Posts
Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" which is translated, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, "Look, He is calling for Elijah!" Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink, saying, "Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down." And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last. Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, "Truly this Man was the Son of God!"
- Mark 15:33-39
Yesterday, we read that Jesus was brought to the place Golgotha, which is translated, Place of a Skull. Then they gave Him wine mingled with myrrh to drink, but He did not take it. And when they crucified Him, they divided His garments, casting lots for them to determine what every man should take. Now it was the third hour, and they crucified Him. And the inscription of His accusation was written above: THE KING OF THE JEWS. With Him they also crucified two robbers, one on His right and the other on His left. So the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "And He was numbered with the transgressors." And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, "Aha! You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself, and come down from the cross!" Likewise the chief priests also, mocking among themselves with the scribes said, "He saved others; Himself He cannot save. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe." Even those who were crucified with Him reviled Him.
Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. These are Roman hours, translated into roughly noon until three o'clock in the afternoon, normally the brightest hours of the day. My study bible notes the words of two prophets. The first is Zechariah 14:6-7: "And in that day, it shall be that there will not be any light, but there shall be cold and frost for one day, and that day shall be known to the Lord. It will be neither a day nor a night, but towards evening there will be light." The second is Amos 8:9: "'And it will come to pass in that day,' says the Lord God, 'the sun will set at noon, and the light of day will grow dark over the land.'"
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" which is translated, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Jesus is praying Psalm 22, which foretells the details of the Crucifixion. Without the context of the rest of the Psalm He prays, His words could be interpreted as a cry of despair. But what is happening is Jesus' experience of human nature in full -- an alienation from God in His humanity, knowing our suffering and distress. But this prayer is not despair, the Psalm isn't a prayer of despair. These words are spoken, as my study bible puts it, "in the name of humanity." That is, they are expressive of the place He finds Himself as human being, identifying Himself completely with us in our condition. But in His divinity, He's never forsaken by the Father -- and neither does the Psalm suggest this is the whole story.
Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, "Look, He is calling for Elijah!" Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink, saying, "Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down." And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last. The Gospel teaches us that there are true and false witnesses, some understand and some do not. These at the Cross do not even know the prayer, the Psalm. This is a voluntary death, foretold in the Psalm about the Messiah. My study bible says that His life could not be taken from Him against His will, even here at the Cross. Jesus enters death as divine Son of God, destroying this last enemy, death itself (see 1 Corinthians 15:20-28).
Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. This is the veil that separates the Most Holy Place from the rest of the temple. My study bible says the veil was a symbol of the separation between God and man. It notes, "Christ's death opens the way into the presence of God for all people, giving people access to that which is most holy of all: God Himself." In many Eastern Churches, there is a type of curtain between the altar and the nave, which is opened during services -- the emphasis is that communion with God is now available to all who approach in faith.
So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, "Truly this Man was the Son of God!" And here, finally, is an event of enormous significance. There is faith at the Cross. This centurion is a Gentile, but he realizes that Christ has dominion over nature and therefore acknowledges Him as the Son of God. We know this soldier by tradition as St. Longinos.
We can already see in this scene Jesus' effect on death itself. Things are being transformed. This isn't business as usual, so to speak, at Golgotha. The centurion and his response is evidence of that. Something remarkable is happening. Jesus doesn't meet His death the way most human beings do in the experience of the centurion. This is completely different. He prays a Psalm, a prophesy of the Crucifixion in all its details (see Psalm 22). His cry is not that of total despair, but rather of the experience of death on the Cross, with faith, in relationship to God. It's also a voluntary death He goes to without fear, with Christ having spent six hours on the Cross, a relatively quick death, as Pilate notes, which we'll read in Monday's reading. All of these things distinguish Christ as Son of God, evident to the centurion. Although fully human, in the full experiential act of this painful, drawn out, intentionally-horrific and torturous kind of death, Jesus remains Son of God -- His relationship to God and to death itself transcends everything that is happening here. And that teaches us so much, about how much really depends on relationship, our relationship to God. That's really what Jesus is here for, to change that relationship and to open it up for all of us, expressed in the curtain being torn from top to bottom. It reminds us that, as Jesus told the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well in John's Gospel, "The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." The power of such worship is the power of the transcendence of Christ on the Cross. It is the power of the Cross itself, what it symbolizes and means for us, that Christ defeats death through His experience of it as Son and human, changing for all of us the relationship that we have to God, and to death. This is no ordinary crucifixion, and it's perfectly plain to the centurion. But it's no ordinary crucifixion because it's done for us, and for all time, to tear away the veil between ourselves and our Creator who loves us, who defeats our enemies for us. This is a love which we share through our faith and that most important of all relationships, the one that comes first and defines everything else, sets the tone for what it means to understand worship and love and relatedness in all its depth. This is where we are here, and it is the power of the Cross, the one we know that stands for the defeat of death and the embrace of God.
