be king and he was tightly controlled. To have two meant a rebellion was brewing.

Jesus yields no ground and when asked in verse 2, he responds, "You have said it." Even as the tension rises Jesus doesn’t waver. The leading priests kept accusing him of all sorts of crimes and Pilate asked him, "Aren’t you going to answer them? What about all these charges they are bringing against you?" (v.4) As he kept silent before Caiaphas, he does so now before Pilate and Pilate is surprised! Why was he "surprised"? Because he saw before him someone he could never be—a man of guided by the coordinates of truth and conviction regardless of the cost.

Pilate, though, is looking for a way out. He knows the innocence of this man and looks for a loophole. He will try Jesus before the multitude! (Mark 15:6-15). Pilate knew the custom of releasing one prisoner that the Jews requested before celebrating the Passover. He is sure that they will cry for Jesus. What he didn’t count on was the ploy of the religious leaders stirring up the crowd. When asked to release Jesus the crowd cried out for Barabbas. The multitude had the choice of offering compassion to Jesus or accepting the convenience of going along with the chief priests and calling for his crucifixion. They rejected the coordinate of human compassion and chose the convenience of what mattered to them! No one it seems was courageous enough to say "Stop!" Pilate even challenged their response when he asked, "Why?...What crime has he committed?" They continue to scream, "Crucify him!" Mark 15:15 stands alone in its sentence of judgment: "So to pacify the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified."

Who was really on trial? Was it Jesus or was it the religious leaders who chose to deny doing what was right to do what pleased them? Was it Jesus or was it Pilate who abandoned conviction and embraced compromise? Was it Jesus or was it the multitude that shunned compassion and did what was easy? Who was really on trial? When faced with the most critical decision of lining up with the reality of Jesus they each chose to deny the reality and reject the truth.

What about us? Are there some principles seen in this trial that apply to each of us? I believe there are three. You see each of these—Jewish religious leaders, Pilate and the multitude were faced with what they were going to do with Jesus. Before them stood one who was totally good, true and pure. As believers we have living within us the reality of the person of Jesus Christ, one who is totally good, true and pure. The mess we find ourselves in is a place of evil, lies and corruption. Yet on the landscape of our culture stands the cross. As we face the cross we ask the question, "What shall we do with Jesus?" We have the choice of either lining up our lives with the reality of Jesus or pretending the reality isn’t there, keeping on wandering in a world without direction. When faced with conflicting choices, which way will we go?

We are faced with the choice of doing what Jesus did or just what others want. It is hard to imagine but the Jewish religious leaders lost all sense of what their moral principles were to choose the route that meant any way they could get Jesus killed was more important than doing what was right. We face the same decision ourselves. We know that Jesus lived a life of love, choosing the good over the wrong every day of his life. He did so without depending on the opinions of others. The only one whose opinion mattered was God’s. Christian people, Christian leaders and Christian churches can reach a place where we will murder ethics in order to do what achieves our own desires or the desires of others. When we look at the cross we are faced with the choice of doing and living like Jesus did or satisfying merely what others want us to do. I believe it is time for us to be the voice of Jesus to our own lives, leadership and church and ask, "Are we choosing to line up our lives with what Jesus did or are we doing just what others want?"

We are faced with the choice of believing the truth Jesus spoke or just what others think. It is not hard to see how Pilate made his choices. His choices were made based on popular political opinion rather than a consuming passion for truth and justice. How are you going to make your choices? How do you make your choices? Again some will tell you that the map for living life doesn’t have any signs pointing to something definite and true. They will say that your experience of reality is just as valid as mine. Who is to say that yours is wrong? That would be fine if it were not for this messy issue of someone named Jesus who spoke words that he claimed were God’s words and that his truth was the real truth that people needed. It would be fine for you to keep trying to discover your own path except that there is a path, a way already defined for us in the cross of Jesus. There is much that the thoughts of people can add to our confused mess we call life but if that is all we have to live by then we are in serious trouble. When we are faced with the cross of Jesus what will we do? Will we believe the truth he spoke or just what others think?

We are faced with the choice of caring about what mattered to Jesus or just what matters to us. When Pilate paraded Jesus before the crowd they beheld a man who had demonstrated nothing but love and kindness. He now stood before them beaten and bruised, mocked and shamed—totally innocent. The multitude rejected all compassion because it was more convenient to call for Jesus’ crucifixion than to commit to caring enough to say, "Stop!"

There is no question that compassion costs! It’s easier to ignore someone and be hardened to their need than to feel compassion for them. It is so much easier to care about what matters to me than to care enough about what matters to you. It is hard to say to the mess we call 2008, "Stop the abuse of children, born or unborn. Stop it sexually. Stop the violence toward the innocent. Stop the twisted thinking that leads to choosing a gun to solve your anger! Stop the greed that is leaving millions in our nation jobless and sick and poor and hungry and afraid. Stop ignoring the reality that what happens in the villages of one place in our world can shatter the cities of our own." Do not even begin to try to tie those comments to one political persuasion or another. Our whole problem as Christians is that we have forgotten that we serve the God who created the planet not a system of politics. It’s easier to not be bothered than to care. When faced with the choice, which will you choose: Compassion or compromise? When we are faced with the cross of Jesus what will we do? Will we care about what mattered to Jesus or just what matters to us?

It’s hard to look at Jesus standing on trial – to see the hypocrisy of the religious leaders, the shameful compromise of a leader and the madness of the multitude and then to see Jesus. It makes you shudder because you know that it is really we who are on trial. It is hard to look at the cross and recognize that we are faced with the question of what we will do with Jesus. Will we line up our lives with the reality of his goodness, truth and purity or will we ignore the question all together and deny his reality?

In the new version of 3:10 to Yuma , Dan, a rancher down on his luck has signed on to transport a notorious murderer named Wade to the train for $200.00. The train leaves for the prison in Yuma, Arizona at 3:10. Wade’s outlaw gang is on their way to rescue their leader. Everyone else has backed down from seeing that justice is served except Dan. Dan is fully aware that when the other outlaws arrive he will surely die. While Dan and Wade are in an upstairs hotel room waiting for the train and Wade begins to tempt Dan with an offer of more money. He offers him $400.00 and then $1000.00 to take the easy way out and just let him walk out the door and no one would have to know. Dan thinks about it and for a moment he ponders all that Wade is offering him if he will only give in and sell out what he knows is right. Battling through the voice of evil Dan tells Wade, "Do me one favor, Wade. Why don’t you quit talking to me!" Wade says sarcastically, "Does this mean we’re not friends?" (3:10 to Yuma, Lionsgate Films, 2007)

The voice of compromise is always calling out to us to sell our convictions for what is the easy way out. Then we look at the cross and we see One who never chose what was easy when truth was at stake. Look at yourself today and look at Jesus. Who is really on trial? Isn’t it our ethics, our convictions and our compassion? Instead of his standing before us, aren’t we standing before him? As we stand before him we stand convicted –convicted of trying to save ourselves…convicted of failing to serve…convicted of needing to change…Who is really on trial? What will you do with the cross? What will you do with Jesus? Will you give in to the voices of concession and compromise or will you choose to line up with the reality of Jesus? You must choose because there isn’t much time left.

Sunday, March 9, 2008 a.m.

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org