Mark 15:33-41
Darkness Over the Whole Land
33From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.
34At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
35When some of those standing nearby heard this, they said, “Behold, He is calling Elijah.”
36And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine. He put it on a reed and held it up for Jesus to drink, saying, “Leave Him alone. Let us see if Elijah comes to take Him down.”
37But Jesus let out a loud cry and breathed His last.
38And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
39When the centurion standing there in front of Jesus saw how He had breathed His last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
40And there were also women watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome.
41These women had followed Jesus and ministered to Him while He was in Galilee, and there were many other women who had come up to Jerusalem with Him.
Berean Standard Bible
At noon the light goes out. Mark gives the hours and the reach, the sixth hour to the ninth, over all the land, and says nothing about cause or meaning. Three hours of dark in the middle of a Friday, reported the way a man reports weather.
At the end of those hours Jesus shouts, and Mark keeps the words in the language they came out in before translating them for us.
At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
It is the opening line of Psalm 22, and that psalm goes on to describe men sneering, heads shaking, and clothing divided by lot, all of which had happened in front of him that morning. Mark hands it over with nothing attached: no explanation, no comforting sentence afterwards. A man in agony asks God why he has been left, and the page moves on. Faithful people have understood that cry in more than one way for a very long time, and the text does not settle it.
Some of those standing near hear Eloi and think Elijah. One soaks a sponge in sour wine and holds it up to him, and they wait to see whether anybody comes. Nobody comes. Jesus lets out a loud cry and breathes his last.
Then Mark moves away from the execution. What comes next happens somewhere else, and gets one sentence.
And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
That curtain was the shut door of the whole arrangement. Behind it lay the Most Holy Place, entered once a year by one man, and the law given through Moses made a wrong entry fatal. It comes apart from the top down, not the way a man standing under it would tear it.
The centurion in charge of the killing had been watching how Jesus died, and he says where people could hear what this man was. Mark opened his book calling Jesus the Son of God, the voice from heaven said it at the baptism and on the mountain, and the high priest put it as a question at the trial and got I am for an answer. Here it comes from a Gentile soldier with no scripture behind him and no miracle in front of him.
The women are watching from a distance: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, Salome, and others who had come up to Jerusalem with him. They kept back, and Mark says so, and they were there, which is more than could be said for the men.
How We Know
The cry in verse 34 is Psalm 22:1, and Mark keeps it in the language it was spoken in before translating it, the third and last time he does that.
Set against the previous passage, the correspondence is hard to miss. The garments divided, the head-shaking, the taunt about rescue and now the opening line itself: four elements of one psalm, spread across two passages, in order.
That strongly supports Mark presenting the crucifixion through Psalm 22 deliberately. What the psalm does not supply is verse 39, where a Roman officer says what no one else in this Gospel volunteers.
Questions
1 The sky goes dark for three hours in the middle of the day. What does Mark tell us about it, and what does he leave out?
AnswerHe gives the hours, the sixth to the ninth, and says it covered the whole land. He does not say what caused it or what it stood for. He reports it and carries on.
2 What does Jesus shout, and where do those words come from?
AnswerMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me. It is the opening line of Psalm 22, and that psalm goes on to describe the sneering, the shaking heads and the clothing divided by lot that had already happened to him that morning.
3 Is there something you have wanted to say to God and have not said, because it sounded too angry or too doubtful to say out loud? What does this passage do with a question like that?
AnswerIt puts one in scripture. Jesus asks God why he has been left, out loud, and Mark writes it down without softening it and without explaining it away. God left the question in his own book.
4 Who says out loud who Jesus is, and what had he seen?
AnswerThe Roman centurion in charge of the execution. No miracle, no resurrection, no scripture behind him. He had watched how Jesus died, and he said it standing over a dead man, with nobody asking him.
What This Means for Us
Nobody answered him, and he asked anyway.
With the sky dark and his friends gone, what Jesus did was speak to his Father. Not politely, and not with the words tidied up first. He shouted a question at him, and the question is in the Bible, because God put it there and left it there.
So there is nothing in this house that cannot be said to him. Not the anger, not the confusion, not the sentence somebody has carried for years and never dared say out loud because saying it felt like the end of their faith. It is in scripture, on the lips of his own Son, and the curtain tore.
Prayer
Father, your Son asked you why, out loud, in the dark, and you did not turn away from him. Thank you that the question we are most afraid to ask is written down in your book. Thank you that the curtain is torn. Give us the freedom to bring you everything. Amen.