This is the forty-seventh installment, comprising Act 6,
Scene 10, chapter 15:20b-39, in the online commentary on the Gospel of Mark,
which I am blogging on throughout the liturgical year. Please see the
forty-sixth installment here. Links to the entire series are available in
one spot at The
Complete Gospel of Mark Online Commentary.
This is my division of the Gospel:
Prologue, 1:1-13;
Act 1, 1:14-3:6;
Act 2, 3:7-6:6;
Act 3, 6:7-8:26;
Act 4, 8:27-10:52;
Act 5, 11:1-13:37;
Act 6, 14:1-16:8(20).
Scene 9: 15:20b-39
20bThen they led him out to crucify him. 21 They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. 22 Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull). 23 And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. 24 And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take. 25 It was nine o'clock in the morning when they crucified him. 26 The inscription of the charge against him read, "The King of the Jews." 27 And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. 28 29 Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, "Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 save yourself, and come down from the cross!" 31 In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32 Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe." Those who were crucified with him also taunted him. 33 When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 34 At three o'clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" 35 When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, "Listen, he is calling for Elijah." 36 And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down." 37 Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39 Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was God's Son!". (NRSV)
After Jesus’ trial before Pilate and the mockery and beating
to which the Roman soldiers subjected Jesus after the guilty verdict, “they led
him out to crucify him” (15:20b). Events, as throughout the entire Gospel, occur
quickly and with little elaboration. It is, therefore, a surprise to see Mark
add an intriguing detail. The Roman soldiers “compelled a passer-by, who was
coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the
father of Alexander and Rufus” (15:21). It is such a surprising detail in this
unvarnished Gospel, and a detail that includes three personal names, that it
must go back to the oral tradition on which Mark has based his Gospel and
perhaps even to “Alexander and Rufus,” who are mentioned as if the audience
would be familiar with them.[1] It
adds a touch of cinéma vérité to what is already a documentary style Gospel. This touch grounds
and humanizes what Mark will next describe: people you know were present for Jesus’
crucifixion. It did happen. Mark returns immediately to his unadorned style in
which “they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place
of a skull). And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take
it. And they crucified him” (15:22-24a).
The whole of the Gospel has been moving to the crucifixion,
since 3:6
explicitly so, and yet Mark describes it in a phrase. It is precisely here,
however, where the dramatic and visual nature of this Gospel becomes, perhaps counter-intuitively,
most apparent. Dramatic, because it is the hearer who must reflect on the scene
without cues from the author; visual, because it is the hearer who must imagine
or see the cross before them, simply with Jesus on it. The nails, the soldiers,
the wood, the rope, the cries, the hammers pounding, the crowd humming with horror
or excitement, all this is in the heart, the mind and the eyes of the one who
hears or reads this Gospel. It is the responsibility of the one who hears and
sees it to make it real and not turn away from it. For the first hearers of the
Gospel, this would have been simple. They would have seen numerous
crucifixions, with slaves, criminals, and traitors hung up in public to die a
humiliating death as they struggled to breathe. Moderns must imagine this scene
today without the personal knowledge of crucifixions that first century residents
of the Roman Empire knew intimately, but it is not essential to focus on blood
and gore to understand the crucifixion. The goal of crucifixion was to hurt, punish
and shame the miscreant before he died, true, but this was only half of the purpose:
the other half was to warn all those who looked upon the humiliation of the dying
man to reckon with Rome’s power and authority. Mark’s goal is simpler: he wants
you to reflect on how Jesus died, but even more so on why he died.
Mark then describes the division of clothes by the soldiers “casting
lots to decide what each should take” (15:24b). This is the first explicit
reference to Psalm
22, which will underlie so much of the imagery as Jesus dies on the cross. In
this case Mark draws on Psalm 22:18, “they divide my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots.” It is only after this description that
Mark notes some of the other details of the crucifixion scene: Jesus was
crucified at 9 in the morning (in Greek, “the third hour”); the inscription read,
“The King of the Jews”; and he was crucified with two “bandits,” or lêstai, who might be better described as
“revolutionaries” (15:25-27).[2]
The next four verses (15:29-32) describe the mockery of Jesus
by passersby and by some of the chief priests and scribes, which puts the
crucifixion in prophetic context, including the minor events, just as we have
seen throughout Mark’s Gospel and especially after Jesus
entered Jerusalem. In this case, Psalm 22:7-8
reads,
All who see me mock at me; they make
mouths at me, they shake their heads; “Commit your cause to the Lord; let him
deliver— let him rescue the one in whom he delights!”
Mark describes the mockers saying, “Aha! You who would
destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down
from the cross!” (15:30) and “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the
Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see
and believe” (15:31-32). Mark’s final detail might be the cruelest cut from a
human perspective: “those who were crucified with him also taunted him” (15:32).
He is the lowest of the low.
Mark compresses the hours, for at noon (Greek, “the sixth
hour”) “darkness came over the whole land until three {“the ninth hour”} in the
afternoon” (15:33). Six hours, that is, have already passed since Jesus was
crucified and “at three o'clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi,
lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”
(15:34). This is the first verse of Psalm 22 in
Aramaic. Without question it places on
the lips of Jesus the sense of having been abandoned by God and that darkness
should not be banished too quickly: the suffering servant genuinely suffers. Yet
with this most explicit of all of the references to Psalm 22, it is clear that
Mark is alerting us to the whole Psalm, which ends with victory not derision:
The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever! All the
ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of
the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he
rules over the nations. To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow
down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for
him. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told
about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet
unborn, saying that he has done it. (Psalm 22:26-31)
Victory, however, is gained through his suffering and it is
not yet over.
When bystanders hear Jesus, they understand him to be calling for
Elijah and someone “filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave
it to him to drink, saying, ‘Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take
him down’” (15:36). The notes to the New
Oxford NRSV suggest that “voyeurs…want to revive him, prolonging the ordeal,
to see if Elijah comes” (NT 89), but it is just as likely to see this as a
continuation of the mockery from before. His time on the cross, all six hours,
is bookended by mockery and humiliation.
Finally, “Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And
the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the
centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he
said, “Truly this man was God's Son!” (15:37-39). Mark packs a wallop with the
last few verses of the crucifixion scene. As Jesus dies, the curtain of the
Temple tears in two, which might indicate the judgment of the Temple, but more
likely shows that Jesus’ death has opened up the way to God, whose presence
dwelt behind the curtain. It is, though, a centurion, one of Jesus’ killers,
who looks upon him and proclaims that Jesus was God’s son. Mark, we remember,
designates Jesus as God’s son in 1:1, but what does the centurion mean by it?
The Roman Emperors called themselves “sons of God” and their deaths often had
portents associated with them, at least at their funerals; is this the meaning
of the centurion’s words? Or does Mark intend to say that the centurion speaks
the truth, just as Peter did when he recognized Jesus as the Messiah, without understanding
the full implications of his identification? This seems more likely and the
full implications of what the centurion states will soon be explained by Mark.
John W. Martens
Follow me on Twitter @BibleJunkies
[1]
See Richard Bauckham, Jesus
and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, on the use of personal names in the Gospel
and for Alexander and Rufus specifically.
[2]
Verse 28 is not considered here as it is omitted in most translations and from
the Greek critical editions. The verse is not found in the best and earliest
manuscripts and is considered an interpolation into Mark. A similar verse is
found in Luke 22:37, based on Isaiah 53:12; this is what is omitted in Mark: “And
the Scripture was fulfilled which said, ‘And he was counted among the lawless.’”
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