Sermon from March 10, 2002
We know the early history of Israel from the inside by the stories that have come down generation by generation. They are our stories too. They tell of David and Solomon and Israel's golden age. They tell of a long and terrible decline from that golden age. They tell of a day when the Babylonian armies of King Nebuchadnezzare came against Jerusalem and destroyed it and deported the flower of Jewish citizenry into captivity. The kings were gone; the nation was gone; Jerusalem was gone. A long and sometimes tragic succession of nations came to rule Israel, even after Jews returned and rebuilt Jerusalem.

During the long and terrible decline from Israel's golden age, voices had spoken out that foretold the tragic history to which the decline would lead. But those voices had also prophesied a reversal of fortune and the return of a glorious age of Jewish ascendancy and worldwide blessing to follow. Such hope came to be invested in a figure that did not yet exist. The Jews called him Mashiach, Messiah.

As five centuries of occupation neared completion, Israel came to believe more strongly than ever that the words of the prophets were nearing fulfillment. God's kingdom and God's king were coming to vanquish the Romans. Pretenders arose, who said they were Mashiach. But their failed attempts at liberation and the occasional, gruesome row of crosses that gave the lie to their pretensions only made Jewish hopes of deliverance more fervent.

In this violence-tinged, revolutionary atmosphere John the Baptist's imprisonment sent a signal to Jesus that it was time for Him to go public. He did so in Galilee with an inflammatory message: "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

The word kingdom is a political word. We would say, "The government of God is near." It carries within it the idea and the practice of power over people's lives. For Jesus to use that word over and over picked right up where John the Baptist had left off. Both tapped into something deep within the soul of Israel. Could the moment have come when the promise of the prophets would come to pass? Could this be the Man who would bring it to pass? Only if we read the Gospels against this background of revolutionary fervor and national hope can we appreciate more fully the story of Jesus of Nazareth.

As Mark's story of Jesus unfolds, it becomes increasingly obvious that Jesus sees Himself to be the King of the Jews, but it also becomes increasingly obvious that He wants nothing to do with political revolution. And yet, as we shall see again today in Mark 15, Jesus was put to death on the charge of treason against Rome.

"There is good reason to suppose that, although Jesus' accusers handed him over, and Pilate executed him, on (the) charge (of being a political rebel agains Rome), both parties knew he was not guilty of it," (Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 544). Pilate had Jesus flogged with forty lashes of iron-tipped leather thongs and turned Him over to Roman soldiers stationed in Jerusalem to maintain Roman interests among these troublesome people, the Jews. They mocked Him in cruel ways and then led Him out to execute Him by the preferred method of crucifixion.

Apparently, the executioners might force a condemned man to carry the crosspiece, the patibulum as the Romans called it, to which his hands would be nailed. In verse 21, for reasons that Mark does not explain, 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 to the place of execution.

The terrible moment has come. They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh in order somewhat to anesthetize the victim against the horror to come (Cranfield, 455), but he did not take it. If it was the Father's will to drink this cup, then He would drink it all. And they crucified him.

Writing about 30 years later, the Roman historian named Tacitus alluded to the crucifixion of Christ in his report on how Nero laid blame for the burning of Rome on Christians. This is what he wrote.

"Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and the most mischievous superstition, this checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular," (Tacitus, Annals XV, 44).

"Crucifixion was a powerful symbol throughout the Roman world. It was not just a means of liquidating undesirables; it did so with maximum degradation and humiliation. It said, loud and clear: we are in charge here; you are our property; we can do what we like with you. It insisted, coldly and brudally, on the absolute sovereignty of Rome, and of Caesar.  It told an implicit story, of the uselessness of rebel recalcitrance and the ruthlessness of imperial power. It said, in particular: this is what happens to rebel leaders. Crucifixion was a symbolic act with a clear and frightening meaning," (Wright, 543).

There is something else striking about the opening four words of verse 24. That is all Mark says about the procedure called crucifixion. No doubt he did not need to say more, because people of his generation knew only too much about that act. They knew that death occurred as a result of asphyxiation. The weight of the victim constricted his lungs so that he could not get air, and he became too weak to hitch himself up by his legs to relieve the pressure on his lungs.

We with our medical mindset want to know that. Mark does not tell us, nor does he pander to the modern, morbid desire for gory detail. The Romans for all their cruelty did not seem morbid about the event itself. The rest of verse 24 says they could sit at the base of the cross, and, dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. A little gambling never hurts, when time lies heavy on your hands.

Verse 25 says it was the third hour (9:00 a.m.) when they crucified him. As we learn later, it was the day before Sabbath (Friday), and the Romans wanted to get this over with so that they could clear out before sundown. It is okay to crucify Him unjustly; we just don't want His body around to mar a religious holiday.

Verse 26 brings us back to the Roman justification for putting Jesus to death. The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. They taked up this notice on the cross for all to see. Again, it said, in particular: this is what happens to rebel leaders. Two other rebel leaders faced the same doom.

Verse 27 says, They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. I know it says robbers, but the English word robbers here does not capture Mark's meaning. Breaking and entering or even armed robbery is not what brought those two men to crucifixion that day. 

The word here labels violent men of a certain kind, namely political revolutionaries, who were intent on overthrowing the Romans and throwing them out of Jerusalem. Do you remember what Marks says of Barabbas back up in verse 7? He was in prision with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. Joh 18:40 specifically calls him a robber. Maybe the English word that captures the mean of Mark better is terrorist. The weapons then differ from the weapons now; the modus operandi is the same.

The deed is done. Next comes the public spectacle. We don't know if the actual crucifixion was open to public view, but once the crucified man was upright, he was open to public scrutiny and public calumny. Mark, purposeful as ever, pulls back the curtain to let us hear some of what was said.

Verses 29-30: Those 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, come down from the cross and save yourself!"

According to Mark 14:57-58 in the Grand Jury hearing, some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: "We heard him say, 'I will destroy this man-made temple and in three days will build another, not made by men.'"

We know from Mark 13 that Jesus said strong words about the coming destruction of the temple. He never said He would destroy it, but it is easy to see how anyone hearing secondhand accounts of what He said could prematurely draw the conclusion that He intended to do it. In a responsible court, and the Sanhedin was a responsible court, the testimony given had to support such a charge. Mark 14:59 says it did not do so. Yet even then their testimony did not agree.

However, decisions in responsible courts of law do not persuade everyone, not even everyone in those courts of law. Some whose witness did not stand the test knew what they had heard and knew what they believed, and they were going to rub it in His crucified face; and if He was so high and mighty that he could rebuild a destroyed temple in three days, then let Him do a simple thing like coming down from the cross and escaping crucifixion. It is an ugly scene, and it gets uglier in verses 31-32.

In 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! Let this Christ (this Maschiah), this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe."

Why did they do that? They got what they wanted. He has been crucified. He will die. I could understand if they had gone to the scene and from a distance had satisfied themselves that Pilate had done what he said he was going to tod. They did not trust Pilate and would want to see for themselves.

But what hell in their hearts would move them to go in person and taunt this man in His death throes? Hatred, anger and satisfied envy had no brakes to slow them down that day outside Jerusalem. It is a powerful reminder of what we are capable of, a powerful reminder of where hatred, anger and envy can take people. It is what they said to Him that I want to work with for a few minutes.

First is this in verse 31: "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself!" What did they mean, "He saved others?" Well, He did. He saved them from the leprosy of a lifetime, from blindness, deafness, fever, uncontrolled, slow bleeding, hunger, and even death. He saved them from demonic possession, from fear and hopelessness. He saved His inner circle of twelve (except for Judas) from spiritual blindness and from the unholy marriage of religion and revolutionary politics.

Oh, yes, He saved others, but it was also true: "he can't save himself!" The great Isaiah had celebrated the power of impotence to redeem. Did no one remember that? That concept has no place in power politics. Jesus can't save Himself, like a lamb cannot save itself. The great Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 53:7 of the Servant of the LORD:

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In Isaiah's theology that sheeplike impotence made something priceless possible.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. Mark does not quote this. He allows the lips of those who taunted Jesus to express unwittingly the teaching of Isaiah and asks us to see what they failed to see. He tells us something else, which they in their hatred hurled at Him like filth, and it stuck, and, sticking, it turned to glory for Him and shame for them.

"Let this Christ (this Maschiah), this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." It is painful to read that, because it comes from some of the leaders of the one nation that defied the rest of the world with its monotheistic faith. In that swamp of mulitple deities the Jews believed what they could not see. It was a Jewish follower of Jesus some years later who wrote, Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see, (Heb. 11:1).

What happens next is not the greatest suffering of our Lord. We will reflect on that next Sunday. But the end of verse 32 reports a wretchedness that adds to the pathos of Jesus. Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him. You would think the fellowship of suffering would elicit a certain grim camaraderie. Instead, somehow those two terrorists contrived to look down on Jesus. I wonder what kind of satisfaction they got from that.

As I have reflected many hours on chapters 14 & 15, it seems to me that every episode drives home the utter helplessness of Jesus. From the moment that Judas betrays Him in Gethsemane strong arms seize Him and do not let Him go. The betrayal and abandonment by His inner circle, the machinations of the Sanhedrin, the imperial power of Roman law, the merciless hands of the soldiers, the nails, the taunting by the powerful, the taunting by the two men crucified alongside Him – all convey relentlessly the fact we all wish to deny: no miracle is going to change any of this. There is no escape. Anyone can do anything to this Man with impunity. No band of desperate followers perishes with Him. He dies alone. No voice intercedes. He is a non-person.

If some Roman scholar, researching Jewish revolutionary movements, had written this, we could understand. It would be his way of asserting the irresistible power of Rome. But Mark was a true believer, writing in light of the resurrection of Jesus, and he still goes to great lengths to present the utter helplessness of Jesus in the face of His enemies.

What Mark has written about Jesus' helplessness is compelling, but what made it compelling to the early Christians? It almost seems that these dark and bloody scenes capture something that is indispensable to the meaning of Jesus' existence, perhaps indispensable to the meaning of all human existance. What did Mark and the first Christians see? Can we see it? Can we grasp why they came to think of the sufferings and crucifixion of Jesus as the wisest and most powerful thing God ever did? Here before the crucified Jesus humanity finds its ultimate negation or its ultimate meaning. Which is it?