Always Teaching

 

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK

ALWAYS TEACHING

Mark 15:23-35

23 Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24 And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. 25 It was the third hour when they crucified him. 26 The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. 27 They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left.   29 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 come down from the cross and save yourself!"   31 In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! 32 Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him. 33 At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"-which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"   35 When some of those standing near heard this, they said, "Listen, he's calling Elijah."

NIV

We are at the cross, Jesus has been nailed to it and lifted up, there are two others there, true criminals according to Rome, one to each side of Jesus, and thus three crosses stood on Golgotha. What we see playing out here is a direct result of what was spoken about by David in the twenty-second Psalm. We would need to read the Psalm in its eternity to get a full meaning of what is happening here at the cross of Christ. This heaping of insults is in this psalm, the casting of lots for his garment is in this psalm, and the words that Jesus spoke are the first verse of this psalm. What has been said by many believers is that Jesus experienced God turning his back on him because he was full of all the sins of the world and God could not look at that sin. This does not fit with the whole of the situation. First, If Jesus was truly forsaken, God has lied. He has promised that he would never leave us nor forsake us. Second, if Jesus was speaking as a man, desperately pleading with God, feeling all alone, then his sacrifice as the perfect Lamb of God, a deity that died for the sins of the world, would be for nothing. If Jesus is a man on the cross, we have no salvation. Jesus is the Christ in the cross, the Son of God, the second person of the triune Godhead. Jesus is God, and therefore he was not alone, for He and the Father are one. Jesus said that if we have seen Him then we have seen the Father. There was never any separation, in our opinion, from the Father and the Son, at any time whatsoever. Jesus taught every opportunity there was. He is still teaching from the cross. It is thought by many of our scholars that most Jews were very familiar with this twenty-second Psalm and referred to it as speaking about the Messiah. Jesus sees all they are doing as fitting right into this psalm and he was showing them by quoting the first verse that he was that Messiah. There are other explanations that go far too much in-depth about Jesus’s exact language and what else it might have meant if we use this manuscript or another. Some head toward his words being Aramaic others head toward Hebrew. Some say that Jesus had to experience all the emotions of humankind, but we should never ever, not ever feel that God has abandoned us because of our sin. If that were the case then what hope do we have? How could perfection be the standard for God remaining with and in us? While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Jesus was divine and he never felt abandon by his Father as he was in His perfect will. So let us not ever feel that God has turned his back on us, although he has a perfect right reason to do so, for we still have sinned. If then God cannot look upon Jesus full of our sin, then God could not look upon us, and we know that is simply not true. Let us learn from Jesus, and know that He is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Jesus is always teaching his people.