Truly this is the Son of God (Mark 15:39)

Short teachings from Hillcrest Church exploring the background, context, meaning, and significance of the account of Jesus of Nazareth in the book of Mark.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, how are you doing? Tim here, and uh we are diving deep into the book of Mark uh for Lent. And we come now, uh well, we come to Good Friday, um, and it'd be great uh to see you tonight. Um we'll be gathering at 7 o'clock. Um we'll be actually going through Mark 14 and 15 together for our Good Friday service. So love to see you there. Uh but I also, in our kind of walking through Mark, we're coming to the death of Jesus on uh on the cross. And so I wanted to, there's one aspect in particular that I wanted to talk about in this episode, even as we are on this uh this Good Friday, remembering the death of Jesus. So in the last episode, we talked about Jesus um using Psalm 22, and then right after that uh in Mark 1537, we read that with a loud cry Jesus breathed his last. And then the temple of the curtain was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion who stood there in front of the in front of Jesus saw how he died, he said, Surely this man was the son of God. And that uh I want to talk about this line. Um, the centurion saying, Surely this man was the son of God. You know, I think throughout uh our study in Mark, we've seen that you can't you cannot understand the full significance of what Mark wants us to understand about Jesus if you read Mark merely as like newspaper reporting. Uh Mark is weaving a story together. Now, this doesn't mean that it's not historical. Um it is historical, uh, but he there he's structuring it, he puts different things next to one another, he creates literary sandwiches, he uses keywords because he's trying to draw our attention to uh he's trying to draw our eye to the right parts of the story, that we understand the significance of it. He's telling history, but uh theologically um with a discipleship intent. So, and I think this is happening uh in a really important way here. So, throughout the book of Mark, this question is hung over uh who is Jesus? And there have been these key moments of revelation. Uh revelation is like the the curtain is pulled back, the full picture is given, like the full revealing, uh, a revelation of Jesus' identity. Um, you know, so often we've seen that people are confused. You know, Jesus even says to the disciples, Who do you say that I am? Um the you know the uh the crowds are confused, the religious leaders, everybody's not sure exactly who this Jesus is. But there are these moments of revelation in the book of Mark. The first one comes at the very beginning, Mark chapter 1, Jesus is baptized. You remember, it was way back at the beginning of the book. He's baptized by John, John the Baptist in the Jordan River, and um uh and we read that after he's baptized, Jesus is coming up out of the water, and heaven was being torn open, and a sp and the spirit descended on him like a dove, and a voice came from heaven. You are my son, whom I love. With you I am well pleased. And so this is kind of the first moment of revelation. Um, it's Trinitarian, the voice of the Father, the descent of the Spirit in the form of the dove, Jesus the Son, and it's this affirmation of divine identity. You are the beloved Son, who I am well pleased in. This is the full identity of Jesus. Um, and you know, people at times they they think he's a prophet, messiah, they, you know, whatever. I mean, the Pharisees think he's inspired by by Satan. But this revelation, the Father says, You are the Son. So, first revelation of Jesus is God's son. Second revelation of Jesus God's son comes in the moment, the amount of transfiguration. Uh this is Mark chapter 9. Of course, Jesus takes Peter, uh, James, and John up on the mountain by themselves. Elijah and Moses appear. There's a Jesus is glowing white, there's a cloud. Um, and then in Mark 9, 7, then a voice appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud. This is my son, whom I love. Listen to him. Um, and then suddenly they looked around, there's no one there anymore. And so this is the second revelation, the revealing, the curtain is pulled back, the full story, the full identity is revealed. The second revelation of Jesus as God's Son, again by the Abba Father's voice. Um the first revelation really was just to Jesus himself, the second revelation is to these three um he disciples, but it's this kind of unveiling of who Jesus identity, God's son the second time. And all along the story, no human characters, none of the human characters recognize Jesus as God's son. Of course, Peter famously sees him as the Messiah, but the Messiah, that was a that was a divine, that not a divine, that was a human role. You know, that was a human king kind of restoring David's kingdom. That's different than God's son. No human character through the book of Mark has yet understood what the Father has said about the Son, that this is God's Son, until Mark 15. And this is what I think Mark, as the storyteller, is wanting to see that there are these three moments in the Gospel of Mark, where Jesus is unveiled, where his full divine identity is revealed. The first one comes in the baptism. Uh, you are my son, whom I love, in whom I am well pleased. The first revelation, revealing, the full identity is seen. The second at the transfiguration. This is my son, my beloved son. Listen to him. The second time he has been unveiled. And then the third time that we see him called God's son, and the first time he is ever called God's son by a human character, is in this moment, and is by a Roman centurion who says, Surely this man was the son of God. And I think uh Mark what Mark is doing here, he's saying something to us throughout the entire story of Jesus and Mark. We've seen that Jesus is trying to give, he's trying to uh to tell, to teach a different kind of identity of who the Messiah is meant to be and really how God is going to rescue them. They thought it was going to be this militaristic David, drive the Gentiles out, conquer, right? And over and over and over again, Jesus has told them, you know, he's the Passover lamb, he has come to die, he is the suffering servant king, this is how the rescue is coming. And um, and there there's, I think in narrative form, what Mark is uh uh showing us here, there's the sense that it's it's like Jesus' full divine identity is only understood by a human being on the cross. You you can't understand what it means for Jesus to be the Son of God apart from the cross. That to understand, to to call Jesus the Son of God apart from the cross is to misunderstand who Jesus is. That there's the cross isn't this like detour, this thing that Jesus has to do and plug his nose and get all get done with, and then um that somehow Jesus is his character, who he is as the Son of God is revealed on the cross. And I think um and I think you see this idea at other places. I mean, even in the book of Revelation, um, Jesus is described as the lamb looking as if he has been slain, that the resurrected Jesus still has scars in his hand. There's something about the cross that is that is permanent in the sense that it continued continues to reflect the heart of the Son of God, and you can't understand uh the Son of God apart from the cross. And so we come, we come to the death of Jesus, and we come to the Roman centurion declaring Jesus to be the Son of God, and we come to this third magnificent revelation, this vision of who God is and who the Son of God truly is. But of course, the holy mystery at the heart of the book of Mark is that this revelation of who God is, it comes to this human being, a Roman centurion, how unexpected, and it comes when he is on the cross. If we're gonna understand the heart of God, we have to look at Jesus on the cross. Truly, this is the Son of God.