Readings:
   Isaiah 53:1-9; Mark 14:26-15:47

We just heard Mark’s version of the Passion of the Christ, and for those of you who were here yesterday for Luke’s version, the differences are pretty glaring.  Where Luke was hopeful, Mark is dire.  Where Luke was forgiving to all, Mark is impatient, especially with the disciples.  Where Luke starts his tale well before Jesus’ birth and goes into great detail along the way, Mark begins as if in mid-sentence and gives us a rapid-fire life of Christ – in fact, the most common word in the book of Mark is the Greek word euthus, which means “immediately.” And where Luke treats the fact that Jesus is the promised Messiah as obvious and well-known, for Mark it’s a big secret that most people – again, even the disciples – don’t figure out until He’s gone.

In Mark, the dread that Jesus feels over His fate is palpable. More than in the other three gospels, Jesus pleads with the Father to let the cup pass from Him.  But when that doesn’t happen – and notice there’s no comforting angel with Him in the garden, as there was in Luke – when it seems that Jesus’ fate is sealed, He steps back and becomes passive. When Judas leads the soldiers to the Garden of Gethsemane – which all four gospels mention – only Mark has a silent Jesus.  He doesn’t ask Judas why he’s come (as in Matthew), or ask Judas if he was really going to betray Him with a kiss (as in Luke), or simply ask the soldier who they were looking for (as in John).  In Mark, Jesus says nothing, in utter resignation.

Jesus is completely alone and abandoned. The disciples He asked to stay awake and pray with Him fall asleep, three times.  Peter denies Him, three times.  And the mysterious “young man,” who does try to follow Jesus, eventually runs away, too, fleeing naked into the dark night.  Jesus is alone.

Then Jesus is brought before the elders and chief priests and scribes, and once again He is silent.  The high priest asks Jesus to respond to the accusations, but He says nothing.  Here Mark is drawing a direct parallel to the Isaiah reading we heard earlier, where Isaiah speaks of a “suffering servant” who will deliver the nation of Israel. Isaiah says that

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before it shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth. (53:7)

And some people spit on Jesus and strike Him, fulfilling another of Isaiah’s prophecies: “I hid not my face from shame and spitting.” (50:6) And from our vantage point we can see the tragic irony of the scene, for even as the council members mock Jesus and dare Him to “prophesy,” His prophecies are coming true.  Peter is denying Him. The disciples are scattered. What Jesus predicted is already happening.

And then Jesus comes before Pilate, who isn’t depicted quite as generously as we saw yesterday in Luke. In fact, as you go through the four gospels – from Matthew to Mark to Luke to John – the character of Pontius Pilate becomes more and more sympathetic.  This is not the Pontius Pilate of history, who was a ruthless dictator.  But thirty to fifty years after the death of Jesus, when the gospels were written, the writers had two big reasons for giving Pilate more than the benefit of the doubt.

First, the Romans were in power, so it wasn’t wise to make the Roman governor out to be the bad guy. Not if you wanted to avoid persecution.

And, second, the gospel of Christianity was spreading far and wide, well beyond the Jewish world. So it would make sense to have a Roman proclaim the innocence of Jesus, because that would carry weight with other Romans.  As an evangelistic tool, this was pretty smart.

And we have to remember that Mark was the first gospel written, so the positive spin on Pontius Pilate hadn’t begun in earnest.  As time went on, Pilate became almost an ally of Jesus, and the Jewish leaders became the bad buys.  Mark, though, doesn’t portray the Romans as good and the Jews as bad; for Mark, everyone’s fairly bad, and Jesus has no one on His side.

That sense of isolation continues to the Cross.  There Jesus speaks His last words in Aramaic, the spoken Hebrew of the day: Eloi, eloi, lama sabacthani?  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Even while Jesus speaks in His native language, He uses the word “God,” and not “Father.”  Up until that point He’d always prayed to His Father in heaven, but now, in agony and isolation, there is a distance between even them.

Mark’s description of the Crucifixion itself is shorter and starker than the other gospels.  It lasts only thirteen verses, but Mark doesn’t pull any punches. In those verses Jesus is derided and mocked and taunted.  Above Him is hung a sign that reads, “The King of the Jews,” which is the term Pilate had used.  “Are you the King of the Jews?” Pilate had asked.

That’s the first time in all the gospels that that term is used, and it reflects Mark’s political sensitivity. Pilate isn’t concerned about whether Jesus blasphemed or worked on the Sabbath; Pilate wants to know if Jesus fancies Himself a king, and thus a threat to Roman power.  And Pilate was not alone in this concern: when Mark was writing, Romans were persecuting Christians right and left. Torturing them.  Executing them.

And so it makes sense that Mark would be harsh in his description of Jesus’ death, in order to give hope to the Christians of his own day.  “You are not alone,” Mark was saying to the martyrs, “for the Lord Himself endured all of this, too.” 

And, finally, only in Mark do we read that Pilate went and checked the body to make sure Jesus was dead.  Here again, writing thirty years after the fact, Mark wants to put to rest any conspiracy theories that Jesus never really died, and so He couldn’t have been resurrected. 

When we look closely, Mark’s purposes become clear.  He’s writing at a time when Christians are being brutally punished for their faith. Some have fallen away out of fear, but some bravely journey on.  So it makes sense that Mark would have little tolerance for cowardice and timidity, and he certainly shows no mercy to the memory of the disciples.  But at the same time, he always holds out hope, even for Peter, who goes so far as to curse Jesus after his third and final denial.  Mark is painting a grim portrait of those who abandon Jesus, but he’s also telling his contemporaries that it’s never too late to repent and return, as Peter did.

Ultimately, Mark hedges his bets.  He placates the Romans by going fairly easy on Pontius Pilate, but Pilate still doesn’t come off like a boy scout, as he does in John.  At the same time, Mark uses the testimony of the Romans in such a way as to give credibility to his arguments, because he has Pilate proclaiming Jesus’ innocence and confirming his death, from which He would eventually rise again.

In the end, Mark might be the most reverential of all the gospels. All thoughout the book of Mark, the fact that Jesus is the Son of God is kept quiet. Most people don’t realize it, and the ones who do – Jesus tells them not to say anything about it. Biblical scholars call this “the messianic secret.” But, finally, in the end, Jesus eventually confirms it.  “Are you the Messiah?” the high priests asks Him. And Jesus simply says, “I am.”

Why the big secret?  Partly because the people probably wouldn’t have understood if Jesus had just come right out and told them, so hardened were their hearts.  But also, I think, Jesus kept things quiet because some things just can’t be put into words. Medieval theologians understood that, because many of them – like Thomas Aquinas – refused to say anything positive about God. They refused to say that God is good or holy or anything like that, because those words convey a sense of limit. Even words as wonderful as those couldn’t really tell the story of the glory of God. 

Aquinas would only say negative things about God: that God has no limits; that God is not material; things like that.  Because we can say who God is not, and still allow God total freedom to be all that He is, surpassing human language along the way.

I’ve mentioned Mel Gibson’s new movie, The Passion of the Christ, in my last couple of sermons. I should say, though, that I haven’t seen it, and for a specific reason. There are historical errors in it, that much is certain. But more than that, my reason for not seeing it is that the images of Jesus on the screen are so powerful and indelible that I think I’d always think of Him in those terms.  My image of Jesus would look like the actor who plays Him; Jesus would act like the movie portrayed Him. 

Of all the gospels, Mark takes most seriously the second commandment – the one about not making any graven image. Because Mark gives us a rough sketch of Jesus, full of mystery and uncertainty. He leaves it up to us to fill in the blanks, or, even better, to leave them blank. To let God fill them. To realize that we’ll never understand God.  That we can never describe God in words, no matter how nice the words might be.

Mark is calling us to emulate the faith of Jesus, who felt no need to explain or describe. When asked if He was the Messiah, he simply said, “I am.” Mark asks us to do the same, in our own way. When we’re asked do we believe in Jesus, let us not explain or rationalize or defend.  Let us only say, “I do,” and go about living the life that that confession requires of us.

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