God’s Word for You

Mark 15:35-36 Cheap wine

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, March 24, 2024

35 When some of those who were standing there heard this, they said, “Listen, he is calling Elijah.” 36 Someone ran and filled a sponge with cheap wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink. He said, “Let’s see if Elijah will come to take him down.”

After the loud cry, “My God, my God,” which in Aramaic was “Eli, Eli” or “Eloi, Eloi,” the soldiers who were there mocked the Jewish faith by repeating words they must have heard from time to time, that Elijah would return in person one day (Malachi 4:5). Most Jews left a place setting and an empty chair along with an opened window when they celebrated the Passover, so that, should Elijah come, there would be a place prepared for him. But there were two or three problems with this custom. It was no more than a custom in most homes. The place for Elijah was typically just the place where the table was shoved up against the wall, so that no man could sit there if he really did come. And by pretending to have a place prepared for Elijah, they betrayed their faith, since many did not make room in their hearts or have a spiritual place prepared for their Messiah, for Christ.

The soldiers mistook “Eli” for “Elijah,” and mocked a little more. This was “especially empty in the mouth of a pagan soldier” (Lenski, 720). The soldiers went to dip a small sponge into their jar or pail of cheap wine, known as “oxos.” It is often translated “wine vinegar.” This was the poor wine of poor people and soldiers who could not afford anything better. It was often mixed with water. It might be used by wealthier people as a condiment on the dinner table (Ruth 2:14). This fulfilled another prophecy about the crucifixion in the Psalms, since Psalm 22:15 says, “My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth,” and Psalm 69:21 says, “They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.”

If the soldiers gave him this cheap wine to keep him alive a little longer and prologue his suffering, it didn’t work. Jesus’ life was very nearly spent and at an end. A soldier stuck the wet sponge onto a reed. John says that this reed was the stalk of a hyssop plant (John 19:29). The many sticks at the end of the hyssop would serve to “grasp” the sponge; the same plant was used as a paint brush at the first Passover (Exodus 12:22), so it was fitting that it was used again now that the Passover celebration was ended, having been replaced by God himself with the Lord’s Supper, “the new covenant” in the blood of Christ (Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25). The first covenant is obsolete, and what is obsolete will soon disappear (Hebrews 8:13).

We might also note that the reed of a hyssop plant is usually no more than a cubit long, 18 inches. It is so short that the cross cannot have been much more than seven or eight feet high. We get the impression that the elevated feet of the crucified Savior were less than a foot off the ground; perhaps only a few inches in the air. There are many works of art that show something very different; but art is an impression, and religious art teaches and preaches a gospel lesson. We don’t need to be iconoclasts on account of details.

Since the four Gospels record the same events, we will naturally be led to ask whether this was when Jesus said, “I am thirsty” (John 19:28)? Some commentaries make this assumption, but a few question it for this reason: In Matthew and Mark, a sponge (I will not say “the” sponge since we don’t know if more than one was offered to him at this late hour) is offered to Jesus with the cheap wine after he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is connected to the statement by the soldier’s comment, “Let’s see if Elijah will come and take him down.” In John, a sponge of cheap wine is offered to Jesus after he says, “I am thirsty” (John 19:28). Earlier, Jesus had refused a drink because it was laced with myrrh (Mark 15:23), but could there have been two later drinks that Jesus accepted? So we have two possible scenes:

1, After crying out, “My God, my God” (and so on), Jesus added, “I am thirsty,” and a sponge of cheap wine was offered to him, which he drank. A soldier quipped, “Let’s see if Elijah comes.”

2, After crying out, “My God, my God” (and so on), Jesus was offered a sponge of cheap wine, which he accepted as a soldier quipped, “Let’s see if Elijah comes.” Some time later Jesus said, “I am thirsty,” and another drink of the cheap wine was offered, which he also drank.

Both scenarios account for all of the details. It does not do us any good to insist on one or the other, but we must be careful not to lambast one or the other, either, for the sake of the souls and faith of weaker brothers and sisters in Christ. To apply Paul’s words here: “If my opinion about the sponge of cheap wine causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never open my mouth about my opinion ever again, so that I will not cause him to fall” (see 1 Corinthians 8:13).

Enough of this. The Scripture was fulfilled, and the devil will not overthrow our faith or throw sand in our eyes on account of the tiny detail about whether there was one sponge of cheap wine, or two. What does it matter? The devil only wants us to turn away our attention from his defeat, which is the true message of everything that happened on the cross. Here, truly, is the husband of the Great Song of Songs wetting his lips to say, “You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride,” to the whole Christian church (Song 4:9). He did what he did out of love, to rescue us from the punishment of our sins. “He humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:8). Therefore let every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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