Monday 25th April - Mark 15

Today’s chapter is Mark 15, you can read it here

Tom writes:

Jesus died. That idea had become so familiar to me I almost treated it with contempt. If I’m honest Easter felt like a more boring version of normal church, until we sang the happy clappy songs about the resurrection and ate some chocolate eggs. I liked that bit. The death of the Christ was - in my mind - a transaction that highlighted my guilt. Most of the time my practical reality held the cross to be an irrelevance. Then one thing changed; I became real friends with Jesus. Now, when I read this passage it seems throat-chokingly sad. When I meditate on this narrative today it isn’t a crucifix I’m picturing - it is my friend. In pain. And then dead. I remember seeing my grandfather’s dead body being carried out in a coffin and that scarred my heart. I loved that man. The thought of my Jesus’ body wrapped in cloth, being carried away and put in a cave is almost completely overwhelming.  I know it had to happen and I know that unbelievable amounts of goodness came out of it but so much of my maturing in faith has come when I’ve stopped looking at what came out of the cross and started looking at the cross itself. Mark (and hence Peter) obviously agreed.

Mark’s gospel has been described as a death narrative with an introduction. The gospel gives almost no explanation of the theological outcomes of the cross. The thrust of the narrative is on the events themselves, every damned detail of Jesus’ dereliction and death. I know it’s not trendy, but can I ask if you are making time to dwell on Jesus’ death? Maybe this week you can give yourself 20 minutes just to sit and think of Jesus and his cross? Don’t make it a time of feeling guilty, nor even really about worship or theology - just choose to sit and imagine Jesus hung on the tree for hours. There is a deep deep power in finding intimacy with Jesus on the cross. It’s the kind of power that will change your life and never let you live the same way again. It’s a power I long for you to find.

Question for reflection

Why did Jesus have to die such a shameful and painful death?