Truly this Man was God's Son

“Truly this man was God’s son!” How could the centurion and the others keeping watch over Jesus make this declaration after he died? What had they seen or heard that prepared them to say, “Truly this man was God’s son?” In the gospel according to Mark, the centurion, who stood facing Jesus, saw how he died and made the same declaration, “Truly this man was God’s son.” In Luke’s gospel, at Jesus’ death, a lone centurion praised God and declared, “Certainly, this man was innocent.” Obviously, something in Jesus’ death had deeply moved the centurion and his fellow soldiers, but what enabled them to make such a vehement declaration of faith: “Truly this man was God’s son?”

You’ve just heard the long, tragic story. So place yourself back there in Jerusalem for a moment and consider what happened. The religious leaders handed Jesus over to the hated Roman authorities. The charges were vague at best: that Jesus claimed to be able to destroy the temple, and that Jesus had given a confusing answer to the high priest’s question as to whether or not he was the messiah. Pilate, a cynical and brutal political leader, questioned Jesus. Perhaps he had heard about the crowds that Jesus had attracted and had guessed that the religious establishment had condemned Jesus out of jealousy. Even so, he could not act decisively and instead heeded the shouts of the crowds pressing for the release of another criminal. The Roman soldiers, who considered Jerusalem to be a hardship post, saw the Jews as rebellious and ungovernable. In their treatment of Jesus, as they tortured and mocked him following Pilate’s release of Barabbas, they reflected the “Pax Romana” at its most brutal. They then marched him to the cross, to undergo the most painful possible form of execution, a way of dying invented by Rome to deter, through terror and humiliation, any who might challenge Rome’s rule. As Jesus hung inches off the ground bleeding to death, his former friends were nowhere to be seen. The women who had bankrolled his ministry were standing off at a distance, and scribes, elders, and passersby, probably even the soldiers standing guard, continued to mock him.

And then, the evangelist tells us, when Jesus finally died, the centurion and those standing with him, did a complete one-eighty. The evangelist doesn’t give us anyone else’s reactions to Jesus’ death. When the curtain of the temple was torn in two, did the priests regret having condemned Jesus? Did Pilate think that perhaps he should have followed his wife’s advice and had “nothing to do with that innocent man?” Did the scribes and elders wish they hadn’t been so quick to mock Jesus? Did the women trudging back to their lodgings wonder how their charismatic teacher had gone so wrong? All we learn is that the centurion and those with him were “terrified and said, ‘Truly, this man was God’s son.’”

Do we know anything about this centurion? Could he have been the one who invited Jesus to his house to cure a sick servant, and before Jesus actually got there said humbly, “Lord, I am not worthy for you to come into my house, but speak the word only and my servant will be healed?” Could he have been Cornelius, who, after Pentecost, sent for Peter and was baptized along with all the members of his household? We will never know. All we know about this centurion was that he was a company commander and that, depending on his seniority, he was responsible for eighty to one hundred men.

What then could have made these hardened gentile soldiers burst out with “Truly, this man is God’s son?” Surely, as soldiers, they had seen many die in this way. Surely, when it was all over, they had turned their backs, collected their pay, and gone out carousing with their fellows. Was it only the terrifying earthquake that changed their minds? Did that convince them that they had had it all wrong about Jesus? Did they begin to wonder whether indeed “this man was innocent?” What else they might they have glimpsed? Were they astonished that the powerless Jesus had somehow eluded them and triumphed over their brutal power? Was it possible that they suddenly saw God in the depths of Jesus’ suffering? Did they somehow see in Jesus, silently and patiently hanging on the cross, a glimpse of the God who tenaciously endures the worst that the world can inflict? Did they suddenly see that the story of Jesus was not yet finished? Could they have guessed that something fundamental had shifted in the world?

What do you see when you look at the cross? I don’t mean the lovely flowering crosses that circle our necks or adorn our sanctuaries. Nor do I mean the sanitized crucifixion scenes that we see in most paintings. What do you see when you contemplate the broken, tortured body of Jesus? What is in your heart when you let yourself feel his loneliness and agony? Is there good news in this part of the story? Can we let ourselves hear it?

Ironically, we hear the good news from the mouth of the centurion. All the other witnesses and bystanders seem to have missed it – as we might easily do. In the centurion’s astonished reaction to what he has just witnessed at Golgotha – whatever the reason for it – we hear again the evangelist’s bold claim: that God is most present in the place where we think God is most absent, i.e., in the brutal, lonely death of Jesus. We hear again that God is made real even – or especially – in a crucified man.

As people committed to walking behind that crucified man, we may have our fears and doubts – as he did on that fateful night in the garden of Gethsemane. Even so, if we truly hear the centurion’s declaration, we can find light in all the myriad dark places in our own lives, including places of torture and death. If we truly believe the evangelist’s proclamation, we can see the surprising power of God at work everywhere. We can pray with conviction and with hope that God will indeed “lighten our darkness” and “defend us from all the perils and dangers” of our lives.

And then, we too can go into places of death and darkness, knowing that God will go with us. We are free to watch with a loved one who is dying, or to be Jesus’ hands and feet among the poor, the sick, the needy, and those who wait to hear good news. Jesus will already be out there ahead of us, in all the places in the world where people are dying, grieving, lonely, and afraid. We can go with him, knowing that we are never alone.

“Truly, this man was God’s son!” Thanks be to God that we hear the good news even at the foot of the cross.