Luke 23: Who Do You Trust?
Luke 23 details for us the crucifixion in the last moment of Jesus before his death on the cross. Luke in his gospel also captures several perspectives from other people who were there to witness the crucifixion. This isn't an autobiographical account, it is the collection of several different memories, several different eyewitness testimonies of people who were involved in those last couple days of Jesus's life.
Then the whole assembly rose and led him off to Pilate. 2 And they began to accuse him, saying, “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Messiah, a king.” 3 So Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “You have said so,” Jesus replied. 4 Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, “I find no basis for a charge against this man.” 5 But they insisted, “He stirs up the people all over Judea by his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here.” 6 On hearing this, Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean. 7 When he learned that Jesus was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time. 8 When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform a sign of some sort. 9 He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10 The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him. 11 Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate. 12 That day Herod and Pilate became friends—before this they had been enemies. 13 Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers and the people, 14 and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was inciting the people to rebellion. I have examined him in your presence and have found no basis for your charges against him. 15 Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us; as you can see, he has done nothing to deserve death. 16 Therefore, I will punish him and then release him.” 18 But the whole crowd shouted, “Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us!” 19 (Barabbas had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder.) 20 Wanting to release Jesus, Pilate appealed to them again. 21 But they kept shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”22 For the third time he spoke to them: “Why? What crime has this man committed? I have found in him no grounds for the death penalty. Therefore I will have him punished and then release him.” 23 But with loud shouts they insistently demanded that he be crucified, and their shouts prevailed. 24 So Pilate decided to grant their demand. 25 He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, the one they asked for, and surrendered Jesus to their will. 26 As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. 27 A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28 Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then“‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’31 For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”[c] And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. 35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” 36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37 and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” 38 There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the Jews. 39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.[d]”43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Trusting
The last days of Jesus's life, before his crucifixion are sobering. It's tough to read about a crowd that has no basis for wanting to murder a man. It’s tough to hear about the corruption inside the religious leaders and the courts of that day. It's hard for us to talk about trust in an environment like this. Everyone seemingly involved in the story is untrustworthy. We hear about this man who was crucified alongside Jesus, deservedly so as he was a thief. It’s a theme here that the Roman soldiers occupying a foreign land are the enemy of these people and crowds. They'll mock Jesus, and make a sign about him as an ironic joke. He's the king of the Jews he ought to die a king of death and we ought to recognize him by giving him a plaque. The leaders, Pilate and Herod, bounce back and forth about who is going to make the ultimate decision in the case of this man Jesus of Nazareth. Pilot is excited to see some magic tricks from Jesus. He's heard so much about this Jesus of Nazareth, who fed 5,000 people with a few loaves of bread and a few fish. This is Jesus who raised the man named Lazarus from the dead. Jesus has told countless people to go away and be healed and they went away and were healed. This Jesus told a Centurion that miles away his son had recovered and his son did recover. This Jesus who said that he would come on behalf of his people he would die and that he would be raised again in three days.
It's hard for us to trust anyone involved in this scenario, everyone seems to be a corrupt crook. The people we start reading about in Luke 23 sound an awful lot like the people we ended our reading with. Herod and Pilate are thieves of other people's lives, possessions, and power of respect. It seems like everyone in this chapter is deserving of crucifixion except for one person who didn't speak up and say stop. The one person who didn't respond to the smearing, the jeering, and the mockery. One person who silently went up to the cross and died.
Where do you place trust? There are lots of different people, institutions, and ideologies that ask you to trust them, who do you trust? As we read through Luke 23, who is it that seems trustworthy to you? No one here seems trustworthy except for this one person who gives us relatively few words in the midst of all of this commotion, amid shouting crowds amid deliberating diplomats, among shouting soldiers in the midst of quarreling. There is one person who is relatively quiet when all the voices of the world are speaking up, the Lord is silent and listening. Finally, he has a conversation with one of the thieves that speaks to Jesus in verses 42-43. The thief makes a decision that he's going to trust Jesus. Despite all the mockery, despite all the showmanship, and everything that everyone around them seems to be saying about this man, who was dying on the cross next to him, this thief decides he will trust and follow Jesus. The thief recognizes and trusts that he is in the presence of real royalty, real nobility, real magnificent.
We trust and follow all sorts of things daily. We trust when we play the game Simon Says and Follow the Leader. You trust the leader that what they said is right and you make decisions based on that. How much more obvious is this in our life? We make decisions based on what we trust.
Who do you trust and follow? All the people in Luke 23 have agendas and are following different things. A quarrel starts in verse 40 between the two thieves on the cross. The one thief asks the other “Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same sentence?” He is putting his trust in God and rebuking the other thief who is not trusting God.
Who is it that you proclaim, you trust? What we trust leads us in how we make decisions and where we get our information. Where we place our trust leads us to make decisions
and that also leads us to be followers of those things. We try to follow all these things, but after you decide to follow something other people are going to wonder why you made the decision. Here's your opportunity to share about the God you follow and why you trust Him.
I want you to pray this week if you would grow in trust of what God is doing limits of your life that you would grow to trust God's plan for your life. Secondly, I want to ask you to pray that amid a world that ridicules our God, ridicules Jesus, and makes a mockery of him, pray that your faith would grow. Notice when Jesus responds to the thief on the cross Jesus doesn't say yep I save you walk down from the cross. He would die on that cross. Jesus doesn't promise us as his followers a life without pain and suffering. Jesus does promise us that if we follow him there is eternal life on the other side of death. I want you to be praying that God would grow in you the trust for God's plan. That God would be growing your faith in following Christ.
Lastly, I want you to pray that God would show you opportunities to share to proclaim who Jesus is and why he matters. Pray that God would open up your eyes to see opportunities to share who this Jesus and why he matters.
