Over the past year and a bit we’ve been S L O W L Y working
our way through Mark’s fast paced gospel what Mark calls ‘the beginning of the
Good News of Jesus the messiah, the Son of God. the series has been called ‘the
way of the Cross’ as against all the expectations of Jewish society in Jesus
day as to what the messiah would be like, Mark portrays Jesus primarily as the
suffering servant, the son of man came not to be served
but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. This is God’s
upside down kingdom, which would not be achieved by earthly might or political
and military power, but through loving self-sacrifice. And Mark invites those
who would follow Jesus to walk the same way the way of the cross. As one
commentator put it… to be an army who realizes our only weapons are service and
self-sacrificing love.
It may seem strange as Mark’s gospel now slows down its pace
from a quick-fire journey through Jesus ministry, to a slower walk through his
last week and then as we come to the crucifixion down to three hourly blocks:
they crucified him at nine o’clock, at midday the sky turns dark, for three
hours then Jesus cries out and dies, with the resurrection forming a epilogue,
that we are skimming over much of this material. While it may not be ideal,
we’ve done it because we used Mark’s gospel as the basis of our Good Friday and
easter Sunday celebrations this year.
I want to just focus for a few minutes on what is seen as
the climax of the gospel narrative. As Jesus dies accompanied by signs of Divine judgement, the sky being dark
from noon to three, as if the light had gone out, and the curtain in the temple
being ripped in two from top to bottom, like divine hands have wrenched it
asunder, the last word, the summing up, is left to a roman centurion who when he sees how Jesus
dies says “surely this is the Son of
God”.
I want to look at that in three way and then like Mark
finish with a resurrection epilogue.
The first is how this fits with the whole of the Gospel
narrative.
We are not told what it is about the way Jesus died that
made this centurion reflect in such a way. A centurion was a low-level military
officer, possibly more like an NCO in the roman army, he was in charge of the
crucifixion detail, he was an expert in crucifixion, hardened to the cursing
and pleading and cries of anguish from those he executed in this slow vicious
cruel way. But there is something here something in Jesus, which impacts him in
a profound way. Mark is silent as to what it is. We have no way of knowing if
his understanding of what the Son of God means was as fully developed as you
and I with an understanding of the nature of Jesus as totally divine and
totally human, as the second person of the trinity. We don’t know who he is
speaking to either all we know is that he says “surely this is the son of God’.
It's as if at this very moment this most unlikely of
characters, looks out from the pages of the gospel, looks the reader in the
eye, and invites us to come to the same conclusion. If we were talking of in
cinematic terms. The camera would pan down from Jesus last breath on the cross
with the brooding dark clouds behind, to a close up of the centurion, and he
would break the fourth wall and look and speak to us directly as those viewing
the scene. Surely this is the Son of God.
In Mark scholar talk of the messianic secret, Mark reads
like a mystery. It is a mystery which you and I are let in right at the
beginning in the tile “this is the beginning of the good news of Jesus the
Messiah, the son of God. We are allowed to eaves drop at Jesus baptism to God
speaking ‘this is my son, in who I am pleased’. Then we are left along with the
crowd and the religious authorities and the disciples to realise who is Jesus? The one who heals, the lame, the deaf,
the blind, who has authority to forgive sin, who commands the waves and wind to
be still, who feed the multitude in the wilderness, who has authority over
unclean spirits, speaks in parables, overturns the tables in the temple. Along
the way we are given hints, the unclean spirits know that Jesus is the son of
God, Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah. But he and the disciples really
don’t understand what that means. They rebuke him when he talks of his death
and resurrection, they focus on their own status and position. But now as the
whole story has unfolded. The centurion, the first human to acknowledge Jesus
as the Son of God, looks at us and says ‘surely this is the son of God’. This
is what Mark has been leading us to all along. Calling us to be convinced.
Jesus is God’s own son and he that he died for us… to bring us to repentance
and reconcile us to God, the Father, as
we put our trust in Jesus and his death as a ransom for us.
The second thing is that the centurion is an outsider and it
is this outsider that asks the question surely this is the son of God, to
Mark’s original audience which would have been believers probably in Rome.
At the cross we see all the insiders, the people who should
know, not realise what is going on, not realise who is on the cross. The
disciples had fled and left him, peter had even denied knowing Jesu three
times. Others come and mock Jesus. The Jewish people “ He said he was going to
destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. He can’t even save himself”. The teachers of the law mock him… he saved
other but he couldn’t save himself. There is real ironey in what they say even Pilates
sign which reads ‘king of the Jews’ speak real truth about who Jesus is and
what he had done, Mark as well as painting Jesus as the suffering servant, also
paints his crucifixion as a coronation, as a victory . However it’s shows they
are blind and deaf to God’s messiah. Mark writing to his original audience
wants them to come to realise that following Jesus is about the cross, the
cruciform lifestyle. We want Jesus, we want new life, but are we prepared for
the cross.
We started off this series with a quote from Timothy Gombis.
I don’t expect you to remember it but he said
“Mark is a subversive Gospel because it
overturns expectations and assumptions. His narrative addresses Christian
audiences who know Jesus’ teaching and who have made Christian confession but
who are failing to grasp the character of the gospel as thoroughly shaped by
the cross of Christ…”.
Thirdly, this series has been called the way of the cross. I
can’t help but think that the centurion words ‘surely this is the son of God’
as he saw how Jesus died don’t also apply to us. To follow Jesus feels a whole
lot like death. People will see Jesus as the son of God, in our lives as we to
are prepared to lay down our lives.
In two ways. Jesus first words his core message is for
people to repent because the kingdom of God is at hand. We often see that as a
one of thing as we come to faith in Christ. However it is an on going process,
of turning away from our own sinful lives, our own sinful heart desires as tim
Keller puts it the idols in our lives, that fight for dominance of our time and
worship and priority with Jesus and allow those things to die, as we hand them
over to Jesus, ask for his forgiveness and receive new life. The theological
word for that process is mortification, dying to self… the upside is
sanctification, becoming more like Christ. It’s a willingness to be open to God
changing and transforming us, convicting us and then also of allowing us to
know that Jesus’ death means we are forgiven and we stand in his righteousness
not ours. As people see that process they will see Jesus the Son of God
revealed in us.
But it is also as we die to ourselves and learn to serve not
to be served and to give our life for others, in service that Jesus will also
be seen as the son of God. In John Jesus says they will know you are my
disciples if you have love one for another.
That’s quite heavy and I want to finish with a resurrection
epilogue. The crucifixion finishes beyond our reading today with the women
watching from a distance, going and seeing where Jesus was buried, and going to
tend to his body after the sabbath. They find the amazing truth that he is not
there he is risen, and they are given the privilege of going and telling the
disciples. That Jesus will meet with them. In Mark the resurrection serves as a
vindication of Jesus as the Son of God. It confirms what the centurion is
telling us asking us to know believe and trust. Surely this is the son of God.
But it is also the hope we have as we are willing to die to
ourselves that as we share in Jesus suffering and his crucifixion that we will
also share in his resurrection. As we allow the Spirit to put to death those
things within us that are opposed to the gospel of Jesus, he replaces that with
resurrection life. As we die to ourselves and give ourselves in service and love we do so knowing that we
will receive the resurrection to eternal life in and with Christ.
Scholars believe the gospel of Mark originally finished at
verse 8 of chapter 16 with the women not telling anyone as they were afraid. It
leaves us with our cross shaped lives to assume the role of the centurion and
point to Jesus and his death, to assume the role of the women and proclaim ‘ he
is risen’… with the assurance of the resurrection and say ‘surely this is the
son of God’.
No comments:
Post a Comment