Description
Mark For Everyone
MARK 15.16–32
The Crucifixion...
...Peacekeeping forces, which have become a regular feature of our world, often have to contain themselves in the face of severe local provocation. They can easily build up a backlog of resentment and anger against the people who are causing them trouble, who are perhaps killing or wounding some of their comrades. Even where press cameras are on the lookout for trouble, and regulations are quite strict, one hears regular tales of soldiers who, frustrated beyond measure by niggling insurgents, seize the opportunity, when they have a prisoner all to themselves, to take revenge with brutal and sadistic torture.
It’s a scene like that which opens Mark’s account of Jesus’ crucifixion. The Roman troops in Jerusalem wouldn’t have been anxious about press reports, still less international courts of justice; they just got on with doing what they did well, which was keeping law and order through sheer brute force. Though some of their behaviour to Jesus is simply mockery (kings and senior nobles wore purple in the ancient world), the centre of it is deeply violent and offensive (the crown of thorns, the spit- ting, the beating with what was probably a centurion’s staff). This is what they’ve always wanted to do to a King of the Jews, and they’re not going to spoil the chance now they’ve got it. The result is humiliation and degradation...
Taken from Mark for Everyone by Tom Wright