Day 47 : Mark 15:16-32
Why have you forsaken me?
Jesus is handed over to a squad of soldiers whose job it is to degrade, humiliate, torture and crucify. Jesus is now in the courtyard of the Roman headquarters, separated from his own people and alone. The torture and mockery are routine, applied without pity or feeling. Jesus’s back would have been torn to shreds by a multi-stranded whip with pieces of metal or stone imbedded in it. This is a one-way process. Many victims died during the flogging. The purple robe mocks the claims that Jesus is King, as does the crown of thorns.
Mark moves on to the crucifixion where he records only one of Jesus’s sayings from the cross. ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’(NIVUK) (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?)
Mark records only one of Jesus’s sayings from the cross. This is his cry of desolation at the ninth hour. These words are the opening of Psalm 22, a Psalm of David, which begins in utter despair. Jesus is utterly desolate and separated entirely from God, from hope and love. His death shares fully the despair and hopelessness of the worst of human deaths. He is dying, rejected, alone and despised, the victim of contempt, injustice and malice. Whilst the Psalm eventually concludes with salvation those words at the beginning are utterly despondent as is that moment on the cross.
Jesus’s death is no pretence. There is no safety device, no assurance of resurrection. He is utterly destroyed. Psalm 22 verses 14 and 15. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; my mouth is dried up like potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.(NRSVA)
