Mark 15 - The Great Exchange
Tom Shrader examines Jesus' trial before Pilate in Mark 15:1-15, focusing on the pivotal question 'What shall I do with Jesus?' He explores how Pilate, despite knowing Jesus was innocent, gave in to crowd pressure and released the murderer Barabbas instead. This passage reveals the great exchange where Christ takes the place of the guilty, demonstrating God's grace and the substitutionary nature of His death.
“We deserved what He got, it's called grace.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Mark
Recorded: 2014
Duration: 39 min
Themes: sacrifice, substitution, grace, innocence, guilt, exchange, pressure, choice, facing peer pressure, making difficult decisions, struggling with guilt, new believer, feeling condemned, person in authority, dealing with injustice, seeking forgiveness
Scripture: Mark 15:1-15, Mark 10, Acts 12, John 18:31, Acts 7, 1 Peter 5
Theological Themes: substitutionary atonement, penal substitution, imputation, justification, vicarious sacrifice, christ bearing sin, gospel message, redemption
Full Transcript
Open your Bibles to Mark Chapter 15. As Tim mentioned, we're going to look at the first 15 verses. As you turn there, let me remind you of some things we covered in the introduction to this book.
Mark is the second book of the New Testament and the shortest of the Gospels at just 16 chapters. Each of the Gospels has a different target audience. Matthew is looking at Jesus as king, Luke as His humanity, John as His deity. Mark presents Jesus as servant. Matthew wrote primarily for a Jewish audience. Luke wrote to the Greek mind, the philosophical mind. John wrote to those of us who are believers, though there's such an affinity for believers to that book. Mark wrote primarily to a Roman mind.
The Action Gospel
It's an action gospel. The word "immediately" appears over 40 times in this book. It's fast, it's short, it's fast. The primary audience, in terms of the Romans, would be illiterate, so this book would be read to them. It's designed to be a page turner.
Sandy and I right now are watching, for the first time, the series 24, so we're a little late to the party. We just finished the other night where Jack Bauer just got kidnapped and put on a slow boat to China. I thought, if you were going to do a television adaptation of Mark, the Jack Bauer 24 kind of feel is what I got as I read it. There'd be a lot of times in the course of the chapter where you'd have four screens, and you'd be popping over, and there's always something happening. That's by design, as the Holy Spirit moved on Mark as he wrote.
I just read this week that, of all the books of the Bible, the one most translated in most languages around the world is the Gospel of Mark. We met Mark as you read through the book of Acts, Acts chapter 12. Peter is arrested and going to be executed. It's likely the night before, and he's in jail, and there is this supernatural earthquake and the chains fall from his hands, and he escaped, and an angel leads him through the city, and he arrives at a house and knocks on the door. We're told in Acts 12 that it was the house of a lady named Mary, whose son was Mark. That's this guy.
Mark makes a passing reference to himself as Jesus is on the way to the crucifixion, that there was a young man who was wrapped in a linen, he was naked underneath. That's Mark's reference to himself.
The Heart of the Gospel
If we took the Gospel and said, here it is in one verse, it would be Mark chapter 10: "The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve." And in the process of that service, we see it all through His life. We're coming really at the centerpiece of that service, and that's the crucifixion.
Leading into this section that we will read in a moment, J.C. Ryle writes this: "These verses which begin this chapter, Mark describes the slaying of the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world. It's a part of the Gospel history, which should always be read with particular reverence. We should call to mind that Christ was cut off, not for Himself, but for our sake. We should remember that His death is the life of our soul, and that unless His blood had been shed, we would have perished miserably in our sin." So that's the backdrop as we get to this.
The Text: Mark 15:1-15
Look with me, Mark chapter 15, beginning in verse 1:
"Early in the morning, the chief priests, and the elders, and the scribes, and the whole council immediately held a consultation. In binding Jesus, they led Him away and delivered Him to Pilate. Pilate questioned Him, 'Are you the king of the Jews?' And He answered them, and He said, 'It is as you say.' The chief priests began to accuse Him harshly. Then Pilate questioned Him again saying, 'Do you not answer? See how many charges they bring against you.' But Jesus made no further answer, so Pilate was amazed.
"Now at the feast, he was used to release for them any one prisoner whom they requested. The man named Barabbas had been in prison with the insurrectionist who had committed murder in insurrection. The crowd went up and began asking him to do as he was accustomed to do for them. And Pilate answered them and saying, 'Do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews?' For he was aware that the chief priests had handed Him, that's Jesus, over because of envy. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to ask him to release Barabbas for them instead.
"Answering again, Pilate said to them, 'Then what shall I do with Him who you call the king of the Jews?' They shouted back, 'Crucify Him.' Pilate said to them, 'Why? What evil has He done?' And they shouted all the more, 'Crucify.' Verse 15, wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas for them. And after having Jesus scourged, he handed Him over to be crucified."
Yesterday morning I had done a lot of reading and preparation all week for this. I'm in a funny schedule right now. I'm teaching four weeks in a row. So I taught at West Mesa two weeks ago, which is a bilingual service. And I found out I'm a lazy guy. I found out how lazy I am in the bilingual service because I'm doing this and these sentences are sloppy. And rather than fix it, I'm going, "He'll clean it up in Spanish." So that was terrible. If you had an English copy of that, it was the worst sermon ever preached.
Last week I was in Tucson and exciting to see that church is one year old, and exciting to see the excitement there. Next Sunday I'm downtown at New City Church, which is a church that we work with a lot and fun for me to go. In fact, next Saturday I'm at Gateway, Sunday at New City, and Monday at Grand Canyon. So my point here is, I'm really busy, which is good for me because it gives me discipline.
So I'm reading and studying. Yesterday morning I'm sitting, waiting for the Iowa game to come on, assuming just another victory. This can't last. Somebody just sent me a text. They're projecting Iowa to play Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl. How great would that be? I'm doing the closing prayer at the Fiesta Bowl breakfast this year. This could be awesome. That would be a chance to pray, "God, I know you have a favorite team in this game. It's not those guys."
Yesterday morning, I'm sitting and Sandy's over in her chair. She'd swum and run and whatever she did. She said, "Are you ready for tomorrow?" I said, "Yeah, not really. I don't have that." I could see her mind going - you don't have that oomph very often, so I don't know why tomorrow would be different. She said, "What's the passage?" I said, "Mark 15:1-15, Jesus and Pilate."
She said, "Well, wow," and unpacked it. She didn't have a Bible, but she unpacked it. "Well, you got the conspiracy against Jesus and the false trial, and they bring Him in there with false accusations. Pilate can't stand up - he caves under the pressure of the people. You can apply that. And He suffers in Barabbas's place - that's substitutionary atonement." I said, "What are you doing tomorrow morning at 8, 9:30, and 11?"
When Everyone Else Seems to Get It
Then I watched half of the game, went to Ben's wedding, and came home. I was getting texts. The girls didn't know if I knew the score, but I did. So I told them I was watching the game, and I want to get this for you. I want to put it in - this is in real time. Sarah said there's lots of diving in the end zone, dangerous. I said, "Listen, there was lots of diving. I have to study. Sarah, I'll see you in the morning."
"Hey, wait. Jesus, love, cross, sin, forgive, hope, peace, future, sacrifice. Am I helping?" Well, apparently, anybody on the planet can do this lesson but me. I said, "Did you read the passage?" She said, "No, it's that every week." Well, that's the message, and that is true. That's the gospel message.
Here's what I've chosen, and I think it's right. It's kind of the pivot verse - verse 12: "Pilate said, 'What shall I do with Jesus?'" I want to come back to this throughout. I'm going to explain some of the nuances and some of the history of what's going on. But for some of you, if you're Sarah and Haley, and you can unpack this, and Sandy, you can unpack this, and you've been around this stuff and all the things that go with it, my hope is that you'll come back again and identify with the different people in here.
For Those New to the Story
For some of you - and I learn this every week when I'm here - there are those of you who are not just brand new to the church but brand new to this whole thing. You know Jesus because He's around at Christmas, and Starbucks is taking Him off the cup. We know that. I'm kidding. You know Jesus. You got Pilate. You're not sure how it fits together, but you're here. You're curious.
Here's what I realized yesterday. There are 52 baptisms today. Whenever we have baptisms, we always have people who are here who are family or friends or classmates or coworkers or neighbors, and not particularly spiritually curious at all. It could be an Eagle Scout award or a volleyball game. It happens to be baptism. It's important to your friend, not that important to you, but you - and this is admirable - want to be here to support them.
My hope is that God would use this morning to really speak to you, that you would come face to face with what to do with Jesus. Who is He? One of the things I learn over and over again is as you talk about Jesus' trial and what took place, people are stunned when they get in and see not only it was a miscarriage of justice, but that everyone found Him really innocent. Everyone - meaning Pilate and the Roman authorities - saw that He had done nothing wrong. You sense that in this. We'll try to get at that.
The Setup: Early Morning Conspiracy
In chapter 15, verse 1, it says "early in the morning." We're thinking about 5 or 6 o'clock. What has taken place here is that the Jewish leaders - the Supreme Court, scribes, Pharisees, chief priests, about 71 men - have wanted to kill Jesus for a long time. They were afraid to do it, especially after the triumphal entry into the city where hundreds or thousands are crying, "Hosanna, Hosanna." So they decided it's probably something they want to do at night. They don't know how to make that happen, and Judas makes that possible.
Judas comes, and this isn't speculation - this is the story. Judas comes and says, "Well, I can deliver Him, and I can get Him at night because we got this habit. We go to this Gethsemane place, and we pray up there, and we'll be up there, and He'll be easy to take." The Jews bring as many as 1,000 men with them to arrest Him. They're scared that the people might rise up against them.
They arrest Him, and then we think about 1 o'clock, they took Him to Annas' house, and then they took Him to his son-in-law Caiaphas' house. We're not sure what took place, maybe from three to five. There were two trials in there. Both were inappropriate. Both violated Jewish law. There were accusations, and then there were witnesses. They were false witnesses who came. The corroboration didn't line up.
The Legal Problem
They had a trial. You see it in verse 1. It says "a consultation early in the morning." They had to have this last trial, and this was the end of the Jewish part of this trial. They decided He was guilty. Very interesting. They're now ready for Pilate, and their motive, John tells us in John 18:31, was that they weren't permitted to put anyone to death.
Now, those of you who are wily veterans are going, "Well, that's not true. Didn't they stone Stephen in Acts chapter 7?" Yes. But it wasn't the Jewish leaders. It wasn't the law. It was
the mob. Not the Corleones, but the mob that got out of control. Always the East Coast people get that better than the West Coast people. And they stone Stephen, yes, but they want to put Him to death, not just death, but death on a cross, the death that had been prophesied. And only the Romans could do this.
Now, just by way of trying to bring some of this together, the Jews hated Him. I listed three reasons. Number one, He threatened their power. He came along, and people were beginning to follow Him. Power tends to be addicting. I think it was John Acton that said, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Now, is that true? Well, no, because the only absolute power in the world is God, and He's not corrupt, but we get the thrust of this. If you have power, it's hard to not run for reelection.
Here's the second thing. Jesus didn't fit their expectations within their system. Even the people began to turn on Him. So one of the things that we say today as we say, consider Jesus, is consider Jesus as He really is, not as you want Him to be, not the Messiah you think He needs to be, not the Messiah that comes along that delivers health and wealth and this smooth, easy life.
The third thing was, and this is a big deal, is Jesus exposes their sin. For those of you today that this is new, and it might be new in that it's the first time or you've been around church but never really heard it this way, you're a sinner and you can't fix it. Jesus comes along. All of a sudden, He's the standard. I mean, I love the idea of grading on a curve, even the idea of saying, I'm bad, but I'm not as bad as him or her.
The Dance Story: Finding Three People Worse Than You
When I was in eighth grade, so 1964, I'm in Davenport, Iowa, and then right across, it was the Quad Cities, right across the river, Rock Island, Moline, East Moline, we didn't go there, but Davenport, Bettendorf. Well, we heard in Rock Island that at the Catholic school there, they had one Sunday night a month, they had a dance. Now, I didn't know how to dance. I don't know that my friends knew how to dance, but it seemed like something that we ought to do.
So we went over there, never been to a dance before. I can only imagine standing around like a doofus, like I do at a dance now. But every fourth dance, they had this thing where a couple would be dancing. So a guy and a gal dancing, and four girls could come up and hold hands around the couple, and the girl, four girls, the boy would have to pick one of the girls to dance with. Or conversely, four guys would come around, and the girl would have to pick one of the boys.
Well, I learned really quickly that the key to this thing is to find three guys uglier than you. I mean, there's no dialogue here. I mean, it's totally superficial, and I'm fine with that. I went a whole night getting shut out, but I did it. Well, some of you go through life that way. I'll just find three people more sinful than me, and I'll be okay. Jesus comes along and exposes all of that.
Jesus Before Pilate
They finally have Him. Now they need Pilate. They don't need Pilate as a judge, the Jewish leaders. They need Pilate as the executioner, and so they come, and they bring Jesus to him, and they've got charges. They're trumped up charges. Charges about Him telling the Jews not to pay tax and perverting the nation, but then that He was challenging Caesar, and that's the one that got Pilate's attention.
So look at verse 2. That's the question. Are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus answers and says, it is as you say. Now in other Gospels, at other times, He's been challenged by the Jewish leaders, and He affirms it. Yes, I am, or I am, but my kingdom's not of this world, but not here with Pilate. He doesn't affirm it. He doesn't deny it, and Pilate's troubled by this.
Apparently at this point his sympathies are with Jesus, not with the priests. So the priests sense this, verse 3, they begin to accuse Jesus more harshly. They add more and more charges. They just keep coming at Him. And Pilate said to Him, do you not answer? See how many charges they bring against you. And Jesus made no further answer, verse 5, so they're amazed, Pilate.
The Unusual Silence
I don't know, but I'm sensing that Pilate has a lot of judging that he does in the course of a week, and he's not accustomed to somebody who's being accused to stay silent. Our tendencies tend to be more innocent. Years and years and years and years ago, I got a DUI. I actually got two of them, but it was the second one, and they sent me to school. And I said, alright, I've never done very well in school, but I'll go to this.
And it was a Saturday morning, and there was the guy who led the school, and we sat in a half circle, and I don't know, 20 of us. I was sitting to his right, he started to his left, and he said, why are you here? And everybody had an excuse. I remember one guy, he was like my age now, and he said, I had a really bad cold, and I took some NyQuil, and I went to bed, and then my daughter called, and she needed a ride, and I got up and gave her a ride, and that's why I blew a 4.0. You're drinking a lot of NyQuil, buddy. I mean, that's a shelf of NyQuil.
We went through 19 people, it got to me, and I said, this is amazing to me. I guess I'm the only guilty guy. I drank all day long. And this guy caught me at the break, he said, nobody ever admits to this. So I think, I mean, I think of that when I go on Pilate's going, you're not going to say anything to defend yourself? I'm not used to this.
The Split Screen Moment
Now, in the Jack Bauer 24, if we were doing this, we go to a split screen now, and then, Pilate would go away, and Judas would come up, because simultaneously with this, on the other side of town, Judas is now saying, I really messed up. Here's your 30 pieces of silver. And the screen would show Judas going, and putting a noose around his neck, and hanging from a tree, and the tree breaks, he falls down, and his insides fall out. And the tribes fall out. Now, back over to Pilate, and Pilate's going, well, I don't know what
Pilate's Desperate Attempts
Well, what he does at this point, again, by taking the Gospels and harmonizing them, is he sends Jesus to Herod, Herod Antipas. He was, first of all, a guy by the name of Herod the Great. You know how he got that name? He said, call me Herod the Great. It's kind of like with Michael Jackson. He said, call me the King of Pop. That's how he got the name. So he was Herod the Great.
He died in 4 BC. Herod had four sons. This one is Herod Antipas. He reigns for about 40 years. He's a bad, bad guy. He's a builder, like his dad was, builds cities. He married a gal out of military convenience, just to prevent wars, brings things together. He's one day at Thanksgiving. Now, it's not really Thanksgiving, but you get it. You can sort the truth out here. He's at Thanksgiving. His brother is there with his new wife. And Herod said, she's better than you. So he kills this one, kills him, and marries his sister-in-law. And then he's confronted by John the Baptist.
Her daughter does this dance, John the Baptist. This is Herod. He had heard about Jesus, had a chance this night to meet Him. He can't deal with Him. So now what happens is Jesus goes back over to Pilate. That's where you pick up there in verse 6.
Pilate's Impossible Position
Pilate's in really a lot of trouble. He's exhausted all of his options. He doesn't know what to do. And I guess you can give him some credit for at least struggling with this. He knows Jesus is innocent. He senses to kill Him would be wrong. Sandy said to me yesterday, don't forget, one of the other gospels say that his wife had a dream. Remember, Pilate's wife had a dream and said, don't mess with this guy. That would be a mistake. Pilate has all of these warnings.
And then he comes up with an idea. He said, this is perfect. I'm going to get out of this. At the feast, at this time of year, he would release a prisoner. And he knows there's a guy there, a particularly diabolical guy named Barabbas. He's a murderer. He's a revolutionary. No question he's guilty. So Pilate's thinking, I'm going to say to the people, who do you want? Jesus, who five or six days ago they'd been saying, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna. They're going to take Jesus before they're going to say Barabbas, right? No.
He said, there's a man named Barabbas. And the crowd went up and began to ask him to do as had been his custom. It's my custom here to release somebody. I'm thinking about this. And they say, do it. Release somebody. And Pilate said, verse 9, do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews? Because he's aware the chief priest had handed Jesus over because of envy.
The Crowd's Shocking Choice
Pilate understands what's going on here. Not his first rodeo. He knows what's happening. The leaders were against Jesus, but he thought the people were with Him. I'm going to get out of this. But people are going to demand Jesus. I'm going to give them this choice on narrow options. And they're going to take it.
Verse 11, the chief priest stirred the crowd up to ask him to release Barabbas instead. So a little bit of time passes. John tells us that Pilate is afraid of Jesus, afraid of the crowd, afraid of what would happen. The Jews intervene. They stir them up. And Pilate said to Him, verse 12, what will I do with Him who you call the king of the Jews? And they shout back, crucify Him, crucify Him.
Barabbas in Prison
Now, here's a side note. If this were still 24, this would be the new screen. It would be Barabbas in the prison. We don't know this factually, but in his book, Loving God, Chuck Colson writes a section on Barabbas. And he said, imagine Barabbas. And he lays out all of the evil things he did and all the crimes. And he's guilty. And he's in prison. He'll be executed.
And he hears that there's a crowd that's gathering. Not sure why. He can't hear every word. All he can hear is when they cry as one group. And here's what he hears. He doesn't hear. Pilate says, who should I release? And they scream, Barabbas. So he hears, Barabbas. What do I do? Barabbas. What do I do with Jesus? Crucify. So all he hears is, Barabbas. Crucify Him. That's not good if you're Barabbas. So he's working that through.
The Final Decision
We cut the screen back over now to Pilate. And Pilate said, what evil has He done? And you see their answer in verse 14. Crucify Him. We don't care about the evil. Just crucify Him.
And verse 15. Motivated, not by justice, but by a desire to satisfy the crowd, Pilate has Jesus scourged. Now a scourging wasn't just like a guy with a whip. There would be two of them. Let's say the guitar represents the one that was to be discouraged. There'd be two guys, one on each side. They would have a wooden handle about 18 inches, and then there'd be maybe a dozen strips of leather anywhere between two and three feet long. And on the leather would be attached a glass and bone and rock.
And so the scourging would be like this. It was a slash in. That would bury the metal, the glass, the rock into the back, and then a quick jerk down to rip the back open. And they would do this with alternating blows. It was designed even more than excruciatingly difficult, harsh punishment. It was designed to begin the bleeding process to shorten crucifixion.
Crucifixion, and we sometimes maybe forget this, was not designed to just be three hours. Crucifixion could go on for days. That's why they eventually break the legs of the thief so they collapse and they suffocate. So Pilate wants to satisfy the crowd, and he thinks, okay, this is going to do it. I'll beat Him. He's going to have this incredible look on His face. He'll be beaten bloody, crown of thorns, robe, and that may be satisfying. We don't know. That's His hope.
The Fickleness of Human Nature
Now Sandy is unpacking these verses the other day. She points out the obvious is that we can be very fickle, that people are fickle. I'm a bit of a political guy, and so I watch a lot of stuff, and every segment on the polls begins with the polls are very fluid. Well, people are fickle. You have a favorable
rating of 60% one day and 40% of the next and maybe not even tap it. I was back in Iowa last summer, and everybody wanted Coach Ferentz fired. Get him out of here. He's been here 15 years. Get him out of here. Make him $4 million a year, and I was really, I was the only guy. I'm going, the guy's terrific. You know, let's hang in there. Right up, bum. Now they want to run him for governor, okay? It's the way people are. You can turn, people turn so quickly. So that crowd has turned, and that's what Pilate is counting on. And this story, if you look, if I look at the headings in my Bible beginning next in verse 16, it says Jesus is mocked, and then the crucifixion, then the burial. So that's kind of the rest of the story. I like those, I like Oprah, and I said that in Tucson a couple months ago teaching it. I got all sorts of grief about Oprah, and I went, what? I like the show she does, and I really like when she does Where Are They Now. This week she did Where Are They Now, the cast of The Love Boat, and time has not been good to Julie, the cruise director. But that's okay. But I like Where Are They Now. Well, stop this. Here's where Pilate goes. From here, here's what we know about Pilate. He kills himself. We don't know how. It's like all these myths about how it happened, or where he went, or how he buried, or whatever it is. Anyway, all we know is that Pilate is dead. Now I come back to that original, what are you going to do with Jesus? J.C. Ryle writes this, let us learn a practical lesson from Jesus' example. Let us learn to suffer patiently, not to, I could use this, not to complain. Whatever God may think to fit, to lay on you, don't complain. Let us take heed to his ways, which are higher than ours. The irony of this, and one of the great truths of this, is that Pilate thinks he's in control. I'm the one, I'm the authority, you're coming to me. Here's the practical application for us. It may not always look like it, but God's in control. In your life individually, in our life corporately, I spend so much time with people who spend all day listening to talk radio, they watch Fox News, then they buy gold, and then they go to bed and worry. Every day, all day long, Roslyn Capitol, should I buy silver or gold, what's going to happen? Be prudent, but here you go, God's in control. When I was a wee lad, we used to, seven o'clock every Sunday night, watch the Ed Sullivan show. And there was a gal on there, Ed Sullivan had him all the time, and her name was Mahala Jackson, so you can go on to, you can go to YouTube and you'll find her there. And she sang all sorts of spirituals, but she sang one in particular, he's got the whole world in his hand. He's got you and me, brother, in his hand, you and me, sister, the little bitty baby in his hand. It wasn't here in Mark 15 that he went, whoops, whoops, catch it, not quite, no, it looks like it, but God's in control. We're told all along that Jesus says, I voluntarily lay down my life. This isn't a picture of God's plan gone awry, this is a picture of God using this moment to show us our own sinfulness. Now what's going to happen in a couple of minutes in this trough over here, you're going to see men and women, students, who at some point in their life, and I guess you could say it, first hour I said, became aware of their own sinfulness, and then I caught myself and said, I don't know that it's that. They became aware of Christ's holiness. So they weren't doing a comparison thing, they're seeing his perfection. And they know the rest of the story, and that Christ dies unjustly. But just like he took Barabbas's place, the symbolism is so rich, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, right at the time that they're celebrating the Passover, in the middle of this, Jesus comes and there's the fulfillment of it. It's the Lamb of God. You're sitting there today, my topic next week, the assigned topic, is to talk about happiness. All right, this isn't going to take long, but what I want to talk about is hope. If you go back, how great is that quote, that Packer quote, really in setting all this up, when Packer says, we humans are hopers by nature. And we hope that this, or that, or whatever, is going to satisfy us, or remedy even our spiritual problem. I'll get really serious, I'll go to church, I'll start to give, I'll get involved in children's ministry, whatever it is, but the only hope is Christ. And these people today, who are being baptized, are acknowledging that they've come spiritually to the end of the rope, and said, I give up trying to please God, I'm going to accept what Christ did for me on the cross. This is like, Tim this morning said, how was the lesson? I said, it's okay. He said, it's all right, we got baptism, that'll save it. And it's right, I mean, this is the culmination, communion and baptism, this is the culmination of what we talk about every week here. So whether you're Sandy, or Sarah, or Haley, and you know all this stuff for its first time, I want you to ask God to open your eyes to see this, and maybe you're here today out of courtesy to those being baptized, out of friendship. I hope God does something to cause you to talk to that person that's being baptized and say, what happened there? I want that. Let me pray as the guys come. Father, thank You for that awesome and amazing truth. God, it is so good to see Your kindness and Your graciousness and Your love and Your care. God, that You're in control, even when it doesn't look like it. Father, thank You for Jesus, who died in our place. We deserved what He got, it's called grace. God, thank You for that. We praise You in Christ's name, amen.