The Death Of Jesus
THE DEATH OF JESUS
MARK 15:33-39
The message of the cross shows Jesus as the Son of God and his obedience to God even to the point of death.
Jesus was crucified at the third hour, ie 9 a.m. At noon the land became dark (possibly, it has been suggested, as the result of a sirocco wind laden with thick dust from the desert obscuring the sun) by divine decree. Its coming was perhaps symbolical of the separation which Jesus felt from his Father and which he expressed in the words of his cry from Psalm 22:1. The words are given both in Aramaic and in translation. The plain and obvious sense of the words is as a cry of dereliction in which Jesus expressed his sense of separation from God. They imply, on the one hand, that he expected God to deliver him, and, on the other hand, that he felt himself cut off from God by being identified with the sin of the world (2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24).
The bystanders misunderstood the cry. There was a tradition that Elijah would come to the help of pious Jews in distress, and some deduced that Jesus was praying to Elijah. One man offered him a sponge dipped in the cheap wine that soldiers drank, to allay his thirst (cf. Psalm 69:21); if the action is not the same as that recorded in Luke 23:36, it may have been meant as a rough kindness. But the end had now come, and Jesus breathed his last.
In direct connection with his death Mark records the splitting of the temple curtain. The event may have a two-fold significance; was it a sign that the prophecy quoted in 15:29 would be fulfilled, as well as a clear indication that the way into the presence of God was now opened for men (cf. Hebrews 9:8-14; 10:19f.)?
A second incident in connection with the death of Jesus was the saying of the Roman centurion in charge of the execution squad. His words can be translated as “This man was a son of God” or “This man was the Son of God.” The centurion may have meant only the former limited sense of the words, but Mark reckoned that, if so, he spoke more wisely than he knew, and regarded this as the supreme confession of Jesus in his Gospel. This is the message of the cross: it reveals Jesus as the Son of God who was obedient to God even to the point of death.