[Dialogue] 3/24/11, Spong: Exploring the Meaning of the Cross: Part IV; The Symbols of the Hebrew Scriptures in the Crucifixion

[elliestock at aol.com]

     Homepage        My Profile        Essay Archive       Message Boards       Calendar









Exploring the Meaning of the Cross: Part IV; The Symbols of the Hebrew Scriptures in the Crucifixion
The first narrative account of Jesus’ crucifixion in the Bible is found in the gospel of Mark written some 40-43 years, or approximately two generations, after the events it purports to describe.  You may read it in Mark 14:17-15:47.  It does not claim to be an eye witness account.  Indeed it draws most of its details not from anyone’s memory, but from the Hebrew Scriptures.  It is clearly an interpretive account designed to see the death of Jesus as the fulfillment of Jewish messianic hopes.
The two major sources from which Mark has crafted his story of the crucifixion are Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53.  We are generally familiar with these details primarily because we are familiar with Mark’s passion story.  Our awareness of the original sources, however, is generally quite limited.  >From Psalm 22, Mark draws the only words that he claims Jesus spoke from the cross.  Psalm 22:1 says: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Psalm 22 then goes on to say in verses 7 and 8, “All that see me laugh me to scorn.  They shoot out their lips and they shake their heads saying, ‘He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him.  Let him deliver him seeing he delighted in him.’”  Compare these words with Mark 15:29, “They that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads and saying, ‘Ah, thou that destroyest the Temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself and come down from the cross….He saved others; himself he cannot save.  Let Christ the King of Israel come down from the cross that we may see and believe’.”
Psalm 22 continues with these words, “I am poured out like water.  All my bones are out of joint…My tongue cleaveth to my jaws…They pierced my hands and feet…I may tell all my bones.”  All of these images and ideas are written into Mark’s story of the cross and they grow in form through the other synoptic accounts.  When John writes his version of the crucifixion almost thirty-five years after Mark,  he has Jesus cry, “I thirst” and he attests to the fact that none of his bones were broken.
Psalm 22 goes on to say (v. 18) “They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture.” Mark writes in 15:24: “And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them what every man should take.”  No, Jesus did not miraculously fulfill the “predictions” of the Hebrew Scriptures in some predestined way, as I was once taught in my fundamentalist Sunday school, the gospels rather were written with the Hebrew Scriptures open and the gospel writers conformed their memory of Jesus to fit the expectations of those scriptures, which enabled them to interpret him in the light of these Jewish expectations.  Mark’s original passion narrative is thus not the report of an eye witness to the crucifixion at all.  It is, rather, an example of how the disciples of Jesus searched the Jewish scriptures for clues that they could use to prove that Jesus was in fact the expected messiah.  We are not dealing with history in the story of Jesus’ passion, but with interpretive material drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures.
The other favorite passage from the Old Testament that was used to illumine the entire Jesus experience in general, but the story of the crucifixion in particular, was what we now call “the servant passages” from II Isaiah (40-55).  Much of that text is also familiar to us not because we have read Isaiah, but because George Frederick Handel drew from it as the basis of his magnificent oratorio known as “Messiah.”  The best known images from this section of Isaiah’s servant passages are found in chapter 53.  Mark’s narrative of the crucifixion shows a deep compatibility with this part of II Isaiah’s work.  “He was wounded for our transgressions…by his stripes we are healed.” These are among the familiar words from Isaiah 53.  “He was despised, rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” are also words said of the “servant”, but they have been applied so deeply to Jesus that most of us think these words were actually written about Jesus.  II Isaiah says of the Servant that he was “numbered with the transgressors.”  I am convinced that it was from this reference that the story of Jesus being crucified between two thieves or malefactors was derived.  It is interesting to watch the story of these two thieves develop.  In Mark their presence is noted, but they are not quoted as having said anything.  In Matthew, a decade later, both of them revile Jesus and pour out hostility on him.  By the time we come to Luke, perhaps a decade later, only one thief reviles him while the other in penitence is made to say to Jesus: “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Later in Isaiah 53, we are told that the servant “made his grave with a rich man.”  From this reference, I believe, came the developed story of Joseph of Arimathea who was said to be a ruler of the Jews and thus a rich man.  To portray Jesus as having been buried in Joseph’s tomb served two purposes.  First, it “fulfilled the scriptures” and second it covered the embarrassment of the apostolic abandonment, which was so real it could not have been denied, with a proper burial.
Another indication that we are not dealing with eye witness history in this narrative comes a bit earlier in Mark’s text when he announces that when Jesus was arrested, “all of his disciples forsook him and fled.”  Please note the text of Mark says “all” not “some.”  It is hard even today, but necessary if we are to engage the Jesus story honestly, to face the high probability that Jesus died alone.  There was no eye witness tradition that the gospel writers could draw on about the crucifixion because there were no eye witnesses.
The final evidence that this first narrative of the cross was not history comes from a deeper analysis of Mark’s whole passion story.  It is divided into eight three-hour segments.  The hours are marked and are meant to be noted.  It is written in a twenty-four hour format. Let me trace it.
In 14:17 Mark notes that “when evening came they were gathered in one place” for the Passover meal.  The phrase “when evening came” means that Mark was telling us that it was approximately 6 p.m. on the day we now call Maundy Thursday.  We know from other Jewish sources that the Passover meal normally included the extended family and it lasted about three hours.  That measure of time included games, the meal itself and the recitation of Israel’s historical beginnings, usually told by the male patriarch in response to the question, “Father, why is this night different from all other nights?” asked by the youngest male child.  The Passover ended with a hymn and the gathered family members then left for their own homes.
Mark tells us in this first segment of the passion of Jesus, that at the end of the meal they sang a hymn and departed into the night.  It is thus now 9 p.m.  We are then told that Jesus and his disciples went into the Garden of Gethsemane, where it was said that Jesus took three of his disciples to “watch” with him while he prayed.  They were, however, unable to perform this duty without falling asleep.  Indeed they could not watch with him one, two or three hours. The second segment of the twenty-four hours was thus over.
Jesus then comes out of the garden to meet Judas and the contingent of solders from the Temple guard.  It is midnight. The darkest deed in human history is to take place at the darkest hour of the night.  Jesus is then taken to the Sanhedrin for interrogation.  This interrogation takes us from midnight to 3 a.m.  The third segment of the vigil is complete.
The period of the night between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. was called “Cockcrow.”  Into this segment, Mark has installed the story of Peter’s threefold denial before the “cock crowed,” presumably one denial for each hour.  Then right on cue, Mark says, “When morning came,” which means it is now 6 a.m.  Here Mark tells us the details of the trial before Pilate; the introduction of Barabbas; the torture, and the mocking purple robe and crown of thorns.
Mark then says “it was at the third hour” or 9 a.m., when they crucified him.  At the sixth hour or 12 noon Mark says “darkness covered the whole earth.”  It lasted, not surprisingly, for three hours.  At 3 p.m. Jesus uttered, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and died or as the Elizabethan translation we call the King James Version says, “He gave up the ghost.”
>From 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. we hear of the negotiations of Joseph of Arimathea to bury him in his tomb, a task that is completed before the sun goes down to mark the beginning of the Sabbath, the day of rest.
Two things become obvious in this study.  First, most of the familiar details of the crucifixion story are not eye witness accounts of things that actually happened.  They are rather interpretive accounts based upon the Hebrew Scriptures in which Jesus is seen, despite the fact that he had been crucified, as the anticipated messiah.  Second, they were not written to describe what actually happened, but to lead worshippers to new insights through a twenty-four hour liturgical vigil.  Just as the Jews had marked the beginning of their life as the people of God with a three-hour liturgical celebration known to us as “The Passover,” so Christians decided to mark the beginning of their life as a distinct people called to a new relationship with God in which they found salvation with a matching liturgical act.  In the process they stretched the three hour Passover into a twenty-four hour vigil.  What we are reading as Mark’s story of Jesus’ passion is a liturgical rite in which they could relive the last events in the life of one they believed was messiah and through whom they were convinced that they saw God in a dramatically new way.
We have been blinded to the holiest moments in our faith story by our failure to grasp the fact that the story of the cross is not literal, but interpretive.  Its purpose was not to tell us how Jesus died, but who Jesus was and how his death revealed that.  Armed with this clue, we can enter an entirely new dimension of the Bible itself.
~John Shelby Spong
Read the essay online here.





Question & Answer
Mark Richardson via the Internet, writes:
Question:
A common poem found in the Announcements/Obituary section of most (if not all) newspapers is titled “The Plan of the Master Weaver.” I’m sure you have seen this poem many times, it begins. “Our lives are but fine weavings that God and we prepare. Each life becomes a fabric planned and fashioned in His care. Sometime a strand of sorrow is added to His plan and though it’s difficult for us, we still must understand. That it’s He who fills the shuttle, it’s He who knows what’s best. So we must weave in patience and leave Him to the rest. The dark threads are as needed in the Weaver’s skillful hand as the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.” I personally find this brings more discomfort than comfort. It was written, I’m sure, with good intentions but a person has to ask: does it really bring a grieving family any comfort to know (for example) that their child was killed as part of God’s plan? I have to believe that someone (somewhere) has put together some better words of comfort. Something that does not throw us all together into a basket of weaves within the Master Weaver’s plan. What message or words would you suggest to help bring healing and comfort to those who have lost a very dear friend, a colleague, an acquaintance or a family member?
Answer:
Dear Mark, 

Perhaps “The Plan of the Master Weaver” is not as widespread as you imagine. I find myself only vaguely aware of it and I cannot recall any newspaper in which I have seen it published on the obituary page. For that I am thankful. 

I share more than discomfort at this poem. To me it is pious nonsense - to say nothing of being bad theology and even an expression of incompetent biblical understanding. Its author has clearly never read the book of Job! 

I do not find the attempt to see good or God in human tragedy either comforting or inspiring. Yes, I am aware that some people find comfort in the idea that everything fits into some redeeming divine plan. I think that makes God a kind of sadistic demon. I first ran into this when just ordained. A young couple had lost an infant through what we called then “Crib Death.” Unaware of this, I preached on tragedy and my unwillingness to try to comfort by asserting that tragedy is all a part of God’s plan. Yet they were comforting themselves with this idea, I learned later, because they had been taught that, if they did not, God might strike again and kill one of their other children. I shudder to think that anyone has been terrorized by that view of God and by that sick kind of religious thinking. 

The Book of Romans is often quoted by the defenders of this idea. “All things work together for good to those who love God” is the KJV rendition of this verse. That is not what the text says in Greek and modern versions of the Bible have corrected this verse to its proper rendition, namely that “God works in all things for good.” Tragedy can be creative. People can and do transform their sadness into efforts that benefit the world. I have good friends, who lost their nine-year old son Andy in an accident in Yellowstone National Park and then dedicated themselves to park safety for the rest of their lives. That, however, does not mean that anybody’s death was somehow good or was part of a divine plan to bring about this good result. 

It takes great strength to be human and to grapple with issues of meaning, purpose and the realities of pain and tragedy, but that is part of what being human means. Human beings are the only animals who know our adult children and therefore the only animal who can grieve over tragedy in our adult children. We are also the only animal who can enjoy and participate in life time relationships with our own offspring. The fact is that to achieve the latter we must run the risk of the former. The pious use of religion as a kind of panacea or even a narcotic that will dull the pain of life is not the answer. Embracing the potential of life, including its darkest moments as a God-given reality is. 

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. 

~John Shelby Spong 







Announcements
Subcribers, please remember that your subscription is automatically renewed. You can unsubscribe at any time. You just need to login and cancel your account.  Also, please note that the name on the bill will now be listed as "The Center" rather than "water front media" or "wfm" as The Center for Progressive Christianity is now the publisher and manager of this newsletter.  We hope you enjoy the new website and newsletter layout!
Login to be able to comment directly on the website. Join in the discussion!
Look for us on Facebook.
Thank you for taking this journey with us!
Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support at johnshelbyspong.com











forward to a friend  




Copyright © 2011 The Center for Progressive Christianity, All rights reserved. 
You are receiving this email because you have a membership at our website. 
Our mailing address is: 
The Center for Progressive Christianity
4916 Pt Fosdick Dr, NW
#148
Gig Harbor, WA 98335

Add us to your address book




If you are a paying subscriber, you may login and cancel your account otherwise, you may unsubscribe from this list










 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/dialogue_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20110324/654c7523/attachment-0001.html>