Were You There… Beneath the Cross - Mark 15:33-39

             

It’s Good Friday, a day like no other in the history of humanity, the day God dies on a cross because humanity doesn’t feel safe with God with us, with God moving into the neighbourhood, as Eugene Peterson translates John 1:14 in The Message, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish.” The world gathers under the cross to watch the Word silenced.

A darkness like no other darkness covers the land for three hours. The historian Eusebius writes, “Note how clearly was fulfilled the prophecy of our Savior’s passion. It was to be a day in which “there shall be no light.” “From the sixth hour to the ninth hour there was darkness over all the earth.” … This was also fulfilled figuratively by his priestly persecutors, for among them came darkness, cold and ice, following upon their indignities to the anointed One. Their understanding also was darkened, so that the light of the gospel did not shine in their hearts, and their love to God grew cold.” Jewish and early church teachers often used the things going on around them to describe God and our faith life, here pointing us to the darkness in our own souls because of our disconnect with God and Jesus due to the sin in us.  

In the darkness, it feels as if the light of the world has been extinguished, that evil has triumphed. For those beneath the cross, it looks as if Jesus just isn’t strong enough, yet appearances can be deceiving. Augustine talks about the power Jesus shows on the cross, “Those robbers crucified next to him, did they breathe their last when they wanted to? They were held fast by the chains of the flesh because they were not the creators of the flesh. Fastened by nails, they were tormented for a long time because they were not masters of their infirmity. But the Lord took on flesh in the virgin’s womb when he wished it. He came forth to humanity when he wished it. He lived in history as long as he wished it. He departed from the flesh when he wished it. This is a sign of power, not of necessity.” Jesus knows what he’s doing, he isn’t forced onto the cross, he isn’t forced to die there, Jesus chooses to do so in order to defeat Satan and death for us.

As the darkness lifts, Jesus cries out, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani.,” My, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus is experiencing the loss of connection between himself and the Father and the Spirit for the first time in eternity; Jesus has never experienced this before. One writer describes it this way, “The longer the love, the deeper the love, the greater the torment of its loss… Jesus was experiencing our judgement day.” Jesus is forsaken by God so that we never have to experience God forsaking us; the judgement that is supposed to be ours falls on Jesus instead. Mark wants us to feel what Jesus experiences for us. Mark wants us to feel Jesus’ agony in verse 34, his point is not theological or doctrinal, though Jesus’ atonement for our sin is part of what’s happening here. Sometimes we need to simply hear and feel what the gospel writers tell us instead of interpreting them.

Scott Hoezee takes us to the Apostles’ Creed to help us understand what’s happening as Jesus cries out, “You didn’t want anything to do with me; you will never have anything to do with me, and that is the experience of hell, and that is what Jesus did. So, in the Apostles’ Creed, according to the Reformers anyway, when we say the line: He descended into hell, Calvin says that was this moment on the cross; not a literal descent into a place, but the moment of being abandoned by Father and Spirit, which is sin’s greatest and worst punishment.” We have pictures of hell being a place of brimstone and fire, but these images are not even close to what hell really is. Hell is separation from God: the God who is life and gave us life through his own breath, God who is unconditional love, a love we see lived out among us in Jesus. Jesus tastes the bitterness of hell for us.

The people beneath the cross hear Jesus wrong, thinking he’s calling out to the prophet Elijah and they try to ease his thirst, but Jesus refuses their offering. Then, with a loud cry, Jesus breaths his last. The unthinkable has just happened, God has died just like anyone of us, poetically, the universe bows its head and weeps. Mark tells us that when Jesus died, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shakes and the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the world is ripped apart and the Holy Spirit flows out of the temple and into the world. Tim Keller writes, “This is God’s way of saying, “This is the sacrifice that ends all sacrifices, the way is now open to approach me.” Now that Jesus has died, anyone who believes in him can see God, can connect to God. The barrier is gone for good.” The Spirit of God now flows into the world from the Holy and Holies, the earth shakes, and graves are opened as God’s life pours out of the Holy of Holies.

Jesus’ death is as extraordinary as his birth and life, so much so that even a Roman centurion recognizes what the Jewish people and leaders didn’t, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” Mark begins his history of Jesus by sharing with us who Jesus is, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” and the whole point of Mark’s gospel is to get us to sit up and go “Wow! This is who Jesus is,” and he ends with a pagan, who has no theological training or knowledge of the promised Messiah, sitting up and confessing, “Wow! That’s who Jesus is!”

The saddest part is that the Jewish leadership, and even the disciples, have failed to recognize who Jesus really is. Up to this point in Mark, no one has figured out what the centurion has, that Jesus is the Son of God. The centurion is Roman, the only Son of God he would have acknowledged would have been Caesar; the Roman coins at the time were inscribed with “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus.” Yet this Roman soldier, who has seen horrific things, and done horrific things as a soldier and was very comfortable with people dying, confesses Jesus as the Son of God! Something gets through the darkness he has lived in, and through, and reveals to him Jesus’ identity; the Holy Spirit pouring out of the Holy of Holies makes his first stop in this man’s heart.

The Holy Spirit is still flowing through the world, sustaining it, restraining evil, and entering hearts and lives that are open to Jesus and seeking God. In the darkness of our sin, our brokenness, the Holy Spirit comes with the healing light and hope of Jesus. This Good Friday, allow the Holy Spirit flow into your heart, and know the forgiveness and grace found on the cross in Jesus.