The Human Capacity for Mockery

Mockery thrives when power feels secure and compassion is absent.

If you’ve ever been mocked - really mocked - you know how deeply it can cut. Not only are you rejected, but your very identity is twisted into the joke. Your pain becomes entertainment.

I don’t imagine that I or anyone reading this has experienced the depths of Jesus’ physical pain in the hands of the Roman soldiers. But perhaps we can begin to identify with a sliver of the mockery he went through. The soldiers dress him up in royal parody - a robe, crown, and staff. The crowds passing by wag their heads and taunt him with words that echo his own ministry: He saved others, but he can’t save himself. They meant it to sting. Mockery always aims for the tender spots.

And yet, even here, the truth leaks out. The mockers don’t know it, but their sarcasm is half-confession. They name him “King of the Jews,” and they’re not wrong. They deride his claim to save, but in the very act of refusing to save himself, he is saving the world.

Mockery thrives when power feels secure and compassion is absent. It gives someone the audacity to publicly say such things as, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.” It is one of the ugliest human capacities, a weapon wielded by those who cannot imagine another kind of kingdom; or, if they can, cannot believe it to be possible.

But Jesus shows us another way. He doesn’t return insult for insult. He doesn’t break under their cruelty, even though he will soon vanquish its power. He bears it all, again, in silence, transforming even mockery into part of the redemption story.

The human capacity for mockery is deep. Terribly and cruelly deep. But the divine capacity for mercy is greater still. And in this story, mercy has the last word.

Matthew 27:27-44

The governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the governor’s house, and they gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a red military coat on him. They twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They put a stick in his right hand. Then they bowed down in front of him and mocked him, saying, “Hey! King of the Jews!” After they spit on him, they took the stick and struck his head again and again. When they finished mocking him, they stripped him of the military coat and put his own clothes back on him. They led him away to crucify him.

As they were going out, they found Simon, a man from Cyrene. They forced him to carry his cross. When they came to a place called Golgotha, which means Skull Place, they gave Jesus wine mixed with vinegar to drink. But after tasting it, he didn’t want to drink it. After they crucified him, they divided up his clothes among them by drawing lots. They sat there, guarding him. They placed above his head the charge against him. It read, “This is Jesus, the king of the Jews.” They crucified with him two outlaws, one on his right side and one on his left.

Those who were walking by insulted Jesus, shaking their heads and saying, “So you were going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, were you? Save yourself! If you are God’s Son, come down from the cross.”

In the same way, the chief priests, along with the legal experts and the elders, were making fun of him, saying, “He saved others, but he can’t save himself. He’s the king of Israel, so let him come down from the cross now. Then we’ll believe in him. He trusts in God, so let God deliver him now if he wants to. He said, ‘I’m God’s Son.’” The outlaws who were crucified with him insulted him in the same way.

Psalm 123:3-4

Have mercy on us, Lord! Have mercy because we’ve had more than enough shame. We’ve had more than enough mockery from the self-confident, more than enough shame from the proud.

Prayer

God,

I pray for those who are, in this moment, undergoing significant mockery and shaming. My life has been mostly shielded from the worst of such things. The 4th grade playground can be mean, but much worse perpetuates in situations throughout the world.

It would be one thing if it was just words, but too often these days, the threat of mockery turns into harmful action and even violence.

So help us, God. Help those of us who will never be in the limelight to be supports to the weak in the darkness. Give us strength for one another. Remind us of Christ’s example that we might follow it, trusting in your eventual delivery.

By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.