Characteristics of the Marcan Passion Narrative
Mark - a 'Passion narrative with an extended introduction'
As early as Ch 2:19-20 Mark hints at the coming plot against Jesus, because He has offended the Pharisees. The plot against Him is developed in 3:6, 11:18 and 12:12. Jesus Himself predicts His passion in 8:31; 9:12; 10:32-34; 38-39, 45, after Peter's confession.
The point of this preparation is to demonstrate that the Passion of Jesus, as well as being the result of human evil (and we shall see Him being betrayed and deserted by every character in the story) happens also by the divine will of God. Mark holds these two elements in tension throughout the Gospel, and especially in the Passion Narrative, and it is important that you demonstrate awareness of this.
Within the passion narrative proper (Chs 14 and 15), the cross reigns supreme. There is no doubt at any point where the story is going, and having seen the cross cast its shadow over the Gospel, we are now brought to its foot. The Cross, therefore, forms for Mark an integral part of the good news'. An example, perhaps of the irony that Mark employs, for example when Jesus is accused of being a false prophet during His trial, and yet accurately foretells Peter's betrayal of Him.
The Cross reveals Jesus' identity
The 'Messianic Secret' is revealed with the crucifixion, as a Roman centurion reveals Jesus to be the 'Son of God' (15:39), confirming God's affirmation of Him in during the Transfiguration (9:7)
He is proclaimed King of the Jews by Pilate (15:2,9; by the Roman Soldiers (15:17-19) and on the Cross (15:26), the Chief priests and scribes (15:32). The irony is, that the charge is true, although those who have no faith in him do not recognise it. 'King of the Jews' of course is a Messianic title, and it is through his suffering that Jesus demonstrates the authenticity of his Messiahship, as he has told His disciples in Chs 8, 9 and 10. 'The son of man must be handed over to men and suffer many htings ...'
The Son of Man is a title that has been argued over many times. It is used by Ezekiel and Jeremiah as a title for a prophet, and especially in Daniel 7 where the 'one like a Son of Man' who is brought before God and vindicated, appears to represent 'The Saints of the Most High.' Most Jews would understand this as referring to the nation of Israel. This is Jesus' most used title to refer to Himself in Mark's Gospel. It is used in 8:31; 14:21; 10:45; 8:38; 14:62.
What is the significance of Jesus' Death?
Jesus dies by God's express purpose
Jesus must die as part of his Messianic identity and function. (8:31 and 9:11) Tom Wright argues that Jesus saw His own death as necessary, he being the representative of Israel, as described in the Suffering Servant passage of Isa 52 and 53. This death would accomplish the will of God in enabling the gentiles to be part of God's 'New Israel'.
Jesus death fulfils OT prophecy. (14:21) For Mark, the details of the crucifixion become the literal fulfilment of the sufferer in Ps. 22 and Isa 53. Jesus himself quotes Zech 13:7 (Mk 14:27)
Above all, Mark seems to use the Servant Passages in Isa 40-61 when interpreting the life, ministry and death of Jesus.
Jesus predicts His own passion
In 3 passages (which are easy to remember, dears) 8:31; 9:31; 10:32-33, Mark reports that Jesus 'plainly' told the disciples that he was going to be handed over to the authorities, ill treated, die and rise again after three days. Thus the passion is inextricably linked to the Resurrection. In each case, the context of the ensuing conversations is that of greatness demonstrated not in rule but in service, and the gaining of life only to be achieved by the losing of it. Wright would argue that Jesus is speaking not only of Himself, but of Israel. If she insists on continuing on her road of exclusive nationalism, relying on observance of the Torah to justify herself before God and looking forward to a vindication by God that will cause her to rule the nations, then she will lose everything. If however, she is prepared to do what He will do, to 'lose her life' (the Torah is spoken of as the Words of Life) and to become a servant of the nations to whom she should be a light, then she can expect resurrection and true fulfilment of the purpose of God. (All this sounds eerily familiar in these troubled days for the middle East, doesn't it, dears?)
'Atonement' for sin (Steve comments that this is largely lacking in Luke's account)
Mark presents Jesus' death as being an atonement for sin. This is a deeply Jewish notion. At Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) each year, two young goats or sheep would be selected for sacrifice. One was offered as a sin offering in the Holy of Holies. The other symbolically had the sins of the people placed upon it by the High Priest placing his hands on its head, and it was taken away to the wilderness where it would never be seen again. This symbolised two principles. The need for the nation to approach God with a repentant attitude and a recognition of the fatality of sin to the soul: and the response of God in accepting the sin-offering at the hands of the High Priest and removing it 'as far as the east is from the west'. (Ps 103:12)
Jesus is presented as all the players in this drama. He is the High Priest, because He is the respresentative of Israel at the sacrifice. He is the sin-offering whose life is given so that repentant sinners can be forgiven: and he is the scape-goat on which the sins of the world are heaped and who suffers the judgement of the Father on sin - separation of the Creator and sinful creation. This is why Jesus cries in the words of Ps 22 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'
References throughout the Gospel prepare us for this dramatic climax of God's plan for forgiveness of sin. Ch 1:14-15 announces the gospel of repentance and forgiveness which Jesus will achieve; In 2:10 Jesus' authority over sin is stated. This, to Jews might well have indicated claims to divinity, for Jesus is claiming for Himself an authority on earth which had hitherto been vested only in the High priesthood and the Temple. Jews knew where to go to have their sins forgiven - to the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus is apparently claiming that repentant sinners need no longer go there. They can go to Him instead. And during His ministry, He has come to them. (2:17)
Repentance formed the focus of the disciples' message as they were sent by Jesus out into the villages to continue His work of preaching the arrival of the Kingdom, with Kingdom miracles of exorcism and healing accompanying them too. Finally, Jesus' disciples are to be forgiving too. This is the only condition attached to forgiveness of the penitent by the Father. They are to forgive others who have hurt them. (11:25) As the Lord's Prayer says 'And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.' We are asking our Father in Heaven to grant us forgiveness in the same measure as we have forgiven other people.
(Just bear that in mind next time you are saying the Lord's Prayer, dears, and make sure you aren't deliberately holding grudges against anyone. If you do hold onto grudges and resentment deliberately, you're actually asking God to hold a grudge against you. Just in case you hadn't noticed!! Much love, The Webmistress)
'For many' - in 10:45 and 14:24, the death of Jesus is presented as having wider effects than simply for the Jews of His day. The language is, of course, taken from Isaiah 53, and within that context, and the wider Servant passage context, probably refers not simply to the Jews but to the Gentiles. After all, Abraham has been promised that 'in your seed all the nations of the world will be blessed'. (Now I just remembered what it was that troubled me about the Virgin conception of Jesus - the commonly held contemporary notion that the father 'sowed' the seed of the child into the 'earth' of the mother's womb in order to produce the 'finished product'. Which is why many christian commentators believed that a child inherited only his father's nature. More on that later, perhaps, because it does have implications for the way that Jesus was viewed in his humanity by the church'.) And the Servant is the instrument for the Good News being preached ot the poor everywhere. The first person to recognise Jesus divine associations is the Centurion at the foot of the cross. The first 'result' for Jesus' sacrifice, perhaps? Most scholars accept the traditional view that Mark was writing from Rome, and that when he wrote the Gospel was spreading very fast among the Gentiles. It would be natural that he would interpret the death of Jesus as being the accomplishment and fulfilment of the ancient promise to Abraham.
There is, too, the irony that Jesus has 'saved others', but does not 'save Himself'. (15:31). If Wright's surmise about the significance of Jesus' death is true, then He cannot attempt to escape this end, for it is through his sacrifice, freely offered, that the prophecies about Israel will come true. He must experience the humiliation, injustice and desolation as Israel's representative in order for her to have the opportunity to embrace her destiny as the nation God has chosen in order to fulfil His purposes of redemption. Thus, Jesus can only save others if He does not save Himself.
This will be achieved, but at a terrible (albeit temporary) price. The 'cry of dereliction' uttered in darkness (Ps 22:1 and 23:4) signify the final abandonment, that of the Father, as the sin of the World is placed upon the human scapegoat, and he is left to wander, never to be seen again.
Indeed Jesus dies in total abandonment or total faith, whichever way you look at it. There is no hope given Him at this point. Mark paints a picture of the demise of the human soul that has chosen to take its fate upon itself. Sin will overwhelm it at the last, resulting in utter abandonment by the Father. Abandonment is a theme running throughout the crucifixion (and resurrection) narrative in Mark. Firstly, Judas betrays him (14.43), then all his disciples (14.50). Peter, of course, famously denies him (14:66-72) (which of us would have had the courage to speak up at this point?)
Pilate rejects Him, although he is aware that he is innocent (15:14-15) and the rejection of the Jewish authorities is typified by the mocking from the foot of the cross (15:31-32). Even the passers by abuse him (15:29-30) as do those executed with him (15:32) -contrast this with Luke who apparently has another source reporting the conversation between Jesus and those who die with him. Later, of course, we shall see the women, who stay with Him as he is dying (so often deathbeds, like childbirth, are the province of women) running in fear as they are instructed to take the news of his resurrection from the empty tomb to the disciples (16:8).
Mark presents the Crucifixion in the context of Judgement on the Temple. The so called 'Cleansing of the Temple' is placed in the middle of the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree Mk 11:12-22. The fig tree is (yet another) symbol for Israel, and many scholars interpret this placement of the fig tree narrative around the Temple narrative as another acted parable about judgement on an unfruitful nation. Wright argues, for example, that the Temple is not 'cleansed' by Jesus at all. His action of overturning the tables and driving out the money changers is a prophetic act similar to those of Jeremiah and Isaiah hundreds of years before. The action represents not the cleansing but the destruction of the Temple. And, together with Jesus prophecy about the destruction of the temple (see Mk 13 and parallels, the accusations in the trial itself 14:58, and the taunting of the priests as Jesus is on the cross 15:29), was fully understood by the Jewish authorities, and taken as a direct threat to the Temple and its sacrificial system by Jesus.
Finally, of course, the Temple veil is torn in two. Now, I was always told that this signified the destruction of the barrier of sin between humans and God, and I'm sure that this is part of it. But more recently, its significance as a symbol for the destruction of the Temple and its sacrificial system has come to the fore. The 'veil' separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the sanctuary. The Holy of holies could only be entered once a year on Yom Kippur by the High Priest, when the blood of the sheep/goat sacrificed for a sin offering for Israel each year was offered on the altar. Jews, remember, could have their sins forgiven. This was the place and the method to get it done. The destruction of the veil at the moment of Jesus' death may well have been intended to signify God's judgement on the (wrong) place the Temple had been given by the leaders of the Jewish religion, and on the nation of Israel for the rejection of its mission and its Messiah.
This leads us on to the final point - the universal significance of the death of Jesus. For if the temple system of meeting between God and Man is ended, then it has its replacement. Israel had failed to recognise it's God-given mission. It was the nation NOT the Temple which was to be the meeting point between God and man. Israel was the 'city on the hill' the 'light that could not be hidden'. But instead of using the tools that had been given Israel by God, Torah, Temple etc, to reach out to the world, Israel had used them to shut the rest of the world out of a relationship with God. Furthermore, when Jesus had come preaching the Kingdom, extending its boundaries, welcoming in Jews marginalised by the way Temple and Torah were being used by the Leaders of the day, preaching a new way of being Israel, a way of service, being non-judgemental, putting love at the top of the priority list, the authorities had turned on Him and connived at His execution.
Remarkably, Mark demonstrates that this, too, was in God's plan. For now, Jesus Himself becomes the nation of Israel. The Man on the Cross is the City on the Hill, the Light that cannot be hidden, and now all who wish to can come to him and find in Him Temple and Kingdom. The first to respond is a gentile, a hated Roman soldier, possibly one who drove nails into His hands and feet. Blinded by the light in the unnatural darkness that has fallen over the city as the Father turns His back on the Son, the gentile pronounces the truth that the Messianic people could not see.
"Truly this man was the Son of God."