Mark 15:37-38 And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

Mark 15:37  And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last.  38  And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

How is the final moment of Jesus’ death described?

“And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last” (Mark 15:37).

·      How do the other Gospels describe the final moment?

o  Matt. 27:50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

o  Luke 23:46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”

And having said this he breathed his last.

§  What does David prophesy in Psalm 31:5?

    Psa. 31:5   Into your hand I commit my spirit;

                  you have redeemed me, O LORD,  faithful God.

o  John 19:30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said,  “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and  gave up his spirit.

·      Who does Jesus say had the authority to lay down His life and the authority to take it up again?

“For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father” (John 10:17-18).

What does Jesus do after uttering a loud cry?

“And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last”

(Mark 15:37).

·      R. T. France observes:

“Mark does not specify the time of death, but leaves us to assume that it was soon after the ninth hour; it must in any case be before sunset (v. 42). All four gospels describe Jesus’ actual death in πνεῦμα [“spirit”] language, though in varying forms. ἐκπνέω [“breathe”], used by Mark and Luke, is the simplest, and offers even less scope than the πνεῦμα [“spirit”] phrases of Matthew and John for reading into the scene any reference to the Holy Spirit. It means simple to ‘breathe out’, and like our ‘expire’ is a natural euphemism for dying, used especially in more poetic or solemn contexts. άποθνῄσκω [“die”] would have conveyed the same sense, but perhaps was felt to be too ‘ordinary’ a verb to narrate so solemn a moment, though there was no hesitation in using it retrospectively of Jesus’ death in the epistles. We shall not in a moment (and reject) a suggestion of a further reason for Mark’s choice of ἐκπνέω [“breathe”] in relation to the temple curtain.”

R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: a Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2002), 655-656.

What happens after Jesus breathes His last?

“And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38).

·      How does Hebrews refer to the veil of the temple?

o  Heb. 6:19  This  hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which  enters  within the veil,

o  Heb. 9:3 Behind the second veil there was a  tabernacle which is called the  Holy of Holies,

o  Heb. 10:19   Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,  20 by  a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,

·      R. T. France observes:

“In describing the furnishings of the tabernacle the LXX uses καταπέτασμα to denote both the curtain through which one entered from the courtyard into the Holy Place, the place of offering incense (Ex. 26:37), and also the one inside the Holy Place setting off the innermost shrine, the Holy of Holies (Ex. 26:31). In Solomon’s temple the corresponding divisions were made by wooden doors, but in Herod’s temple Josephus again describes two καταπετά σματα in these two positions (Josephus, War 5.212, 219; cf. Ant. 8.75); he says that the huge outer curtain hung in front of and was the same height as the doors, which were fifty-five cubits high, but does not give the height of the inner one (though the hall which it divided was sixty cubits high). The outer curtain, which Josephus describes rapturously as a magnificent work of Babylonian tapestry in rich colours symbolising earth, sea, and sky (War 5.212–14), was the only one visible to anyone except the priests who served in the Holy Place. Mark does not say which curtain he means, and there is no evidence of the regular use of τὸ καταπέτασμα τοῦ ναοῦ in the singular to denote specifically either the one or the other. The tearing of the outer curtain would be more of a public event, but the symbolism of the violent opening of the Holy of Holies by the tearing of the inner curtain might be thought to be theologically more telling, and it was apparently in this sense that the tradition was understood by the writer of Hebrews, who refers to it as τὸ δεύτερον καταπέτασμα (Heb. 6:19; 9:3; 10:19–20). […]

     I have referred to the tearing of the curtain as a ‘divine riposte’ because in stating that the tear was made ἀπʼ ἄνωθεν ἕως κάτω Mark indicates that no human being could have torn it that way (especially if we are talking about the outer curtain, some twenty-five metres high). As Jesus dies, God acts to show what is to be the sequel to his death. This seems a more likely explanation of Mark’s language than the bizarre suggestion that he used ἐξέπνευσεν in v. 37 to describe a blast of wind (or the release of ‘the Spirit’) which (along with Jesus’ loud cry) tore the curtain, thus making Jesus himself directly responsible for the tearing.

     There is no historical record of this event outside the gospels (and in Luke it occurs before, not after, Jesus’ death), though a confused echo of it has been claimed in the statement of b. Yom. 39b that ‘during the last forty years before the destruction of the temple the doors of the sanctuary would open by themselves’. Less relevant are the similar stories told of events in a.d. 70: Josephus, War 6.293–96, tells how the east gate of the inner court of the temple opened of its own accord at Passover time in that year, and Tacitus, Hist. 5.13, says that the doors of the temple suddenly opened as a superhuman voice cried,   ‘The gods are departing’. But Mark’s reason for including this apparent digression is clearly not to record a fact interesting for its own sake, but to illuminate the significance of the death of Jesus. Many suggestions have been made as to just what its symbolism was,⁶⁷ and in the absence of any indication from Mark they are all necessarily speculative, but something along the lines suggested above seems best to fit into the ‘temple theology’ which we have seen developing throughout Act Three of Mark’s drama, and finds both patristic and modern support.”

R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: a Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2002), 656-658.

 

Father,

You are rich in mercy. Because of Your great love with which You loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, You made us alive together with Christ (by grace we have been saved), and raised us up with You, and seated us with You in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the ages to come You might show the surpassing riches of Your grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace we have been saved through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is Your gift, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

In Christ we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him. Father, may You grant us, according to the riches of Your glory, to be strengthened with power through Your Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, and that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled up to all the fullness of You.

Now to You Who are able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to You be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Mark 15:35 When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, “Behold, He is calling for Elijah.” 36 Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink, saying, “ Let us see whether Elijah will come to take Him down.”

When some of the bystanders hear Jesus cry out with a loud voice, “ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” which is translated, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?” (Mark 15:34), what do they begin saying?

“…Behold, He is calling for Elijah” (Mark 15:35).

·      “The idea that Jesus had uttered the name of Elijah would be a more natural mistake if Jesus used the form ’Elwΐ, but even the latter (representing Aramaic ʾ^elāhî) uttered in an agonized shout could perhaps have been heard as the prophet’s name. The mistake, if indeed we are to read it as a mistake rather than a malicious twisting of what they had heard, is the more natural in view of the growing belief in an eschatological return of Elijah to ‘restore all things’…which in some later Jewish piety included the hope that he might appear from heaven to help in times of need.”

R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: a Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2002), 654.

What does someone do?

“Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink…” (Mark 15:36).

·      ὄξους (oxous) “sour wine, wine vinegar, it relieved thirst more effectively than water and, being cheaper than regular wine, it was a favorite beverage of the lower ranks of society and of those in moderate circumstances” (BDAG, 715).

·      What does David prophesy in Psalm 69:21?

“They also gave me gall for my food and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (Psalm 69:21).

What does someone say?

“… ‘Let us see whether Elijah will come to take Him down’” (Mark 15:36).

·      “Ironically the Jews waited to see whether Elijah would come to help Jesus when Elijah in the form of John the Baptist had already come to ‘help’ him, first by heralding Jesus’ coming (1:1-8) and second by dying at the hands of his own enemies (6:14-29; 9:11-13), thus providing a preview of Jesus’ death.”

James Brooks, Mark, Vol. 23, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1991), 262.

Father,

You are our rock and our deliverer. You never leave or forsake Your children. Jesus gave His life as a sin offering on our behalf, and by Your power, You raised Him from the dead and exalted Him to sit at Your right hand until You make His enemies a footstool for His feet. Jesus now gives to His believers living water to drink. Everyone who drinks of the water that He gives shall never thirst, but the water that Jesus gives becomes in us a well of water springing up to eternal life. All who believe in Jesus, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ Glory and thanks to You through Jesus for the gift of life-bearing, living water. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Mark 15:34 At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” which is translated, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?”

When does Jesus cry out with a loud voice?

“At the ninth hour …” (Mark 15:34).

·      τῇ ἐνάτῃ ὥρᾳ (tē enatē hōra) =3 p.m. (BDAG, 331).

·      How does Acts 3:1 describe the ninth hour?

“Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer” (Acts 3:1).

What does He cry out with a loud voice at the ninth hour?

“…ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?...” (Mark 15:34).

·      “Jesus’ cry is an Aramaic quotation of Psalm 22:1, which was sometimes recited at this time of day in prayer but receives special significance when Jesus prays it. The first line would evoke this whole psalm of the righteous sufferer—and its hope of divine vindication. (Jesus probably quoted the psalm in Hebrew, as in Matthew; Mark uses the Aramaic form because the saying was transmitted in an Aramaic milieu. ‘Eli’ could be mistaken for ‘Elijah’ much more easily than ‘Eloi’; cf. 15:35-36.)”

Craig S. Keener, “15:33­–41 The Death of the King,” The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993).

What is the translation of “ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI”?

“...which is translated, ‘MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?’” (Mark 15:34).

·       “Mark (and Matthew) recorded only this one of Jesus’ seven sayings from the cross. At the ninth hour (3 p.m.), Jesus cried … Eloi, Eloi (Aramaic for the Hebrew, ’Ēlî, ’Ēlî), lama sabachthani? (Aramaic; from Ps. 22:1) Mark translated the saying into Greek for his readers, which in English means, My God, My God, why (lit., ‘For what [reason]’) have You forsaken (lit., ‘did You abandon’) Me?

This was more than the cry of a righteous Sufferer affirming His faith that God would cause Him to triumph (contrast Ps. 22:1 with Ps. 22:28). Nor did Jesus merely feel abandoned. Instead Jesus’ cry combined (a) abandonment by God the Father in a judicial not relational sense, and (b) a genuine affirmation of Jesus’ relationship to God. Bearing the curse of sin and God’s judgment on sin (cf. Deut. 21:22-23; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13) He experienced the unfathomable horror of separation from God, who cannot look on sin (cf. Hab 1:13). This answers Jesus’ question, ‘Why?’ Dying for sinners (Mark 10:45; Rom 5:8; 1 Peter 2:24; 3:18), He experienced separation from God.

Also Jesus’ cry affirmed His abiding trust, reflected in the words, ‘My God, My God.’ This is the only one of Jesus’ recorded prayers in which He did not use the address ‘Abba’ (cf. Mark 14:36). Far from renouncing Him, Jesus claimed the Father as His God. He died forsaken by God so that His people might claim God as their God and never be forsaken (cf. Heb. 13:5).”

John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck, Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, vol. 2 (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1985), 189. 

Father,

In the pit of the darkness of the curse of sin and death, the soul is ravished by desperation and despair. Abandoned. As Jesus became the curse of sin on the cross, He was crushed under the full magnitude of Your wrath against the sin of the whole world…past, present, and future. He bore our sin in its entirety, and His divine soul was tortured by the hell of judicial separation from You.  Jesus endured Your just condemnation of sin and bore its penalty, which is death. Glory to Christ for His power to endure and overcome the power and penalty of our sin.

And You did not forsake Jesus in death, but raised Him in glorious victory over death. Glory and thanks to You, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ for You have shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of Your glory in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of You and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. We know that You who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus. Therefore, we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Glory to You, our God and Father, Who raised Jesus from the dead. Our faith and hope are in You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Mark 15:33 When the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour.

What time is it when darkness falls over the whole land?

“When the sixth hour came…” (Mark 15:33).

·      γενομένης ὥρας ἕκτης (genomenēs hōras hektēs)

Feminine Genitive Singular Aorist Middle Participle of γίνομαι “of events or phenomena in nature” (BDAG, 197).

o  Genitive Absolute Structure

“Structurally, the genitive absolute consists of the following:

1)  a noun or pronoun in the genitive case (though this is sometimes absent);

2)  a genitive anarthrous participle (always);

3)  the entire construction at the front of a sentence (usually).”

o  Genitive Absolute Semantics

“Semantically, there are again three items to notice, once the structure has been identified (note that the above stated structure is not  limited to the genitive absolute construction):

1)  This construction is unconnected with the rest of the sentence (i.e., its subject—the genitive noun or pronoun—is different from the subject of the main clause;

2)  the participle is always adverbial (circumstantial) or, at least, dependent-verbal (i.e., it cannot be an adjectival or substantival participle);

3)  the participle is normally (about 90% of the time) temporal, though it can on occasion express any of the adverbial ideas.”

Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 654-655.

o  “Prominent features in a discourse may be selected for grammatical as well as conceptual emphasis. As Longacre humorously remarks, ‘Discourse without prominence would be like pointing to a piece of black cardboard and insisting that it was a picture of black camels crossing black sands at midnight’. Greek contains a number of linguistic means to indicate prominence.”

Stanley E. Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament (Sheffield: JSOT, 1999), 302).

What falls over the whole land when the sixth hour came?

“…darkness fell over the whole land…” (Mark 15:33).

·      σκότος (skotos) “Of the darkening of the sun” (BDAG, 932).

·      ἐγένετο (egeneto) 3S Aorist Middle Indicative of

γίνομαι “of events or phenomena in nature” (BDAG, 197).

·      How does darkness during the day indicate God’s displeasure and judgment in the following verses?

o  Deut. 28:29 and you will grope at noon, as the blind man gropes in darkness, and you will not prosper in your ways; but you shall only be oppressed and robbed continually, with none to save you.

o  Amos 8:9 “It will come about in that day,” declares the Lord GOD,

                  “That I will make the sun go down at noon

And make the earth dark in  broad daylight.

o  Jer. 15:9    “She who bore seven sons pines away;

         Her breathing is labored.

        Her sun has set while it was yet day;

        She has been shamed and humiliated.

        So I will give over their survivors to the sword

        Before their enemies,” declares the LORD.

o  Is. 13:10  For the stars of heaven and their

constellations

         Will not flash forth their light;

                       The sun will be dark when it rises

And the moon will not shed its light.

How long does the darkness fall over the whole land?

“When the sixth hour came…until the ninth hour” (Mark 15:33).

·      “During the crucifixion ‘at the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour.’ All three Synoptists accompany the death of Jesus on the cross with several portents, the first of which is darkness from 12:00 noon until 3 p.m.”

James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans, Apollos, 2002), 475.

 

Holy Father, 

You are marvelous light. In You, no darkness dwells. Glory and thanks to You for rescuing us from the domain of darkness and for transferring us to the kingdom of Your beloved Son, in Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. We were formerly darkness, but now we are Light in the Lord. For Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, ‘CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE’ in order that in Him the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. May eyes be opened so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to You, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Jesus. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.