Behold Your King: The Crucifixion | John 19:14-37
Brian Hedges | April 3, 2026
I’d like to invite you to turn in Scripture to John 19.
There are those moments in life when everything seems to slow down and we’re forced to look at something—not just glance at it, but stop and see it. Sometimes it is a beautiful moment in our lives, where we are struck by the beauty of a sunset or a moment with someone we love. Sometimes it’s something more sobering, something that we cannot look at casually because we know that if we stop and gaze, it will affect us. And Good Friday is like that, because the cross is not something we should consider lightly. The cross demands that we stop and that we pay attention.
Even the way in which the story of the passion of Christ is told in the Gospel narratives forces us to slow down. Most of the life of Jesus has passed over in obscurity. We have only the faintest records of his life between his birth and the beginning of his ministry. Even the three years of his ministry are compressed in just about half of the gospels, while something like 35 to 40 percent of the gospel records are consumed with the final week of Jesus’ life and those final moments when he hung on the cross.
The Gospel of John invites us to stop, to consider, to pay attention. You hear it, ironically, in the words of Pilate in John 19, when he says, “Behold the man,” in verse 5, and then, “Behold your King,” in verse 14.
Our aim tonight is, therefore, to behold, to look, to gaze on Christ the crucified King. So let’s hear the word of the Lord, and may God open the eyes of our hearts to see and to wonder at the crucified Christ. I’m going to read John 19:14-22.
“Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He [that is, Pilate] said to the Jews, ‘Behold your King!’ They cried out, ‘Away with him, away with him, crucify him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but Caesar.’ So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.
“So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.’ Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, ‘Do not write, “The King of the Jews,” but rather, “This man said, I am King of the Jews.”’ Pilate answered, ‘What I have written I have written.’”
This is God’s word.
“Behold your King.” I want us to do that in three movements this evening:
1. Behold Your King
2. Behold the Heart of Your King
3. Behold Our King’s Finished Work
1. Behold Your King
So first of all, behold your king. Perhaps you noticed this as we read the passage: John wants us to pay attention to this theme of kingship, the kingship of Jesus Christ, that Jesus is the king. You have it in the passage that precedes that which we read, where Jesus is dressed in mock regalia, a crown of thorns pressed into his head, a purple robe draped over his shoulders. The mockery, the sneering, the words intended as an insult: “Hail, King of the Jews.”
Pilate then presents him to the crowd and repeatedly uses this language of kingship, intended in irony or in mockery, but actually doing more than Pilate intended, as it reveals to us something about Jesus, who is the true king.
Even on the cross, the title is fixed above Jesus’ head, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews,” in three languages, showing, perhaps, the universality of Jesus the king. And here’s the great irony of the passage: that Pilate intends to insult Jesus, to insult the Jews, but Pilate says more than he knows. As Jesus is crucified as this king, in that very act is revealing to us the heart of our king. It’s revealing to us that Jesus is a different kind of king.
As we saw Sunday on Palm Sunday, as we considered Christ’s kingship in the triumphal entry, we see it again here. Here we see authority clothed in humility. Here we see divinity joined with humanity. Here we see majesty veiled in the meekness of suffering—this combination of characteristics of attributes.
The New England Puritan pastor Jonathan Edwards preached a famous sermon on this, called “The Excellency of Jesus Christ,” where he talked about the admirable conjunction or combination of diverse excellencies in Christ: infinite highness, infinite condescension; infinite justice, infinite grace; infinite glory, infinite humility. You have it all here, seen supremely in this moment on the cross.
It’s showing us something about the character of Christ our king. This is a king who does not assert himself or assert his rights, but rather gives himself for others. This is a king who does not crush his enemies but allows himself to be crushed by them and for them. Here is a king who reigns not by taking life, not by ascending a throne, but by laying down his own life on the cross.
It is what Paul spoke of in Philippians 2 when he speaks of Jesus as the one who is in the form of God, but did not grasp at his rights but emptied himself, took the form of a slave, humbled himself to obedience, even to the point of death, death on the cross.
This teaches us something very important that we need to understand as followers of Jesus who are invited into the way of discipleship, the way of the cross. “If anyone would follow me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and come after me.” These are the words of Jesus, and Jesus’ own cross shows us something. It shows us how the cross turns our understanding of power upside down. Here’s a king who is utterly different from any other authority figure.
We tend to think that authority means control; Jesus shows us that it means sacrifice. We think that greatness means being served; Jesus shows us that greatness means serving. We think leadership means climbing higher; Jesus shows us that it means going lower. In other words, the cross deconstructs every worldly vision of power.
Friends, that has implications for our lives. For anyone who holds any degree of authority or power or leadership—in their family or in the church or in the world—this has implications for us.
Husbands, this is what headship looks like. It is not domineering. It is not control over your wife or over your family. It is, rather, self-giving love. It’s the willingness to bear the cost, to lay down your life for the good of your wife.
Parents, this is what authority looks like. It’s not harshness, it’s not impatience, but it is rather nurture and tenderness and sacrificial, loving care.
And leaders, this is what leadership looks like—not status, not self-promotion, not privilege, but service.
In fact, the higher the calling, the deeper the responsibility to love. The higher you are in authority, the deeper the call to humility, the greater your responsibility, the greater your call to serve. In the kingdom of the Lord Jesus, the flowchart is turned upside-down. The greatest are called to be the servants of all. This is the king we follow. Behold your king.
“He left his father’s throne above,
So free, so infinite his grace;
Emptied himself of all but love
And bled for Adam’s helpless race.”
2. Behold the Heart of Your King
Behold your king, and behold the heart of your king. The passion of Christ shows us not only power in weakness, but it shows us the kindness and the sympathy and the gentleness of Christ in the midst of his greatest suffering. You see his kindness in one of the most tender scenes in all the Gospels. In John 19:26-27, a few verses after those that we’ve already read, we read these words:
“When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home.”
This is remarkable. Even as Jesus hangs in agony and in pain and suffering on the cross, he’s thinking not of himself, he’s thinking of others. He’s thinking of his mother—provides for her, cares for her, and trusts her to the care of the beloved disciple.
It shows us that the heart of Christ, unlike so many of us, his heart is not hardened by suffering and he doesn’t turn inward, but his heart continues to flow outward in love and care and compassion for others.
We see not only his kindness, but his sympathy. I think this is just implicit in the text. John highlights how the sufferings of Christ are the fulfillment of Scripture. He is stripped, he is mocked, he is beaten, he is crucified, he thirsts on the cross.
But other writers of Scripture reflect on the suffering of Christ and remind us that because he suffered, because he was tempted in every way just as we are tempted, because he suffered as our high priest, he’s able to sympathize with us in our suffering and in our temptation. His sufferings show us how he walked in our shoes. He fully entered into our experience as a real human being. As he experienced weakness and shame and exposure and thirst and pain, he did not remain distinct from our suffering. He stepped into it, and that means that no suffering that you ever experience is foreign to him. He understands. He understands!
A poet put it like this:
“In every pang that rends the heart,
The man of sorrows has a part.
He sympathizes with our grief
And to the sufferer sends relief.”
The sympathy of Christ.
Then there is the gentleness of Christ, and we see this in the way he suffered. Did you notice this? As you read through the passion narratives—and it’s true in all four of the Gospels—Jesus doesn’t fight back. He doesn’t return insult for insult. He doesn’t retaliate, not even once. He suffers with gentleness, with meekness, and with patience.
This King who is hanging on the cross is the same one who described himself in just this way when he said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.” He is the gentle King, the gentle Christ.
We see that gentleness nowhere more clearly than on the cross. When he’s reviled, he doesn’t revile in return. When he suffers, he does not threaten. When he is wronged, he does not do evil. To evildoers, he responds with mercy.
There’s a wonderful book, written a few years ago, that many of us read; it moved many of our hearts, including mine. It’s a book called Gentle and Lowly, by Dane Ortland. Dane Ortland said,
“Meek, humble, gentle. Jesus is not trigger-happy, not harsh, reactionary, easily exasperated. He is the most understanding person in the universe. The posture most natural to him is not a pointed finger, but open arms.”
And you see those arms stretched open as he is nailed on the cross. This is the heart of our king. He is the gentle Savior. Again, this has tremendous implications for us.
I recently re-watched the classic 1959 film Ben-Hur. Any of you ever seen this movie, Ben-Hur? Let me see your hands. Okay. A lot of you have a great movie to watch, all right? This is a good one you can watch with your family. Wonderful story.
There’s a scene in that film, near the end, when Ben-Hur, who has experienced betrayal, loss, suffering, his heart consumed with a desire for vengeance against Rome; there’s a moment near the end of the film where he witnesses the crucifixion of Christ. And afterwards, he’s reflecting on that and he recalls Jesus’ words, that even as they were nailing him to the cross, he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And then he says, “His voice took the sword out of my hands.”
That’s what the cross does. It disarms hatred. It frees us from bitterness. It has the power to turn malice into mercy, anger into compassion, vengeance into love. This is the heart of our king, the heart of Christ.
His heart matters deeply for us. It shows us his sympathy in our suffering, as we’ve already seen, but it also shapes our response to suffering, because the meekness that we see in Christ is the meekness which we are called to imitate ourselves. When we are persecuted, when we are reviled, when we are insulted, when we are mistreated, we are to respond in this way, as Christ does: not with retaliation, not with hardness, not with bitterness, but with gentleness, meekness, and patient endurance.
Listen to the Apostle Peter, 1 Peter 2.
“For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”
The heart of Christ, the heart of the king.
3. Behold Your King’s Finished Work
Behold the king himself, behold the heart of the king, and now, behold your king’s finished work. Just a few more verses from John 19, John 19:28-30.
“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’ A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
Everything in John 19, and perhaps we might even say everything in the Gospel of John, is moving towards that final word, “It is finished.” What does it mean? “It is finished.” It means three things.
It means that Jesus completed his Father’s will. He fully obeyed what God the Father had sent him to do. This is the theme that runs through the Gospel of John.
“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (John 4:34).
“I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do” (John 17:4).
He lives to do the Father’s will, and now he’s done it. He’s completed the mission that the Father has given him to do. He completed his Father’s will.
Secondly, he fulfilled the Scripture. John makes this unmistakable again and again, that what’s happening in the crucifixion of Jesus is not accidental; it is, rather, the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures. We see this at least four times in the passage. When they divide his garments in verses 23-24, it’s a fulfillment of Psalm 22:18. When Jesus says, “I thirst,” this is a fulfillment of Psalm 69:21. A few verses later, when it says, “Not one of his bones will be broken,” it fulfills the typology of the Passover lamb, Exodus 12:46. Then this quotation from Zechariah 12:10, found near the end of the chapter, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.”
This is showing us that Jesus fulfills the Old Testament Scriptures. The prophetic words, the prayerful hopes, the mysterious sacrifices and rites and ceremonies, they all find their answer in Jesus. He’s bringing this story to its culmination.
There’s an old song that puts it like this:
“Finished all the types and shadows
Of the ceremonial law!
Finished all that God had promised;
Death and hell no more shall awe…”
Why? Because Jesus is bringing it to fulfillment.
In doing this—in fully obeying his Father and in fulfilling the Old Testament Scriptures—Jesus is doing the third thing: he is accomplishing our salvation. So, verse 30, “It is finished.” It means that his work, the work of redemption, is finished. And then he yields his spirit to the Father, and he dies. As he had said earlier, in John 10, “No one takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own accord.” He laid down his life. He yielded his spirit to the Father when the work was done.
What does that work of salvation include? There’s a little clue given to us in John 19:34 that theologians have kind of drawn teaching from. In verse 34, John records this detail. “But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.”
Why blood and water? I don’t have time to give you the full argument for this, but let me just cut to the chase and give you the explanation from my favorite living theologian, Sinclair Ferguson. Ferguson said,
“Christ’s death is to be seen both as a sacrifice for sins and as the means by which the water of new life in the Spirit flows to us.”
Just think about all the water imagery in the Gospel of John, and you’ll start to see the connections. He says,
“Within the Johannine context, it is through Jesus’ death that the Spirit is seen as coming to the church. Christ as crucified will give the Spirit. From his side both water and blood flow: the blood of forgiveness, the water of the Spirit. Only as the crucified one can he give the messianic Spirit.”
You get a similar idea in those familiar words that we sometimes sing:
“Let the water and the blood
From thy riven side which flowed
Be of sin the double cure,
Save from wrath and make me pure.”
The blood of forgiveness, the water of the Spirit and of cleansing and of new life, all because Christ accomplished the work that was given him to do. He finished it! Salvation is done.
Friends, let that land on you tonight. Let that land on you. If the work is finished, if redemption is accomplished, there’s nothing you can do to add to it. This speaks directly to us as we think about our past sins, our present struggles, and our longings for future change in our lives. And some of you feel this keenly tonight. You wonder, “Can I be different than I am? Can I be clean? Can I be whole? Can I really feel forgiven? Can I know that I know that I’m right with God?” And the resounding answer of the cross is yes, because it is finished, because the work has been accomplished. There’s nothing for you to add.
I just read this this morning, and it fits so well that I had to include it. It’s Joel Beeke; he’s a wonderful scholar of the Puritans and a dear brother in Christ. Beeke says,
“From this finished work flows all the saving benefits of the covenant of grace: full pardon for the guilty, perfect righteousness for the ungodly, peace with God for the estranged, adoption for the orphans, sanctification for the defiled, and eternal glory secured for all who are in Him. There is no saving blessing outside this Christ, but in Him there is an inexhaustible fullness.”
It is finished. You don’t have to earn it; in fact, you can’t earn it. To try to add something to the finished work of Christ would be like a child trying to improve a Rembrandt painting with fingerpaint. It can’t be done. You can’t improve a masterpiece. What do you do? You sit back, you admire it, you receive it, you rest in its beauty, you trust in its sufficiency; and that’s what you and I are called to do with the finished work of Jesus Christ.
That’s why John says in verse 35, “He who saw it has borne witness.” He’s borne witness! He says, “I’m not lying; my testimony is the truth. I have borne witness so that you also may believe.”
This is the whole point of John’s Gospel. It is the call of the Gospel. It’s not to work, it’s not to add anything to what Jesus has done; it is to believe, it is to trust, it is to rest in Christ. John 20:31: “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
So I want to ask you this evening, Christian, are you resting in the finished work of Christ, not in your own efforts? And if you’re not a believer, don’t you want this? Don’t you want peace for your conscience, rest for your soul? Don’t you want to know that your sins are forgiven—completely forgiven—and that you don’t have to lay a finger to try to complete the work of Christ? Instead, you receive his work in all of its glory, in all of its fullness, in all of its sufficiency—his finished work of salvation that frees you from both the guilt of sin and the power of sin, will transform you, and make you a new person in Christ. This is our response to the gospel.
“Weary, working, burdened one,
Wherefore toil you so?
Cease your doing; all was done
Long, long ago.
“Cast your deadly doing down,
Down at Jesus’ feet;
Stand in him, in him alone,
Gloriously complete.”
Behold your King, his heart, and his finished work, and rest in him. Let’s pray.
Our gracious, almighty, heavenly Father, we thank you tonight for this gift of grace, the gift of your Son, our Lord, our King, our Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself so fully for us. We thank you tonight for his selfless love, for his atoning sufferings and death. We thank you that the work is finished and that we are called tonight not to make ourselves better, but instead to rest in the sufficiency of what Christ has already accomplished for us.
So, Lord, in these moments right now, we turn away from not only our sins, but from our self-righteousness, and we say with the hymnwriter, “Nothing in my hand I bring, / Simply to thy cross I cling.” We ask you, as we prepare our hearts for the Lord’s table, to draw near to us by your Spirit, to assure us once again of your pardon, your mercy, your grace, given to us in Christ; to fill our hearts with joy as we consider what Christ has done for us; and to lift up our hearts in worship and praise to you tonight. So draw near we pray, in Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
