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Mark 15:22-39
The Crucifixion
22 They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”). 23 Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24 And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.
25 It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. 26 The written notice of the charge against him read: the king of the Jews.
27 They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left. [28] 29 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days,30 come down from the cross and save yourself!” 31 In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! 32 Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
The Death of Jesus
33 At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 34 And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” – which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”.
35 When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.”
36 One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said.
37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
Over the past few days, we’ve been basing our Reflections on passages from the Letter of James. The listed gospel readings have been coming from the account of the arrest and trial of Jesus as it appears in the Gospel according to Mark. So today, we’re going to switch over and look at Mark’s account of the crucifixion, which is the central event of history, as we followers of Jesus understand it.
The reason we say that it’s the central event of history is that Christian theology teaches us that it was by his death on the cross that Jesus opened the way for our reconciliation with God and our adoption as members of his family. So it’s obviously important that we reflect on this event regularly.
Mark’s account is one of two versions of the crucifixion story that New Testament scholars say are eyewitness accounts. (The other one is in the Gospel of John.) The scholars say that Mark’s version is a record of Peter’s account. So since it’s an eyewitness account, the details of the story become especially important.
For one thing, Mark reports that the soldiers who crucified Jesus cast lots for his clothing. That’s significant because it fulfilled a prophesy from nearly a thousand years before. It’s also understood that the reason the soldiers decided to cast lots is that Jesus owned a seamless robe, which would have been considered a very high-quality article of clothing.
Another significant detail of the story is that Jesus was crucified along with common criminals. There were also prophesies about the Messiah that said he would be “counted among the transgressors,” so the two criminals seem to represent the rest of humankind – to be symbols of human sinfulness.
We’re also told that a sign was posted on the cross, and that sign identified Jesus as “the King of the Jews.” It seems to me that Pilate posted this sign on the cross to mock and belittle the Jewish leaders who had bullied him into agreeing to the crucifixion of Jesus. John tells us the Jewish leaders objected to what the sign said, but Pilate refused to change it.
One detail that’s often overlooked – but one that seems very significant – is that bystanders misunderstood what Jesus said from the cross when he cried out in Aramaic the famous opening of Psalm 22: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus cried out the Aramaic “Eloi!” and the crowd thought he was calling out to Elijah.
The reason that’s so significant is that it’s an example of what Bible scholars call “extraneous information.” You could take it out of the text and none of the main themes of the account would be affected at all. And according to Bible scholars, when you see that kind of extraneous information in a story, it supports the historical truth of that story. People don’t include extraneous information in stories they make up. But in a largely oral culture like ancient Palestine, eyewitnesses pass along that kind of information even if they don’t know what it means. So this report that people misunderstood what Jesus said supports our understanding that this is a faithful report of what actually happened.
I think it’s also important for us to notice the sense of abandonment Jesus experienced on the cross – the emotion behind his cry of “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This seems to reinforce the idea that his passion really was a horrible experience for Jesus, as it would have been for any human being. Even though he had foretold that he would rise in three days, the death by torture Jesus went through must have been almost beyond our imagining.
The tearing of the temple curtain at the moment of Jesus’ death is another significant detail, especially for followers of Jesus from the Protestant tradition. The curtain in the temple was understood to separate God from humankind. Only the priests ever went behind the curtain and into God’s presence. They were the intermediaries between God and humankind. But the death of Jesus tore open that barrier, symbolically opening the way to God for all those who come to him with an open heart. We no longer need a priest as an intermediary between us and God. In his death, Jesus became the only priest – the only intermediary – we will ever need.
Finally, it seems to me we’re meant to understand the comment of the centurion – “Surely this man was the Son of God” – as marking an important turning point in salvation history. From that moment, and by the death of Jesus, gentiles were invited into a full relationship with God. The centurion, a professional officer in the army of the Roman Empire, here realizes the significance of Jesus’ life and death in a way that most of the Hebrew people did not.
For all these reasons, it’s important to come to this passage from time to time and to think carefully about the details surrounding the death of Jesus on the cross – and about why it was the turning point of human history.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for the great love you demonstrated by sacrificing yourself on the cross in the form of Jesus to reconcile us to yourself. Let us never lose sight of the great price you paid for us, and move us to live in obedience to his teachings and your commandments as an expression of our thanks. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
(The listed readings for today are Psalms 140 and 141; I Kings 13:1-10; Philippians 1:1-11; and Mark 15:40-17. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.com, the website of the International Bible Society
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