Jesus is crucified
Mark 15:24-32
And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take.
It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, ‘The King of the Jews.’ And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!’ In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.’ Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.
Reflection
When Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the temple and the Jews challenged him, and asked by what authority he did this, Jesus didn’t give them a straight answer but simply said, ‘Destroy this temple and within three days I will raise it again.’ (John 2:19). The people who heard this were sceptical, because they said it had taken 46 years to build the temple and he was claiming to be able to rebuild it from scratch in three days. But after the resurrection the disciples realised that Jesus was talking about his own resurrection from the dead. The temple was the temple of his own body.
It reminds me of Jesus’ time in the wilderness after his baptism. At the beginning of his ministry he is tempted by the devil: ‘Come down from the cross’ is like the tempter saying, ‘Throw yourself off the pinnacle of the temple and the angels will save you’.
The people who were jeering at him like this are doing what the devil did before; and perhaps we are meant to think that this kind of thing is indeed the devil’s work. There’s nothing good about it. What the chief priests and the scribes are saying is perhaps a little bit different. ‘He saved others but he cannot save himself.’
They seem to have been making an argument that it’s not good enough just to save other people. If you’re going to be the Messiah, you have to be able to save yourself as well. It might be a superficially attractive proposition but it doesn’t have much real logic to it. Surely the Messiah could have been a wonderful Messiah simply on the strength of all the saving work that he had done for other people.
It’s extraordinary that after all the good that Jesus had done these people just wanted to criticise and belittle him. What harm has he done to them? The bandits presumably were just joining in and doing what in the social media world is called a ‘pile on’. They weren’t holding themselves out to be any kind of example. Although, as we will hear in the next part, one of the criminals must have thought better of everything and said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ And Jesus answered him that the same day they would meet in paradise.
But first we need to come to terms with what happened to Jesus. ‘And they crucified him.’ Perhaps we all know now from many good Fridays about the terrible business of crucifixion. You can see from Iain McKillop’s picture that Jesus is spread out lying on the ground and they are driving nails into his arms. There will be a little step, a suppedaneum, for his feet to stand on. He doesn’t hang from the nails, although they will be horribly painful. The fact that he can’t move on the cross will mean that eventually he will asphyxiate, he will suffocate. Sometimes apparently it took several days for people crucified to die. And I suppose that in the eyes of the normal population, the passers-by, to see somebody dying on the cross was to see somebody being punished for some terrible crime. If they had bothered to walk closer to Jesus’ cross, they would have seen the inscription, the little plaque stuck on top of the cross which we understand from the other gospels was written in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, each one saying “The king of the Jews”. That was posted up by order of Pontius Pilate. The high priest had asked Pontius Pilate to amend that so that it read, ‘He said he was king’. Pontius Pilate refused: ‘What I have written, I have written,’ he said.
Jesus couldn’t move. If he had stepped off, the nails would have torn his arms and his legs. The sun was rising. There was no shade. Somebody gave him a drink from sponge soaked in what is described as “Sour wine”. Alcohol only makes you drier and more thirsty. It doesn’t quench your thirst. What a terrible way to die.
Arguably the death penalty, which ever way you do it, is impossibly cruel. Think of the frightful business of the last person to be executed in the USA where it was the second attempt, the drugs not having worked the first time. They were rendered speechless in their agony until they died. Or think about all the things that apparently went wrong when people were hanged.
But here in a way it’s not the pain and the terrible mechanics of suffering being inflicted that are especially significant where Jesus is concerned, it is just simply the fact that he is dying, that he dies. Nobody can say that he didn’t die. This was very dying. This was extreme dying. Death, death on the cross.
Jesus Christ on the Cross: his mother and a friend
John 19:25-27
And that is what the soldiers did.
Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
Reflection
‘And this is what the soldiers did’. What they had done was to share his clothes out equally among them – there were four soldiers – except for his tunic, which was described as being seamless, woven in one piece, so they tossed for it.
The ‘disciple whom he loved’ is never named. Very early in the history of the church it was believed to be John the Evangelist, the author of St John’s Gospel. It would mean that John lived to a very ripe old age, though: but no-one really knows. But what a very human and kind thing for Jesus to remember, even at this time when he was in terrible pain – that his Mum needed to be looked after. Who better to do it than his best friend?
‘Stabat Mater Dolorosa’ – ‘his mother was standing sorrowfully’, is what the Latin means, is such a moving picture. There is beautiful music, for instance Pergolesi’s lovely setting, composed in 1736. We have seen glimpses of Jesus’ earthly family – and especially his mother Mary and her willingness to be the God-bearer, but this is an intensely human scene. There’s nothing divine about this.
Iain McKillop’s picture shows Jesus more or less on the same level as his mother. Apparently the pictures we have often seen showing people strung up high on crosses aren’t necessarily right, as the Romans often suspended people only a foot or so above ground, so that wild animals could bite their legs. It was just another little twist of cruelty.
Poor Mary and the other ladies are watching her son, for the others their cousin, maybe, or just someone dear to them, dying, horribly, in their face, right in front of them. They desperately want to help him, to take him off that cross and to stop his suffering and pain. But those Roman soldiers – including an officer, a centurion – are there to stop them. They just have to watch.
hughdbryant 