Jesus' Faith and Patience on the Cross & Mocking Jesus

The agony, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus were no laughing matter. But there seemed to be a significant amount of mocking around his death. First, when Jesus is questioned by Herod, a man who had desired to meet Jesus for so long and see a sign from him, he--Jesus--is mocked.

"[Even] Herod and his soldiers treated him contemptuously and mocked him, and after clothing him in resplendent garb, he sent him back to Pilate.i" (Lk 23:11)

Matthew's account is more graphic:

"27 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the praetorium, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. 28 And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe upon him, 29 and plaiting a crown of thorns they put it on his head, and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 30 And they spat upon him, and took the reed and struck him on the head. 31 And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe, and put his own clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him." (Mt 27:27-31)

It is in the midst of the mocking that Jesus is beaten, spat on, and then given a garment that is later  stripped off him.

At the crucifixion scene, the rulers then sneer at him (Lk 23:35), followed by the soldiers (Lk 23:36), then the inscription, "This is the King of the Jews" (Lk 23:38) is meant to be something of a taunt and mockery, and then there's the one criminal (Lk 23:39).

All these indicate the apparent extent of Jesus' failure. This man who was to be king now hangs here, a spectacle. It does little good to make Jesus over godlike and suggest all the while he had secret knowledge and would, if he could, wink at the camera because he knows what's coming. The abjectness of the failure, such that all this taunting makes sense, must be appreciated.

It is then that we see the faith of Christ in his patience. He had failed, and his kingship and dominion hung on the cross as a spectacle. He responded to none of the taunts. But finally responds to the criminal who reaches out to him in faith. The criminal proclaims Jesus' innocence, which was also apparent to all. He asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. Whatever that meant, it was pure faith that this weak, defeated Messiah still had a kingdom and had the power to save. So when Jesus says, "today you will be with me in paradise," we can understand that that is similarly Jesus' own statement of faith. 

The mockery and taunting of Jesus tell us one thing: that Jesus' kingdom and perceived political aspirations were a real thing. This is what people, even his disciples, expected of him--a kingdom. For Jesus' sacrifice to be really meaningful, he had to feel the full weight of that failure. Thus, the fact that in the lion's den of failure, he declares the salvation of the criminal, is a testament to the faith of Christ.