The CROSSroads: Personal Lessons from Mark's Gospel by Rev. Mitch Schultz

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:34:25utc

Lesson Forty-Eight: DEATH (Mark 15:21-41)

"With a loud cry Jesus breathed his last." (vs.37)

The path we have been traveling with our tour guide Mark, ends here, at the cross. Jesus completed his earthly ministry and fulfilled God's purpose by dying. It has been a journey filled with miracles, dramatic lessons, personal encounters with hurting people, and the increasing pressure of discipleship. But it all ends here. This is where Jesus said his disciples would find themselves if they chose to endure. We are at the final destination - the cross!

I don't like death! I have tried to avoid it most of my life and when I have crossed its path I have managed to safely walk around it. Death, up till now, has been something that happens to other people and involves other families. Oh, I have attended and even officiated at a number of funerals and seen one or two dead bodies . But in each case I have been able to walk away, close the door to my house and enjoy the good health with which God has blessed my family. I can no longer avoid death. It now looms over our home, threatening the safety and security we have enjoyed these many years together. Like the children of Israel, our family huddles close together finding a shelter under the blood of Jesus as the angel of death stretches out his claws to claim my first born. We talk about death now in our home, not because we are finally comfortable with it but because it is happening to us. Each day we see the vivid signs of dying as our son becomes weaker and the symptoms become more pronounced. Unless God intervenes our son will die. As I write this he can no longer walk or stand. He can only see through the narrow slit of eyelids whose muscles have become too weak to open properly. His nervous system is failing and his body tremors mildly like you would see in an old man who is fighting Parkinson's disease.

The Holy Spirit is preparing Travis, and us, for death. I am finding it is easier for the person dying to prepare for death than it is for those who are left behind. The other day Travis woke up with an unbearable headache and between gasps of pain he cried out, "Oh, I just want to die." I asked him if he was prepared for death and he looked up at me and said, "Daddy, I am totally ready to die. In fact I don't want to live because I want to be with Jesus." Since that day we have had many other conversations about death. Sometimes humorous. We were discussing together how long he might have to suffer. Travis joked, "Daddy, let's make a bet on it and see who wins." On a recent walk with the family, Travis was seated comfortably in his wheel chair. I felt a freedom to remind all of them that Travis would be the first one of us it seems, to see Jesus. We then all began to make our requests of what we would want him to tell our Lord.

Death is the most common event of life but it is without doubt the one thing we think about the least. Until it happens to us that is! If it were not for the death of Jesus - his crucifixion - death for us, or for the one we love, would be intolerable. The death of Jesus turns death on its head. The death of Jesus served as a crossroads of it's own from this life to the next. Up till now a "Dead End" sign marked this journey with no further hope beyond the grave. The death of Jesus, and his subsequent resurrection, swung open a new gate revealing a new road, this one paved with gold and leading directly into the presence of God himself. All who have responded to that open-air call at the shores of Galilee and choose to follow Jesus are invited to enter this presence. "But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life..." (Matt.7:14) We have said all along that this is a Crossroads. You can not get there without coming face to face with death. Christ's death and your death. They merge at the cross. I was deeply moved recently in reviewing the words of the great hymn, The Way of the Cross Leads Home. Listen to these lyrics.

I must needs go home by the way of the cross. There is no other way but this. I shall never get sight of the gates of light if the way of the cross I miss. The way of the cross leads home. It is sweet to know as I onward go, the way to the cross leads home.

The very fact that it was God himself, the giver of life, who hung there on that cross should cause us much grief. He chose to die - we do not. He could have avoided death but chose not to. Neither did he allow himself to be exempt of the full agony of death, choosing instead the worst form of death. On that final leg of his journey he could not carry his own cross so painful it became. A bystander, Simon (vs.21), was "forced to carry the cross." On the cross when the agony of death was greatest, he did not accept "wine mixed with Myrrh" because he would not allow his senses to be numbed by the drug. The giver of life was to experience death at it's worst. It would do no good for God to die for us if he did not experience the complete horror of it himself. God was to relate fully with death. The soldiers made a sport of his death, oblivious to it's significance even to each of them personally. They "cast lots to see what each would get." (vs.24) The death of God was exploited by man for personal gain.

A sarcastic sign reading "the King of the Jews" mocked him.One of the robbers condemned next to him joined the mob in "hurling insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, 'come down from the cross and save yourself ... he saved others but he can not save himself. ' Those crucified with him also heaped insults at him." (vs.31-32) There was to be no death with dignity or attempt at preserving quality of life in the last moments of Jesus. To add to what is already a painfully dark scene, Mark reminds us that Jesus even found himself abandoned by his father. "My God, My God why have you forsaken me." (vs.34) You remember the journey began in Mark 1:11 with God proudly announcing that this was his son "whom I love; with you I am well pleased." There are no such expressions of personal love from God now. God seems to be deathly silent. The sin of humanity laid on the shoulders of Jesus has forced God to turn his back on his precious Son. God has "laid on him the iniquity of us all", (Is.53:6) and "it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer..." (vs.10) No man ever died so alone. "With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last" (vs.37) and God died! Mark fails to add what Matthew considers worth mentioning that "darkness came over the whole land." (Matt.27:45) Graham Kendrick's song Servant King has this fitting line; "Hands that flung stars into space, to cruel nails surrendered"

Many fail to realize though that what opens that gate for us is not the intensity of this particular death but who it was who died on that day. God died as perfect humanity and became the only one to conquer death. What satisfied God that day was not that the suffering was finally bad enough, but that a perfect lamb was given on behalf of man as a penalty for sin. Jesus took away the finality of death by declaring victory over it. "Death has been swallowed up in victory; 'Where O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God. He gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Cor.15:54-57) Praise be to God. I still don't like death. Neither do I like the cross. But I like what I see beyond it, forb there I see a clear path that leads to the arms of Jesus. My son will be the first of us to take this path and he will be better off for it. I take courage from this!

As the mother's womb holds us for nine months, making us ready, not for the womb itself, but for life, just so, through our lives, we are making ourselves ready for another birth. . . . Therefore, look forward without fear to that appointed hour—the last hour of the body, but not of the soul. . . . That day, which you fear as being the end of all things, is the birthday of your eternity.

-Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 b.c.–a.d. 65)

At death we cross from one territory to another, but we'll have no trouble with visas. Our is already there, preparing for our arrival. As citizens of heaven, our entrance is incontestable. -Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )