32. Mark 15:23-24
And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take.
There is a chilling brevity to Mark’s description of Jesus’ crucifixion. Four words in English, “and they crucified him.” The activities before and after – giving him wine mixed with myrrh to deaden the pain of nailing him to the wood, dividing his clothes (why not, he wouldn’t need them) – are typical, almost mundane. While later Evangelists will imbue each action with theological and scriptural significance, Marks treats them with workmanlike disdain – this is what crucifixion looks like.
It’s curious, when you think about it, that Mark gives so little attention to the crucifixion itself. Others writers testify to its brutality. Cicero, for instance – the popular statesman and orator who lived not quite a century before Jesus – called crucifixion “a most cruel and disgusting punishment.” It was, he continued, “a crime to put a Roman citizen in chains, it is an enormity to flog one, sheer murder to slay one; what, then, shall I say of crucifixion? It is impossible to find the word for such an abomination.” Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian born shortly after these events, similarly called crucifixion “the most wretched of deaths.”
Then why so little detail from Mark? I mean, this is hardly Mel Gibson’s portrayal of Jesus’ death, hardly reminiscent even of all the medieval crucifixes and paintings depicting the agony of crucifixion.
But perhaps that’s not Mark’s point at all. If Mark were interested, that is, in stressing that Jesus is being punished for us – as many theologians today argue – then we might expect a blow-by-blow account of each lash of the whip, of each nail as it penetrates bone and sinew to pin his limbs to the cross. If Mark’s intent were to offer Jesus as a divine whipping boy – taking the beating God intended for us – we’d look for far more graphic detail.
But that’s not Mark’s point. For Mark, Jesus identifies with us completely. Yes, crucifixion was cruel; but it was also relatively common. Alexander “the Great” is supposedly the one who brought this method of torturous execution from East to West, publicly putting thieves and murderers to death in this brutal way with the hope of discouraging such crimes. By Jesus’ day, the Romans had not only adopted this practice but made of it an art. It was a sign of imperial power, reserved for enemies of the state. “This,” Rome declared by the bodies hanging twisted in the air along their famed thoroughfares, “is what we do to those who oppose us.”
Jesus dies an awful death, but he also dies a common one, the fate of any that turn a defiant face to power and imagine a world, a kingdom, that differs from the regime’s status quo.
That’s Mark’s point – not that Jesus suffered more than anyone else, and surely not that he let his blood-thirsty Father beat the tar out of him for our sake – but only that in this place of utter and all-too-common abandonment and despair God comes. God’s presence is revealed, God’s mercy unveiled, and a new order and kingdom birthed is in and through the cross. It is a kingdom of equity, forgiveness, mercy, and compassion. (Which is why, of course, it scares the daylights out the tyrants of the day.)
Four short words. But in and through them Mark not only describes one more person tragically crushed beneath the wheels of power but also whispers the promise of God that no one – absolutely no one – is Godforsaken.
It is a horrible sight. It is an unexpected sight. It is a wondrous sight.
Prayer: Dear God, in our times of despair, remind us that you have promised not to despise weakness but to honor it and not to condemn brokenness but to meet us in it. And reminding us of this, turn our faces that we might see and care for the need of those around us, that we may all be gathered together as children of the same heavenly Father and disciples of the same Crucified Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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