Mark 15:21 – 39 Jesus is crucified and dies

As the hours of the watch tick by, elements of Mark’s story provide meaning for the killing of Mark’s Jesus. If we were being thorough, we could note from where he sources these details, how they relate to his ongoing story, how later Gospels add to or adapt them and what Mark does not say.

Simon of Cyrene carries Jesus cross beam. The normal practice was for the condemned person to carry the cross beam from which they would be hung. If this action by Simon actually happened, and the Romans were accustomed to pressing passing people into service, then the implication could be that Jesus was weak from the scourging or that he was not physically strong enough to carry the load. What leaps out of Mark’s story is that Simon is the ideal disciple at this point, carry the cross and ministering to Jesus.

They brought Jesus to Golgotha. There is no implication that this was a hill, just that it was outside the city gate. The temptation to let “There was a green hill far away…” interpret the passion should be strongly resisted. The “passers by who derided him” gives the impression that it was on the side of a road. (Josephus speaks of an occasion where 600 were crucified on the side of the road.) In reality, when the Romans got into the swing of it, they would crucify people wherever they could find a space, including on doors or on the sides of buildings.

They divided his clothes among them. Is the implication that he was naked? Walter Wink has noted, with reference to the saying “If anyone wants to sue you and takes your coat, give them your cloak as well” (Matt. 5:40), that the humiliation does not rest on the naked person but on the one who causes the nakedness and on those who look on it. (The Fourth Gospel’s “seamless cloak” that was too valuable to divide by ripping into pieces is easily recognized as John’s metaphor.)

They crucified him between two bandits. The king is enthroned on his cross with the places of honour, on the right hand and the left, given to the two “freedom fighters” rather than to the two foolish disciples who asked: “grant us to sit on your right hand and on your left”. The stark contrast between Jesus and the freedom fighters, once again calls on the reader to affirm their choice.

The derision and mocking owes its origin to Psalm 22:7 “All who see me mock at me, they makes mouths at me, they shake their heads; ‘Commit your way to the Lord; let him deliver — let him rescue the one in whom he delights”. This Psalm is a major source of Christian reflection and Good Friday detail. Our attention is directed to the righteous suffering one rather than to a notion of prophecy fulfilled by historical detail.

Save yourself, come down from the cross. This taunt voices the ultimate Markan temptation, apostasy, sin against the Holy Spirit (call it what you may). Turn away from your destiny; maybe you got it all wrong!

When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land. “On that day, says the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight” Amos 8:9. It is also imagery associated with the coming of the Son of Man as well as an allusion to the darkness brought by the plague of locusts inflicted on the Egyptians through Moses (Ex. 10:15)

Jesus cried out with a loud voice: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”. Quoting the first verse of Psalm 22 implies that the whole Psalm is being put before us. This is a Psalm of victory (“All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord … Future generations will proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.”). This is not a cry of despair but rather the hopeful cry of the righteous sufferer who trusts, despite the apparent absence of God.

And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. We met the verb skidso, to rip at the beginning of the Gospel when Jesus was baptized. The heavens were ripped and the spirit descended upon Jesus: now a curtain of the temple is ripped to allow access to what lies behind. The curtain has to have a symbolic rather than an historic reference or we would have heard about it elsewhere. It is on a par with the claim to destroy the temple made with hands. There were two Temple curtains. If Mark is alluding to the outer curtain then the metaphor is negative. If it were to the inner curtain that marked off the Holy of Holies (the sanctum sanctorum) then it would be a positive symbolic reference to God’s presence no longer being confined to the inner Temple. Mark does not indicate a preference for one or other curtain.

The centurion watches him die and then says of the dead man: “Truly this man was God’s Son”. This representative of Rome is made to say that the Imperial Roman Theology has got it wrong: Jesus is God’s Son, the saviour of the world, the peace-bringer – not Caesar. The death of the Son of Man rather than the domination by Rome is the key to everything. This is the Christological high point of the story; the ‘messianic secret’ is laid bare. The wraps are off for all to see, the secret is out for all to hear. “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45) The choice is plain.

What is not here in Mark’s story is the later notion of Jesus dying for our sins to satisfy the demands of a wrathful divine bookkeeper God. The many metaphors that are used around Jesus death should inform later theology, not the other way around. But that’s another story.