Mark 15:33-39 - The Son of God

What made Jesus’s crucifixion special? That’s a question I tackle in the introduction to this sermon, the third sermon covering Mark’s account of the crucifixion story. Here’s that introduction:

“Historical estimates of the number of people, both men and women, crucified by the Romans ranges from the tens of thousands to the hundreds of thousands. In 71 BC, for example, some 6000 slaves were crucified on the same day along the Appian way outside Rome. In the province of Judea alone, during the first century, thousands of Jews were crucified—many of them during the siege of Jerusalem that Jesus warned his disciples about back in chapter 13. So the mere fact of being crucified, or even of a Jew being crucified by Romans, was not unique.

While much is made in modern times about the pain and physical agony endured by Jesus at his crucifixion, the truth is that millions have suffered similarly. The Romans were not the only ancient people to crucify. Crucifixion has also been practiced by Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Scythians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Seleucids. There were also the Indians, Britons, Taurians, Thracians, Celts, Germans, Japanese, Wallachians, Ottoman Turks, Spaniards, Poles, Lithuanians, Swedes, Soviets, Tibetans, Chinese, North Koreans, and very recently, Islamic jihadists.

So what makes Jesus’s crucifixion special? What makes it different? Why is his remembered while so many others are forgotten? Part of the answer to that will come at the beginning of the next chapter. But much of it is answered by Mark right here in the verses laid before us this morning. This was not just any death. This was not just any crucifixion. And this was no ordinary man hanging on that Roman cross.

We pick up where we left off last week, in the middle of Mark’s crucifixion narrative. Up until now Jesus has been the passive recipient of mistreatment at the hands of many different actors. Now the narrative focuses in on Jesus. Verses 29-32 recorded the mockery of the scribes as Jesus hung on the cross. But in verse 33 there is the first of several things Mark records which makes the crucifixion unique.”

To listen to the sermon just click the link below. God bless.


Click here: Mark 15:33-39 - The Son of God


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