Temple Monday
Debate Tuesday
Maundy Thursday
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1. Jesus was taken at night, the beginning of the Jewish Friday. He is taken to the high priest and to a group of chief priests, elders, and scribes. In John, it is Annas, the father-in-law of the high priest Caiaphas, a more private meeting (John 18:13). Peter follows at a distance.
There are false witnesses (Mark 14:56). One quotes Jesus as saying that he will destroy the temple and then rebuild it in three days (14:58). The audience of Mark knows that this false witness is right without knowing it. The witness thinks Jesus was being sedicious toward the temple, but the meaning of the words is that the temple will no longer be necessary after Jesus rises from the dead. His death and resurrection will take care of all sins from that point on.
Jesus does not respond. Finally, the high priest cuts to the chase. "Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed?" (14:61). Jesus finally affirms it. He is, and the high priest will soon see him coming on the clouds of heaven (14:62). This is an allusion to Daniel 7:13, where the Son of Humanity is given authority over all the earth by the Ancient of Days.
This is enough for the high priest, who considers such a confession to be blasphemy. He rips his clothes in symbolic disgust, and Jesus' fate is sealed in their minds. He is then mocked by those who are there. He is spat upon. He is struck. They provoke him, asking him to prophesy something.
Meanwhile, Peter fulfills Jesus' prophecy in the courtyard. He denies Jesus three times when asked if he knows him. His failure and lack of faith comes home to him hard. He weeps bitterly.
2. When the sun rises they take him to Pilate. It is often said that they did not have the formal authority to put Jesus to death (cf. John 18:31). This was technically true. The proper way to put someone to death was to get Pilate to do it, and it certainly shielded them somewhat public blame. However, as in the case of Stephen, they likely could arrange for people to "go away" if they wanted to in less proper ways.
He is being charged with sedition for claiming to be king, a "messianic pretender," as it were. Jesus again is largely silent before Pilate. "Are you the king of the Jews?" (Mark 15:2). "You said it," he says. This seems somewhat of an ambiguous answer. It is not a denial, but it isn't exactly an admission either. He was more direct in his answer to the high priest.
Pilate offers to set Jesus free to the crowds. He senses that those who have brought Jesus to him are "envious" (15:10). Pilate doesn't see Jesus as a real threat. He gives the crowd a choice between Barabbas and Jesus. He is suprised that they pick Barabbas. But the chief priests have been working behind the scenes, stirring up the crowd (15:11).
The outcome is sealed. Jesus will be crucified.
3. Now Jesus is mocked by Roman soldiers. Inside the praetorium, they put a purple robe on him like he is a king. They make a crown out of thorns and shove it on his head (15:17). The cruelness of humanity is on full display. They strike him in the head. They spit on him. They mock him with fakes salutes, "Hail, King of the Jews!" They kneel before him.
He is weak. They compel a passer-by, Simon of Cyrene, to carry the crossbeam for him (15:21). The fact that his children's names are mentioned suggests that he and his family became believers in Jesus' resurrection and remained in the church for the decades to come. They take him to a place called Golgotha, "the place of the skull." The most likely location today was indeed within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which at that time was outside the city walls. [1]
People were generally crucified just outside the city walls on a path leading to an entrance to the city. By this practice, the Romans made a statement -- we have all the power. We are in control. This is what happens to people who challenge our power. Don't even think about it. You'll lose.
There was a significant amount of shaming here as well, a dynamic that our Western sensibilities are less in tune with. Jesus was likely crucified naked. They put an inscription over his head, "King of the Jews." This not only mocked Jesus. It mocked the Jewish people. "This is the kind of king you would have -- a crucified one." It was belittling.
But Jews mock him too. "Save yourself." "Come down from the cross." "You said you would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days." Let's see it then.
The soldiers gamble for his clothes. He is crucified with others, who also mock him (15:32). These are two thieves, one on the right and another on his left.
4. He is crucified about the third hour. This is 9am. Death by crucifixion was a long affair. You eventually suffocate. Jesus' time on the cross is less than most, only 6 hours. According to John, they have to break the legs of the other two to expedite their deaths before sundown (19:31-33).
Jesus is offered wine mixed with myrrh. He refuses it (15:23). Near the end, he is offered a sponge filled with vinegar (15:36).
At the sixth hour, noon, darkness comes over the land. The earth echoes the suffering of its king. He quotes Psalm 22:1 in Aramaic: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me." Some think he is calling Elijah. His speech is probably slurred. In Mark, this is the only thing he says from the cross.
He cries out and dies. Some say he died of a broken heart. This was a surprisingly short time on the cross, and perhaps he does have a heart attack.
5. In Mark's presentation, this is the climax of the story. One of Mark's key themes is that the cross is not an objection to Jesus being the Messiah -- it is the very heart of Jesus being the Messiah. Jesus dies as a ransom for the sins of Israel (10:45). He is the mechanism by which the sins of Israel are atoned for. This is the mission.
The first person in Mark to fully get it is not even a Jew. It is the centurion by the cross who sees how Jesus dies and exclaims, "Truly this man was the Son of God" (15:39). Jesus' disciples didn't get it. In Acts 1:6, they're still thinking it's all about establishing an earthly kingdom now. Peter only half gets it in Mark 8:29 when he declares Jesus to be the Christ.
But in Mark it is Jesus' death that establishes him as the Christ, the Messiah. No elaborate theory of atonement is given. Mark's only comment on atonement theory is 10:45 -- "The Son of Humanity did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life a ransom for many."
6. The men have abandoned Jesus. The women have remained. There is Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and Joseph. There is a Salome. Mark reveals that Jesus had many followers who were women, individuals who traveled with him along with his other male disciples (15:41). They had ministered to him in Galilee.
A man named Joseph of Arimathea asks Pilate for Jesus' body. He is a membrer of the Sanhedrin. The fact that we know his name suggests that he continued with the early church. Pilate is surprised that Jesus is dead already, but the centurion confirms it (15:44-45).
Most bodies were discarded, but Jesus will have a burial. There is no time for the normal preparations of the body for burial. Darkness is approaching and with it the Sabbath. The women can merely note where he is buried and plan to come back on Sunday morning (15:47).
Joseph buys a linen cloth and wraps Jesus in it. He places the body in a tomb cut out of rock. They roll a stone in front of it.
7. The temple curtain is torn in two (15:38). Once again, there could be an implied sense that the temple now is no longer needed. The barrier between the most holy presence of God and us is now gone or, rather, it is Jesus that has become the only path through the veil (Heb. 10:20). Some of these hints in this chapter relate well in my mind to a dating of Mark in its final form to just after the temple's destruction. This correlates well also with my sense of the dating of Hebrews.
[1] The Garden Tomb really has no real claim, although it no doubt better reflects the feel of the site better today. But how a setting strikes a random person in the 1800s has little to do with how a place looked 2000 years ago. A random guy 1800 years after an event sees a rock that looks like a skull to him and there's a tomb nearby? The Sepulcher site has nearly 2000 years of historical weight to it. There is some anti-Catholic sentiment hiding in here as Protestants would have been deeply repulsed by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the late 1800s/early 1900s.
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