Matthew 27:27-31: He Bore the Spit

After the soldiers mocked and spit on Jesus, Pilate brought Him out one final time to appeal to the crowd before sending Him to be crucified, as John's gospel records.   1800s Hungarian painter Mihaly Munkascy captures that moment in the second painting of his gospel trilogy.

“Hail, King of the Jews!” The Roman soldiers mocking Jesus in Matthew 27:29.

Many of these [unbelieving] scholars, scholars who apparently devoted their life to New Testament scholarship, disliked Jesus Christ.  Some pitied him as a hopeless failure.  Others sneered at him, and some felt an outright contempt… there are New Testament scholars who detest and despise Jesus Christ. (Ann Rice, from “Author’s Notes,” from her novel Christ The Lord Out Of Egypt)

"I'm an atheist, so it was actually a joy.  Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun-especially for me, being a woman...I can't embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages.”  (Amanda Donahoe, commenting on her role in "Lair of the White Worm" where she spits on a crucifix.  AFA Journal, November/December, 1991)

The order was given.  Pilate’s decision has been made.  Jesus the Christ shall be crucified.   The Roman soldiers, who were trained killing machines, will carry out the execution.   But first, a little diversion. The soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, which is known as the Praetorium, located inside the city walls of Jerusalem near the temple.  They gathered the whole battalion, anywhere from 100 to 600 soldiers, before him (v. 27).

And they stripped him.  The stripping must have re-opened some of his wounds that had coagulated into his clothes.   Next they put a scarlet robe on him (v. 28).   Mark and John describe the robe’s color similarly as purple. Precision in dyes was not common then.  The robe probably was a robe of war belonging to one of the Roman soldier present.

And twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand (v. 29).  These were not small thorns from a rose bush but long thorns from perhaps a jujube shrub, easily found in Jerusalem.   These thorns, along with the stripping, the robe, even the reed (which represented a king’s scepter), added further injury to insult.

Max Lucado describes the scene this way: “Strong, rested, armed soldiers encircled an exhausted, nearly dead, Galilean carpenter and beat up on him.” (from his book, He Chose the Nails: What God Did To Win Your Heart)

And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. (vv. 29-30). At His trial before the Council of chief priests, Jesus was also spit upon, beaten and mocked.  However, the chief priests mocked Him not as King but as “Christ.”  (Matthew 26:67-68).   Matthew shows that the rejection of Christ is not a Jewish-only problem.   Or just a Roman problem.   It is universal; it is a human problem. No matter man’s religious, racial or political background, he will by nature rebelliously mock and insult Jesus.

An atheist told me recently, “Why can’t there just be no God?”  The darkness in our hearts prefers darkness to light. We prefer a reality with no hope, no meaning, no purpose over a universe ruled by a loving deity.  We want to be “free” to pursue the darkness of our hearts.   But we are only as free as a man who skydives without a parachute.  For several minutes he thinks he can fly…until he notices the ground rushing up at him.  Therefore we mock Him, slap Him…kill Him.

Lesser gods, if treated by mere humans like Jesus was, would call down fire and brimstone right then and there.  Yet our Lord came to take upon Himself our reproaches, even our “spit.”  Isaiah thus prophesied, “I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting,” (Isaiah 50:6). Max Lucado continues: “Spitting isn’t intended to hurt the body—it can’t. Spitting is intended to degrade the soul, and it does…the One who chose the nails also chose the saliva…he bore the spit of man.”

And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him (v. 31).   Our Lord’s enemies think they have won.   They lead Him out to crucify Him.   They think they will rid themselves once and for all of this Jesus who has the gall to stand in judgment of them.  They taunt, they gloat, they beat and they spit.  And now they will crucify.   It looks like the good guys have lost.  Evil revels in its finest hour.  Darkness is will soon descend on this Friday afternoon.  But to quote Tony Campolo, “Its Friday.  But Sunday’s coming.”