God’s Word for You

Mark 15:31-32 Zenith and Nadir

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, March 21, 2024

31 In the same way, the chief priests with the scribes made fun of him among themselves. They said, “He saved others, but he can’t save himself. 32 Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross so that we may see and believe.” The ones who were crucified with him also reviled him.

The people passing by made fun of him, and now the scribes and priests (in fact, the chief priests) did the same thing. They said, “He saved others, but he can’t save himself.” But their words, too, have a hint of the Gospel that cannot be denied. They meant the words as an insult, but they couldn’t help but admit: “He saved others.” Just what did they mean by this? That he saved lives by healing so many people? Surely he healed many hundreds, and perhaps thousands of people in the past three years. The lame, the blind, the deaf, the mute, the sick, and not to mention the lepers and the demon-possessed, had all been healed and saved from their troubles by Jesus. How evil, how wickedly jealous, does a man have to be to admit the miracles of Jesus to be absolutely real, powerful, good, helpful, and godly, and yet sneer at Jesus who performed all of those miracles?

But their words might have reminded people of more than the healings. Jesus had also raised people from the dead. There was that boy, a young man, in Nain (a hill in southern Galilee)—Jesus had arrived in time to stop his funeral, grasp the platform that they were carrying his body on, and Jesus brought him back to life (Luke 7:15)! The people had confessed: “God has come to save his people” (Luke 7:16). And there was another young person, that twelve year-old daughter of Jairus the synagogue ruler, who had died. Jesus took her by the hand and spoke to her: “Little girl, get up!” She came back to life, got up, and walked around, and the people were completely amazed (Mark 5:42). And there was another man, just a little while ago now, a popular and well-liked grown man known as Lazarus of Bethany. After he had been in the tomb for four days, Jesus called him out, and the man came to life again, not a shambling monster, but healed, whole, and living, and who returned home to live with his sisters (John 11:43-44, 12:1). Jesus had given life to those who died! Weren’t the chief priests at all wondering whether he would be able to do the same for himself, especially after all the things he had said to them? But if some of the priests were wondering if they might see Jesus come back to life, would it do anything for their faith, or for their status before God the Father? In the account of the Rich Man and Poor Lazarus (another Lazarus), Abraham warns the man in hell: “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, then they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31).

Yet their words, “He saved others,” may have dug down deeper still in the hearts and memories of some others there who heard them. For Jesus did more than save people from terrible, crippling illnesses. He did more even than raise people from death. He saved souls! His words brought sinners to repentance, and his words brought repentant sinners to faith. This is who the Christ was; this is what the Messiah was supposed to do. “He saved others”—what a marvelous way of saying what Jesus had said about his work, that the Son of Man had come to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Those who put their faith in Jesus will rise on the Last Day to eternal life.

But the mockers kept mocking; five different groups of mockers in all. We heard the common people, the passers-by (Mark 15:29-30). Then there were these high priests, and they were followed closely by the elders of the people and the scribes, some mocking him and urging him to come down from the cross (Mark 15:32) and some saying that he could not save himself (Matthew 27:41). The fourth group were the pair of robbers who began to mock him, although one of them caught himself and stopped. Finally, the fifth group, the soldiers who in a little while would offer him bitter vinegar on a sponge, saying “Let’s see if his Elijah helps him.” These words from all of these mouths were truly spat from the mouth of the Devil. Jesus endured this so that he would assume the full brunt of punishment that should have been ours. He did not flinch. He did not object. David’s words help us to understand: “Wicked and deceitful men have opened their mouths against me; they have spoken against me with lying tongues. With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause. In return for my friendship they accuse me, but I am a man of prayer. They repay me evil for good” (Psalm 109:2-5). The very next words of the Psalm are these: “Appoint an evil one to oppose him; let an accuser stand at his right hand” (Psalm 109:6). The word David chose for “accuser” is the ordinary Hebrew word for prosecuting attorney, but it is also the Hebrew word Satan. The verse could also be translated: “Appoint the Evil one to oppose him, let Satan stand at his right hand.” Let the Devil have his way here at the cross. Let him torment the Son of God. For God had already prophesied for Eve, “He will strike his heel.” Such striking doesn’t happen from a distance, but from up close. And so does the kind of striking that crushes the skull.

The mockery went on. Of all of the things that caused the suffering of Jesus’ soul, this mockery was the penultimate blow, the second-to-last strike. His state of humiliation was descending to its nadir; scraping the bottom. There had been the bitterness of the betrayal of Judas, the apathy of the disciples in Gethsemane, the denial of Peter, and now this mockery from the people walking past, the priests—the high priests—of Israel, the elders and scholars of Israel, the robbers crucified with him, and the heathen soldiers. As Jesus suffered, nailed to the cross, the sun’s rise was approaching its highest point above, the zenith of its movement and the time of the most intense heat, when laborers wipe their brows, reach for the water bottle, pause for a midday meal in the shade, or even stop work altogether for a siesta. But Jesus remained hanging there in the sun; his mouth dry, his pain growing, his strength failing, his blood spilling, his life ending.

For us.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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