Nine O'clock in the Morning

Jesus was crucified. There is no mistake about that. Jesus’ crucifixion is the most important part of the story we have just heard, and it is the point to which the whole story, as it is told in the Gospel according to Mark, points us. Perhaps some of you have seen Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” the film that came out in 2004. For some people it was required viewing during Holy Week. Unquestionably, crucifixion was a particularly gruesome way for the Roman state to execute condemned criminals – which they did quite frequently. So perhaps Gibson focused on Jesus’ agony and portrayed the last hours of Jesus’ life in such graphic detail in order to deepen our sorrow for our sins. Soon after the film appeared, a TV reporter interviewed people on their way out of the theater. Perhaps many could echo this person’s response: “Thank you, Jesus! Now I know how much you suffered for me. I never realized just how much you loved me.”

You know what? Mel Gibson got it wrong! If Gibson had actually followed the Gospel accounts, the viewers of the film might have come away with a very different response. We’d certainly all be better off if we realized just how much Jesus loved – and loves – us. But the Gospel writers were not primarily interested in encouraging us to focus on how awful Jesus’ death was, or how our sins put him on the cross. Mark was certainly not interested in the horror of Jesus’ death. Yes, the whole story leads to the crucifixion. But did you notice something interesting about how Mark has told the story? There is very little physical description of Jesus here. There is no mention of his suffering. There is actually only one sentence pertaining to the crucifixion itself: “It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him.” And there is only one sentence spoken by Jesus himself, the first verse of the twenty-second psalm: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mark wants to lead us to a very different spiritual place from where Mel Gibson led his viewers. Mark’s intention is to encourage his readers, and by extension, us, to ask “What is the meaning of Jesus’ death for me? If I am a disciple of the one who was executed in this way, how should I live my life?”

When we consider Jesus’ death with those questions in mind, perhaps another question arises for us. Do I believe this story of Jesus’ death? “Well,” you may think, “I’m here. Of course, I believe it.” However, that wonderful sage Garrison Keillor reminds us that “Holy Week is a good time to face up to the question: Do we really believe in that story or do we just like to hang out with nice people and listen to organ music?”1 The Gospel and I are here to tell you that it’s OK if you answer Keillor’s question with, “I’m not sure.” Doubt is OK! Just look at the folks around Jesus in Mark’s story! Look at his friends and disciples. They had been with him since the beginning of his ministry. They had heeded his command to leave behind family and occupation, they had seen the miracles, they had heard him preach, and they had seen him face down the religious leaders. They had watched him welcome gentiles, lepers, tax collectors, and prostitutes. But when crunch time came, where were they? They all betrayed him! His trusted friends fell asleep during his agony in the garden. Judas gave him the ritual kiss of peace in order to betray him. An unnamed follower was so terrified of the soldiers that he wriggled out of his robe and ran away naked. And, of course, Peter, the designated leader of the group, the “rock” on which Jesus would build his church, openly denied he even knew Jesus, not once, but three times. In the end, only a gentile centurion and a few women stayed behind to keep watch with Jesus. So if you have doubts about this story of Jesus’ death – or about any part of the Gospel story – know that you are in good company. Jesus’ friends and disciples were all there before you. And after Jesus’ resurrection, they were changed people. So know this: doubt is a good thing. As Keillor reminds us, it is “an antidote to smugness,” a caution against the self-righteousness that Jesus himself so roundly condemned.

But, ultimately, we are people of faith. We have heard again this Lent the many ways that God has covenanted with God’s people, we have been reassured yet again of God’s deep love for creation, and we have received again the promise that God will enable us to fully become the people God has created us to be. And so we allow ourselves once again to confront the stark reality of Jesus’ death. Throughout Holy Week we will hear the whole story, in all the different voices in which it is told. Today we have heard Mark’s version of it. And the real question to ask ourselves is not, “What did I do to put Jesus on that cross?” Yes, we asked for Barabbas, who we still hoped would lead an insurrection against the Romans, and yes, we shouted, “Crucify him!” when Pilate asked us about Jesus. Even so, the real question to ask about Jesus’ death on the Roman cross is, “What does it mean for me? What, as I sit in this pew in 2012, does Jesus’ death mean for me?”

There are a lot of ways to think about the meaning of Jesus’ death. Different theologians will give you different perspectives. Theologians writing out of African or Asian traditions, give us especially stimulating ways to think about this question. Here’s a way of understanding Jesus’ death that speaks to me. It’s not the only way, but it is a way that makes sense of what I know about God. In a sense, Jesus’ death on the cross has become what one commentator has called “a kind of paradigm of human suffering.”2 Jesus’ agonizing execution, assented to by religious leaders and carried out by the civil authority, stands for, represents, all those times in human history where “bodies are destroyed, minds are ravaged, and spirits are broken.” His death represents all those times when one group terrorizes and subjugates another, when families are destroyed through abuse, starvation, and war, when people are excluded or murdered because their skin color, clothing, sexual orientation, or customs are “wrong.” In the depths of physical and spiritual suffering, they too cry out, as Jesus did, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Were we listening when Jesus told us, “If any want to be my disciples, let them take up their cross and follow me”? If we were, and we take our call to follow him seriously, then we understand that “taking up” our cross doesn’t just mean enduring our own personal hardships. If we believe that Jesus’ death on the cross signifies in some way the sufferings of all humanity, then we as Christians have a responsibility to stand in solidarity with all who suffer. Certainly, the cross reminds us of every form of human suffering, of sickness, loss, aging, tragic accident. But given the time and place in which Jesus died, for Christians the most central kind of suffering signified by the cross is unjust suffering, the “kind of suffering that does not have to be; that cries out for … change.”

As we look to the cross, we acknowledge that we too have caused and participated in the kind of unjust suffering that Jesus’ death signifies. We accept God’s forgiveness, and we stand in awe, aghast, at God’s immeasurable love for sinful humanity. And yet, as Jesus’ disciples we also stand in solidarity with all those who suffer unjustly, we also cry out for change, and we also await the world in which Jesus has conquered sin and death. And more: if this story has any shred of meaning for us, it must surely be this: in Jesus we have an example of how we are to suffer and die for one another. What God has done for us in Jesus, we too are called to make real in our own lives and in the lives of others. This is truly the heart of the Christian understanding of Jesus’ death: less that Jesus died for me, and more that Jesus teaches me how to die for you, and for all whom I am called to love and serve.

And so, with all those who lead us forward to the cross and beyond, we pray, "O Christ, broken on the cross, we draw near to you, we come with broken promises and broken dreams, we come divided by sin and at war with one another. Yet we also seek to share in your salvation, and bring others into your loving embrace. Lord Jesus, as you give yourself to us, may we also give ourselves to others. Lord of the cross, we come to you."3

1. “Thinking Weaselish Thoughts at Easter,” 2008, quoted in Synthesis, April 1, 2012
2. Margaret A. Farley, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2008), 182.
3. Adapted from David Adam, Traces of Glory (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 1999), 60.