The passion and death of Jesus are moments of high drama and everything that happens has its own significance. Philip Fogarty SJ tries to put us in touch with each of these meanings.
Jesus and his disciples are in a small garden area on the Mount of Olives called Gethsemane, a name that means, ‘oil press’ (14:32ff). Jesus tells the disciples, `Stay here while I pray,’ and he takes three of his closest friends, Peter, James and John, with him. Going on a little further by himself, Jesus throws himself on the ground and prays, ‘Abba (Father), everything is possible for you. Take this cup (of suffering) from me’ (the cup he had previously challenged his disciples to drink). But God is silent, so he steels himself and says, ‘Yet, not what I want, but what you want.’
Scene of arrest
Judas arrives on the scene with armed men sent by the chief priests, the scribes and the elders, and greets Jesus with a kiss. An unknown bystander draws a sword and strikes out at one of the high priest’s servants, cutting off his earlobe. Meanwhile Jesus protests that he is not a revolutionary who might oppose the Roman authorities. ‘I was among you teaching in the Temple, day after day, and you never laid hands on me. But this (arrest) is to fulfil the scriptures.’
A young man who has followed Jesus has nothing on but a linen cloth. The mob catch hold of him but he leaves the cloth in their hands and runs away naked! Scholars have puzzled over the identity of this young man, probably in vain. For Mark, he symbolizes those who have left everything to follow Jesus but now leave everything to get away from him, including the disciples who desert him and flee.
Jesus is led off by the armed men to face the chief priests, elders and scribes. Peter follows Jesus at a safe distance and sits in the high priest’s courtyard with the servants of his enemies. Peter had said that, ‘If I have to die with you, I will never disown you,’ – something he is just about to do three times.
Sanhedrin
Jesus stands before the chief priests and the ‘whole Sanhedrin,’ the supreme Jewish court and legislative body in Jerusalem. However it is unlikely that this was a formal trial conducted by the whole body of the court. Mark may have emphasized that Jesus was before the ‘whole’ Sanhedrin in order to stress that the Jewish authorities, rather than the Romans, were responsible for Jesus’ death.
The assembled chief priests look for evidence against Jesus so that they can pass the death sentence. Many give false evidence about him but Jesus remains silent. Then the high priest asks him, ‘Are you the Christ (the Messiah), the Son of the Blessed One? ‘I am,’ Jesus says. The high priest tears his robe as a sign that Jesus is speaking blasphemy for claiming prerogatives that belong to God alone. The verdict of the assembly is that Jesus deserves to die.
Peter’s denial
Peter, meanwhile, is sitting in the courtyard among a group of servants. A servant girl says to him, ‘You too, were with Jesus, the man from Nazareth’. Peter denies the accusation. The servant-girl says again, ‘This man is one of them.’ Others say to Peter, ‘You are one of them for sure! Why, you are a Galilean’. Peter curses and swears, ‘I do not know the man you speak of’.
At that moment there is the sound of a cock crowing for a second time. Peter recalls the words that Jesus had spoken to him, Before the cock crows twice, you will have disowned me three times, and he bursts into tears.
Jesus is now brought before Pilate, the Roman Governor, who asks a straightforward political question, ‘Are you the king of the Jews? If Jesus answers in the affirmative he is doomed, being seen as a political opponent of Rome. But Jesus’ reply is noncommittal. He says to Pilate, ‘It is you who say it’.
The chief priests bring many accusations against Jesus and Pilate questions him again: `Have you no reply at all? But, to Pilate’s amazement, Jesus makes no reply, and never speaks again until he cries out on the cross.
Pilate’s decision
Pilate now tries another ploy to have Jesus released, realizing that the chief priests have no real case against him. There was a custom at Passover time that the Governor would release a condemned prisoner. Pilate suggests releasing Jesus. However the chief priests incite the crowd to demand the release of a man called Barabbas, a murderer, instead.
Pilate asks them what he is to do with Jesus and they shout back, ‘Crucify him!’ Pilate tries again by asking what harm Jesus has done but the crowd keeps demanding Jesus’ crucifixion. Pilate probably fears that he might have a riot on his hands so, giving in to political expediency, he placates the crowd by ordering Jesus to be scourged, beaten with leather whips containing pieces of bone or metal, and then crucified.
The soldiers lead Jesus into the inner part of the palace. He is dressed up in purple and some thorns are twisted into a crown and put on him. Parodying a greeting that would be given to a Roman Emperor, they salute him as King of the Jews. They strike his head with a reed and spit on him. They go down on their knees and do him homage. Then, dressing him in his own clothes, they lead him away to be crucified.
Calvary
On the way to the place of execution, the soldiers co-opt one Simon of Cyrene, a Jew born in north Africa, to carry the crossbeam of the cross on which Jesus is to be crucified. Mark mentions Simon’s two sons, Alexander and Rufus. (The early Christians may have known the sons. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, for example, sends greetings `to Rufus, a chosen servant of the Lord’ [ 16:13].)
Arriving at the place of crucifixion, the soldiers offer Jesus some wine mixed with myrrh, a narcotic to ease the pain of the dying victim, but Jesus refuses. The soldiers crucify Jesus between two bandits, sharing out his clothing and casting lots to decide what each soldier should get.
The soldiers place an inscription on the cross that reads, The King of the Jews. The charges brought by the chief priests, when Jesus stood before the Sanhedrin, about destroying the Temple and about being the Messiah were of little interest to the Romans. The official charge probably reflects the historical situation that the Romans executed Jesus because he claimed kingship.
As Jesus hangs on the cross, passers-by jeer at him. The chief priests and scribes mock him as well. ‘He saved others but he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the king of the Israel, come down from the cross now, for us to see it and believe.’ Even the bandits crucified with him taunt Jesus (15:29-32).
Death on the cross
At noon, Mark tells us, darkness covers the whole land. Was this due to a sandstorm, an eclipse of the sun, or simply a reference by Mark to the prophet Amos: ‘That day – it is the Lord who speaks – I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight’ (8:9). The prophets spoke of the day of Yahweh being accompanied by cosmic signs: an earthquake or a solar eclipse.
At three in the afternoon, Jesus cries out, quoting the words of Psalm 22, in Aramaic, ‘My God, my God, why have you deserted me? identifying himself will all those who feel isolated and abandoned by God. Someone runs and soaks a sponge in vinegar and gives it to Jesus to drink. Mistaking the word Eloi for the name of the prophet Elijah, he says ‘Wait and see if Elijah will come to take him down.’ But Jesus gives a loud cry and dies.
At that moment, Mark says, the veil of the Temple is torn in two from top to bottom. The veil divided the holy place from the Holy of Holies in the Temple, suggesting the end of the old covenant with Israel and a new
covenant that would be formed in and through Jesus. Mark adds that the centurion who was standing in front of Jesus sees how he dies and says, ‘Truly this man was a son of God’. A Gentile recognizes the truth about Jesus that the chief priests could not accept.
There are a large group of women watching the crucifixion from a distance, perhaps because the soldiers keep them away. Four of them are named: Mary of Magdala, Mary, the mother of James the younger, Joset, and Salome. Many of the women are followers of Jesus who had looked after him while he was in Galilee before following him to Jerusalem.
Joseph of Arimathaea
Since it is the vigil of the Sabbath, a man called Joseph of Arimathaea, a pious member of the Sanhedrin, goes to Pilate and asks for the body of Jesus. Presumably he wants to observe the law that the body of a crucified man should not remain on the cross overnight.
Pilate is astonished that Jesus should have died so soon. Normally a crucified person took a number of days to die in dreadful agony. Pilate sends a centurion to confirm that Jesus is actually dead and not merely in a coma or in a state of shock. The centurion confirms the death of Jesus and Pilate then allows Joseph to have the body. He buys a linen shroud, takes Jesus down from the cross, wraps him in the shroud and lays him in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock.
This article first appeared in The Messenger (November 2004), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
