MARKAN MEDITATIONS

Meditations in the Gospel of St. Mark

St. Mark 15:21-32

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THE CRUCIFIXION of Jesus is the most solemn event of history. The eternal Son of God was giving himself as a ransom for sin. It is impossible for us sinful creatures to know or enter into all that this sacrifice meant for the Son of God. It was too private and too awful for our eyes to gaze on as the three hour supernatural darkness during the last stages of Christ's sufferings indicate. Yet the accounts we have been given in the Gospels are given for our good and blessing, and reward serious thought and meditation. Mark's account is the shortest and with the least detail but yet yields great blessing to the thoughtful soul.

The first thing we are told about the sufferings of Jesus here is the fact that Christ's cross had to be carried for him by a man called Simon. This plainly shows us how severe and cruel was the treatment heaped on Christ up to this point by the Jews and the Romans. His ordeal had made him now too weak to carry his cross as was the requirement in this type of execution. Jesus must have received physical abuse altogether abnormal. The others crucified with Jesus plainly were treated much much better. This shows how great the malice of Satan was against the Son of God, and how much the hate of the world against Jesus is real. How apt are the words of Jesus in John 15 where he warns the disciples that they must expect the hate of the world, because the same hate that the world directs against Jesus it will direct at those who love him. Let us never imagine that the sufferings of Jesus were small or less than has been told. They were in fact much greater.

Then we are told that Jesus refused the numbing drugs offered to the one to die to mitigate the physical suffering. Jesus would not diminish in any way the sufferings he had to bear in order to bear away our sin. He needed all his senses to take upon himself the whole penalty and suffering due for your sin and mine, and he must be fully conscious of it all the time and so know and experience the last dregs of that punishment. This illustrates how perfect and complete was the sacrifice of the Saviour for us. He left nothing undone which had to be done. He bore all the penalty of the sin of the world.

Then we are told the bald statement that they crucified him. Jesus did really die. His death was no fiction. There was no slight of hand which allowed Jesus to slip away at the crucial time and another take his place. It was the Saviour on the Cross. He did really die for you and me.

Then when Jesus was on the cross suffering the soldiers shared out all the rest of his earthly possessions, his clothes, etc. amongst them. Jesus was stripped of all. He surrendered everything in order to take our place and save us. This last act of loss symbolises all the loss Jesus was ready to accept for us, which commenced from the time of his considering it not a thing to be held on to to be equal with God, but was ready to make himself of no reputation. He gave up all for us - possession, position, reputation, life.

We are told the fact here that he was crucified with two robbers. The prophesy of Isaiah is fulfilled that he was numbered amongst transgressors. He who was the holy one was made sin for us though he knew no sin. He totally became identified with sin and its consequences. He so readily and completely took the place which we really occupy and deserve in order to save. He took our place. He substituted himself for us in love to redeem.

Lastly verses 29 to 32 are truly significant. Jesus was taunted that with all his claims and demonstrations of power, he now was impotent in the power of his enemies and thoroughly defeated by them. However Jesus was not impotent or defeated. He could have at any moment come down from the cross. It is still doubtful whether they would have believed on him if he had done. Their words about believing were just to add spite to their taunts. The truth is that Jesus would not save himself because by dying he was to provide salvation for all who would believe on him. The sinless Son of God had to die if sinners were to be saved from the wrath to come.

Further they failed to understand his reference to rebuilding the temple. We know from the gospels that he was referring to the temple of his body. It all seemed defeat at the cross, but the victory was certain. Jesus would rebuild the temple of his body and rise from the dead. In fact the Jewish and Roman powers were not the ones Jesus was fighting. He was fighting Satan and sin, and by his dying, and so bearing the guilt and punishment of the sin of the world and completely exhausting it, he was defeating Satan and sin, and delivering sinners from Satan's rule and power.

How great is the love of Jesus for us who believe on him. For each one of us personally he was dying and bearing our sin in his body on the cross. Through him we are saved everlastingly and reconciled with God and made God's children. So much did Jesus love us, that in spite of all the taunts he would not save himself, for his love demanded that he go to these awesome lengths to bring about eternal salvation for us. Meditation on this love is the bedrock of all growth in holiness. How can we sin against this love and add to it by our further sinning.