Lent Gospel: Mocking – Day 36 – Mark 15:21-32

Lent Gospel is a campaign for people to read through the whole of Mark’s Gospel during Lent, in 40 short readings. Helpful notes on each day's reading are available from www.usefulbible.com/lent-gospel; and you can download the whole series in PDF or Kindle format (it's free - just right-click on the links then select ‘save as...’ to download). Of course, it doesn’t have to be for Lent... why not begin now?

 

 

Last part: Judging – Day 35 – Mark 15:1-20

Mocking – Day 36 – Mark 15:21-32

Mocking

·       Read: Mark 15:21-32

The principal events of the day seem too uncomfortable for us to watch for long. So, for the present, let us look around, to see what we might see.

There are passers-by. They go back and forward, in lives too busy to stop and consider. Among them is a pilgrim from North Africa; soon, but reluctantly, compelled to take his part in history.

Soldiers perform their gruesome task. And then, with their day’s work only half-complete, they settle down to gamble. They seem to care little about the importance of what is happening.

Chief priests and religious teachers are present, demeaning their sacred roles, mocking a dying man on their most holy feast day.

And here are two thieves, condemned to suffer the same fate. Their cries of anguish alternate with insults for the man alongside them. Their mocking attitude reveals the hearts of men unwilling to suffer for their own sins – let alone the sins of the world.

But only the central cross bears the one whom John the Baptist called ‘the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world’. And now, on the Passover, when it was the custom to sacrifice the Passover lamb, he too was dying for sins that were not his own.

Next part: Dying – Day 37 – Mark 15:33-41

Index: Lent Gospel: Reading Mark's Gospel for Lent

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© 2012, Keith Simons.