Mark 15:21-41

The good news of Jesus’s death to crush Satan was prophetically announced immediately after the fall in Genesis 3:15.

Multiple signposts, each pointing to Jesus’s death, were divinely instituted in the Old Testament.

Purification offerings included a priest laying his hands in a symbolic transfer of guilt onto a bull, goat, lamb, or bird, which was then slain.

Day of Atonement sacrifices involved two goats; the blood of the first was sprinkled to cleanse the Temple, and the second—the “scapegoat”—was symbolically loaded with the collective impurities of the people and led outside the city to wander and die alone.

A Passover offering was an unblemished lamb killed at twilight; its meat was eaten and its blood painted over the doorposts to avert the just wrath of God.

In the public execution of Jesus recorded in the New Testament, all of these Old Testament signposts (and more) find their ultimate destination and fulfillment.

As one of the oldest recorded Christian creeds states it, “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3).

The Third Hour (15:21-32)

The simplification of what Mark records:

Crucifixion was designed to be the most humiliating and gruesome method of execution. The Romans served it for their worst offenders.

It was bloody. It was a public spectacle of extreme pain that usually ended in an horrible death by shock or asphyxiation.

ITS NOTEWORTHY here though that Mark doesn’t really focus on that.

He aims to shine his spotlight away from the physical horrors, and rather focus on deeper meanings of HIs death.

Simon of Cyrene:

According to law, the guilty victim had to carry his cross, or at least the cross beam, to the place of execution, and Jesus was no exception. He left Pilate’s hall bearing His cross (John 19:16–17), but He could not continue; so the soldiers “drafted” Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross for Him. Roman officers had the privilege of “impressing” men for service, and the way they used this privilege irritated the Jews (Matt. 5:41).

When you consider all that our Lord had endured since His arrest, it is not surprising that His strength failed. Indeed, “He could have called 10,000 angels,” yet He willingly bore the suffering on our behalf.

There was a higher purpose behind this act: the victim carried the cross because he had been found guilty, but our Lord was not guilty. We are the guilty ones, and Simon carried that cross on our behalf.

Simon Peter boasted that he would go with Jesus to prison and to death (Luke 22:33), but it was Simon of Cyrene, not Simon Peter, who came to the aid of the Master.

Fulfillment of Prophecy:

Although Mark doesn’t make a direct reference in his writing, his choice of words sounds a lot like he’s pointing to the fulfillment of prophecy.

Psalm 22:7 CSB

7 Everyone who sees me mocks me; they sneer and shake their heads:

Psalm 22:14 CSB

14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed; my heart is like wax, melting within me.

Psalm 22:16–18 CSB

16 For dogs have surrounded me; a gang of evildoers has closed in on me; they pierced my hands and my feet. 17 I can count all my bones; people look and stare at me. 18 They divided my garments among themselves, and they cast lots for my clothing.

Imagine being the followers of Jesus… watching this man who had performed all the miracles that He did.

He calmed storms.

Banished sickness.

Raised people back to life.

Drove out demons.

Multiplied food.

Stood on water.

Here is a man who a week before had been given a King’s welcome.

Here was the Christ.

How could this be happening?

The Sixth Hour and Ninth Hours (V. 33-41)

Scripture says that the sixth hour, darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour.

Sixth hour - Noon.

Ninth Hour- 3 PM.

So, during this time Jesus was dying in total darkness.

All four of the Gospel writers do a great job of contrasting betwen light and darkness.

Now His death is happening in darkness. Signaling the complete judgment of God.

Think back to the plagues during the Passover in Exodus. (Exodus 10:21-23)

Many people have proposed that there was a natural cause for this event. But I like what Tim Keller points out about this…

A solar eclipse does not create absolute darkness for more than a few minutes. Further, a solar eclipse can’t happen during the time of a full moon, and Passover is always celebrated at a full moon. Other people have suggested that the cause was a desert windstorm of the type that can kick up enough dust to obscure the sun for days at a time. But Passover falls in the wet season, so this darkness couldn’t have come from a windstorm.

This was a supernatural darkness.

God at this time is now acting in full judgment of His Son because the sins and guilt of humanity has been transferred to the lamb.

On the cross, Jesus was forsaken by God. You hear the language of intimacy and affection. “My God, My God.”

You know, if a church member was to come up to me to say, “I never want to see you again, or speak to you.” I would feel bad. Discouraged.

But, if my wife came to me one day and says, “I never want to see you again, or speak to you.” I would be devastated. That would rock my life to it’s core.

The longer the love, the deeper the love, the greater the torment of it’s loss.

This forsaken, this loss, was between the Father and the Son, who had loved each other from all eternity. This love was infinitely long, absolutely perfect, and Jesus was losing it. Jesus was being cut out of this dance between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. -Keller

Jesus, the Maker of the world, was being unmade. Why? Jesus was experiencing our judgement day. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It wasn’t a rhetorical question. And the answer is: For you, for me, for us. Jesus was forsaken by God so that we would never have to be. The judgement that should have fallen on us fell instead on Jesus. -Keller

The Endurance:

In 1914, British explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew took a ship to Antarctica. Their plan was to land, walk across Antarctica, cross over the south pole, and continue all the way across. The plan had to be abandoned, though, because their ship, the Endurance, got caught in polar ice and was crushed. Over the following months, Shackleton’s crew fought just to survive to get home.

One of Shackleton’s biographers said that of all the difficulties they faced - including starvation and frigid temperatures - the worst thing was the darkness. Near the South Pole, the sun goes down in mid-May and doesn’t come back up until late July. There’s no daytime - mo sunlight - for more than two months.

In all the world, say the biographers of polar explorers, there is no desolation more complete than the polar night. Only those who have experienced it can fully appreciate what it means to be without the sun day after day and week after week. Few unaccustomed to it can fight off it’s effects altogether, and it has driven some men mad.

Physical darkness brings disorientation, but according to the Bible, so does spiritual darkness. Spiritual darkness (SIN) comes when we turn away from God as our true light and make something else the center of our life.

This is why Jesus had to go to the cross. Our trajectory had to be corrected. And Jesus’ death was the only way to alter it.

He fell into the complete darkness for which we were headed.

He dies the death we should have died.

All so that we can be saved from this judgement and instead live in the light and presence of God.

The Curtain in the Temple:

This wasn’t a flimsy curtain. It was heavy, it was thick. Almost as substantial as the wall.

It separated the holy of holies, where God’s shekinah glory dwelled, from the rest of the temple - it separated the people from the presence of God.

And remember, that only the holiest man, the high priest, from the holiest nation, The Jews, could enter the holy of holies - on the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, and he had to bring the blood sacrifice, atonement for sins.

THE CURTAIN said loudly and clearly that it is impossible for anyone sinful, anyone in spiritual darkness - to come into God’s Presence.

In the moment Jesus died, this massive curtain was ripped open. The tear was top to bottom, just to make clear who did it.

“The was God’s way of saying, “This is the sacrifice that ends all sacrifices, the way is now open to approach me.”

Application

Jesus’s death by crucifixion was a divinely ordained historical event by which he lovingly accomplished atonement, purchased Christians’ freedom from sin’s bondage, won their justification before the Father, and triumphed over Satan’s tyranny.

Jesus died for our atonement: moving us from a state of hostility against God to friendship with God. (2 Cor. 5:18-21. Rom. 5:8-10. Col. 1:19-21.)

Jesus died as our battlefield hero: crushing the forces of Satan that held us captive. (Gen. 3:15. Heb. 2:14-15. 1 John 3:8. Col. 2:15)

Jesus died as our chain-breaker: redeeming us from slavery to sin and death. (Matt. 20:28. Jn. 8:36. Gal. 5:1. 1 Pet. 1:18-19.)

Jesus died to become our defense attorney: securing our eternal “not guilty” sentence through His shed blood on our behalf. (Is. 53. Rom. 3:23-26. Gal 3. Jn. 2:1-2.)

Jesus died to become our eternal priest and lamb: making the perfect sacrifice to make us clean and confident in God’s presence. (Lev. 4-6, 12. Eph. 5:2. Heb. 2:14-17; 9:12-14.)

Jesus died as a forsaken son: becoming the outcast, killed outside the city, so we could be welcomed into the family of God. (Esek. 16. Matt. 27:46. Heb. 13:11-13. Eph. 1:3-5)

Response

Respond to the Gospel.

Lexham Survey of Theology Jesus’ Death

The Scriptures are clear that there is no salvation apart from trusting in the death of Jesus, our great Substitute and Savior.

Ephesians 2:8–9 CSB

8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—9 not from works, so that no one can boast.

Romans 10:9 CSB

9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Mark 1:15 CSB

15 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Go and be ambassadors!

Go tell, and make disciples.

2 Corinthians 5:18–21 ESV

18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.