The King on the cross: Pilate, Golgotha and the centurion's confession

Mark 15 is the climax of the Gospel of Mark, the shortest Gospel and, in the view of most scholars, the earliest. Tradition from Papias, reported by Eusebius, says the author was Mark, Peter's interpreter, usually identified with John Mark of Acts 12:12. Critical scholars question how far Peter stands behind it. The usual date is about AD 65 to 70, with a minority arguing for the 50s or for the years just after the fall of the temple. The Gospel was probably written for Gentile readers, with Rome as the traditional place. A Roman reader would know crucifixion as the punishment of slaves and rebels. Mark answers that shame by making the cross the place where Jesus is shown to be king.

The historical frame is well attested. Pontius Pilate was the Roman prefect of Judea from about AD 26 to 36, and an inscription naming him was found at Caesarea in 1961. The Roman historian Tacitus (Annals 15.44) records that Christ was executed under Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. Josephus also mentions Jesus' crucifixion under Pilate, though the authenticity of parts of that passage is debated. The year of the crucifixion is usually given as AD 30 or 33. The day was a Friday, the 'Preparation Day' before the Sabbath (15:42).

The four Gospels tell this scene with differences. Matthew adds Pilate's wife's dream, Pilate washing his hands, an earthquake and the raising of the saints (Matthew 27). Luke adds Jesus before Herod, the women of Jerusalem and the repentant robber (Luke 23). John adds Jesus' dialogue with Pilate about kingship and the words from the cross (John 18-19). Mark is the starkest. He gives one cry from the cross and no words of comfort, and he records the confession of a Roman soldier. On the synoptic problem, most scholars hold that Matthew and Luke built on Mark, while a minority hold that Mark abbreviated Matthew.

Mark 15 is the climax of the passion narrative, and it must be read as Mark's careful theology told as history. He marks the day with times, the morning handover (15:1), the third hour when Jesus is crucified (15:25), the sixth hour when darkness comes (15:33), the ninth hour when he cries out and dies (15:34), and evening when he is buried (15:42). The structure is quiet and compressed. It also turns on one title, 'King of the Jews', which occurs in Pilate's questions, the crowd's replies, the soldiers' mockery and the inscription on the cross. Everyone in the chapter calls Jesus king, and everyone means it as an insult, and Mark expects the reader to see that it is true.

Several principles help. The mockery is irony: what the speakers say in scorn is what Mark and his readers believe. The Old Testament is present mostly as allusion, especially Psalm 22, the psalm of the righteous sufferer, whose language of mocking, dividing garments and forsakenness appears throughout. Where Mark does not quote a passage but alludes to it, the reader should treat the connection as an echo unless a New Testament author states it. The chapter also needs historical sensitivity. The account of 'the crowd' and 'the chief priests' must not be turned into a charge against Jews as a people. Jesus and his disciples were Jews, and Roman authority carried out the execution.

Verses 1–5

At dawn the chief priests, elders, scribes and the whole Sanhedrin bind Jesus and hand him to Pilate. John 18:31 says the Jewish authorities lacked the right to carry out an execution, a point historians debate, and in any case Pilate needs a political charge. He asks, 'Are You the King of the Jews?' Jesus answers, 'You have said so.' It is neither a plain yes nor a plain no. When the chief priests bring many accusations, Jesus makes no reply, to Pilate's amazement. The silence recalls the Servant who 'did not open his mouth' (Isaiah 53:7).

Verses 6–15

At the feast Pilate customarily released a prisoner of the people's choice. Barabbas was in prison with rebels who had committed murder in the uprising. Outside the Gospels the custom is not otherwise documented. Pilate knows the priests handed Jesus over out of envy and offers to release 'the King of the Jews'. The priests stir the crowd to ask for Barabbas. 'What then do you want me to do with the One you call the King of the Jews?' 'Crucify Him!' 'Why? What evil has He done?' They shout louder. Wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate releases Barabbas, has Jesus flogged and hands him over to be crucified. The name Barabbas means 'son of the father' in Aramaic. The guilty man goes free and the innocent one is condemned.

Verses 16–20

The soldiers take Jesus into the Praetorium, the governor's headquarters, and gather the whole cohort. They dress him in purple, twist a crown of thorns and set it on his head, and salute him, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' They strike his head with a staff, spit on him and kneel in mock homage. The scene may parody the greeting given to the emperor, 'Hail, Caesar'. They then lead him out to crucify him.

Verses 21–24

A passer-by from the country, Simon of Cyrene, is forced to carry the cross. Mark identifies him as the father of Alexander and Rufus, which suggests that Mark's readers knew them (compare Rufus in Romans 16:13, though the link is only possible). At Golgotha, Aramaic for 'the Place of the Skull', they offer wine mixed with myrrh, which Jesus refuses, probably refusing the drug that dulled pain. They crucify him and divide his garments by casting lots, in the words of Psalm 22:18.

Verses 25–32

It is the third hour, about nine in the morning. The inscription reads 'THE KING OF THE JEWS'. Two robbers, the Greek word used of bandits and insurgents, are crucified with him, one on each side. Passers-by shake their heads and jeer about destroying the temple, echoing Psalm 22:7, and the chief priests mock, 'He saved others, but He cannot save Himself!' The words are true in a way they do not intend: he cannot save himself and save others. Even those crucified with him revile him.

Verses 33–37

From the sixth to the ninth hour darkness covers the land. At the ninth hour Jesus cries out in a loud voice in Aramaic, 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?', 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?', the first line of Psalm 22. Some bystanders think he is calling for Elijah, and one offers sour wine on a sponge. Jesus utters a loud cry and breathes his last.

Verses 38–39

The veil of the temple is torn in two from top to bottom. Mark does not say which veil. The one in front of the Holy of Holies is likely, but it may be the outer one. The tearing is a divine act, 'from top to bottom', and it uses the same verb as the heavens torn open at his baptism (1:10). The centurion standing opposite him, seeing how he died, says, 'Truly this man was the Son of God!' It is the first time a human character in Mark makes that confession. The Greek lacks a definite article before 'Son of God', and the grammar cannot decide between 'a son of God' and 'the Son of God'. In Mark's design, the title announced in 1:1 is finally spoken, by a Gentile, at the cross.

Verses 40–47

Women watch from a distance: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome, who had followed and served him in Galilee. Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council who was waiting for the kingdom of God, boldly asks Pilate for the body. Pilate is surprised that Jesus is already dead, since crucifixion often took longer, and he has the centurion confirm it. Joseph buys a linen cloth, wraps the body, lays it in a tomb cut in the rock and rolls a stone against the entrance. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses watch where he is laid.

Mark 15 is the centre of the Bible's account of the cross. Without it, the New Testament's teaching on atonement has no ground. The exchange of Barabbas for Jesus is a picture of substitution, and it matches Jesus' own statement that he came to give his life as a ransom for many (10:45). The New Testament states the doctrine in other places: Christ died for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3), he bore our sins in his body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24), and he became a curse for us (Galatians 3:13, citing Deuteronomy 21:23).

The cry of dereliction is the most debated sentence in the chapter. It quotes Psalm 22:1, a psalm that moves from distress to praise and ends with the nations turning to the Lord (22:27-28). Some readers stress that Jesus quotes the whole psalm and so its vindication. Others stress that he suffers the experience of being forsaken as the sin-bearer (compare 2 Corinthians 5:21). Both readings affirm that the cry is real and that the Father's purpose is not defeated.

The torn veil bears on the doctrine of access. The curtain kept people from the Holy of Holies, and Hebrews 10:19-20 says believers now enter through the curtain, which is his flesh. Others read the tearing as a sign of the temple's coming judgment, as in 13:2; the two readings are not exclusive. The centurion's confession shows that the gospel is for the nations, as Isaiah 56:7 promised.

Mark 15 shows Jesus as king in the way the Gospel has said he must be: crowned with thorns, enthroned on a cross, acclaimed by an enemy. His kingship is not denied but redefined. John 19:20 says the inscription was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek, and Mark gives only the charge. Mark places the confession that he is the Son of God at his death, not at a miracle.

The chapter is full of fulfilment. Jesus' cry quotes Psalm 22:1 directly. The dividing of his garments echoes Psalm 22:18, and John 19:24 says the Scripture was fulfilled. The mocking and shaking of heads echo Psalm 22:7-8. His silence before accusers echoes Isaiah 53:7, and the burial in the tomb of a rich council member may echo Isaiah 53:9, though Mark does not say so. The Old Testament here is not a set of proof-texts added afterwards. It describes the righteous sufferer whom God would vindicate, and the Gospels see Jesus as that person.

An echo, labelled as such, is the torn veil, which many hear as a sign that the way to God is open and that the old temple order is finished. The statement 'he saved others, but he cannot save himself' states the paradox of the atonement, and Barabbas's release pictures it. The man who is set free is guilty and the man who dies in his place is not. At the end, the one who is mocked as king and executed as a rebel is the Son of God, and Mark's reader is told so first by a Roman officer.