A CERTAIN MAN from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. 22They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). 23Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.
25It was the third hour when they crucified him. 26The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. 27They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. 29Those 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, 30come down from the cross and save yourself!”
31In 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! 32Let this Christ, 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.
33At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
35When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.”
36One 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.
37With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
38The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
40Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. 41In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there.
42It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, 43Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. 44Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. 45When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. 46So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. 47Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.
Original Meaning
EXECUTION OF CONDEMNED criminals was a public affair. Wells comments: “The Romans had a highly developed and theatrical sense of the public ceremonial.”1 The triumph was one aspect of it, and the soldiers have given Jesus a mock triumph. Crucifixion was another facet of it. This horrible means of execution served two purposes. (1) It punished the criminal by prolonging the pain for as long as possible. Victims could linger on crosses for days as they slowly died from asphyxiation from muscle fatigue.
(2) The public exposure served also as a warning and a deterrent. The victim was paraded through the streets with a placard announcing the crime and was then hanged on a cross strategically placed beside well-traveled roads. His torment would then strike fear into the hearts of those who happened to pass by. During the first revolt against Rome, those caught by the Romans trying to sneak away from the besieged Jerusalem to forage for food were crucified next to the walls of the city. According to Josephus, the Roman general Titus
hoped that the spectacle might perhaps induce the Jews to surrender, for fear that continued resistance might involve them in a similar fate. The soldiers out of rage and hatred amused themselves by nailing their prisoners in different postures; and so great was their number, that space could not be found for the crosses nor crosses for the bodies.2
To Golgotha
NORMALLY, A CONDEMNED man carried the patibulum, the crossbeam, to the site of his crucifixion, where it was fastened to the stipes, the vertical beam already firmly embedded into the ground. Dionysius of Halicarnassus describes barbarous preliminaries to an execution:
A Roman citizen of no obscure station, having ordered one of his slaves to be put to death, delivered him to his fellow-slaves to be led away, and in order that his punishment might be witnessed by all, directed them to drag him through the Forum and every conspicuous part of the city as they whipped him.… The men ordered to lead the slave to his punishment, having stretched out both his arms and fastened them to a piece of wood which extended across his breast and shoulders as far as his wrists, followed him, tearing his naked body with whips. The culprit, overcome by such cruelty, not only uttered ill-omened cries, forced from him by the pain, but also made indecent movements under the blows.3
Mark does not tell why Jesus does not carry his own cross, but it is easy to guess. He is either too weak or too slow from the severe lashing, and the soldiers must conscript an innocent onlooker to carry the crossbar.4 Gill comments: “One of the profound paradoxes of Christianity is to be found in the fact that the one who was not able to carry his own cross (15:21) is the one who enables us to carry ours.”5
Simon is “passing by” just as Jesus was passing by when he called the first disciples (1:16) and Levi (2:14). Simon comes from the country or the field into the city; he must reverse direction as the guards take Jesus outside the city to execute him. Mark identifies Simon as from Cyrene in North Africa and as the father of Rufus and Alexander.6 Most likely, his name is remembered because he later became a Christian. Mark mentions the names of his two sons (who do not figure in the plot) because they were known to the first readers of this Gospel. Paul mentions a Rufus in Romans 16:13 (see also Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians 9:1). The names Simon, Rufus, and Alexander are Hebrew, Latin, and Greek names, respectively, and hint at the universality of the gospel, which will reach across cultures to the ends of the earth.
The procession ends at a place called Golgotha, which Mark interprets for his Greek-speaking readers as “The Place of the Skull.”7 The name could refer to the shape of the outcropping of rock that resembled a skull, the discovery of a skull or skulls in this place, or the fact that it was the location for executions. Mark does not describe the details of Jesus’ crucifixion—how he was fastened to the cross, what type of cross was used, or how excruciating (this word is derived from the Latin excruciatus, which means “out of the cross”) the pain was. Nearly everyone in the ancient world knew what crucifixion was like, and it served no purpose to sketch its horrors.8 The details Mark does isolate have theological significance.
“They”—presumably the same “they” as those who led him out (15:22)—offer Jesus wine mixed with myrrh, which had a narcotic property (15:23). This act may have been a compassionate attempt to relieve somewhat the pain.9 It is unlikely, however, that the executioners are now showing Jesus charity after mocking and scourging him. They may only have wanted to give their exhausted victim a spurt of energy so that he would last longer and suffer more. One can surmise why Jesus rejects the offer of wine. He had made a vow of abstinence at the Last Supper not to drink from the fruit of the vine until he would drink it anew in the kingdom of God (14:25). He has been destined to drink the cup of God (10:38; 14:36), not of men,10 and he wishes to remain fully conscious to the bitter end as he accepts his suffering. Jesus is not going to sleep on the cross as the disciples slept in Gethsemane.
It was customary for executioners to share out the minor personal belongings of the person being executed.11 This detail would not have been mentioned by Mark if it had not been recognized that the division of garments also appears in Psalm 22:18. The linkage helps the reader see that this moment of absolute humiliation for Jesus is fully consonant with God’s will. Jesus’ garments have been mentioned before in the Gospel.12 They were emblematic of his great power to heal people when they touched the hem (6:56; see 5:27–31). In the Transfiguration, his garments became white beyond the power of any human fuller to make white (9:3) and were emblematic of his future glory as God’s Son. The soldiers mocked him as a bogus king by taking his garments from him and giving him purple to wear (15:16–20)—a scene portraying a humiliated king. Now his garments are taken from him again and are raffled off at the foot of his cross. It reveals his utter degradation. The powerful healer and transfigured Son of God dies as a publicly humiliated human being.
Jesus the Messiah resisted all political overtones during his ministry in Galilee and probably disappointed many followers because of his reserve. Ironically, he is executed as a political messiah. The inscription placed on the cross announces to all Jesus’ crime: He is the King of the Jews. The posse came out to arrest Jesus as if he were a brigand; now they crucify him between two brigands. The reader can now understand more clearly why Jesus told James and John that they did not know what they were asking when they requested to sit on his right and his left when he came into his glory (10:37). That dubious honor has been reserved for others. Jesus had spent his life in the company of sinners; it is fitting that he dies between two sinners.13
Mark tolls the hours during the crucifixion. It is the third hour (9:00 A.M.) when they crucify him. Darkness covers the land at the sixth hour (high noon); and Jesus cries out in a loud voice at the ninth hour, the Jewish hour of prayer (15:34–35). Some suggest that these three-hour periods dividing the day point to a regularity following a divine plan.14
The Derision (15:28–33)
THE VICTIM OF crucifixion customarily became the butt of contemptuous abuse. For some perverse reason, certain people relish witnessing the agony of others and enjoy adding to it.15 Individuals from all walks of life heap insults on Jesus, from the low criminals who are crucified with him to the high priests gathered to gloat over their triumph. The “Aha” (NIV “So!”) appears as a derisive cry in certain psalms (Pss. 35:21; 40:15; 70:3). Wagging the head is also a gesture of contempt (2 Kings 19:21; Job 16:4; Pss. 22:7; 109:25; Isa. 37:22; Jer. 18:16; Lam. 2:15). As they see Jesus hanging helplessly on his cross, he looks wholly defeated, and his enemies think they have won. The scene drips with irony as these scoffers spout their derision from their own blind point of view and unknowingly proclaim the truth about Jesus.
The passersby “hurled insults at him.” Mark may use this verb (blasphemeo) to mean simply “to deride,” but he may also intend an ironic contrast with the blasphemy charge leveled by the high priest against Jesus at the conclusion of his initial interrogation (14:64). He condemned Jesus for making a mockery of God’s power by claiming to be God’s Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One, when, in his view, Jesus was only a pitiful wretch. The reader must decide who is the real blasphemer—Jesus or the spectators (see 2:7; 3:29). The reader knows that Jesus is obedient to God’s will. The passersby unknowingly challenge him to thwart God’s will by coming down from the cross.16 Jesus called Peter “Satan” when he attempted to deflect him from the course God laid out for him. The tormentors do not realize that their taunt borders on a satanic blasphemy.
The scoffing aimed Jesus’ way recalls the charges raised before the high priest and his council. They taunt him as the one who would destroy the colossal temple and rebuild it in three days (15:29–30; see 14:58). Seeing this feeble and exhausted figure strung up on a cross naturally makes such a boast seem laughable. Their mockery, however, testifies to a truth beyond their range of vision. Jesus’ death does destroy the temple made with hands and builds a new one not made with hands. This new temple has no ties to any geographical location. It consists of a new community of worshipers who believe that in his death Jesus bore the sins of a jeering and murderous world and that God vindicated him by raising him from the dead. His death abolishes the need for any more temple sacrifices, and God will soon build a temple without walls through Jesus’ resurrection.
The chief priests and the teachers of the law join the fray next. They scoff that he saved others but cannot save himself. The reference to saving others recalls the verb used in Jesus’ healings (sozo; cf. 3:4; 5:23, 34; 6:56). These leaders therefore admit what Peter later preached, that he “went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil” (Acts 10:38). They refuse to acknowledge, however, that God anointed him “with the Holy Spirit and power,” and that he saved others “because God was with him” (10:38). This impotent object of scorn was without form or comeliness and looked absurd as a savior. They could hardly see how God could be with someone so abandoned and tormented on a cross. By their reasoning, if he were a savior, he ought to be able to save himself.
Their jeers underscore Mark’s point. He saved others—the disciples in the midst of a sea storm; the woman with a hemorrhage—and he truly cannot save himself. Were he to save himself, he could not save others from something more deadly than storms or illnesses. The nails do not hold him fast to the cross; the love of God constrains him. He himself taught that whoever wants to save his own life will ultimately lose it (8:35). His detractors cannot understand this way of looking at life. They cannot see that he dies as a ransom for many (10:45) or that his body is being broken and his blood is poured out for the many (14:22–25).
Because they cannot see they, they next demand a miracle. They want him to come down from the cross so that they can see and believe. They claim that some miraculous display of power or a miraculous escape will finally convince them, but they are only taunting his helplessness. The mockery reveals something about their shriveled theology. As Marshall states it, “They evaluate divine power purely in human, self-serving terms, according to their own standards of practice” (see 11:18; 12:1–9; 14:43, 48–49).17 That is what they would have done if they had that power. Jesus taught his disciples to “take up” the cross, not to “come down” from one. A miraculous rescue would have proven only that he was a superman, not the Messiah, the Son of God. Those who want tangible proof of the divine presence will never see anything.
Darkness shrouds the whole land for the next three hours, from the sixth to the ninth hour (noon until 3:00 P.M.). The darkness occurring at such a critical moment can signify a number of things.18 (1) Darkness was associated in antiquity with mourning (Jer. 4:27–28; 2 Apoc. Bar. 10:12). This is how it is interpreted in the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 1:41: “While he was suffering, all the world suffered with him, for the sun was darkened.” That is, the darkness can mean that Jesus’ death brought the sun to lamentation. (2) Darkness was also associated with the death of great men. Both Gentile and Jewish readers could understand darkness as a cosmic sign that accompanied the death of a king.19 (3) In addition, darkness was a sign of God’s judgment (see Ex. 10:21–23; Isa. 13:9–13; Jer. 13:16; 15:19; Joel 2:10; 3:14–15; Amos 5:18, 20). Amos declares in Amos 8:9–10:
“In that day,” declares the Sovereign LORD,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
I will turn your religious feasts into mourning
and all your singing into weeping.
I will make all of you wear sackcloth
and shave your heads.
I will make that time like mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.”
(4) Jesus said that darkness would announce the great day of the Lord (Mark 13:24). The darkness that settles on the land may thus signify that the day has dawned with a new beginning (Gen. 1:2, Job 38:17; Ps. 74:12–20).20 (5) Note that darkness does not indicate God’s absence. The Scriptures reveal that God works even in the darkness. He chose to dwell in thick darkness (1 Kings 8:12; 2 Chron. 6:1) and gave the law in darkness: “Moses approached the thick darkness where God was” (Ex. 20:21). God descended for battle in darkness (2 Sam. 22:10; Ps. 18:9–11).
All these images may form the backdrop for understanding Jesus’ crucifixion in darkness. The Pharisees earlier demanded a sign from heaven, and Jesus refused by saying (lit.), “If a sign be given this generation” (8:12). This curse formula was left uncompleted. Normally, it would be finished with something like, “May God strike me dead.” Belatedly, the leaders do receive a sign from heaven, but it is not the kind they want or that they can read.
Jesus’ Cry from the Cross (15:34–37)
AT THE NINTH hour, Jesus cries out from the cross with a great voice. The only other time that Mark uses the verb “to cry” (boao) is in the opening lines of the Gospel. Isaiah’s prophecy is applied to John the Baptizer, the voice of one “calling” in the desert to prepare the way of the Lord (1:3). Now the paths have been made straight, and Jesus cries out.
Jesus’ ghastly cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” which are the last words he speaks in this Gospel, continue to perplex Christians.21 It has summoned many explanations, and interpreters are divided whether to consider only the words written (which come from Psalm 22:1) or to weigh them against the entire psalm, a lament that ends with a triumphant hope of vindication. (The options will be discussed in bridging the contexts.) However one interprets this death cry, Jesus’ death forms a striking contrast to that of the dying Hercules in Seneca’s Hercules Oetaeus. After completing the twelve tasks assigned to him, he bitterly faces death and announces the collapse of the universe, which will shake Jove’s sovereignty:
“Yea, father [genitor], thy whole realm of air will my death put to hazard. Then ere thou art utterly despoiled of heaven, bury me father, ‘neath the whole ruined world. Shatter the skies which thou art doomed to lose” (1148–1150).22
Jesus’ death establishes the sovereignty of God, who sends his beloved Son to give his life as a ransom for many.
When Jesus was arrested, he said (lit.), “But in order that the Scriptures be fulfilled” (14:49); he leaves the sentence incomplete. One can only overcome the scandal of the cross and see how God’s will is at work in Jesus’ death by understanding that it fulfills the Scriptures. Jesus’ end is not a tragic failure but the glorious fulfillment of the destiny God assigned him as the Messiah. Marcus outlines how allusions to the psalms of the righteous sufferer form a prominent backdrop for understanding Mark’s Passion narrative.23
Mark |
Psalms |
14:1—to kill him by cunning |
10:7–8 |
14:18—the one eating with me |
41:9 |
14:34—very sad |
42:5, 11; 43:5 |
14:41—delivered to the hands of sinners |
140:8 |
14:55—sought to put him to death |
37:32; 54:3 |
14:57—false witnesses rising up |
27:12; 35:11 |
14:61—silence before accusers |
38:13–15; 39:9 |
15:4–5—silence before accuser |
38:13–15; 39:9 |
15:24—division of garments |
22:18 |
15:27—robbers are encircled by evildoers |
22:16 |
15:29—mockery, head wagging |
22:7 |
15:30–31—Save yourself! |
22:8 |
15:32—reviling |
22:6 |
15:34—cry of forsakenness |
22:1 (22:11, 19–21) |
15:36—vinegar to drink |
69:21 |
15:40—looking on from a distance |
38:11 |
Marcus also shows how Mark’s narrative from 15:20b to the end of the Gospel follows the course of Psalm 22 in many significant details.24
Psalm 22 |
Mark 15–16 |
vv. 1–21—suffering |
15:20b–27—Jesus’ crucifixion |
v. 27—the Gentiles’ worship |
15:39—the centurion’s confession |
v. 28—the kingdom of God |
15:43—Joseph is one looking for the kingdom |
vv. 29–30—resurrection |
16:6—Jesus’ resurrection |
vv. 30–31—proclamation to |
16:7—command to tell the disciples God’s people |
The scoffers either misunderstand Jesus’ final prayer or deliberately distort his words as a final jest. They think he is calling for Elijah, presumably to rescue him from the cross. Elijah was believed to be, among other things, an aid to people in crisis, a patron saint of lost causes. Someone in the crowd runs to fill a sponge with sharp wine. Is it intended to give Jesus a burst of energy to enable him to hold off death until Elijah arrives? Medical discussions of the effects of crucifixion on the body argue that drinking only served to hasten the process of death by suffocation.
Others stop this man and mockingly wait for a miraculous deliverance from Elijah, who was himself taken up in a chariot of fire (2 Kings 2:11). Their jeer, “Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” turns his cry of desperation into a heartless joke; but the joke is filled with irony. After all, the reader knows that Elijah has already come, and they did to him as it was written concerning him (9:12–13). Elijah (i.e., John the Baptizer) has already been put to death and will not return to rescue Jesus. Moreover, these scoffers want to see something, but they reveal themselves to be those who can see nothing.
With this last taunt, Jesus lets out a great voice and “breathed his last” (ekpneuo), a euphemism for death. The loud cry is unusual since crucified victims normally died of exhaustion and lack of breath. Gundry suggests that it expresses superhuman strength25 and causes the events that follow.
The Tearing of Temple Veil and the Centurion’s Confession (15:38–39)
MARK NARRATES VISUAL theology by reporting that the temple veil rips from top to bottom at Jesus’ death. The veil screened the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place (Ex. 26:31–35; 27:16, 21; 30:6; 40:21; Lev. 4:17; 16:2, 12–15; 21:23; 24:3; Josephus, Ant. 8.3.3 § § 71–72).
This closing scene of Jesus’ life parallels the opening scene of his baptism (Mark 1:9–11). (1) In Jesus’ baptism, John appears in the garb of Elijah (1:6) and is later identified with Elijah (9:13). In the crucifixion, bystanders think that Jesus is calling for Elijah to rescue him.
(2) Both incidents also record the rending of a holy place (the verb “torn” [schizo] appears only in these two scenes in Mark).26 When Jesus ascended from the waters at his baptism, he saw the heavens, which Isaiah likens to a curtain (Isa. 40:22), “torn open.” The temple veil was also likened to the heavens. Josephus describes the tabernacle for his Greco-Roman readers as divided into three equal parts. The court and the Holy Place are likened to the land and the sea, which are accessible to humanity; the third area, the Holy of Holies, represents heaven, which is accessible to God alone.27 He describes the veil as eighty feet high, a “Babylonian tapestry with embroidery of blue and fine linen, of scarlet also and purple, wrought with marvelous skill. Nor was the mixture of materials without its mystic meaning: it typified the universe.” It was embroidered with “the whole panorama of the heavens,” excluding the signs of the Zodiac.28
(3) The divine presence descends on Jesus like a dove at his baptism and a voice sounds forth from heaven announcing, “You are my Son, whom I love” (1:11). The centurion echoes that voice from heaven: “Surely this man was the Son of God” (15:39).
(4) While the tearing of the fabric of the heavens at the baptism scene was a private revelation for Jesus—only “he saw” (eiden, 1:10)—the crucifixion is a public revelation for all to see. For the first time human beings can fully see what God intends to reveal.
When Jesus dies so ignominiously, one can imagine that the high priests and teachers of the law consider his death to be the proof that his claims are bogus (see Wis. 2:17–20). The events confirm their prejudice that God did not send Jesus, for God would never have allowed the Messiah to die in this way. The confession from the leader of the death squad therefore comes as a surprise. As a centurion, he is a battle-hardened campaigner promoted from the ranks, who had no reason to be sympathetic toward Jesus. Mark tells us, however, that he saw “how he died”—a powerless death but with a powerful cry—and acknowledges, “Surely this man was the Son of God” (15:39).29 The confession means that Jesus’ full identity is inseparably linked to his death. It marks the beginning of the fulfillment of Psalm 22:27, “All the families of the nations will bow down before him.” With Jesus’ death, the reader begins to see a new temple, which will be “a house of prayer for all nations” (11:17), becoming a reality.
The Burial (15:40–47)
A SOMBER CLUTCH of grieving women who have followed Jesus from Galilee look on at the execution of Jesus from a distance (15:40) and witness his burial (15:47).30 Unlike the disciples, they have not vanished from the scene, but they are not close by to give testimony to their love and support. Standing at a distance may show delicacy; they do not gaze at his nakedness at close hand. Their stance, however, parallels that of Peter, who followed Jesus “at a distance” so that he might disguise his discipleship (14:54). They witness his death but do not confess as the centurion does. Mark commends their past service. They followed in Galilee, “cared for [Jesus’] needs,” and went up with him to Jerusalem. The only ones who cared for his needs are the angels (1:13), Peter’s mother-in-law (1:31), and these women, who will also serve his needs in death.
Joseph of Arimathea (presumably from Ramathaim, east of Joppa, 1 Sam. 1:1) takes the initiative in securing Jesus’ body for burial. He is the third exceptional character to emerge from the enemies’ camp. First came the teacher of the law whom Jesus commended as not far from the kingdom (12:28–34), then the centurion who confessed that Jesus was the Son of God (15:39). Now Joseph of Arimathea courageously asks for Jesus’ body and buries it at his own expense (see Acts 8:2; 13:29). A stranger, Simon, took up Jesus’ cross for his execution; another stranger takes down his body from the cross for his burial.
Mark describes Joseph as “a prominent member of the Council.” He could be a member of his village council, but the reader would naturally identify him as a member of the council that condemned Jesus for blasphemy (14:64). Mark also describes him with emphasis as one who was “waiting for the kingdom of God.” This phrase identifies him as a pious man (see Simeon and Anna in Luke 2:25, 38), which may explain his motivation for claiming the body. Risk is involved because Mark tells us that he “dares” (“went boldly,” NIV) to ask Pilate for the corpse. The Romans felt no qualms about leaving victims on their crosses for days. Horace refers to one who says to a slave, “You’ll hang on the cross to feed crows.”31
Deuteronomy 21:23 was the basis for Jewish belief that one was obligated to bury the body of criminals and even enemies on the day of their death. Philo interprets the text freely to apply to murderers who are crucified and paraphrases it: “Let not the sun go down upon the crucified but let them be buried in the earth before sundown.”32 Ordinarily, the family or friends would summon courage to request the body (see the disciples of John the Baptizer, Mark 6:29), but Jesus’ family and friends do not do this.
To ask for the body of someone executed for high treason could be looked upon as sympathizing and could earn one the same fate. But as a member of the Council who condemned Jesus to death, Joseph is above suspicion. Pilate’s only concern is to ascertain that Jesus is already dead. The centurion who confessed Jesus as the Son of God affirms that Jesus is really dead. Jesus’ quick death (15:44) amazes Pilate as much as his silence before his accusers (15:5). That Pilate readily grants the body to Joseph either confirms that he did not seriously consider Jesus guilty of treason or suggests that he willingly accedes to Jewish sensibilities.
Mark has been tolling the watches as they tick by during the Passion and the hours during the crucifixion. The Passion began in the evening when Jesus came with his disciples for his Last Supper (14:17); it now ends in the evening with his burial. The statement in 15:42 that it was already the evening of Preparation Day (the day before the Sabbath) gives the motivation behind Joseph’s actions. The body must not be allowed to hang beyond sundown so as not to defile the land (Deut. 21:23). But a burial on the Sabbath, which began with the shining of the first star, would have been prohibited. Mark says that Joseph (presumably with the help of servants) wraps Jesus’ body up in a newly bought linen cloth and buries him in a tomb carved in rock.
Bridging Contexts
THE ACCOUNT OF Jesus’ crucifixion as portrayed by Mark is as gloomy as the darkness that covered the land until the ninth hour. Jesus went to his death in utter loneliness, betrayed, deserted, and denied by his followers. He was rejected by his own people, who clamored for his death. After being mocked, beaten, and spat upon, Jesus faced an excruciating death alone, isolated from the human race. No “good thief” spoke to relieve the oppression; no close friends or relatives stood close by to watch. A handful of women followers were there, faithful in the face of despair, but they looked on from a distance. Jesus did not serenely pray, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46); nor did he sound the final note of victory, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Instead of a voice from a cloud affirming him as the Son, we have a tormented shout from the cross asking why he has been abandoned. Evil engulfed Jesus on the cross, and we should not try to relieve this stark picture with any misguided sentimentality.
This is the climax of human blindness and iniquity spilling over in brutal outrage against God’s Son; it shows a world that has gone topsy-turvy. Jesus is a king who died an outlaw’s death. Jesus is the Messiah, who was rejected by the people he came to deliver. Jesus is the mighty Son of God, who did not use his power for himself but died a seemingly powerless death. All traditional symbols have been reversed. Weakness is a sign of power. Death is the means to life. Godforsakenness leads to reconciliation with God. The perpetrators who executed Jesus did not realize that they were executing God’s will (14:36) and that Jesus submitted willingly as God’s obedient Son (10:45). They also did not realize that this death would not be the end of him. Instead, it meant the end of their whole order. They could not fathom how such a powerless death disclosed the character and power of God.
Three theological issues emerge from this section: the meaning of Jesus’ cry, the splitting of the temple veil, and the centurion’s confession. We will take each in order.
Jesus’ Cry on the Cross
MANY DIVIDE OVER the meaning of Jesus’ cry of forsakenness. We should first admit that we may never fathom the mystery behind this cry, but we can probe the major options.
Those who insist that we should only interpret the words that Mark cites and ignore the context of Psalm 22 disagree over what those words mean. Some explain the cry from the perspective of God’s holy wrath and the character of sin that cuts the sinner off from God (see Isa. 59:2). Jesus drank the bitter cup of God’s wrath on the cross and took our place, just as he had taken Barabbas’s place to face the judgment on sin that was deservedly ours. Paul writes, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21; see also Gal. 3:13). The darkness that crept over the land signifies the judgment of God, and Jesus was on the wrong end of it. As a substitute for sinners, he bore the punishment that was due us, and his cry expressed profound horror at his separation from God. He encountered the evil within and without the soul of humans and cried out when he sensed God’s turning away from that evil as he died on the wood of the cross (Deut. 21:23; Gal. 3:13). In that fearful hour, Jesus bore in his own consciousness the utmost penalty and cried out as one abandoned by God to the terrible abyss. Calvin reasoned: “If Christ had died only a bodily death, it would have been ineffectual.… Unless his soul shared in the punishment, he would have been the Redeemer of bodies alone.”33
Many question this interpretation as “inconsistent with the love of God and the oneness of purpose with the Father manifest in the atoning ministry of Jesus.”34 If one cites 2 Corinthians 5:21 one can also cite 5:19: “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ.” Some find it difficult to accept that Jesus, who had been betrayed, abandoned, denounced, denied, denuded, and derided by humans, was also abandoned by God in his hour of need. We have clear indications that the Son of Man would suffer utter degradation, but this did not entail utter abandonment by God. Nowhere in Mark do we have any hint that God’s holy wrath required that God had to turn away from sin. Others therefore interpret Jesus’ words as a human cry of despair in the face of defeat and estrangement. The confidence that Jesus had maintained throughout his ministry in the coming of the kingdom of God suddenly failed him.
Albert Schweitzer interpreted Jesus’ death precisely this way, writing that Jesus expected the kingdom of God to come and laid
hold of the wheel of the world to set it moving on that last revolution which is to bring all ordinary history to a close. It refuses to turn, and He throws Himself upon it. Then it does turn; and crushes Him.35
Consequently, he contended that Jesus died on the cross “with a loud cry, despairing of bringing in the new heaven and the new earth.”36 The darkness that had beset the land now penetrated his own heart.
Others contend that Jesus may have believed that God had failed him or that he had failed God in some way. The kingdom had not come, and he felt forsaken as his agony obscured his sense of communion with the Father. Jesus felt utterly abandoned by God, but he refused to let go and cried out, “My God.” Broadus writes:
If it be asked how he could feel himself to be forsaken, we must remember that a human soul as well as a human body was here suffering, a human soul thinking and feeling within human limitations (Mark 13:32), not psychologically unlike the action of other devout souls when in some great and overwhelming sorrow.37
Amid human hatred and violence, God may seem to be absent; but never was God more fully and forcefully present than when Jesus died on the cross. God is not an abandoning God.
Watson goes further and challenges attempts to mitigate Jesus’ existential despair—that Jesus only felt abandoned. He argues that the crucifixion in Mark shatters the naive view of the world upheld with loving care by a heavenly Father. He writes:
The God who was once gladly addressed as “Abba” has incomprehensibly turned away and hidden his face. In a moment of both bewilderment and insight, the reality of God-forsakenness as a characteristic of the world is recognized. No resolution to the problem is offered: only the question, “Why…?”, and the equally eloquent though wordless “loud cry” with which Jesus dies.38
For Watson, the cry means that “God-forsakenness” is “an inescapable aspect of reality.” “Here, the story of Jesus makes the same point as the older story of Job: the world does not point unambiguously to a rational and loving providential care, and we must honestly accept this fact.”
Hooker comments that “these words provide a profound theological comment on the oneness of Jesus with humanity, and on the meaning of his death, which shares human despair to the full.”39 The first readers, who also were experiencing insecurity and a sense of abandonment, would identify with this desperation. Tolbert argues:
The content of Jesus’ cry from the cross, his expression of abandonment by God, stands as an assurance to his followers that the worst desolation imaginable, cosmic isolation, can be endured faithfully. What is separation from family and betrayal or denial by friends in comparison to that timeless moment of nothingness when God’s Son is deserted by God?40
Other interpreters emphasize that Jesus’ last words were not formed by Jesus himself but by the psalmist (Ps. 22:1). If this were only an existential cry of personal distress, why did Jesus not use Abba as he did in the Gethsemane? One answer might be that he felt estrangement from Abba, who did not answer his prayer. A more probable answer is that Jesus’ intimate familiarity with Scripture led him to this particular lament, which was a classic expression of anguish.
I find it probable that Jesus, who lived by Scripture and believed that he was fulfilling Scripture (14:49), would turn to Scripture for solace when he was in desperate straits. Mark tells us that when Jesus cried out, it was the ninth hour, the Jewish hour of prayer (cf. Acts 3:1), and Jesus prayed the prayer of the righteous sufferer, who trusts fully in God’s protection. Psalm 22 naturally came to mind because he was mocked (Ps. 22:7–9), his strength was dried up (22:15–16), his hands and feet were pierced (22:16), and his garments were divided (22:18). Jesus therefore did not simply let out an anguished wail of pain but deliberately quoted this lament, which moves from an expression of pain to confidence in God’s deliverance. Why would Jesus cry out to an absent God unless he believed that God was indeed there to hear and able to deliver him? Senior argues:
These words are, in effect, the final version of the prayer in Gethsemane where, also in a “lament,” Jesus affirmed his unbroken trust in his Father while feeling the full horror of approaching death (14:32–42).41
Some ask, reasonably, why Jesus should have quoted the beginning of Psalm 22 if he was alluding to its end? One could not expect a crucifixion victim, painfully struggling for every breath, to recite the entire psalm. Without chapter and verse divisions in the Hebrew Scriptures, specific passages were cited often by the first verse or key phrases. One can see an example of this practice in Mark 12:26, when Jesus referred to a specific passage as from “the book of Moses, in the account of the bush.” This particular passage is indicated by referring to a key phrase. Jews in Jesus’ day were immersed in the Scripture the way moderns are immersed in television and the movies, and they would know that Psalm 22 begins with despair but ends on a triumphant note.
In other words, by using Psalm 22, Jesus chose to complain stridently about his suffering and tragedy but to look beyond it to express his faith in the God who vindicates the righteous. He identifies himself with the righteous sufferer, who feels the pain of his testing but whose intimacy with God allows him to voice his complaint bluntly and to demand rescue. He accepts his suffering, trusting that God’s intervention will come in his death. If one understands this cry as a prayer, God immediately answers it. The darkness lasting from the sixth to the ninth hour lifts, and the following events reveal in overwhelming fashion that his confident hope in God’s vindication has not been misplaced. “For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help” (Ps. 22:24).
Mark presents Jesus’ deportment during his Passion as a model for followers to emulate. When faced with severe trial, Jesus prayed. When dragged before authorities and put on trial for his life, he gave his fearless testimony. When beaten and taunted, he endured suffering without reviling. We should also expect to learn how to face death and suffering from the way he died. Mark therefore does not present Jesus’ death simply as a transaction. He certainly does not want his readers to think that Jesus’ faith faltered at the end and that he died in surprised despair. Jesus castigated his disciples for their lack of faith (4:40) and encouraged others to have faith in the midst of woe (9:23) and when facing insurmountable odds (11:23–24). The centurion did not confess “because he saw a man die in utter abandonment.”42 Jesus painfully accepted God’s will that the cup must be drunk. Unlike the disciples, he fully comprehended the necessity of the cross and did not expect something else from God.
Mark’s first readers knew trial and tribulation. They faced the literal possibility of taking up their cross and dying the same way their Lord did. What they could see from the description of Jesus’ death was one who was obedient unto death because he trusted God. But he also could voice loudly his lament. When painful ordeals roar into our lives, God does not call for us to be stoic, unmoved by grief, or to take our medicine “like a man.” We learn that we can vent our feelings and complain vociferously to God. Many other texts in the New Testament may be used to instruct listeners about views of the atonement. This text is best used to help those who are undergoing agonizing suffering and loss and acutely feel God’s distance in their own lives.
The Rending of the Temple Veil
MARK DOES NOT report that the temple veil rips from top to bottom out of any antiquarian interest. “The torn curtain unveils something of the mystery of the dying Christ.”43 Modern listeners may need help with a diagram of the temple layout to appreciate that significance fully, but even then how Mark understood this event is not obvious. Geddert lists some thirty views under four basic categories.44 Several of these interpretations are not mutually exclusive and deserve reflection. Matera allows that the tearing of the temple curtain “is a rich image with both positive and negative poles.”45 When the veil rips, something is destroyed but also something that was previously hidden opens up to view. The positive and negative images of a torn veil suggest that Jesus’ death has both a positive and a negative impact.
On the positive side, the torn veil symbolizes a new revelation. The veil that shielded the holiest part of the temple where God’s glory resided was torn away. The veil of secrecy lifted, and all could see the face of God and the love of God in Jesus’ death. Humans can now know and confess what was already announced from heaven (1:11; 9:7) and was known only to demons: Jesus is God’s Son, who was obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Even a rough centurion, a spokesman from the Gentile world, could recognize this fact. Toward the end of the movie The Wizard of Oz, the curtain hiding the feared wizard is torn away to reveal an impotent fraud, desperately pulling levers. His vaunted power was nothing but smoke and mirrors. By contrast, when Jesus died on the cross, the curtain torn in two reveals an all-powerful, all-loving God.
A second view understands that the torn veil lets something out. God’s glory cannot be confined to a national shrine of frozen stone but now floods the world. Just as the heavens ripped open and the Spirit descended on Jesus at his baptism, one can imagine that something breaks forth from the Holy of Holies to fill the world. God’s protecting presence is no longer limited to a chamber that only a high priest may briefly visit once a year.
A third view contends that the tearing of the veil signifies that the barrier between God and humanity has been torn away. It vividly reveals the at-one-ment now available between God and humanity. Priests can no longer rope God off from others. This idea is expressed in prose by the author of Hebrews (Heb. 6:19–20; 9:3, 7–8, 12, 24–28; 10:19–20). The tearing of the veil therefore implies that all now have direct access to a gracious God, who has allowed his Son to die on behalf of the many. Even Gentiles, formerly barred access even to the sanctuary, may now enter into the Holy of Holies. The confession by a Gentile centurion signals that Gentiles will also be included in the salvation offered by Jesus’ death.
A fourth view understands that the torn veil marks the end of the old order. The veil is not opened but ripped in two, from top to bottom, indicating its destruction. Tearing “from top to bottom” may picture God unleashing judgment from heaven and represents divine condemnation of the temple cultus. The temple and its sacrificial system are now redundant and unnecessary. Ultimately, God forsakes this temple, not Jesus. Jesus will be raised; the temple will be razed (Mark 13:2), its service judged and abolished. There is nothing holy about this grand building. The rending of the veil therefore provides confirmation for Jesus’ words against the temple (13:1–2; 14:58; 15:29).
The Centurion’s Confession
AS JESUS DIED on the cross, he daringly asked God “Why? [For what reason?]” (15:34). The centurion’s confession offers one answer: His death will transform others and bring them to faith.46 The Gentile soldier heard the same great cry as the bystanders; why did he confess and not mock with the others? He never saw Jesus’ miracles, never heard his interpretation of what his death meant, but only witnessed the mockery and his death. If such a one could believe that Jesus is the Son of God only by witnessing how he died, then anyone can believe. Jesus’ death means that Caesar and all the values that Caesar’s world is built on are endangered. It reveals to Mark’s first readers and to today’s readers that faithful obedience unto death, not wondrous works of power, can convert even the executioner. Christians can win the world, not by winning over them with violence but by winning them over through love and obedience to God.
To make this confession, the centurion must have changed his perception of the basic things that governed his entire life. As a centurion he has sworn allegiance to the emperor, and he represents Roman imperial power. For the Romans, “the notion of power was central to the definition of deity,”47 and the title “Son of God” properly belonged only to the emperor, who embodied Rome’s majesty. Remarkably, this soldier bestows the title on a Jew who has just been executed. He must have changed his mind not only about Jesus but also about what it meant to be a son of God. Divinity was no longer associated with the splendor and military might of an empire. It resided where there was no apparent splendor or might.48
The centurion therefore stands in stark contrast to those who wanted to see some great power demonstration. To refuse to believe unless God provides an obvious demonstration that meets their worldly criteria is the opposite of faith. The attitude that says, “Show us and we will believe,” never believes no matter how much is shown to them. “Faith is not a matter of seeing in order to believe, but of trusting to the point of death.”49 One must be able to see that precisely here in the obscurity, lowliness, humiliation, and powerlessness of the cross, not in any miraculous display, God demonstrates power over the demonic and humankind.
To make his confession, the centurion also must have completely revised his understanding of power. The power that Rome represented was coercive. It forced others to submit or else. Jesus’ powerless death exerts a different kind of power from what the centurion had served and used on others. He recognized that true power, which was revealed in the cross, is not coercive, exploitative, or manipulative. The power he served crushed others and transformed life into death. The power of the cross gives itself for others and transforms death into life.
One thing about Jesus’ death did not require the centurion to change his mind but could only reinforce his preconceived views. As a soldier, he understood and appreciated the necessity of absolute obedience (see Matt. 8:9). He saw in Jesus’ death someone who had been faithful in carrying out his mission. We should lead modern bystanders to revise their false view of the nature of divinity and power and reinforce their understanding of obedience.
Contemporary Significance
MARK’S PICTURE OF Jesus’ suffering on the cross is bleak but avoids sensationalism. His sober and concise report carries enormous power, although he provides no graphic description of Jesus’ physical agony. His account avoids sentimentality but also does not rouse hatred for the perpetrators. Something more profound was happening than just another gruesome execution, and Mark focuses on the theological significance of Jesus’ death. The cross is the point at which the blind rage of humanity against God is unleashed with a horrible intensity and is shown for what it is. The Gospel story depicts many of the sins that put Jesus on this cross: pride, envy, jealousy, betrayal, cruelty, greed, indifference, cowardice, and murder. We need only add our own many sins to complete the list.
The scene at the cross shows both the religious and irreligious inflicting their wounds on the heart of God. Jerusalem’s highest religious officials converged at the cross to add insult to injury with bitter vindictiveness. Soldiers ignored what was happening before them and concentrated on their lottery for his possessions. They cared only about gaining some extra profit from the day’s work. This kind of petty greed has not been driven from the human heart. One need only remember pictures of the piles of jewelry, clothes, and hair that the death camp workers collected from their doomed Jewish prisoners.
The two bandits did not recognize that Jesus was giving his life for sinners, and they joined in reviling him. Others gathered at the cross to make sport. They thought that the verdict was already in, and Jesus came up the big loser. These persons could not see why anyone would want to save anything other than himself or herself. The old spiritual, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” must be answered, “Yes.” We were not there as loyal supporters to sing hymns, however. Human beings still need saving from evil’s clench. When we look around our world, we see that “justice is still perverted, truth still on the scaffold, and wrong upon the throne. The protest of good men is dumb on their lips; few stand by the cross fearlessly.”50
(1) The cross reveals the truth about humankind but also about God’s incredible power. God’s power takes the venomous mockery spit out at Jesus and turns it into the proclamation of the gospel: “He saved others … but he can’t save himself.” If there were to be a tombstone, this taunt would have made a fitting epitaph. God’s power absorbs the toxin of human sin and hatred and turns it into salvation for all who put their trust in a God who loves this much and who works in this way. The gospel is the only thing that makes sense of a world so ugly and so beautiful. After the horrors of the holocaust, a Jewish skeptic said that the only God that he could believe in was one who knows firsthand what it is like to be a Jewish child buried alive and knows what it is like to be a Jewish mother watching her child die. The cross reveals that God has indeed witnessed this tragedy firsthand and uses it to save the world from itself. Who would believe that such a horrifying death could bring such blessing to the world?
(2) The cross reveals God’s incredible love. We truly see who God is when we see the Son of God crying out from the cross and then raised in glory, and when we hear the offer of forgiveness of sins ring out ever more loudly. In Kipling’s poem “Cold Iron,” a baron who rebelled against his king boasts of his arsenal, “Iron, cold iron is the master of men all.” When he was defeated, the triumphant king set before him a banquet instead of inflicting revenge.
He took the wine and blessed it. He blessed and brake the Bread.
With His own Hands He served Them, and presently He said:
See! These Hands they pierced with nails, outside My city wall.
Show Iron—Cold Iron to be master of men all.
The poem concludes, “Iron—Cold Iron—is the master of men all, The iron nails of Calvary are master of men all.”51
(3) The cross reveals that things are never what they seem in our world. It seems as if God is absent. But Henri Nouwen writes: “Where God’s absence was most loudly expressed, God’s presence was most profoundly revealed.”52 It seems as if the high priests have won. Jesus is dead and buried, and they have averted a tumult among the people (14:2) that might unleash Roman wrath. Those today who exult in their political triumphs through clever ploys may think that they have won, like the wicked tenants thought they had taken possession of the vineyard by killing the son. In truth, these corrupt leaders failed. Jesus did not stay dead and buried, and they could do nothing to quash the power of God unleashed by his resurrection or the Spirit-led movement of those who believe in him. They also could do nothing to prevent the ill-fated rebellion against the Roman juggernaut that resulted in the leveling of the temple, their base of power. God remains in control and accomplishes God’s purposes, planned from creation.
(4) The cross reveals that God’s love and power can win those one might never have dreamed would respond. The actions of the centurion who put Jesus to death and of Joseph, the respected and wealthy council member who condemned Jesus to death, mean that one can never write off an enemy. The power of the gospel is so great that even those who persecute Christians may be won to the faith. The centurion may or may not have won the lottery for Jesus’ pitiful belongings, but he took away from this execution something infinitely more precious. He did not say that Jesus was innocent or that he did not deserve such a terrible fate. He made the confession that is the rock on which the church is built. Joseph was looking for the kingdom. One can only assume that he found it when he learned of Jesus’ resurrection.
(5) The cross also reveals the pain of the human situation. The Son of God took on our humanity and absorbed all the bitter suffering and anguish of the world. When cornered by evil, he prayed. According to a Jewish tradition, prayer has ten names. The first on the list is “cry.”53 The cries come when we see no indication whatsoever that God is on our side, when we feel that God is silent. No one can go through life and not feel this isolation from humans and from God at times. What should we do when we are overwhelmed by inconsolable grief, when we feel completely forsaken? Defeat may tempt us to give up faith in God, but Jesus’ cry on the cross reveals a faith that will not let go of God even when deluged by the greatest of all suffering. He makes lament.
The biblical lament begins by invoking God’s name in a cry of distress and a frank expression of grievance against him. The mourner outlines the distress, expresses perplexity at the apparent triumph of enemies, and urgently prays for relief. The lament concludes with an expression of trust, thanksgiving, and confidence that God has heard. Many Christians today shy away from ever crying aloud to God or making an outcry of reproach when they are not rescued. Some do not feel that they can lay bare their true emotions to God, including their anger. They feel that such honesty reflects a deficiency of faith or blasphemous gall. This timidity may in fact reflect a sense of distance and alienation from God, because they fear that God might reject them if they are too complaining in an hour of trial. But notice how small children do not hesitate to make their complaints known to their parents. Only when they have been abused do they try to hold in their pain because they feel that their parents do not care. The cry of despair to God when overcome by evil and pain is a sign of great intimacy with God and a robust faith.
While it may sound scandalous to our ears, Jesus’ prayer would not shock those attuned to the Old Testament. Wink observes that “biblical prayer is impertinent, persistent, shameless, indecorous. It is more like haggling in an oriental bazaar than the polite monologues of the churches.”54 Moses, for example, cried out to God (Ex. 5:22–23):
O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.
Joshua complained (Josh. 7:7–9):
Ah, Sovereign LORD, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan! O Lord, what can I say, now that Israel has been routed by its enemies? The Canaanites and the other people of the country will hear about this and they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. What then will you do for your own great name?
Gideon protested: “But sir … if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian” (Judg. 6:13).
Job lamented bitterly to God that he had been abandoned (see Job 29–31).
And Jeremiah accused God of deceiving the people (Jer. 4:10), lamenting (14:8–9):
O Hope of Israel,
its Savior in times of distress,
why are you like a stranger in the land,
like a traveler who stays only a night?
Why are you like a man taken by surprise,
like a warrior powerless to save?
You are among us, O LORD,
and we bear your name;
do not forsake us!
Such laments, which were a central part of the worship of Israel, have disappeared from our prayer and worship. We cannot obscure the hurtful side of life. It might be helpful in giving pastoral care to those suffering from enormous grief to teach them about biblical lamentation that cries out boldly to God. We do not cry out from the depths simply to cry out. We cry out because God is the only one who can deliver us and can answer the question “Why?”
(6) The cross reveals a new way of life. Those who taunted Jesus assumed that anyone with power would use it to extricate himself from a personal life-threatening situation. The disciples heeded the call to save themselves when they fled into the night. Peter heeded it when he denied Jesus three times. The high priest heeded it when he moved quickly to eliminate this threatening prophetic figure. Pilate heeded it when he refused to take a stand for justice. Jesus lives out his teaching. The one who tries to save his life will lose it. The one who gives up his or her life will gain it and will give life to others.