THE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS
21And they
compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the
father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. 22And they brought him to
the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull).
23And they
offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.
24And they
crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to
decide what each should take. 25And it was the third hour when they crucified
him. 26And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the
Jews.”
27And with him
they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.
29And those who
passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would
destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, 30save yourself, and come down
from the cross!”
31So also the
chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, “He saved
others; he cannot save himself. 32Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down
now from the cross that we may see and believe.”
Those who were
crucified with him also reviled him.
33And when the
sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth
hour. 34And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “ELOI, ELOI,
LEMA SABACHTHANI?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
35And some of
the bystanders hearing it said, “Behold, he is calling Elijah.”
36And someone
ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to
drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.”
37And Jesus
uttered a loud cry and breathed his last.
38And the
curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
39And when the
centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he
said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
MARK
15:21-39
COMMENTARY
The narrative of the arrest and execution of Jesus
of Nazareth under penalty of crucifixion, the vilest form of Roman execution
reserved only for murderers and rebels against the Emperor, is carefully
detailed in the four canonical gospels, thus being proof of the great
importance that this event had for first-century Christians.
The narrative of the crucifixion varies in some
details between the four gospels, each of the authors focusing on different
aspects of the same event, each emphasizing the points they considered crucial.
However, they all complement each other and never contradict one another.
These variants are the following:
1 – Mention of the children of Simon of Cyrene
(Mark 15:21)
2 – No mention of the Cyrenean (John 19)
3 – Only mention of the last drink
(Luke 23:36; John 19:29)
4 – Jesus warns women (Luke 23:28-31)
5 – The prophetic fulfillment of the sharing of
Jesus' clothes (John 19:23-24)
6 – Conversion of one of the thieves (Luke 23:43)
7 – Request for forgiveness for the executors
(Luke 23:34)
8 – Giving of Mary to the disciple (John 19:26-27)
9 – Mention of the mockery of the soldiers and not
of the Scribes (Luke 23:36)
10 – Mention of the altercation on the sign on top
of the cross (John 19:19-22).
11 – Piercing of Jesus (John 19:31-37)
12 - Resurrection of the saints (Matthew 27:52-53)
13 – Does not mention the darkness of 3 hours
(John 19)
14 – My God, why have you abandoned me?
(Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34)
15 – ‘I thirst’ (John 19:28) and ‘It is all over’
(John 19:30)
16 – Into your hands I commend my spirit
(Luke 23:46)
17 – Jesus exhaled strongly
(Matthew 27:50; Mark 15:37)
18 – Temple Curtain torn
(Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:30).
Taking all these things into account, we can have a
total picture of the events, step by step of how they happened, and can clearly
see the lessons that our Lord left us with it.
JESUS went
to the cross resolute and sure of his mission and purpose, out of love for the
human race.
Although the night before he suffered in Gethsemane,
facing his prompt arrest and execution, however, not even sweating blood did he
surrender to his humanity, but in the midst of all the anguish he asked GOD the
Father, to do his will, and let his atoning sacrifice go forward, and said,
“THY will be done, AND NOT mine” (Matthew 26:39).
With this same courage, he recognized that he could
be saved from his arrest with divine help (Matthew 26:53), yet he did not use
this power to free himself neither from Pilate nor Herod, nor from his imminent
death either. Jesus died under his full and free consent.
Jesus did not accept the mixture of wine and myrrh,
which was used to anesthetize the ones to be executed, but rejected it and
decided to suffer every second of his passion and death, in complete control of
his senses (Mark 15:23).
Jesus loved humanity to the end, for whom he
accepted to die this day, and asked God for forgiveness for his executors,
mentioning their ignorance of the true identity of Jesus and what they were
doing (Luke 23:34 ).
Jesus converted with this act of mercy in favour of
his executors, one of the thieves crucified with him, and to whom he promised
eternal salvation through his Faith and Repentance.
(Compare Matthew 27:44 and Luke 23:42-43).
JESUS could
have escaped this death if he had wanted to, but he did not, driven by his love
for us, since a perfect and eternal expiatory offering was necessary to be able
to compensate for the sins of all humanity, from Adam to the last unborn man
and woman. Not only because of the corruption inherited from Adam, but also
because of the fruits of this corruption, expressed in our personal faults.
Only JESUS, being human, could represent our nature, and only being GOD could
give value to his human life, so that it reached not only for one person, or
even vicariously for all humanity because of the Adamic fall, but also to the personal
guilt. of each one of us, of which each person is responsible.
And thus He made his death a true perfect expiatory
offering to God the Father, on behalf of all humanity, past, present and
future; based on his human innocence and divine nature.
(Romans 5:8; 6:23; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Colossians
2:14).
Jesus felt this in his own humanity, when he
agonized over the spectre of death. The dark effect of sin, from which as a
human He was legally free, however, he carried it out in his perfect and holy
determination (Matthew 26: 38-39; Luke 22: 43-44).
He also felt it even more, when while carrying the
sins of the whole world on his human shoulders, the presence of the Father
departed from the man Jesus, who is the one who died for us, without his divine
part ever being affected by this ignominious burden, since as GOD, JESUS was
still alive, eternal and almighty. This is why He cried out, “FATHER WHY HAVE
YOU FORSAKEN ME” (Mark 15:34).
FINALLY, when the propitiatory act was complete, and
after commending his humanity to the Father (Luke 26:46); he said, "IT IS
FINISHED" and departed from his body (John 19:30).
The Love of the Father, by allowing his beloved Son
Jesus to give his life for us, without having to, except the desire that we should
not be lost for all eternity.
The Love of Jesus, of agreeing to take on humanity,
with all the limitations that this implies, being Himself the Creator of it,
and assenting to the suffering and death that awaited him unfairly, but which
He accepted in his desire not to let us suffer forever the punishment of the
Lake of Fire.
The Love of the Holy Spirit, which comforted the
humanity of Jesus all the time, so that he would not faint, because even being
faithful to God and resolute in his determination, as a man, he could have died
before of a heart attack, or fainted from anguish, or he could have been dishonourably
abused by the immoral men who tortured him and nailed him to the Cross in the
presence of his mother. But no.
It was the Holy Spirit who did not allow humiliation
and suffering more than necessary. It was the Spirit of the Father who
sustained his weak body and gave him strength to last minute, until the fulfillment
of the atonement. It was the Holy Spirit who raised the Sacrifice of Jesus to
the Father and offered it in compensation for all our sins.
And that is why now, we can say together with the
apostle, that the forgiveness of sins and salvation are within the reach of all
those humans, who with Faith and Repentance, welcome themselves at the feet of
Christ, being born again, from sinners to children of God.
"For God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish
but have eternal life."
John 3:16
Omar Flores.
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