Mark 15:21-47
March 20, 2024
✠ In the name of Jesus ✠
Jesus is led away to be crucified. But He is so weak from the beatings and the flogging He has endured that He can only carry the cross for a short distance. The lack of sleep, the loss of blood, the weight of the world’s sin causes Him to fall beneath the burden of the cross.
And so a man named Simon of Cyrene is compelled to carry Jesus’ cross. Simon was in the city for the Passover feast and was probably pulled out of the crowd randomly by the Roman soldiers to do this duty. And yet it wasn’t entirely by chance that this happened. God chose Simon for this. You can tell that Simon and his family were part of the church decades later because the names of his sons are included in the Passion narrative--Alexander and Rufus--who would have been known by the early church. God chose Simon to perform this special task which would give a vivid picture of Jesus’ own words, “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up the cross and follow Me.”
So it is for you. In your baptism you were chosen by God to bear the cross. You received the sign of the holy cross on your forehead and on your heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified. You are given to carry that cross daily, bearing the burdens of the callings into which God has placed you, sometimes suffering because of faithfulness to the truth of Christ and His saving Word.
But notice the fundamental distinction between you and Christ. Though you take up the cross, yet you do not bear the judgment against sin. That’s all on Jesus. He bears the real burden. He bids you to follow after Him beneath the cross so that you may receive all the benefits of His suffering. That’s how it is that Jesus can say, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” Freed by Jesus’ cross from the crushing weight of sin’s curse, we find it to be a light load that brings rest and peace to our souls. Jesus is taken to Golgotha, the place of the skull. And there He is offered sour wine mingled with gall to drink. This is meant to be a bit of an anaesthetic to dull the pain somewhat. But Jesus won’t drink it. For He has not come to escape pain, but to endure it fully to redeem us fully. He will be conscious and lucid in His agony until the end.
The soldiers crucify Jesus, driving the spikes through His hands and feet, lifting Him up to hang under the weight of His own body. The stresses of that will cause His blood flow and breathing to begin to fail, eventually leading to slow, torturous asphyxiation.
The charge against Jesus for which He was convicted is placed over His head: The King of the Jews. It would have been common Roman practice to place the charge over a criminal’s head like this. For those passing by and entering the city, this would be a strong deterrent and disincentive to engage in unlawful behavior. A clear message is being sent to one and all: “Here’s what happens to thieves and murderers and those claiming to be the king of the Jews in Roman territory. Don’t try this yourself.”
And yet Pilate’s charge is also a wonderful proclamation of the truth, a powerful sermon. For here Jesus is rightly viewed as the true King of the Jews, crowned with thorns, exercising His royal authority and laying down His life for His people to protect and save them. For the Jews are not only the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Bible tells us that they are also all those who share the faith of Abraham, who trusted in God’s promises and was thereby accounted righteous in God’s sight. Everyone then, who believes and is baptized into the promised Christ is a descendant of Abraham. It is written, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Every believer, then, every one of us Christians is a Jew, in the Scriptural sense of the word. And Jesus is our King, the King of the Jews.
Jesus is numbered with the transgressors in order to save transgressors by taking their place. He is mocked with the words, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save.” In a sense that is true. He saves others precisely by not saving Himself; His love prevents Him from doing anything but bearing the full darkness of our sin and sickness and death to set us free.
Creation itself reveals what is happening here. From the sixth hour until the ninth hour, that is, from about noon until three o’clock, darkness covers the land. This is no mere eclipse, which lasts only a few minutes. This is the powers of darkness being given free reign to do their worst to Jesus. The full and entire judgment against the world’s sin pounds Him, as He cries out, utterly alone, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Learn from this the great dreadfulness of your sin. But, most of all learn from Jesus’ words that hell’s fury has now been taken away from you. God forsook His Son, so that you would not be forsaken but would live in communion with Him forever.
When the centurion sees how Jesus dies, with words of mercy on His lips, commending His Spirit into His Father’s hands; and when the centurion sees the darkness and the other signs in creation, he confesses the truth, saying, “Truly this Man was the Son of God!” Just a few hours earlier the Jewish high priest Caiaphas had torn his robes in anger and unbelief at Jesus’ statement that He was the Son of God. But now the outsider, this Gentile centurion shows forth true faith in recognizing what the Jewish leaders did not: the one on the cross is the Son of God.
This calls to mind an earlier event where Jesus healed the servant of a centurion. Perhaps it was this very same Roman centurion. When Jesus on that previous occasion saw the faith of this Gentile who trusted in His word, Jesus stated, “Many [Gentiles] will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom [the Jews] will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Of course, not all of the Jews reject Jesus here. There are many who believe in Him and mourn His death–like the women who are there at the cross. And there is also Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy member of the Jewish ruling council, but who had not consented to what they had done in condemning Jesus. He had become a disciple of Jesus, though secretly, for fear of His colleagues. Now He takes courage and goes to Pilate and asks for the body of Jesus. No longer would his respect for Jesus be secret. But He would not have Jesus’ body carelessly thrown into a pit or a shallow grave by the Romans. He treats it with reverence and honor. He asks for the body of Jesus.
Let us learn to be like Joseph of Arimathea, not only honoring but asking for Jesus’ body. Martin Luther said that pastors should so preach and teach about the Lord’s Supper that the people would press and require their pastors to serve it to them. And that truly is asking for the body of Jesus. In our day Jesus’ body isn’t a corpse in need of burial clothes and a tomb. In our day His body is risen from the grave and offered to us to eat as the very bread of life in Holy Communion. So let us also take courage, particularly in those times when you can’t get to church because of illness or hospitalization, and ask for the body of Jesus. Press your pastor to give you the holy medicine of the Sacrament. Like Joseph let us continually attend to Jesus’ body and blood.
Finally, Jesus is wrapped in a clean linen cloth in His death, in token of the fact that all who die in Him are wrapped in His cleanness and holiness. Jesus is buried in a new tomb. For He has come to do something wonderfully new for you by His resurrection. The tomb in which Jesus is laid to rest is hewn out of a rock, for He Himself is your Rock and your fortress against the power of death. Take refuge in Him.
✠ In the name of Jesus ✠