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Mark: What did the Roman trial of Jesus really do? Why did he need to suffer so horribly? These are questions that many people have when it comes to the treatment of Jesus. Let's turn in our Bibles to the Gospel of Luke as we prepare to look for the answers to these questions.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Every Last Word, a radio and internet program with Dr. Philip Ryken, teaching the whole Bible to change your whole life. Today's sermon on the trial of Christ is one part of our continuing study in the Gospel of Luke. We'll be seeking to understand the question put to Jesus during his trial, "Are you a king?"

Mark: Well, Phil, in an earthly kingdom, it's easy to see how we are to live for the king. But when we serve a king that's enthroned in heaven, how are we to show our allegiance to him?

Dr. Philip Ryken: Well, sometimes it does seem like God is far away, doesn't it, Mark? And that his kingdom is far off. But the reality is that Jesus Christ is our king. If he is our king, then the way that we should live is the way that he calls us to live.

That means living with his character: the very gentleness and patience and faithfulness and long-suffering and love, and all the things that are true of Jesus as our king. They ought to be true in our own lives as well.

Mark: Jesus was accused of many things when he was on trial. Were any of those accusations against Christ true?

Dr. Philip Ryken: Mark, I would say that many of them were half-truths. There were a lot of accusations made against Jesus in his trial. One of the accusations was that he claimed to be the Son of God. That was a sort of half-truth, because people were saying he claimed to be the Son of God but he really wasn't. But actually, he was the Son of God.

People also said that he was trying to stir up trouble, maybe trouble against the Roman government. In a way, it's true that Jesus was stirring up trouble, but not trouble against Caesar. He was trying to stir people up so that they would see their need for salvation.

If you look closely at all the things in this trial, Mark, you have a lot of accusations against Jesus. But what you really see is a perfect man who has the power to save us. That's what the trial really proves.

Mark: Thank you, Phil. Let's turn in our Bibles now to Luke chapter 23, verses 1 through 12, as we listen together to Dr. Ryken.

Dr. Philip Ryken: If you have ever read or studied the Gospel of Luke from beginning to end, you know how careful Luke was as he wrote his Gospel to put both the birth and the death of Jesus into their historical context. He wanted his readers to be sure of their salvation, and part of being sure means knowing that these things really took place. Luke begins his Gospel by saying, "In the days of Herod, the king of Judea."

Similarly, as I'm sure you know, his stately account of the first Christmas tells us about that decree that went out from Caesar Augustus, further specifying that it was the first registration that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. Luke is very specific about these things. As we come to the end of his Gospel, we find the politicians coming back with a vengeance, as Jesus appears before Pilate the governor and before Herod the tetrarch.

This historical fact is highlighted in that famous phrase from the Apostles' Creed, which we confess week by week: "He suffered under Pontius Pilate." Words that remind us that what Jesus endured on his way to the cross is something that really happened. Now, as you may know, there are certain skeptics who say that the stories in the Gospels are really make-believe. They doubt whether Jesus really did die on the cross. They certainly doubt whether he rose from the dead.

Did you know that historians in some cases used to doubt whether Pontius Pilate ever existed? For a long time, the only evidence of his existence came from the Bible, which they doubted was historically reliable. In 1961, a team of Italian archaeologists discovered the following inscription at Herod's amphitheater in Caesarea. It said, "Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea, has dedicated to the people of Caesarea a temple in honor of Tiberius."

Not only is Pontius Pilate a real person, but he's famous enough to have his name inscribed on a public monument, maybe even to have given the monument itself. That's how real he was. And that's how real Jesus is. In fact, archaeologists have also uncovered the very pavement where Jesus stood on the morning of his trial before Pilate. It is this trial among other things that we consider.

Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 23. We'll consider the first 12 verses. I want to take the time to help you understand the flow of the trial here, and then we'll go back to look more carefully at two things that Luke wants us to be sure to know about Jesus before closing with what this means or may mean for our own salvation.

By this point, Jesus had already been tried before the Jewish leaders and condemned. There had been a night of contentious pretrial hearings and then at daybreak a trial before the Council of the Sanhedrin. These men were convinced that Jesus had committed blasphemy by claiming to be the Son of God, and so they were determined to put him to death.

Yet as we considered in our thinking together about the end of Luke 22, as the Jews were then under Roman occupation, they didn't have the right to execute a death penalty. For that, they needed to go to the local Roman authority, in this case, a governor by the name of Pontius Pilate. It is in verse 1 that the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate.

I think this in itself is remarkable. The Sanhedrin was sharply divided between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They almost never did anything together. Yet here they are, united by their hatred of Jesus. As one man, they rise up in a murderous rage and they drag him before the only judge who can put him to death. All they are really asking for is someone simply to ratify the verdict that they have already reached.

Yet things would not prove to be so simple. Here begins what Kent Hughes describes as a weird, twisted, infamous trial that begins before Pilate, the careerist Roman politician, and then detours to the Tetrarch Herod, before finally returning to Pilate where the awful judgment was rendered. There were a couple of complications for the men who wanted Jesus killed.

One, to begin with, whereas they had convicted him for blasphemy, the Romans did not consider blasphemy to be a crime at all. They resorted to telling the governor that Jesus was a political subversive, virtually a terrorist. The governor was not persuaded by that or any of the other accusations. But he was interested in what they said about where Jesus was from.

When Pilate heard, you'll see in verse 6, that Jesus was from Galilee, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. When he learned that he belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him over to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time. I suppose anyone who has ever tried to get any help from any government anywhere in the world will recognize Pilate's strategy immediately. This is the old run-around.

He's trying to take something out of his inbox and put it in somebody else's inbox. When he hears that Jesus is from Galilee, he has his chance. Because under Roman law, a man could be tried either in the place where he was accused or in the place where he came from. Since Jesus was from Galilee and Herod was in Jerusalem for Passover and he was in charge of Galilee, Pilate sent Jesus off to another trial.

For his part, Herod was surprisingly happy to see Jesus coming. You might be surprised at what is said in verse 8. When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him. Jesus was famous for doing miracles, especially up in Galilee. Now finally, Herod had a chance to see for himself what Jesus could do.

It's always good to be interested in knowing more about Jesus, even seeing him, as Herod was interested in doing. The question is, what are you interested in seeing Jesus for? Here is a man who was curious, but it also has to be said, he was a man who was very cruel. You know anything about this Herod, you know that he had brutally beheaded John the Baptist.

Yet you may also know that he had at least some interest in spiritual things. Herod had married Herodias, who at the time was the wife of his brother Philip, and John the Baptist preached against it. It was an adulterous match. In response to that, Herodias insisted on having John thrown into prison. Yet Herod had a very interesting response to John. He loved to hear him preach.

Mark tells us that Herod favored John, knowing that he was a righteous man. Herod kept him safe, and when he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly. It's a way of saying Herod didn't always understand what John the Baptist was preaching about, but he was very interested in it. He loved to hear the man preach. Here was a man who heard the gospel and almost wanted to believe it, and yet never actually did.

I wonder, what is your response to the good news of Jesus Christ? Are you interested to hear it? Do you almost want to believe it? Don't be like Herod, who almost wanted to believe it but never actually did. Even when he had a chance to meet Jesus in person, he didn't come to trust in him. He was hoping for some kind of miracle. He was looking for that kind of entertainment. He wanted Jesus to perform for him.

When Jesus refused to do that, Herod used him for sport. One way or another, Herod would have his entertainment. If Jesus did not dazzle him with signs and wonders, then for the sake of his own cruel laughter, Herod would expose him to rude mockery, as he does in the company of his soldiers. I wonder if this isn't the attitude that some people have to Jesus today, or to God in general.

They want God to do something for them. Maybe not to entertain them, but maybe there is something else that they are expecting a god to do for them. When he does not deliver the way they think he ought to deliver, well, then they turn against him. They will even mock him. Herod held Jesus in this kind of contempt. Yet apparently, he never actually found Jesus guilty. He couldn't quite come to that point.

Surely, if Herod had been convinced that Jesus was guilty of a crime, he would not have hesitated to put him to death. Herod of all people was willing to do that kind of thing. But instead, not finding any real reason for guilt, he sends him back to Pontius Pilate. We are told of the strange alliance that they form from that day. Verse 12 says, "Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day, for before this they had been at enmity with each other."

Here was an unholy alliance. Rather than believing in Jesus and on the basis of believing in Jesus being reconciled to God, they decided to mistreat Jesus and they were reconciled to one another on that basis. It was an unholy alliance. It was a perverse friendship based on the one thing unbelievers can always agree on: that they will not put their faith in Jesus.

Here surely was the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy: the prophecy of Psalm 2, that the kings of the earth will take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed one. Here is the fulfillment of that prophecy in Herod and Pilate strangely allied against the anointed one of God, that is Jesus the Christ. At length, if you're following the course of this trial, the problem prisoner ends up back where he began, before Pilate.

Herod had returned the compliment. "I don't want to deal with Jesus, you deal with him." There he is, back before Pilate. Pilate probably was hoping he wouldn't see him again, and yet later that very morning Jesus is back on his doorstep. Jesus is like that. If you try to push him out of your life, hoping you don't have to make a firm decision about him, he will keep coming back. That's his grace to you.

He keeps putting himself into your life. You hear something about Jesus, you see him in something related to Christmas, or you hear something from the Bible, or somebody invites you to church or gives some testimony about Jesus. He keeps coming back. You can't just decide that you'll ignore him. He says that he is the Son of God and the Savior of the world, and if that's true then you ought to worship him. Really, you should.

If it's not true, then I suppose Jesus must be a liar or maybe a lunatic. You probably should have nothing to do with him. But the one thing you cannot do is simply leave Jesus alone. The Bible is right that believing in him is the difference between eternal life and eternal death, and what you do with him is the most important decision you will ever make. Even saying "maybe" is really a way of saying "no".

He wants you to say "yes" to him. This is why he keeps coming back. He wants you to make the right decision about him. "Will you believe in me or not?" he says. To help us make the right decision, Luke makes two important claims about Jesus. I want to go back and consider these more carefully. Back in the record of the Jewish trials of Jesus, Luke showed us that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of Man and the Son of God.

These were things that were said in the course of his trial back in chapter 22. But here in his record of the Roman trial, Luke calls attention to these two things. He's bringing further clarity to our understanding of Jesus by making a claim of his kingship and a claim of his innocence. Jesus the Christ is both the true king of God's people and the perfectly innocent man.

This subject of kingship first is introduced by the religious leaders. They accuse Jesus in verse 2 of saying that he himself is Christ, a king. Remember that Christ, or you might simply say Messiah, is a royal title. It signifies kingship. Not that these men really believe that Christ was the king, or not even truly that Jesus had claimed to be the Christ.

If you remember the trial that had taken place earlier that morning, he actually was careful not to say whether he was the Christ or wasn't. Yet these men wanted to have some way of getting Jesus in trouble with the law, and so they claimed that he claimed to be the king. The issue here is a political issue. It's subversion. Governments always have a vested interest in defending their right to govern.

There was one thing Pilate could not put up with: it was a man who would claim sovereign authority over his own territory. Most of the accusations against Jesus in the earlier trial had been religious, and some of that came through in this trial as well. But when Pilate heard about kingship, he knew that that was a political issue. He was a politician. It was the kind of thing that would be of interest to him.

He puts the question to Jesus in verse 3: "Are you the king of the Jews?" Once again, Jesus was faced with a question really that was hard to answer. On the one hand, he wasn't the kind of king that Pilate had in mind. He wasn't seeking political power to rule over a particular geographic territory or anything like that. No, he said—and John tells us this in his Gospel—"If my kingdom were of this world, then I would have come with soldiers and armies."

That's what the typical kings of earth will do. But Pilate didn't need to worry about that. Jesus wasn't trying to overthrow the Roman Empire, at least not yet. Nevertheless, even if Jesus didn't quite agree with Pilate's definition of a king, he could not deny that he was Israel's true and rightful king. He gave the governor the answer you see at the end of verse 3: "You have said so."

That's similar to what Jesus said when he was tried by the Sanhedrin and they asked if he was the Son of God. It was a reluctant affirmation. He doesn't fully endorse what Pilate means by his question, but he does testify that he is, as the governor says, the king of the Jews. Later the Apostle Paul would write about the good confession that Jesus made when he was before Pontius Pilate in 1 Timothy chapter 6.

I think this is part of that good confession: Jesus testifying to his royal kingship. From ancient times, the Jews had been the people of God. God had promised to send them a king from the house and line of David, a king who would rule forever over Israel and the nations. Jesus was the man born to be that king. It's one of the reasons Luke took the trouble to write that genealogy back in chapter 3.

He wanted to show us that Jesus Christ is truly the Son of David. He is the heir of that throne. It also explains why those wise men from the East brought those spices and other gifts to Bethlehem. They said they were looking for that child born the king of the Jews. Jesus himself knew his lineage. When Pilate asked if he was the king of the Jews, he confessed that indeed he was.

I wonder, do you recognize the royal authority of Jesus Christ? Do you recognize him as the king promised to the people of God from ancient times, who even now claims authority not only over his people but indeed over the entire universe? You see, this is the claim of the kingship of Christ. Now, some people will mock that claim. We see it here in this story from the Scriptures.

Instead of bowing down and swearing allegiance to Jesus, they treat his kingship with royal contempt. Look again at what the soldiers do, and with Herod's encouragement in verse 11. He had refused to do what they wanted him to do, and so Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him. Then arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate.

I suppose the robes that they put on Jesus probably came from somewhere in Herod's closet. Here you have the hand-me-down splendor of a tyrant's wardrobe. Once they had dressed him in these clothes, they proceeded to pour royal scorn on his kingly majesty. What a cruel irony. For Jesus should be adored, not abused. He should be treated with reverence, not contempt.

Just as the temple guards had mocked him earlier that morning as the prophet, so now also the Roman soldiers mock him as the king. Do you see, in effect, what Luke is telling us as he writes the Gospel? He's saying, "Yes, people are mocking him for these things, but he is the very thing that they are mocking. He is the true prophet, he is the true king."

The whole trial, the story of the trial is designed to show us that he actually is the very thing that they are condemning him for being and mocking him for. Do you know, many people still mock Jesus today? If they talk about him at all, it is only to use his name as a kind of swear word, or to make fun of his followers, or even to use the precious stories of the birth and death of Jesus as a thing that you would put in a joke, really speaking blasphemy about Jesus.

Those are not the only ways to make a mockery of him. I suppose Herod's real sin was not taking Jesus seriously. Are we not tempted at times not to take Jesus seriously the way he ought to be taken? If he really is the king, then anything less than willing obedience and open worship is unworthy of his honor. But is it not the case that sometimes we go an entire day, or a week, or maybe even longer without really contemplating the royal majesty of Jesus?

Without going to his kingly throne in prayer, or listening to those royal decrees that he has written to us in his Word? I tell you, kings are not to be ignored. They are to be honored and obeyed. If Jesus truly is our king, then we will not make a mockery of him by discounting his kingship, but we will actually live the way the king calls us to live. We will live according to the character of the king himself.

We will show his gentleness in our homes, his patience in our trials, his diligence in our work. We will show his faithfulness in our friendships, show his forgiveness for the people it is hard for us to love. That's the way that we will live. We will live the way the king calls us to live. We should ask ourselves, am I living for the king or not? If I am not, really I am mocking him. Not the same way that Herod mocked him, but I am mocking him nonetheless.

You see, this claim of kingship is not something that Jesus simply claims about himself; it is a claim that he makes on us. Because if he is the king, then he is to be worshipped and obeyed. There is a second claim that Luke makes here about Jesus, and that is that he is innocent of all charges. It's important to know because of the manner in which Jesus died.

If the only thing you knew about Jesus was that he was crucified, you might get the impression that he was some kind of criminal because that was the kind of death that criminals died. But in fact, this royal king is also the perfect man. The trial of Jesus demonstrates this by clearing Jesus from accusation after accusation against him. It's a trial that ends in a conviction, but the whole trial shows you that the man does not deserve to die.

In the Jewish trial, the accusations against Jesus were primarily religious in some blasphemous way he falsely claimed to be the Son of God. That was the charge against him. Here, the accusations in the Roman trial are political. Notice what is specifically said against Jesus in verse 2: "We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king."

In other words, Jesus was really guilty of treason. Misleading the nation really meant to incite rebellion, to start a revolution. Of course, to forbid the paying of tribute, that was an act of civil disobedience, refusing to pay taxes. Claiming to be king, that would have been an attempt to overthrow Roman rule. No government could tolerate this kind of behavior.

Yet even after Pilate pronounced his initial verdict, these men keep up their attack. They are speaking more urgently, it says in verse 5. They claim that Jesus was stirring people up, that he was teaching all through Judea, from Galilee even to Jerusalem. The accusations continue in the trial before Herod. We see at the end of verse 10, they are vehemently accusing him.

They continue to insist that he is a political revolutionary and therefore that he will have to die. On the face of things, none of these charges seem very plausible. Since when had the Jewish leaders ever been all that concerned about defending the Roman Empire? That was really Pilate's job, it wasn't their job. Pilate rightly suspected that they were only saying this because they hated Jesus.

Nor did it seem very likely that Jesus was a political subversive. One commentator notes that what the Jews had said prepared Pilate to meet a resistance fighter. But one glance was enough to show the utter absurdity of such an idea. Pilate really couldn't believe it. It didn't take him long to determine that Jesus could hardly be guilty of any capital crime. He pronounced his verdict in verse 4: "I find no guilt in this man."

Luke wanted to make sure that we heard that. He doesn't give us all of the details of this trial. He doesn't go through the whole dialogue, all of the give-and-take in this judicial proceeding, but Luke does show us the verdict that Pilate announces: Jesus is innocent of all charges. It's because he wants us to see this trial for what it really was: the execution of a perfectly innocent man.

If I needed to defend Jesus, I could do that. His enemies accused him of misleading the nation. On the contrary, Jesus was leading people into the way of truth and life. They accused Jesus of telling people not to pay tribute to Caesar. That was an out-and-out lie. You know that if you've read Luke chapter 20, Jesus said virtually the opposite. He said people should render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.

They accused Jesus of stirring up people all over Israel. In a way he did, but not stirring them up to rebellion. No, he was trying to stir them up to salvation. So Jesus was innocent of these charges. He is innocent of any charge that anyone could ever bring against him. He is the only perfectly innocent man who ever lived. This was so obvious, even Pilate recognized it and reached the right verdict.

At which point, really, this whole case should have been closed. Once the judge declares that the accused is not guilty, the trial is over, isn't it? The prisoner is released immediately. That's the way the legal system is supposed to work. But it didn't work here. It kept right on going until the king of the Jews was dying, bleeding on the cross in naked innocence.

Do you see how Jesus responded to all of this injustice? We need to see it because it's an essential part of our salvation. Jesus mainly responded to this by not responding. When someone asked him about his true identity, he would testify that he was the Son of God or that he was the king of the Jews, whatever proper title they wanted to give to him.

But Jesus did not speak one word in his own defense. Unto Herod, he said nothing at all. We see this at the end of verse 9, that when that king questioned him at some length, Jesus made no answer. Why do you think that Jesus made no answer? Why do you think that he didn't defend himself? It may have been because there was nothing left to say.

Herod had already had his chance to hear the gospel. He had hardened his heart, he had closed his conscience, he had refused to repent. There was nothing left for Jesus or anyone else to say to him. Maybe Jesus didn't say anything because he knew no one would believe him if he did say anything. He had said that earlier that morning to the Sanhedrin. He said, "Look, if I tell you that I'm the Christ, you won't believe me, so why should I even say that?"

What's the point, then, of making a defense when people have already made up their minds? Or maybe Jesus refused to say anything because he was trusting his cause to the Lord. There was no need for him to defend himself. He knew that at the right time his Father would vindicate him. He would do it by raising him from the dead. So his refusal to say anything in his own defense here is not any kind of indication that any of the charges might be true.

Actually, it's the proof of his perfect innocence. He knew that he didn't need to defend himself; he could turn his case over to God. He was heeding the counsel of his father David, who said in one of the Psalms: "Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself over the man who carries out evil devices."

Those are good words of counsel for someone falsely accused: to entrust your situation to the Lord; let him work the situation out. Jesus did that and he did it in full faith for what his God and Father would do. I think those were all good reasons for Jesus not to speak in his own defense. They may all have been involved. But let me share one further reason.

It's really a reason that goes beyond anything that we could ever follow as an example. Suffering in silence was part of the work that he was called to do for our salvation. This is one of the things that Jesus was called to do. It was the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. For in his song of the suffering servant, the prophet Isaiah made the following promise: "He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth."

Jesus was fulfilling that promise, that saving promise, the prophecy that in one sense only the Savior could fulfill by refusing to protest his own innocence or to strike back at his accusers in any way. As Isaiah described that prophecy, he used an image that would convey the spotless innocence of this afflicted Savior. Isaiah said it was like the pure image of a sacrificial lamb. "Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter," he said.

This is Isaiah 53. "Like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth." Do you see that in his quiet submission to the torments of his oppressors, Jesus was fulfilling this prophecy and thereby proving that he was the Savior that God promised to send? Recently, we received here at the church a letter from one of our missionaries serving in India, who couldn't help but think of this prophecy when he witnessed various animal sacrifices at a Hindu temple.

In one of his letters, he describes how various animals were dragged to the altar and surrounded by priests and then beheaded with a single blow from a heavy iron knife. Then he saw a little white lamb presented for sacrifice. He said this: "As I watched everything unfolding from my perch atop a large boulder beside the temple, I directed my attention for some time to this poor little lamb, and thought I'd never seen anything that looked so pure, so innocent, so gentle.

And what made it all the more profound and relevant was the particularly nasty treatment of this same creature. And that's what really got me. It was so like how it indeed was with our Lord: the most pure and innocent and gentle, enduring the most terrible misuse and mistreatment and death." He was pushed about, surrounded, roughly handled, and frightfully killed.

The missionary describes how the priests then hacked its head off and threw its lifeless body on the bloody ground. "My God," he writes, "is this not powerful? From this can we not grasp even a little of what Jesus undertook, the horrible, frightful anguish he endured himself for our sakes?" Oh, never forget that the king of the Jews suffered all this in silent majesty, without protest, so that he could perfectly do the work of your salvation.

And do not fail to hope that Jesus did this so that one day he would have something to say when you are put on trial. I wonder, what will you say when you appear before God for judgment? Will you have anything to say in your defense? I would say that I will have nothing to say, not because I'm innocent like Jesus was, but because there is nothing I will be able to say in my own defense.

But Jesus will be able to say it. Though silent at his own trial, he will not be silent in the defense of anyone who trusts in him. No, Jesus has promised that he will openly acknowledge everyone who openly acknowledges him. When we appear at the last before the throne of God, justly accused of all our sin, Jesus will be able to plead the merits of his own royal and innocent righteousness.

He will have something to say then. Having suffered for our sins all the way to the cross in perfect innocence and in that kingly silence, having done all that, he will be able to speak up at our trial before the great judge. He will say, "Give them the verdict that they deserve? No, give them the verdict that I deserve."

Our Father in heaven, we pray that Jesus himself will be able to plead his merits on our behalf. By faith, we believe that it will be so. We pray that you will enable us to live the way that the followers of a king should live, in worship and obedience, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Every Last Word with Bible teacher Dr. Philip Ryken, a listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance exists to promote a biblical understanding and worldview, drawing upon the insight and wisdom of reformed theologians from decades and even centuries gone by. We seek to provide Christian teaching that will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place.

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