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11
THE BRIDEGROOM IS TAKEN AWAY
JESUS, AFTER HIS ARREST IN THE GARDEN, WAS TAKEN TO the house of the high priest, to be tried before the Sanhedrin, Judaism’s high court. After this body failed to convict him on the strength of false testimony, Jesus was found guilty of blasphemy. The high priest had asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” That is, Jesus was asked to admit to his claim that he was God’s Son. To this he answered, “I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:61–62).
In the morning, Jesus was taken to the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate, who was obliged to adjudicate the death sentence imposed by the Sanhedrin. At Jesus’ hearing before Pilate, not one syllable was said about blasphemy. Instead, Jesus was accused of fomenting sedition against the Roman government. At one point in the hearing, his accusers let slip the fact that the complaint against Jesus was—in all truth—theological and religious: “We have a Law, and according to the Law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God” (John 19:7).
Whatever this claim meant to Pilate, “he was the more afraid.”
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In the end, the charge of sedition is what stuck: “If you let this man go, you are not Caesar’s friend. Whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar” (19:12). Thus, Jesus was condemned to death by the two best legal systems of the time, the Jewish and the Roman.
The process of his trial and execution brought out both the best and worst of the people involved. Let us consider Jesus’ final hours through the eyes of some of them.
PETER’S DENIALS
Among the Savior’s deepest disappointments, even during the course of his trial before the Sanhedrin, was Simon Peter’s threefold denial of even knowing him. Peter’s prominence and leadership among the disciples rendered this denial especially painful.
Unlike Peter’s attempt to walk on water—recorded only in Matthew (14:28–33)—his denials of Jesus are chronicled in all four gospel accounts. Essentially the same in outline, the four versions of the story differ in certain details, some subtle, some indicating perspectives peculiar to an individual Evangelist.
Only John, for example, breaks up the sequence of the denials, mixing them into other features of the Passion account instead of telling them all at once. Thus, after Peter’s first denial (John 18:17), the narrator leaves Peter and returns to Jesus’ interrogation by Annas (18:19–23). Then, when Jesus is sent to Caiaphas (18:24), the narrator goes back to Peter and continues with the next two denials.
In this way, the structure of John’s account is able to advance the story line in two different settings simultaneously—the courtroom and the outer hall—each setting enhancing the drama of the other. This style of narrative is also John’s way of indicating that Peter’s denials were spread over several hours.
Moreover, John alone mentions the charcoal fire, an element that ties the story of Peter’s denials to the postresurrection account of his triple protestation of love for Jesus (John 18:18; 21:9). Both scenes contain the charcoal fire—anthrakia, a word not otherwise found in the New Testament. Thus, Peter’s three denials are balanced by his threefold assertion of love for Jesus.
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Mark, for his part, is alone among the Evangelists in including the detail that the rooster crowed twice (Mark 14:30, 68, 72). In fact, the first and second cockcrows refer to two different times during the night, hours apart, the second one around dawn. This is Mark’s way of making the same point as John: Peter’s was not a momentary lapse, but a sustained and repeated offense.
In general format, Matthew follows Mark’s sequence of Peter’s denials: Sitting outside the high priest’s residence, in the courtyard, Peter is approached by a servant maid (paidiske), who believes she recognizes him as a companion of Jesus. Peter stands accused here of only one thing—being “with” (meta) Jesus, a charge that Matthew is at pains to sustain by his constant references to Peter’s being with Jesus all through this chapter.1
Surrounded by a crowd, Peter denies the allegation in a voice loud enough to be heard by everybody (Matthew 26:70). Matthew adds this detail to Mark’s version of the story (Mark 14:68), thus heightening the sense of Peter’s fear and agitation. The insecure and bewildered disciple begins to move away—from the courtyard, to the porch, to the gate, finally outside.
The more Peter protests his unfamiliarity with Jesus, the more occasions he provides for the bystanders to detect the Galilean inflections in his speech: “Surely you also are one of them, for your speech betrays you” (Matthew 26:73). Thus, Peter is driven to greater desperation and begins to completely lose control.
The evidence of this breakdown is found in Peter’s recourse to an oath in the second denial and to a curse in the third: “But again he denied with an oath, ‘I do not know the man!’ . . . Then he began to curse and swear, ‘I do not know the man!’” (Matthew 26:72, 74).
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The third denial is prompted by a more general accusation from “those who stood by” (Matthew 26:73). Several individuals make this accusation, and John’s version of the story (John 18:26) includes among the crowd a relative of the man whose ear Peter wounded with a sword. This man, present at the arrest, now recognizes Peter.
Immediately after Peter’s third denial, the rooster crows, prompting the apostle to remember what Jesus predicted. He remembers, leaves the place, and breaks into tears, now aware that he has added his own failure to the tragedy of the night: “So he went out and wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:75).
Luke’s account of the episode lays a more explicit and poignant stress on Jesus’ personal relationship with Peter.
To begin with, Luke includes a further detail about Jesus’ prayer. We know that the Savior prayed for all the disciples that night (John 17:9), but Luke specifies that he prayed for Peter in a specific way, foreseeing Peter’s defection. During the Seder, Jesus said to Peter:
Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned, strengthen your brethren. (Luke 22:31–32)
We should make two remarks on this text:
First, Jesus likens his disciples to Job, telling them, “Satan has asked for you [plural].” These disciples, like Job, are going to be tempted by Satan that night. It is as though God spoke to Satan concerning each of the disciples, “Behold, all that he has is in your power” (Job 1:12). The “sifting” or shaking (siniazo), to which Satan will subject them, is a metaphor for the endurance of a trial. They will all experience the “scandal” of the cross.2
Second, Jesus’ prayer is made for Peter specifically, so that the disciple’s later conversion, when it comes, should strengthen the others. When Jesus tells Peter, “I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail,” it is important to observe that the “you” and “your”—in the canonical Greek text—are both singular in number. That is to say, Satan would sift all of them; however, Jesus prayed for Peter, in order that his later testimony will strengthen all of them.
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Indeed, the story of Peter’s denials has been a source of strengthening for Christian disciples down through the centuries.
Luke narrates another and more dramatic detail about Peter’s three denials: Jesus turns and looks at the fallen apostle, just as the rooster crows. Luke describes it:
Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are saying!” Immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” (Luke 22:60–61)
Thus, Peter’s conscience receives the testimony of two senses—sight and hearing—as he simultaneously calls to mind the Savior’s prophecy of his failure. His repentance is immediate: “So Peter went out and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:62).
PILATE’S WIFE
Since the story of Pilate’s wife is found only in the gospel of Matthew (27:19), it seems reasonable to examine it specifically through the perspective of Matthew’s story as a whole. What function does that very short narrative about Pilate’s wife serve in that particular gospel?
Commentators have remarked that Pilate’s wife, a Gentile woman who pleads the innocence of Jesus (“that just man”), serves as a foil to the Jewish leaders who clamor for his crucifixion (Matthew 27:23). This comment is surely accurate, but it does not indicate a larger context nor an intention specific to Matthew.
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A closer examination of Matthew 27:19 is required. The text says that while Pilate
was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him, saying, “Have nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered many things today in a dream because of him.”
This woman is portrayed not only as resistant to the official plot to murder Jesus but also as having “suffered many things today in a dream because of him.” The most striking item here, I suggest, is her dream. It is with the dream that we should start.
This dream of a Gentile, coming near the end of Matthew’s story, forms a literary inclusion with the dream of certain other Gentiles near that gospel’s beginning. Most of Matthew’s gospel fits between these dreams. With respect to those earlier dreamers, we were told, “being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way” (Matthew 2:12, emphasis added). That is the last appearance of the Magi.
The contexts of these two dreams—of the Magi and of Pilate’s wife—are strikingly similar. In each case the dream takes place in connection with an official plot to murder Jesus. In the instance of the Magi, the plot includes the official representative of the Roman government, King Herod, who has “gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together” (Matthew 2:4). In the instance of Pilate’s wife, the murderous plot involves “all the chief priests and elders of the people” (Matthew 27:1, 12, 20; the scribes are included in 27:41). In both cases the dreams of the Gentiles are contrasted with the plots of Jesus’ enemies. Pilate’s wife near the end of the story corresponds to the Magi near its beginning.
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In each case, moreover, the plot to murder Jesus has to do with his kingship, his identity as the Messiah. In the example of the Magi, these travelers come from the east “to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born King of the Jews?’” (Matthew 2:1–2, emphasis added). The usurping Herod, threatened by the suspected appearance of Israel’s true king, takes all the necessary precautions, including the murder of “all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under” (2:16).
The expression “King of the Jews” does not appear in Matthew’s story again until the final plot against Jesus. It is while Pilate officiates in his judgment seat, and just before receiving the message from his wife, that he inquires of Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?” (27:11). The source of Pilate’s question here is indicated in the next verse, which tells us that “He was being accused by the chief priests and elders” (27:12). These chief priests and others correspond to the very group that Herod summoned earlier when he made his own inquiry about the King of the Jews.
Matthew tells us that Pilate “knew that they had handed him over because of envy.” Indeed, Matthew mentions this detail in the verse immediately preceding the message from his wife (Matthew 27:18–19). This envy of Jesus’ enemies readily puts the reader in mind of the earlier account of Herod’s envy, when he was confronted with the real King of the Jews.
There is a special irony, then, in the title by which Pilate’s soldiers address Jesus in their mockery: “Hail, King of the Jews” (27:29, emphasis added). Pilate, moreover, apparently with a view to mocking the Jews themselves, attaches to the cross the official accusation against Jesus: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (27:37, emphasis added).
At last, then, is answered that question first advanced by the Magi, “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews?” (2:2). Now we know where he is because he hangs under a sign that announces to the entire world, “the King of the Jews.”
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Thus, the dream of Pilate’s wife, which had revealed Jesus to be a just man, completes the earlier dream of the Magi. The testimony from the east is matched by the testimony from the West, both cases representing those regarding whom the risen Jesus will command his church, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (28:19).
SCOURGED AND MOCKED
Once Pilate hands Jesus over for death, all discussion stops, and the tragedy starts to run its course. Indeed, it runs so quickly that details of enormous significance are barely mentioned.
For example, Mark (15:15) and Matthew (27:26) reduce the scourging of Jesus to a single participle—“having scourged Jesus,” phragellosas. The Evangelists knew what this expression meant, as did their first readers, but clearly they were not disposed to elaborate the subject. Did they find Jesus’ sufferings—his scourging in particular—too distressing to dwell on?
One suspects this was the case. In addition to the participle used by Mark and Matthew, all four gospels use another verb, mastigo, to tell of the Savior’s scourging; they use this verb six times.3 Eight times in all, then, the Evangelists speak of Jesus’ scourging, always briefly and with restraint, avoiding the painful details. These would be too much for the reader to bear.
In this respect we may contrast the Evangelists with David and Isaiah. The Psalter and the book of Isaiah dwell lovingly on every wound in the Savior’s body. The Old Testament accounts of Jesus’ Passion are vivid and detailed; his very bones are numbered. Unlike the four Evangelists, these Old Testament prophets saw the Passion from a greater distance, so to speak, but they described it in greater detail. The four gospels, on the other hand, were closer to the event. When they were written, those sacred wounds were still very fresh in the minds of Christians. To many Christians, those wounds were simply unbearable to think about.
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After all, the Evangelists and their first readers knew exactly what was entailed in those brief references to the scourging, especially when that form of torture accompanied a death sentence. In that setting there were no limits to the number of strokes or the ingenuity of the soldiers to inflict more pain and greater damage. Sometimes the beatings were so severe that the prisoners did not survive them. Indeed, the copious bleeding served to hasten a death on the cross. In this respect, we observe that the Savior’s two crucified companions outlived him, and a strong case can be made that the immediate cause of Jesus’ death was exsanguination.
If the four Evangelists were reluctant to describe the Savior’s scourging in detail, however, they showed no corresponding disinclination to describe his mockery by the soldiers. In Mark, Matthew, and John this mockery particularly addressed Jesus’ claims to kingship; as we saw, he was mocked as “King of the Jews.”
In the use of this epithet, we should think of something close to “King of the Fools” in a medieval play. We should see in it the contempt those Gentiles felt toward Jews generally, a contempt they were eager to pour out on this particular Jew, whose own people abandoned him. Pilate expressed this same contempt by the inscription he caused to be affixed over Jesus’ head on the cross. Suffering specifically as a Jew, Jesus became the supreme victim of anti-Semitism.
Jesus’ true claim to the Davidic kingship renders the mockery scene supremely ironic. The mocking soldiers do, in fact, bend their knees before the King. Their salutation of him is—as the Evangelists and their readers know—theologically correct! Jesus is the same man who just days before, as he entered Jerusalem in triumph, was addressed as David’s son.
In this mockery Jesus is clothed in a scarlet or purple garment—likely a military cloak—to mimic royalty. To adorn his head, the soldiers weave a crown of thorns, which serves as both a form of torture and a point of shame.
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The theological significance of this crown of thorns comes from the Evangelists’ understanding of it, not the intent of the mocking soldiers. The gospel writers knew, as do their readers in all ages, that the crown of Jesus was woven from the elements of Adam’s curse: “Both thorns and thistles [the ground] shall bring forth for you” (Genesis 3:18). Jesus, wearing that crown, bears that curse.
According to John (19:5), Jesus is still wearing the robe and the thorny crown when he appears before the crowd, and he wears them still as that crowd shouts, “Crucify him!” Although the robe is removed after the mockery (Matthew 27:31), no Evangelist says that the crown is taken off. Christian art and hymnography commonly portray the crucified Christ as continuing to wear that crown on the cross, under the sign identifying him as “King of the Jews.”
THE REVILING BENEATH THE CROSS
Matthew’s description of the Crucifixion is the most detailed with respect to the mockery and reviling that Jesus endured:
And those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, “He saved others; Himself he cannot save. If he is the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if He will have him; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” (Matthew 27:39–43)
This mockery, most elaborated by Matthew, is best understood in the general context of that gospel. Several reflections are in order.
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First, in accepting this treatment without complaint or return of insult, Jesus exemplifies his own instructions in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7). This patience extends Matthew’s theme of a correspondence between that sermon and the mystery of the cross. In his sufferings, Jesus provided the concrete application of the sermon.
Second, following Mark (15:29), Matthew (27:39) understands this mockery of Jesus as “blasphemy.” There is an irony in this indictment of blasphemy against Jesus’ enemies here because this was the very charge that they had brought against him (Matthew 9:3; 26:65).
This understanding of the mockery as “blasphemy” presupposes, of course, the Christian confession of faith, according to which Jesus is the Son of God (Matthew 16:16). Because the title “Son of God” was the barbed point sticking in his enemies’ craw (26:63), it appears also in the final taunts thrown at him (27:40, 43). This fact highlights the significance of the confession made by the presiding centurion at the moment of Jesus’ death: “Truly this was the Son of God!” (27:54, emphasis added).
Third, the challenge, “if You are the Son of God,” ties the story of the Crucifixion to Jesus’ initial temptation, when Satan said to him, “If You are the Son of God . . .” (Matthew 4:3, 6). We recall that Satan issued that challenge just three verses after the Father’s voice had proclaimed of Jesus, “This is My beloved Son” (3:17).
Thus, Matthew’s great divide is between those who, with Simon Peter and the centurion, confess Jesus to be the Son of God and those who in satanic blasphemy deride this title. “Son of God” is the essential, defining confession.4
Fourth, Matthew’s blasphemers, taunting Jesus to demonstrate his divine sonship by coming down from the cross, repeat the temptations of Satan, recorded earlier by Matthew. Satan had challenged the Savior to perform such extraordinary deeds as changing rocks to bread (Matthew 4:3) and hurling himself from the pinnacle of the temple (4:6). Jesus’ enemies, taking up that blasphemous refrain, now challenge him to leave the cross. They are Satan’s agents.
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Fifth, the blasphemers once again repeat the charge—originally made in the house of the high priest (Matthew 26:61)—that Jesus would destroy the temple (27:40). It is likely that Matthew’s first readers had already seen the temple’s destruction by the Romans in AD 70 and would appreciate the irony of the accusation (cf. 21:41, 43).
Sixth, Matthew understands these mockeries as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy (Matthew 27:42–45). He does this by wording the taunts in language evocative of the Psalter:
All those who see me ridicule me;
They shoot out the lip, they shake the head: “He trusted
in the Lord, let Him rescue him;
Let Him deliver him, since He delights in him!’”
(Psalm 22:7–8)5
Thus, Jesus’ enemies stand self-accused, becoming the very mockers in the psalm.
Matthew may also have had in mind the scorn of the mockers against the just man in the Wisdom of Solomon:
Let us see then if his words be true, and let us prove what shall happen to him, and we shall know what his end will be. For if he be the true son of God, He will defend him, and will deliver him from the hands of his enemies. Let us examine him by outrages and tortures, that we may know his meekness and try his patience. Let us condemn him to a most shameful death. (Wisdom of Solomon 2:17–20)
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ONE FINAL KINDNESS
Referring to the two thieves who died on either side of Jesus, Mark’s account testifies, “Those who were crucified with him reviled him” (Mark 15:32).
At least they did so for a while. During the course of those three hours, however, one of the condemned thieves came to think better of the matter, as he watched Jesus hang there in patience, praying for his persecutors. Luke describes the scene:
Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed him, saying, “If you are the Messiah, save yourself and us.” But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when you come in your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:39–43)
This scene with the repentant thief records the only “conversation” Jesus has on the cross. Since it is found only in the gospel of Luke, it is to this gospel that we should turn to understand it. We may divide our attention between the immediate context, which is the Crucifixion, and the wider context of Luke’s gospel as a whole. Let us treat these in reverse order.
With regard to the larger literary context—Luke’s gospel as a whole—two points are particularly noteworthy in this story of the thieves.
First, in drawing a contrast between the two thieves, Luke follows a pattern of antithesis that he employs throughout his entire narrative. For instance, it is Luke who immediately opposes the Beatitudes with the Woes (Luke 6:20–26). It is Luke who elaborates in detail the difference between the Pharisee and the woman who came into his house (7:44–47). It is Luke, likewise, who contrasts two men who went up to the temple to pray (18:9–14), the two sons of the same father (15:27–32), the rich man and the pauper (16:19–22), the faithful and unfaithful servants (12:35–40), the thankful leper and his nine companions (17:17–18), and the rich donors and the poor widow (21:1–4). Luke’s opposition between the two thieves, then, is the climax in a lengthy series of contrasts.
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Second, Luke’s repentant thief is the final example of individuals who confess their guilt in the hope of obtaining divine mercy. Earlier instances include the publican in the temple (Luke 18:13), the Prodigal Son (15:21), and the repentant woman (7:36–50).
In all of these examples, Luke’s narrative resonates with the Pauline emphasis on justification by faith. While in each of these examples the characters come to God with no justifying works of their own, this note is especially obvious in the thief on the cross who turns to Jesus for mercy with literally no time left to do anything except repent, plead, and die.
With respect to Luke’s immediate context, the scene on Calvary, Jesus’ conversation with the thief suggests three considerations.
First, this episode with the thieves is the second of three times that Jesus is pronounced innocent in Luke’s account. The first pronouncement was made by Pilate and Herod (Luke 23:14–15), and the third will issue from the lips of the centurion under the cross (23:47). This verdict of the penitent thief, then, is added to the chorus of those who profess Jesus to be executed unjustly (23:41).
Second, the blasphemy by the unrepentant thief is the third and culminating instance in which the crucified Jesus is reviled in identical terms. First, there were the Jewish rulers who challenged Jesus to save himself if he was the Messiah (Luke 23:35). Then the Gentile soldiers defied him to save himself, if he was a king (23:37). Finally, the unrepentant thief challenges Jesus to save himself, adding “and us” (23:39). We observe that the same verb, “save” or sozein, is used in all three instances. The thief ’s reviling of the Lord thus forms a climax to the theme of “save.”
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This sequence of blasphemy prepares for its foil—the scene’s culminating irony—in which only one man, the “good thief,” perceives the true path to being “saved.” He boldly lays hold on the true meaning of Jesus’ death: salvation! He is the “good thief,” indeed; in this last, boldest, and most ironic act of theft, he leans over to one side, says a few words, and snatches hold of eternal life!
Third, in Luke’s narrative the encounter with the two thieves immediately precedes Jesus’ death so that his words to the second thief, promising to meet him that day in Paradise, are the last recorded words of the Savior to another human being during his earthly life. This final kindness, his message to the thief, represents the last thing Jesus has to say to his disciples on this earth.
Luke’s gospel has now come full circle: When Jesus began his public ministry, his first sentence to the human race began with the word “Today” (Luke 4:21). On the cross, his final sentence to the human race begins with the word “Today.”
TASTING DEATH
Evidently there were several “final words” of Jesus on the cross, some recorded in Matthew and Mark, others in Luke and John. As we have just observed, only Luke narrates the conversation with the thief. Luke alone, likewise, records the two times Jesus cries out to God as “Father”: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do,” and “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:34, 46).
John, an eyewitness to the Savior’s death, tells how the dying Jesus committed to him the future care of his mother (John 19:26–27).
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As for Matthew and Mark, they both testify that “Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit” (Matthew 27:50; cf. Mark 15:37), but neither author relates what the “loud voice” said. One conjectures that Matthew and Mark are alluding to Jesus’ final words as they are recorded in Luke and/or John.
Let us begin, then, with the “second to last” sentence of Jesus, as transmitted by Matthew and Mark, who cite it in an Aramaic/ Hebrew mixture: “‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?’” (Matthew 27:46; cf. Mark 15:34).
This anguished cry of the Savior has been variously interpreted. In particular, there has arisen, in recent times, the notion that God the Father actually did forsake His Son hanging on the cross. Jesus’ abandonment by his Father—his experience of damnation—is sometimes understood, indeed, to be the very price of salvation.
This theory should be examined with a certain measure of caution, I believe. I suggest that the following points should be considered with respect to this caution.
First, the Christian faith firmly holds—as a doctrine not subject to contradiction—that the true God never abandons those who call upon him in faith.
Second, whatever Jesus’ experience was—as expressed in this cry—it was still an experience. That is to say, it was existential; it pertained to Jesus’ existence, not his being, or essence. In his being, or essence, Jesus remained God’s eternal and beloved Son. Consequently, it was not possible that his cry of dereliction declared, as a fact, that God had abandoned him.
For those who, like me, follow the doctrinal guidance of Ephesus and Chalcedon, it was not possible for God the Father to forsake his Son in any real—factual—sense, because the Father and the Son are of “one being” (homoousios). The godhead is indivisible. God does not abandon his friends and loyal servants—much less His Son.
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Therefore, Jesus’ cry conveyed not an objective, reified condition of his being, but rather his human experience of distance from God. The abandonment was psychological, not ontological.
It often happens that God’s friends and loyal servants feel abandoned, and they feel it very keenly. And when they do, they often enough have recourse to the book of Psalms . . . as Jesus does in the present case.
When the Savior expressed this painful experience in prayer, the opening line of Psalm 22 arose to his lips—in Hebrew, ’Eli, ’Eli, lamah ‘azavtani—“My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” He could hardly have prayed this line of the Psalter unless he knew the Father was still “my God.”
In making this prayer his own, Jesus was hardly expressing a sentiment unique to himself. He was, rather, identifying himself with every human being who has ever felt alienated from God, abandoned by God, estranged from God. Jesus became, for us, what the ram in the thorns became for Isaac. That is to say, in making this very human prayer, Jesus expressed oneness with the rest of humanity so that (in the words of a Baptist friend of mine) “the full weight of the curse fell upon the Son as sin-bearer, the fulfillment of both the scapegoat, and the sacrifices of the old covenant. Jesus, thus, experienced every aspect of the curse: death, exile, broken communion with God.”
Perhaps this prayer best expresses what we mean when we speak of “the days of his flesh” (Hebrews 5:7). It was in this deep sense of dereliction that we perceive, most truly, that “the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us” (John 1:14).
After he prayed the first line of Psalm 22, did Jesus go on to finish that psalm silently? Christians have always suspected that this was the case. Continuing the psalm, he told the Father such things as this:
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All the ends of the world
Shall remember and turn to the Lord,
And all the families of the nations
Shall worship before You.
For the kingdom is the Lord’s,
And He rules over the nations. (Psalm 22:27–28)
I wonder, moreover, if we should stop with Psalm 22. Indeed, why would we? Let us imagine, rather, that Jesus, as he was dying, continued praying the next several psalms after Psalm 22. If he went on, quietly praying the subsequent psalms, Jesus’ next words after Psalm 22 were: Adonai ro’i, lo’ ’ehsar—“The Lord is my shepherd / I shall not want.”
It is not difficult to think of Jesus going on with the other psalms in this sequence:
Lift up your heads, O you gates!
And be lifted up, you everlasting doors!
And the King of glory shall come in. . . .
Show me Your ways, O Lord
Teach me Your paths. . . .
The Lord is my light and my salvation
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life
Of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 24:7; 25:4; 27:1)
If Jesus did pray this short sequence of psalms, it took only a few minutes for him to reach Psalm 31:5, which Luke identifies as his final words on the cross: “Into Your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Indeed, I suspect that these were the very words—recorded by Luke—to which Matthew and Mark refer when they tell us: “Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit.”
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When we speak, even today, of excruciating pain, we do well to look at the etymology of that adjective: ex cruce, “out of the cross.” It is nearly impossible to exaggerate what the Savior suffered on the cross.
Whether the cause of his death was asphyxiation or hypercarbia or hypovolemic shock or heart failure or exsanguination, or total physical exhaustion brought on by tetanic contractions throughout his entire body—or any combination of these, or any other plausible suggestion—the astounding fact is that Jesus, at the very end, “cried out again with a loud voice.” From a medical perspective, this is surprising.
Surely, it was the last thing anyone on Calvary could have expected. This “loud voice” demonstrated, nonetheless, the truth of the Savior’s claim:
I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. (John 10:17–18)
Jesus did not simply die. He willingly tasted death, according to the epistle to the Hebrews. He deliberately went through the actual experience of dying. The Gospels indicate that Jesus was conscious and self-aware to the end. There was no coma, no disorientation, no mental befuddlement. The Gospels testify, in fact, that he declined a narcotic that would have disguised and muted his pain.6 The man Jesus knew what he was doing.
He knew, moreover, why he was doing it. It is remarkable that his disciples—then and now—express the conviction that Jesus, in the act of dying, thought of them and poured out his life for each of them. This is the testimony of the epistle to the Hebrews:
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, might taste death for every person. (Hebrews 2:9, emphasis added)
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Hebrews says, “for every person” (hyper pantos), not “for all persons” (hyper panton). Although Jesus certainly died “for everyone,” it is important to remark that he died “for every one.” In the mind and intent of Jesus, the beneficiaries of his death were not an amorphous group. The Good Shepherd, who gives his life for the sheep, “calls his own sheep by name and leads them out” (John 10:3, emphasis added).
More than two decades after the event, someone who had not known Jesus on earth was so confident on this point that he declared,
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and my life in the flesh I live now by faith of God’s Son, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20, emphasis added)
Such has been the conviction of believers down through the ages, those millions in the flesh, who have declared, unto their dying breath, “He loved me. He gave himself for me.”
THE THREE THAT BEAR WITNESS
The description of the Savior’s death in the gospel of John shows every sign of conveying the testimony of an eyewitness. Indeed, the Sacred Text itself calls attention to the firsthand reliability of this testimony: “And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe” (John 19:35). John alone includes the gentle detail “And bowing his head . . .” (19:30).
Two details in John’s testimony seem worthy of special examination.
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First, in its description of the moment Jesus died, John’s very suggestive wording is unique among the four Evangelists: paredoken to pnevma (John 19:30). Generally, alas, that uniqueness is obscured in the standard English translations. They usually run something like this: “And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit” (NKJV). I confess that I have not found an English translation that differs substantially from this.
Such translations are seriously inadequate. Paredoken to pnevma, wrote John. To translate this as “He gave up His spirit” deprives the sentence of most of its meaning. Taken literally (which is surely the proper way to take him), John affirms, rather, that Jesus “handed over the Spirit.”
That is to say, the very breath, pnevma, with which Jesus expired on the cross becomes for John the symbol and transmission of the Holy Spirit that he confers on the church gathered beneath his cross. Support for this interpretation is found in the risen Lord’s action and words to the apostles in the Upper Room in John 20:22, “He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit [Labete Pnevma Hagion].’”
Consequently, John’s description of the death of Jesus—“He handed over the Spirit”—portrays the Holy Spirit as being transmitted from the body of the Savior hanging in sacrifice on the altar of the cross. It is John’s way of affirming that the mission of the Holy Spirit is intimately and inseparably connected with the event of the cross. The Spirit flows from his flesh.
This interpretation, besides being faithful to the literal sense of the verb (paredoken, “He handed over”), is consonant with John’s theology as a whole. It was the cross and resurrection of Jesus—what John calls his glorification—that permitted the Holy Spirit to be poured out on the church. John said earlier, “The Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:39).
Second, John records another detail of the scene not mentioned by the other Evangelists: “But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out” (19:34).
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Taken together, then, John speaks of three things issuing forth from the Savior’s immolated body: the Spirit, the water, and the blood. These things have to do with the gathering of the church at the foot of the cross because this is the place where Jesus’ identity is truly known: “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM” (John 8:28).
These three components—the Spirit, the water, and the blood—appear also in the cover letter for John’s gospel as the “three witnesses” of the Christian mystery: “And there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three are one” (1 John 5:8).
Speaking of the gathering of the church at the foot of the cross, Jesus had declared, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John went on to comment, “He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die” (John 12:32–33).
It is the gathered church, then, that receives the witness of the Spirit, the water, and the blood at the foot of the cross, thereby knowing the Son of Man’s identity as the “I AM” who spoke, of old, to Moses.