Reliving The Passion #28

Mark 15:22–23

And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull). And they offered him wine mingled with myrrh; but he did not take it.

As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so Jesus has been silent. In Mark’s account, he has revealed nothing of his private thought or his personal feeling since Gethsemane. He spoke a few words last night, and then again this morning; but these were responses to his inquisitors. His spirit has been mute. The body is before us; the mind is hidden in mystery.

But now, finally, on Golgotha, comes a spontaneous gesture, and with it an insight into the spirit of the Savior. We see what he’s been doing in the solitude of his interior self.

Jesus, stripped of his clothes, is lying on his back, his head and hands arranged on the patibulum, the crossbeam by which they will lift him bodily to a thick post for execution. His eyes are shut. The wood beneath his head might seem a pillow; but soldiers stand with spikes beside him. They make a rough motion, a sign of assent, as if to say, Now—but right now, or you miss the chance. Hurry!

So then a woman rushes over and kneels by the figure of Jesus and offers him a drink. She’s performing a merciful ritual, not unusual among the Jews: “Give strong drink to the dying,” commands the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs, “and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and remember their misery no more.” The woman is seeking to ease the torment of the crucifixion. She’s offering Jesus myrrh, a narcotic.

And here is the gesture, revelation, the mind of the dying Christ:

He shakes his head. He will not drink from her cup. He will in no wise dull his senses or ease the pain.

And so we know. What are the feelings? What has the spirit of Jesus been doing since Gethsemane? Why, suffering. With a pure and willful consciousness, terribly sensitive to every thorn and cut and scornful slur: suffering. This he has chosen. This he is attending to with every nerve of his being—not for some perverted love of pain. He hates the pain. But for a supernal love of us, that pain might be transfigured, forever.

Or what has the Lord been doing since Gethsemane? Drinking. Not from the woman’s narcotic cup, but from the cup the Father would not remove from him: drinking. Swallow by swallow, tasting the hell therein, not tossing it down in a hurry: “So that by the grace of God he might taste death for every one.”

Or what has the Lamb been doing since Gethsemane? Bearing our griefs. Carrying our sorrows. By the stripes he is truly and intensely receiving, healing us all.

And yet it pleased the Lord to bruise you! He has put you to grief, O my Jesus; your soul was made an offering for my sin, but then behold: I am an offspring of your sacrifice. For by it, I am born again.

Amen.