Triangulation

In the 1950s, American psychiatrist and counselor, Murray Bowen, invented systems theory or family systems theory.

And the kind of core idea of systems theory is, it's about the way that people in networks and relationships deal with anxiety.

And he would say, anxiety with a lowercase a.

The way that people deal with anxiety.

And what Bowen found is, as anxiety in a system increases, people kind of tend to fall into three roles.

And he called it triangulation.

Those three roles were the persecutor, the victim, and the rescuer.

As anxiety increases, people fall into these three roles.

I think it's fair to say in our story tonight, the anxiety is high.

It is pretty much the crux of the entire Gospel of Mark.

The anxiety is high.

And so as such, I think we can see these three roles of the persecutor, the victim, and the rescuer at play in the story.

So we're gonna tackle this story, enter into the story through the lens of systems theory and triangulation.

Before we do that, let me pray.

Father, we thank you for your word before us.

We pray now as we read it and seek to understand it, that you would speak to us.

That we would hear your voice, convicting us, challenging us, and ultimately comforting us.

Help us in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, this is episode 19 out of 72 of our Gospel of New Beginnings series.

As you know, we're reading through the Gospel of Mark all of this year.

And as Hamish so eloquently said, we have different sermons morning and night and the iTunes, Spotify thing, the podcast is the place where you can go to catch up on the messages that you missed.

As Hamish said, this morning we looked at the story of Peter disowning Jesus three times.

And next Friday, the next message is Good Friday.

So this is the story immediately before Jesus is actually crucified.

Which means that the anxiety is very high in the story.

And according to systems theory, we could hypothesize that as anxiety in a system increases, people triangulate and form three roles.

The persecutor, the victim, and the rescuer.

Firstly, I think the persecutor in tonight's passage is the Jews.

And I mean the Jewish leaders and also the Jewish people.

But firstly, we'll kinda look at the Jewish leaders.

All throughout Mark, as we have seen so far this year, the Jewish leaders have been the main antagonist to Jesus.

Even as early as chapter three of Mark, we're in 15 now out of 16, as early as chapter three, the Jewish leaders decided they wanted to kill Jesus.

They were opposed to Jesus throughout the whole story.

And the reason was that he claimed to be God.

He acted like God, but he said that he was God.

And according to the law of the Jews, that means he was worthy of death.

And that's exactly the conclusion that the Jewish council, the Sanhedrin came to, which we looked at last Sunday night.

They condemned him as worthy of death.

Now the Sanhedrin themselves can't actually execute people in that culture.

They needed the permission of the Roman governor, Pilate.

And so we see in verse one of chapter 15, the passing over of Jesus from the Sanhedrin to Pilate, Mark 15 verse one.

Very early in the morning, the chief priests with the elders, the teachers of the law, and the whole Sanhedrin made their plans.

So they bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate.

As we see later on, the trial of Pilate is in the open.

And so the Jewish people, the crowd of Jerusalem, are interacting with the justice or the injustice of the trial, which is kind of a foreign concept today to have a crowd interacting with the trial.

But that's what the culture was at the time.

And so these Jewish leaders who from the start of Mark have been opposed to Jesus, they stir up the crowd to be also against Jesus.

We read in verse 3 that the chief priests were accusing Jesus of many things in the court.

And then in verse 11, the chief priests stirred up the crowd.

They stirred the anxiety of the crowd against Jesus, and to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.

And so then when Pilate asks, what should I then do with this person, Jesus, the one you call the king of the Jews, crucify him, the crowd shouted.

The crowd says, crucify him.

Pilate says, why?

What crime has he committed?

But they shouted all the louder, crucify him.

So the decision of the Jews, both the Jewish leaders and the Jewish people is unanimous, that Jesus should be crucified.

To me, that is a very, very stark difference that we've seen over the course of Mark's Gospel.

At the start of Mark's Gospel, these were the crowds that received the coming kingdom with joy and amazement.

We read probably a month and a half ago, or two months ago, Mark 1, 27.

The people were all so amazed at the things that Jesus was doing and saying that they asked each other, what is this, a new teaching and with authority.

He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.

News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.

The crowd started off thoroughly on Jesus' side.

Even as recently as Palm Sunday, which is today, but according to where we are in the story, it's four days earlier because we're in Thursday night right now.

Even on Palm Sunday, the crowds receive him with praise.

It says in Mark 11, those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David, Hosanna in the highest heaven.

But now, within the span of a couple of days, the same people who shouted, Hosanna, welcome Jesus, now shout, crucify him.

The Jewish crowd, incited and stirred up by the Jewish leaders, have completely turned on Jesus.

I've recently formed an interest in the NBA and playing basketball.

And as I watched the NBA a bit more, I decided I have to pick a team to back.

And there's 30 teams to choose from.

Now, anyone who's ever started to get into sport and wanted to pick a team, knows that you can't pick the team at the top of the ladder.

Because if they win, you don't get to say, oh, I backed them through thick and thin.

You also, if you're smart, don't pick the team at the bottom of the ladder, because they have no chance of winning.

So my tactic was, somewhere around the middle of the ladder, not doing too well, but well enough that they might win, that will be my team.

And I won't tell you who my team is, but you can ask me after the sermon, and we'll talk about it and discuss the NBA.

That is relevant in this way.

The Jews realize the tide is turning against Jesus, and they don't want to back the wrong person.

So as the Jewish leaders are accusing Jesus of so many things, it's looking like Jesus is going to die.

So the whole crowd turns against him.

They don't want to support him at this stage.

Now the question is, why are the Jews persecuting Jesus?

Why do they play that role?

I think John 10, 24 gives us the answer.

It says this.

The Jews who were there gathered around him, the Jews who were there gathered around him saying, how long will you keep us in suspense?

If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.

Jesus answered, I did tell you, but you don't believe.

The works I do, I do in my father's name, and they testify about me.

But you do not believe because you are not my sheep.

And then down to verse 30.

I and the father are one, Jesus said.

Again, his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him.

But Jesus said to them, I've shown you many good works from the father.

For which of these do you stone me?

We're not stoning you for any good work, they replied, but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.

That's why they want to kill Jesus.

But there's a disconnect here in the mind of the Jews.

That here is this man, Jesus, who claims to be God.

Now, if he claims to be God, he should be killed, according to what the Old Testament says, because that is blasphemy.

Unless he actually is God.

In which case, he should not be killed, because he is God.

But the disconnect, really, is that Jesus is performing works and signs and miracles and parables and amazing things which testify to his claim that he is God himself.

And yet the Jews don't receive the signs that he performed.

They don't believe in him.

And so, according to what their law says, Jesus should be crucified.

The reason they persecute Jesus is because he claims to be God.

So the Jews are, I think, the persecutors in our story.

Secondly, as anxiety in a system increases and triangulation happens, the role of the victim is obviously Jesus in this story.

When we trace the final words that Jesus says in the Gospel of Mark, I think there's something interesting which comes out.

This is the fourth final thing that Jesus says, the fourth final thing in Mark 14, 48.

Am I leading a rebellion, said Jesus.

This is in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Judas is literally coming at him.

Am I leading a rebellion that you come out with swords and clubs to capture me?

Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me.

But the scriptures must be fulfilled.

And in particular, one of the scriptures that Jesus is referencing is Isaiah 53 verse 7, which says this.

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

When we get into the end part of the Gospel of Mark, that theme of Jesus not talking back, not answering, becomes quite a key theme.

Before the Sanhedrin, which we looked at last Sunday night, the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, are you not going to answer?

What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?

But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.

So again, the high priest asked him, are you the Messiah, the son of the blessed one?

I am, said Jesus, and you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming in the clouds of heaven.

That thing that he just said is what really makes them want to kill him.

And then in tonight's passage is the second last thing that Jesus says in the Gospel of Mark.

Mark 15 verse 2.

Are you the king of the Jews?

asked Pilate.

You have said so, Jesus replied.

In the Greek, it's literally you say, as in whatever you say.

This is the bare minimum answer that Jesus could possibly give.

He says, you say.

Verse 3, the chief priests accused Jesus of many things.

So again, Pilate asked him, aren't you going to answer?

See how many things they are accusing you of.

But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.

Jesus doesn't speak again, as Mark records the story.

Even as the crowd shout, crucify him, even as the soldiers mock him and flog him and whip him, even as he is crucified and the nails go in, Jesus doesn't say anything until, on the cross, at three in the afternoon, Mark 15 34, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, Lemma, sabachthani, which means, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

Those are Jesus' last words.

But he hasn't spoken much for his entire last night and last morning on earth before the crucifixion, because he was silent like a lamb to the slaughter.

And again, I think there's a contrast from the start of the story to the end of the story, because all throughout Mark, and we've looked at the first four chapters and then skipped to the end, but we will get through the full 72 by the end of this year.

All throughout Mark, Jesus is the instigator of the action.

He is the initiator.

He is the one who does the thing or says the thing which drives the story forward.

And yet, all of a sudden, at the end of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus completely switches and he becomes silent and passive.

And he lets the events happen to him.

This is totally a different kind of characterisation of Jesus that Mark gives us.

By the end of Jesus' life, I think from the Garden of Gethsemane onwards, he turns and faces the cross, and he allows the tide of the Jews and the persecution to carry him all the way to his death without fighting back.

Jesus is the victim of the story.

We read in chapter 15 verse 16, the soldiers led Jesus away into the palace, that is the praetorium, and called together the whole company of soldiers.

They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him.

And they began to call out to him, Hail, King of the Jews!

Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff, and spit on him, falling on their knees.

They paid homage to him.

And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him.

Then they led him out to crucify him.

Jesus is the victim here.

He's treated terribly, but he doesn't fight back with words or with his actions.

We saw last Sunday night when Jesus was before the Sanhedrin, they mocked him as a false messiah.

They blindfolded him and beat him and said, prophesy, because that was this kind of messianic picture that the messiah would know who is doing the punching.

He was mocked as a false messiah, and then tonight he is mocked as a false king.

They put purple.

Purple was the color of kings and a crown of thorns on his head.

And they mock him, saying that he is a false king.

Then the very next paragraph after this passage is the crucifixion itself, which we'll pick up on Good Friday at 9am.

Jesus is the victim of this triangulation in the story.

Thirdly, as anxiety increases in a system and triangulation occurs, I think the role of the rescuer in the story is played by Pilate.

Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea.

He was given that territory by Caesar to lead and to manage and to just keep peaceful and quiet.

And in terms of the way that systems theory would think about his role, it's clear that as the rescuer, he steps in to mediate between the Jews who are persecuting Jesus and Jesus who is the victim of their persecution.

Pilate plays the role of the rescuer.

The Sanhedrin have convicted Jesus of religious blasphemy.

When Jesus said that he was God, they wanted to kill him because he broke their law.

Now that will not get him killed before Pilate.

And so when Jesus comes before Pilate, they present him as the king of the Jews because that's a political threat and Pilate would be interested in that.

So on the Triangle, the persecutors, the Jews, the Jewish leaders, the Jewish people, are persecuting with death Jesus, who is the victim, and then Pilate steps in to the story as kind of the mediator and the rescuer who can stand in between these two parties.

The way that we can see Pilate mediate or rescues is by asking questions.

It's interesting, in this passage, Pilate only asks questions, five questions.

In fact, firstly, are you the king of the Jews?

Aren't you going to answer?

Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?

What shall I do then with the one you call the king of the Jews?

And then finally, why?

What crime has he committed?

Pilate only asks questions.

He's trying to get answers and make sense of what has happened.

And then it culminates in Mark 15, 14.

The crowd shouted all the louder, crucify him.

So, wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them.

He had Jesus flogged and handed him over to be crucified.

I think that line, wanting to satisfy the crowd, that is Pilate's heart.

That's what Pilate wants.

He doesn't want justice.

He doesn't want to actually do a fair trial and see if Jesus is guilty.

We read, actually, in some of the other Gospels that Pilate sort of doubted that Jesus was actually guilty.

Kind of Pilate was pushing back a little bit, but we see his number one goal is reduce the anxiety, calm things down, and if an innocent man has to die for things to settle down, then that's worth it, Pilate says.

I came across this short book this week called The Procurator of Judea.

It's a little historical fiction book that imagines a conversation between Pontius Pilate and an old friend called Lamia, which happens at the end of Pontius' life.

And in this book, it's only very short, it's awesome, you should read it if you can.

Actually don't, because I'm about to spoil it.

Or read it anyway and just know what the ending is.

Throughout the whole book, the kind of tension in the story is building until the climax, the last page, the friend of Pilate says to him, whatever happened to that Jesus of Nazareth?

He was a miracle, like what was the, do you remember, Pilate, do you remember Jesus of Nazareth?

And then the whole book ends with this line that's something, I got Jack to read it too so he can confirm.

The book ends with some line like Pilate said, Jesus of Nazareth, no, I have no memory of him.

Now that's historical fiction, that didn't actually happen.

But I think it's interesting that that kind of seems to be Pilate's heart.

He's not genuinely interested in justice or in a fair trial.

He just wants to keep the peace.

And the Jews are shouting so loud, crucify him, and Jesus is silent.

So it's like we'll crucify him in order to keep the peace and to calm things down.

Pilate is not much of a rescuer, but that is the role that he plays.

So as anxiety in a emotional system increases and the triangulation occurs of these three roles, we've seen the persecutor is the Jews who want to kill Jesus because he claimed to be God.

The victim of the triangle is Jesus, who in fulfilment of the scripture is silent before his accusers.

And the rescuer is Pilate, who his number one thing is keep the peace, reduce anxiety.

He doesn't care about justice.

He cares about protecting his own power and his own city.

And so Bowen's systems theory would say that's triangulation.

Persecutor, victim and rescuer.

But, and this is the but that the whole thing has been working to.

Like any good story, I think there's a plot twist in here.

And the plot twist is that even though it seems like all three characters are kind of active agents in the story acting and interacting with each other, truly there is only one actually active agent who drives the story forward.

I'll tell you, it's not the Jews.

The Jews think that they are in charge, but they're not.

Matthew 26.

While Jesus was speaking, again this happens in Gethsemane.

While Jesus was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, arrived.

With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the Jewish leaders, the chief priests and the elders of the people.

Down to verse 50.

The men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him.

So the Jews are thinking, yeah, we control this.

This is our moment.

We are making things happen.

But then verse 53.

Jesus said, Do you think I cannot call on my father and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?

But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?

The Jews are not in charge.

Jesus is in charge.

Pilate also thinks that he's in charge, but he's not.

In John 19 verse 10, Pilate says, Do you refuse to speak to me, Jesus?

Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?

And then Jesus says in verse 11, You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.

Jesus has the actual power in the story, not the Jews and not Pilate.

Jesus is the only truly active agent who drives the story forward.

John 10 verse 17, The reason, Jesus said, The reason my father loves me is that I lay down my life only to take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again, this command I received from my father.

So truly, Jesus is not the victim of the triangle, but he is the orchestrator of the whole story.

Jesus lays his own life down.

He submits to them only because that is the plan that the father had for Jesus' life.

Jesus is not taken anywhere that he does not want to go.

And so he is really the only truly active agent in the story.

So as we finish, one final question is, why did Jesus do it this way?

Why did Jesus do it at all?

What's the point?

And I think the answer is in the story.

Because in the story, there is one character who we haven't touched on yet.

One character who slipped through the cracks.

And the character is us.

We are in the story, but we don't go by our normal names.

We go by the name Barabbas.

We are Barabbas in the story, Mark 15 verse 6.

It was the custom at the festival to release a prisoner whom the people requested.

A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising.

The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did, down to verse 15.

Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them, but he had Jesus flogged and handed him over to be crucified.

Barabbas was a wicked man who did terrible things, and he was on death row.

He would have been killed himself.

But Jesus, who is the true acting agent, the driver of the whole story, directly takes Barabbas' place.

And that's where we fit into the story, because we are Barabbas.

Jesus took our death for us.

He is not the victim of an injustice that happened to him, but he, the entire time, wanted to take our place on the cross.

We are Barabbas in the story.

So what is our part to play?

It's the part of Barabbas.

What did Barabbas have to do to be freed?

Nothing.

Jesus took his place.

Barabbas, his chains were unlocked and he walked out a free person.

That's what every one of us does if we have faith in Jesus.

He takes our death and we get his freedom and his life.

And so all we have to do is what Barabbas did, which is hold out your hands and let them unclip them, walk down the steps and live a free life.

Receive the gift that Jesus died for us in our place.

And as we do that, we don't do what the Jews did, which is not believe that Jesus is who he says he is.

But we believe he is God, the son of God and son of man.

So I think that's our response is be like Barabbas.

Receive the gift that Jesus died in our place.

Would you like to stand as I pray to close?

Let me pray.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we come before you as the one who took our place on the cross.

All of us have fallen short of the glory of God and have brought death upon ourselves.

Yet because of your great love for us, you took our place, you took our death.

And instead we get life and peace and hope and love.

We get to know you, Father.

And so my prayer for us who have professed faith in Jesus is that you would draw us deeper to yourself, into deeper gratitude and deeper worship.

That we would live in this freedom that we have with gratitude and we would use the grace that you make available to us to live the life that you call us to.

And my prayer for those who have not received this gift is to receive it with gratitude.

To declare Jesus is Lord, to know that he died for them.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

‍