Let's imagine Mark sitting down to write his "Good News"... it can't have been easy, thinking back to that horrible night; recalling his own failure and Peter's; but he's also thinking of the people who are going to read his story or have it read to them; he's thinking of his own - and Peter's - experience of Jesus ... because he writes knowing about the resurrection, to people who knew about the resurrection. Although it's painful to recall it and write it all down, it's important that he does. Too often we can become dulled to the realities of the Crucifixion, because we believe in the resurrection. We see the Cross through the resurrection, and somehow that is our wine mixed with myrrh; it is our way of dulling the pain. We separate ourselves from it and it can all become a bit mawkish and sentimental. `And we Scottish Baptists, who believe in the Cross, the resurrection, and the authority of the Bible, and the necessity of a sacrifice for sins, can sometimes treat the Cross a in a way that is a bit too matter-of-fact. It happened. That is how much God loves us. He sent Jesus to die for our sins. But don't worry, he rose again! It was easy!
Mark doesn't do that. He writes the story of the cross knowing about the resurrection, but to see the cross through the resurrection isn't to cheapen the sacrifice or lessen the pain involved. Mark doesn't spare us the details of the pain, the ugliness and incongruity of the whole event... The narrative is meant to grate, to irritate, to shake us out of our indifference, and over-familiarity. Do you know what I mean by the idea of "The Elephant in the room"? There's something seriously wrong, seriously out of place; but nobody is talking about it. Mark knows, as he writes this section, that there's an elephant in the room.
And it begins with this outrage of efficiency and routine. The soldiers are simply finishing the job they have been given to do... crucify the condemned man. That meant, nail him to the cross, and hoist the cross upright, wedge it into its hole in the ground. Job done. Then they sit down and start to share the condemned man's personal effects: perk of the job. Two other things are noted, just as facts: the charge sheet, nailed over Jesus' Cross, says "King of the Jews." And two other men - robbers both - are crucified along with Jesus. Job done. We're meant to think "There's something wrong here. It shouldn't be happening this way. Maybe the commanding officer is thinking "There's something wrong here"...
Jesus is "numbered with the transgressors". There's something wrong here. It's the Elephant in the room. Numbered with people who have done wrong. A good man, an innocent man (as Pilate the governor admitted) condemned to death and hung out to die like a common bandit or rebel. But that is why he came. He died in our place; our death; our consequences for our sins.
And, as Jesus hangs there, people come along, and add to the occasion by shouting insults up at Jesus... They're shaking their heads and yelling, "You said you'd tear the temple down and rebuild it, well, if you're so powerful, save yourself now!" Some of the chief priests came to Skull Hill to see that the thing was done; and they lend their more refined accents, loud enough for Jesus to hear, but addressed to the crowds, "He saved others, supposedly: well, he can't save himself; let this so-called Messiah come down from the Cross, then we'll all flock to believe him." There's something wrong here. This shouldn't be happening. Insult added to injury. The lovely Son of God, pinned to a cross. Maybe some of his friends thought, hoped against hope, that at some point he would shake himself free, call on the angels to help, and turn the tables on the Romans.
And then... Darkness. For three hours, there is eclipse-like phenomenon (although an eclipse can last 71/2 minutes at the most! so this was something more signifcant); Jew and Roman alike would experience a chilling sense of anxiety; maybe even fear and panic ... The elephant in the room won't be ignored for ever. The created order itself is letting it be known that something of cosmic significance is taking place as this Carpenter from Nazareth hangs on a Roman cross on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Skull Hill becomes one of those "thin places" where the physical and the spiritual realms are palpably close to each ... where the very creation reflects something in the unseen spiritual world. Darkness...
And Jesus feels the spiritual darkness acutely. "My God, why have you abandoned me? Father, where are you? What's going on? Don't you care about me any more? Why are you not there for me right now? This hurts so much! Not just the nails, but the nauseating, revolting feel of sin, unclean-ness clinging to me, and it's not mine. I want to hear you call me you Beloved Son now, Father, and you're not there for me, you've turned your face away." Satan had him for that moment. Whatever Satan could do to a sinner in hell, he did to Jesus. There's something wrong here. This shouldn't be happening. Separation from the Father, being abandoned into the hands of the tormentor is surely for sinners, not the Son of God. In these seconds the One God was momentarily torn apart. It's unthinkable. And yet it happened. He took our place.
Even then, people didn't' understand: "He's calling on Elijah! Give him a drink, keep him alive, maybe something will happen, Elijah will come!" It's a warning against cheap and easy interpretations of the Cross.
But with a shout he breathed his last. Death had him. It was over. Finished. (That, according to John 19.30 was what Jesus shouted out at the last.) But it's not defeat, it's victory. And the evidence? The earth shakes; the curtain of the temple, the symbol of separation between God and man, is torn from top to bottom, from Heaven to earth. The awful darkness begins to lift.
And the darkness begins to lift for at least one soldier. The tough NCO who's been supervising the execution, watching and waiting until he can sign the three executions off as completed, says, "Surely this man was the son of God." Now that's something. Seeing the way Jesus died, observing the physical and emotional realities of Jesus death, convinces the centurion: "This was no ordinary man. This was not a common crook. Surely he was the son of God." Now there was plenty the guy didn't understand. He didn't understand about the incarnation, the trinity or the atonement, about Jesus being God, and being our sacrifice. But he did see something different, something new, and something true (if incomplete) "There was something about that guy; He must have been the Son of God." Isn't that a victory? In the middle of the darkness and disaster and despair of the crucifixion, one man, a Roman, an outsider at that, walks away thinking positive things about Jesus. Isaiah 53. 11 in the Amplified Bible says, "He shall see [the fruit] of the travail of His soul and be satisfied." What Jesus died for, the very reason why he became flesh, and went to the Cross - to take away the sin of the world - begins to bear fruit right there on Skull Hill, and that fruit is Roman fruit, foreign fruit, mission fruit, world fruit.
So, we can look at the death of Jesus, through the lens of the resurrection. To do that, doesn't in the least diminish the reality of pain and anguish of the Cross. Quite the opposite. But it deepens our understanding of the Cross. We too often speak in glib, cheap and easy terms about "Jesus dying to pay for all our sins; Jesus taking our place..." Now, I believe, with all of my heart, that Jesus died for our sins, took our place." If we haven't accepted that, we haven't got the point. But unless we understand that, on the cross, a cosmic battle was going on, something too profound and deep for words, and unless we realise that Jesus won that battle, then we haven't got it either. We're left with a trivial, shallow understanding of sin, a spiteful, angry God, and an incomplete picture of the immensity of what happened on the Cross. Sin wrecked the entire created order. Nothing's right because everything is out of kilter with its creator. The cross wasn't just the payment of a fine, the bearing of a punishment; it was a cosmic rescue mission. It doesn't just satisfy God's justice, it defeats God's enemy and restores God's Kingdom. And it reveals God's Son, Jesus in his true glory!
Amen?
© Gilmour Lilly August 2010
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