PRAY: In the midst of incomprehensible suffering, pray with Rebekah in Genesis 25:22-23 for understanding.
PONDER: Have you ever been present with someone when he or she died? If so, what was that experience like? If not, what would you be most afraid of?
How can we be assured that death is not the end? That we aren’t alone in our suffering?
Why do we study the crucifixion?
Compare the four accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion. What are the similarities and differences? How do you understand the purpose of Jesus’ death?
In Luther’s explanation to the Apostle’s Creed in the Small Catechism that to confess Jesus as Lord means, among other things, to know that “he has redeemed me, a lost and condemned human being. He has purchased and freed me from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death. He has done all this in order that I may belong to him, live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in eternal righteousness, innocence and blessedness, just as he is risen from the dead and rules eternally.” What does this mean to you? In your own words? How does it affect how you understand Jesus’ death?
DO: Make a list of what you would want your final words to each of your loved ones to be. Share these words with your loved ones, as appropriate.
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Humiliation on the Cross
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ humiliation is heightened. The myrrhed wine (a narcotic) is changed to wine mixed with gall (gall is bile secreted from the liver that can be poisonous). There also is no reference made to Barrabas as a revolutionary, leaving the implication that Jesus is grouped among common criminals.
However, more so than simple humiliation, the derision of Jesus on the cross, as portrayed by Mark and Matthew, is making a point. The first group in Matthew’s account repeats the words of Satan from 4:3, 6 – “If you are the Son of God…” This aligns with an alternate theology circulating in the early church that Jesus was not human; however, here Jesus refutes that claim, aligning himself with humanity by with his suffering and death – although he was Messiah, he could not come down from the cross (see Mark 15:32). Second, this expectation is made explicit as the religious establishment derides him, citing what they think they know about the Messiah. Thirdly, the bandits join in the mocking. While establishing the truth that Jesus died alone, crying out for a God he perceives to have abandoned him and with no supporters present (contrast with Luke), the Gosepl writers are also signaling out all those who do not teach the Gospel.
• What does it mean for us (for you) that Jesus was mocked and suffered?
• Much of the crucifixion narrative, beginning here, follows Psalm 22. What similarities do you see? How does this Psalm end? What does this mean for us?
Jesus Dies
The gospel writers spare us the gory details of how Jesus died. “This is not because they were known to every ancient reader… Rather, the motive for following Jesus is not an emotional response to graphic descriptions of his suffering but faith in God’s act in the Christ event as a whole, climaxed in the self-giving love manifest in his death” (Boring & Craddock, People’s New Testament Commentary, 168).
• Jesus’ last words come from Scripture (Psalm 22/Psalm 31:6). Do you know anyone for whom this was true? What role does/can Scripture play in experiences of dying, suffering, or abandonment?
• How do you understand the purpose of Jesus’ death? How did the Gospel writers understand this purpose?
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