You remember that text. And they took Him off to Caiaphas, the high priest in those days. And Caiaphas represents the whole vanguard, the whole group of chief priests and scribes and Pharisees, the religious elite of Judaism, which was against Jesus Christ, hated Jesus Christ, wanted to be rid of Jesus Christ. And then after that trial with Caiaphas, eventually taken to Pilate who turns Him over to the soldiers for His ultimate execution.

All according to the predetermined plan and the eternal counsels of a sovereign God who loved us and provided Jesus Christ through these events for our redemption.

But we’ve been looking and examining and trying to get in the minds of some rather scurrilous individuals in the New Testament narrative. And I would like to suggest to you that, even as the Bible, as the Scriptures text, the spotlight of revelation, lingers over the wretched forms of Judas and Caiaphas and then Pilate, that as the spotlight of Scripture lingers over these personalities and as we see their thinking and their words and their actions, that the hideous reality of human evil really comes into focus for us.

He came to his own, and his own ... did not receive him.

But I would also have you observe with me from John chapter 19 that not every face in the crowd that day wore a malevolent scowl. There were just a very few courageous souls who were drawn inexorably by a love-birthed heart of sympathy to the foot of the cross. And to them, and I would suggest, to us through them, because all of these things are recorded for our learning, for our encouragement, for the buttressing of our faith, so that to them and through them to us, Jesus has some gracious words that are meant to bury our grief and our sorrow and our guilt in a sea of hope.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, [John said in chapter 1] and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

He came to His own. His own did not receive Him. Judas. Caiaphas. Pilate.

But [to] as many as [did receive] him, to them [he] gave ... [the right, the privilege, the authority] to become the sons of God,

The Word, Jesus Christ, the eternal God, Jesus Christ was made flesh and dwelt among us, and in Him we have beheld glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

And even as Jesus prayed for the forgiveness of His tormentors, His compassionate gaze locked on the tear-drenched faces of four women. Mary, His own mother, her sister, Salome, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene, were all four quietly weeping with very little or no hope in their grief-shattered hearts.

There was a full range of emotions at the foot of the cross that day, as John shares it with us in the text that I’m just about to read. There was a full range of emotions.

There was those executioner soldiers who are callously bartering over the few possessions of Jesus Christ. Who’s going to get His sandals? Who’s going to get His belt? Who’s going to get His head gear? Who’s going to get His robe? Indifferent, utterly indifferent to the agony of the one who possessed those things.

And while they coolly profit from their base lottery, these women are quietly grieving, [end of track 1, 4:56] with really no hope because they don’t understand the concept of the resurrection at this point.