Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
Mark 11:1-11
• The Temple is the symbolic center of the section beginning with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Jesus entered the city, ending at the Temple, and on the next day he will cleanse the Temple (11:15). Later in this section, Jesus makes various predictions about the destruction of the Temple. The result of this focus makes clear the nature of the struggle between Jesus and his opponents is a religious one. The new temple will be “housed” within the new community that Jesus is creating.
• Jesus’ promise to return the colt in v. 3, set Jesus apart from the Roman soldiers who regularly confiscated animals and human labor.
• Coming across the predicted colt represented a common folklore technique in which a sign is described including details of a particular encounter.
• In Matthew, this story includes the confusing detail from Zechariah 9:9 that the victorious king will come “humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey,” leading to Jesus being described as riding on the backs of two animals. Mark’s reference that the animal was “unbroken” may be a nod to Zechariah.
• Spreading cloaks on the ground before a king is a reference to Jehu’s accession to the throne in 2 Kings 9:13 (“Then hurriedly they all took their cloaks and spread them for him on the bare steps; and they blew the trumpet, and proclaimed, ‘Jehu is king.’”)
• While we wave palms on Palm Sunday to celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry, the palms appear in John’s Gospel, not Mark’s. The tradition of waving palms probably came from the use of branches during the Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:39-43) or in the celebration of Hanukkah (2 Maccabees 10:7).
• The crowd’s shouts in v. 9-10 are a combination of two pilgrimage psalms (118:26a “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD” and 148:1 “Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise him in the heights!”). Psalm 118 was traditionally recited following the third cup of wine. An echo of this tradition is seen in the Last Supper narrative, where Jesus and the disciples sang a hymn before going to the Mount of Olives (Mark 14:26).
Mark 15:1-39
• Pontius Pilate was a Roman prefect (a governor with administrative authority conferred by the Roman Emperor). Prefects began controlling Judea in 6 CE after the removal of Herod the Great’s son. A prefect ruled under an imperium from Caesar which included the right to pass death sentences. As prefect, Pilate would have been used to dealing with Caiaphas and other members of the Jewish elite, and would have been unlikely to bother with investigating cases as seemingly unimportant as Jesus’, accepting instead the judgment of the Jewish religious elite.
• Pilate has not been described as having much sympathy for the Jewish people whom he governed. In one example, when his troops brought the Roman standards (flags) into Jerusalem, in violation of Jewish law, crowds gathered at his palace and stayed for five days. They only disbursed after the standards were removed, which happened after the Jews, when threatened by the troops, indicated they would be slaughtered instead of abandon their cause. In another example, Pilate took money from the Temple treasury to pay for an aqueduct and when the crowd rioted, Pilate sent disguised troops into the crowd to beat the rioters with clubs, wounding and killing many. Given this, it seems like Mark’s suggestion that Pilate considered Jesus innocent may have been overly positive. He probably would have demonstrated more contempt than concern.
• The charge against Jesus was that he claimed he was the “king of the Jews.” From Pilate’s perspective, he probably wouldn’t have cared. Technically, since the death of Herod the Great, the Jews had no king. Anytime the Romans installed one of Herod’s sons, they deliberately did not give them the title of “king.”
• Jesus accepted the titles of “Messiah” and “Son of God,” both of which would be designations for someone claiming to restore the Davidic kingship.
• Continuing the pattern started with the Sanhedrin earlier, Jesus refused to answer the false accusations made against him, evoking the suffering servant in Isaiah 38:13-15 and 53:7 (“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth”). Jesus’ silence makes Pilate’s presumption of innocence even less likely, since those who usually spoke for the Jewish community named him guilty.
• Barabbas was guilty of inciting the same type of religious violence Jesus was accused of inciting. Per ancient historians Josephus and Tacitus, bandits like Barabbas weakened the Jewish aristocracy, leading to the eventual downfall of Jerusalem. By freeing Barabbas, Mark is implying the Jewish leaders contributed to their own destruction.
• For centuries, the idea that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus has fueled anti-Semitic violence. Mark’s readers would have recognized the death of Jesus as a result of local power struggles. The real responsibility belongs to those who participate in deceit and power struggles at the expense of the innocent, a crime not restricted to the time of Jesus. The mocking by the Roman soldiers shows how depersonalizing the victim increases the violence in society (James Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree makes the connection with the depersonalization of African Americans allowing for wide-spread lynching and other violent actions). The release of Barabbas shows how power politics can keep people from being able to recognize the guilty from the innocent.
• The specific reference to Simon the Cyrene probably served to provide a credible witness to the crucifixion since all Jesus’ disciples had fled.
• Contrary to popular imagery of Jesus carrying the whole cross, those sentenced to crucifixion generally only carried the cross bar. So should we understand Simon’s carrying the cross as a sign of the great suffering and abuse Jesus endured before the crucifixion leaving him too weak, or a sign of honor?
• Wine mixed with myrrh was a common narcotic (Proverbs 3:16 “Give strong drink to one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress”). Jesus’ refusal to drink it implies that he was fully conscious throughout the whole crucifixion, in contrast to his disciples who fell asleep.
• The soldiers casting lots is a reference to Psalm 22:18 “they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.” Several details in the crucifixion narrative come from Psalm 22.
• Mark’s Gospel fills the space between his crucifixion and death with accounts of Jesus being mocked (v. 25-32). These descriptions are arranged so that in increasingly tight circles, Jesus is rejected by everyone, first passersby (v. 29, Psalm 22:7, “All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads”), then the Sanhedrin (v. 32a), and even those crucified with him (v. 32c).
• V. 33 says that three hours of darkness began at noon, ending with Jesus’ death. Darkness was a common sign of divine judgment (Amos 5:18 “Alas for you who desire the day of the LORD! Why do you want the day of the LORD? It is darkness, not light”). It was also thought to accompany the death of a great person; there is a similar story that the sun grew dark at the death of Julius Caesar.
• The words Jesus prayed in v. 34 are the opening line of Psalm 22. As is traditional to a lament psalm, Psalm 22 ends with words of confidence in God. Scholars are divided if readers are supposed to read in the entirety of Psalm 22 or only the opening line of Jesus’ abandonment by God. Either way, Jesus is characterized like Stephen in Acts, who is martyred firmly convicted in his faith. Rather, Jesus is identified with the psalmists, who cry out to God in their plight.
• In v. 35-36, we see the crowd still looking for a miracle from Jesus, interpret his words as a cry for Elijah. As readers, we know that cry will not be answered, as Elijah already came in John the Baptist.
• In v. 37, the moment of Jesus’ death is punctuated by a loud cry and the curtain of the Temple being torn in two from top to bottom. Scholars are divided on the reason for this detail. Some see the tearing of the veil, which separated the holy of holies from the rest of the sanctuary, to indicate that God is no longer present, or confined, to there but is now available to all. Others think it is a foreshadowing of the destruction of the Temple. Still others mark it as another cosmological sign.
• The centurion’s confession (“Truly this man was God’s son!”) is the third correct identification of Jesus, the first two coming from a voice from the clouds at his baptism (1:10) and transfiguration (9:7). The presence of Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration indicating that Jesus too will be taken up into heavenly glory.
Works Sourced:
Perkins, Pheme. “The Gospel of Mark.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
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