Mark, likely the oldest gospel, was written between 65 and 75 AD. Like the gospel as a whole, the passion narrative is lean, moving swiftly and hauntingly from the Last Supper to Jesus’ death and burial. Though each gospel has its own theological lens, the aim is not so much to tell what happened to Jesus but to help us grapple with the meaning of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection for us.
The passion is a dangerous story. Though the passion of Jesus is meant to free us, it has often been used to keep the crucified peoples of the world—women, people of color, and other marginalized groups—on their crosses. Identifying with the crucified Jesus has given people strength to bear immense suffering, but it has also fed attitudes of acceptance of abuse and oppression, rather than empowering people to confront abuse and seek healing and transformation.
Betrayal
Throughout Mark the enemies of Jesus have hounded Jesus in opposition to his teaching, and now their hostility is sealed with a plot to kill him. A chilling addition: Judas—from Jesus’ inner circle—goes to the leaders and offers to betray Jesus to them. When do we crucify Jesus anew by betraying the values of our faith?
The Final Passover
The Last Supper occurs within a Passover meal. The Passover is the Israelite’s response to the final plague that God visited upon Egypt. As a form of resistance to Pharaoh’s unjust rule, the Israelites memorialized this day of liberation. The Eucharist also calls us to stand in solidarity with the poor and all those who long for freedom.
Gethsemane: Prayer and Arrest
In Gethsemane, we see a genuinely human Jesus, wary of death and crushed that his mission was at risk. Mark gives us a wrenching prayer of faith and fear on the lips of Jesus that would be fixed in Christian memory forever: “removed this cup from me, yet not what I want, but what you want.”
Mark presents Jesus as one abandoned by his followers, who has to face his hour alone. The disciples fall asleep while Jesus prays, Judas betrays Jesus, Peter denies him, and at the end all flee, leaving Jesus to die alone. Yet Jesus remains faithful to his disciples, no matter their failures.
Confession and Denial: Interrogation by the Sanhedrin
In Mark, Jesus is silent during his trial. In our context it could be deadly to reinforce silent, passive submission of abused persons and breaking the silence is important. At the same time, collective public silent protest of injustice can be an effective tool to confront oppression.
Three times Peter denies he even knows Jesus, with cursing and swearing. The crow of a cock brings the remembrance of the warning at the supper. The familiarity of the story may inhibit the incredible shock of the scene: the leader of the disciples renounces his allegiance to Jesus.
The Roman Trial
In the passion narrative, Mark shows Jesus’ political purposes of subverting unjust rulers and liberating the oppressed. He proclaims God’s power over death, divine presence within deathly contexts, and liberation from the forces of death. Jesus’ action is subversive because his actions dethrones, delegitimizes, and dismisses old sovereignties that are now discredited and defeated. Easter means the dismissal of Pharaoh, Caesar, and all imperial power.
Jesus’ actions occur within the context of the people’s struggle against the Roman Empire. Jesus forms connections and proactive practices of resistance that bolstered his courageous movement through his arrest and trial and that furthers his mission beyond his death. The truth-telling revealed by Jesus leads Christians today to address issues such as climate change, racial justice, and cycles of poverty and oppression.
Crucifixion
Though many of us were taught that Jesus died for our sins, people without power may believe that they should accept whatever suffering God bestows. However, Jesus’ ministry reveals a God who desires that no one should suffer. Taking up one’s cross is a consequence of proclaiming good news to the poor, living in fidelity to the vision of the reign of God, and remaining faithful in the face of persecution.
Jesus’ cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” is not a prayer to be released from death. Rather, like the psalmist, Jesus knows his prayer is heard, but not yet answered.
In Mark, Jesus dies with a wordless scream that splits the veil of the temple, leading an unlikely Roman Centurion to make the first full confession of faith in the gospel: “Truly this man was God’s Son.”
Burial
Mark’s story is less a linear narration, but an open-ended, puzzling story that invites us to return to it again and again to ponder God’s profound love expressed in Jesus and to conform our lives ever more to his. The suspense is not what will happen in the familiar story, but that we do not yet know the surprising ways God will move us to shatter our illusions about God, the world, and ourselves—as we open our hearts to change and transformation.