Mark part 28

First, I want to apologize to regular readers for being a little late with content. I've been having my kitchen remodelled and it's been hard to find time to dedicate to the blog.

We are at Mark 15:21. Jesus has been condemned to crucifixion. He has been mocked and abused by Roman soldiers for claiming he was king of the Jews, which he appears to actually believe. Now the soldiers are leading him outside to be crucified. We are told that Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, (as if we should know who they are), was forced to carry Jesus's cross. Alexander is never mentioned again in the NT. A Rufus is mentioned only once, in Romans 16:13.

Jesus was taken to a place called Golgotha, or the place of the skull. No one actually knows the original location of this spot. I think that is rather odd. Wouldn't it have been of great significance to the early christians? There, the soldiers offered Jesus wine mixed with myrrh, but he didn't take it. This concoction may have been offered as an analgesic. Remember, Jesus had said he would not drink wine again till he drank it in the kingdom of god. Perhaps that is why the author says he refused it.

Jesus was then crucified and the soldiers cast lots to see who would get his clothing. This is supposed to have happened at "the third hour" of the day. (There is the number three again.) By the Jewish tradition of time reckoning, the third hour was half way between dawn and noon, 9 O'clock-ish. There  was a written notice of the charge against Jesus that read "the king of the Jews." Two robbers were crucified on either side of him. (Three people in a row.) Jesus was mocked and insulted by people who said that he had claimed  he would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Back in Mark 14:58, the text says this was a false testimony. Jesus didn't actually make that claim about the temple. But the text of Mark does have him claiming to be killed and rising again after three days.

The people mocking him dared Jesus to come down from the cross and save himself. He saved others (referring to the supposed miraculous events and healings?) but he couldn't save himself. Some messiah, some king of Israel, he couldn't even save himself. They have a point. Not only that, I just realized that Jesus performed NO miracles in Jerusalem. Zip. Nada. The other people being crucified also heaped insults on Jesus. Ouch.

At the sixth hour (three hours from the initial crucifixion and also high noon) darkness came over the whole land and lasted til the ninth hour, three hours later. What was this darkness? Who knows. It can't have been an eclipse. A lunar eclipse can take a few hours to complete but doesn't happen in the day time. A solar eclipse only lasts about seven minutes. Plus there is absolutely no extrabiblical historic record of such a three hour darkness occurring around that time. That is something someone would have definitely noticed.

At the ninth hour, Jesus had been on the cross about six hours. He cried out in Aramaic, "My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?" Would he say this if he was god? How can he forsake himself? In the language that Jesus spoke, apparently he was mistakenly thought to have been calling out to Elijah. A man offered Jesus a drink from a sponge filled with wine vinegar, then told the people watching to see if Elijah would come down to take him.Surely he was being facetious. (Did the wine vinegar count as wine? Did Jesus drink it?)

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.