Mark 15:1-15, 21-26, 33-39 (NRSV Updated Edition)
As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” He answered him, “You say so.” Then the chief priests accused him of many things. Pilate asked him again, “Have you no answer? See how many charges they bring against you.” But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed.
Now at the festival he used to release a prisoner for them, anyone for whom they asked. Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder during the insurrection. So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom. Then he answered them, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” For he realized that it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead. Pilate spoke to them again, “Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?” They shouted back, “Crucify him!” Pilate asked them, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him!” So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them, and after flogging Jesus he handed him over to be crucified.
...
They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull). And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take. It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.”
...
When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “Listen, he is calling for Elijah.” And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion who stood facing him saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
and gave him the name
that is above every other name,
so that at the name given to Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
~
"The hymn in Philippians is... relating [the ancient rite of Atonement (Leviticus 16)] to Jesus' life: especially his road from the Mount of Transfiguration to the Garden of Gethsemani and then to Calvary. Thus, the death on the Cross is seen as being in reality that for which the Temple rite had been a mere dress rehearsal. And, entirely in line with this imagery, Jesus' Resurrection and Ascension, his 'anastasis', is read in this hymn as the successful conclusion of the rite, where, in the setting of the Temple Court, the High Priest 'became' the Name, and was worshipped as such by all present. Only here, it is not a rite, but the real thing, and the power of the allusion is that God, El Elyon, is giving to Jesus the Name that is above every other name - in other words, YHWH.
"So, from now on, the artist formerly known as YHWH is to be known by the name Jesus, because Jesus has successfully and completely instantiated YHWH in materiality and history, such that Creation has now been definitively altered from within.
"The result is that, whereas in the rite of Atonement every knee would bow down in worship at the pronouncing of the Name, and whereas in the Prophet Isaiah it is to YHWH that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall swear [Isa. 45:23], it is now established that Jesus the Anointed One is YHWH to the glory of El Elyon, or 'Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father', as our accustomed translation reads.
"It appears, then, that Paul is urging the recipients of his letter who find themselves in conflict with those who frighten them, those who do not accept that Jesus is the Christ, that, in the midst of the conflict, they are to act out the same priestly pattern which we have just seen illustrated, and with which they would have been familiar, giving themselves without fear or self-aggrandisement towards the altar of sacrifice just as Jesus did on his way to being given the Name."
- James Alison, Broken Hearts and New Creations, pp 220-21
~
"[W]e have Mark showing two things happening deliberately, or rather one thing, but with two, if you like, visible names. And the visible names are, on the one hand, Messiah, and on the other hand, King. The question, if you like, that was raised by Jesus coming into Jerusalem in the way he did, fulfilling the Davidic promises was: Are you the son of the Most High? Are you the Anointed One? And of course, it's how Jesus bears witness to that that is going to be key to what goes on in this period.
"So in front of the Jewish authorities that's the question: Are you the Messiah? Are you the Promised One? And of course Jesus answers that in a way that is unmistakably positive. And then there is the question of whether he's a king. With the Romans playing games with the Jews talking about the King of the Jews, rather than the appropriate Jewish title, which would have been 'the King of Israel'. So there's an element of mockery going on by Pilate of the Jews, and the question which the chief priest has asked Jesus on the cross: Are you the Messiah? If you are the king of Israel, come down. That's the bringing together of those two.
"And in the midst of all this, Jesus actually enacting and being the promised priestly king figure, the priest who is performing the sacrifice of the atonement in which he himself is the priest, the sacrifice, the victim, the altar and the king who is being raised up, enthroned, ascended. These two things are happening simultaneously and Jesus is doing them.
...
"And this ends with a centurion saying, “Truly this man was God's son,” when Jesus dies. A little hint of what's going on there: this is at last Adam being recognized, the real Adam having done the real Adam thing. And this is hinted at so subtly by Mark. First of all, it said that it's taken to the place of Golgotha, the place of the skull. This was mythically the place where Adam's skull was buried.
"And then in the kerfuffle with Pilate, there's the question of whether Barabbas or he should be executed. Barabbas, the 'son of the father' [the literal translation of 'bar-abbas'] who was a thief, someone who'd taken something inappropriately. That's the old Adam. Or Jesus, the 'son of the Father' who is going to show what it is to be the man, what it is to be the human being, Adam. And so Jesus, going to the cross, and actually living out the real Adam in his ultimate possibility. ...
"In other words Jesus was doing all this because he believed in the possibility of humans becoming something, of us actually being able to make something of this extraordinary adventure of being human. That in the midst of our lives - our fake news, our fake accounts of things, our insurrections, our robberies, all of that - in the midst of all that he believes in us, that it's actually worth doing something for us, to make it possible for us to become human and sons of God. That is an extraordinary act of love."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for Palm Sunday, Year B" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4__8DrQRu8)
[For further discussion and reflection on all of this week's lectionary texts, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/passionb/]
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