TGBC end of the horror
TGBC Wednesday, March 28
Luke 23:44-56
It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’
Having said this, he breathed his last. When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, ‘Certainly this man was innocent.’ And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
Now there was a good and righteous man named Joseph, who, though a member of the council, had not agreed to their plan and action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea, and he was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down,
wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments.
On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
Comment. What Jesus says on the cross varies from one gospel to the next. Let us say this is because each gospel writer, none of them having been an eyewitness and all writing decades later, reported what had come to him in oral traditions about Jesus that spread in the developing early church, and that all this varied depending on whose memory was being searched.
In my opinion, the acclamation of the Roman centurion in charge of crucifixions that day seems to have more significance for Mark than above for Luke. Luke simply has the centurion say Jesus was innocent. In Mark’s story, and key and climax to Mark’s agenda, that no one around Jesus recognizes and realizes who he is from beginning to end (even “Peter’s Confession” in Mark is limited), no one except the demons, until at last a total outsider gentile enemy, the centurion at Calvary, utters, “Ἀληθῶς οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος υἱὸς θεοῦ ἦν” - - “truly this man was God’s Son,” or “… was Son of God,” which drives Mark’s entire gospel.
Joseph of Arimathea, we know the story.
I am not sure that Luke, perhaps not a Jew but a gentile writing his researched account for Theophilus, actually knows that “the Day of Preparation” not unlikely meant the day of preparation for the Passover, when the lambs were slaughtered as GospelJohn has it, instead of preparation for the Sabbath as Luke has it, but I’m not certain of anything. Your opinion is as valid as mine: what do you think?
Luke 23:44-56
It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’
Having said this, he breathed his last. When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, ‘Certainly this man was innocent.’ And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
Now there was a good and righteous man named Joseph, who, though a member of the council, had not agreed to their plan and action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea, and he was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down,
wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments.
On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
Comment. What Jesus says on the cross varies from one gospel to the next. Let us say this is because each gospel writer, none of them having been an eyewitness and all writing decades later, reported what had come to him in oral traditions about Jesus that spread in the developing early church, and that all this varied depending on whose memory was being searched.
In my opinion, the acclamation of the Roman centurion in charge of crucifixions that day seems to have more significance for Mark than above for Luke. Luke simply has the centurion say Jesus was innocent. In Mark’s story, and key and climax to Mark’s agenda, that no one around Jesus recognizes and realizes who he is from beginning to end (even “Peter’s Confession” in Mark is limited), no one except the demons, until at last a total outsider gentile enemy, the centurion at Calvary, utters, “Ἀληθῶς οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος υἱὸς θεοῦ ἦν” - - “truly this man was God’s Son,” or “… was Son of God,” which drives Mark’s entire gospel.
Joseph of Arimathea, we know the story.
I am not sure that Luke, perhaps not a Jew but a gentile writing his researched account for Theophilus, actually knows that “the Day of Preparation” not unlikely meant the day of preparation for the Passover, when the lambs were slaughtered as GospelJohn has it, instead of preparation for the Sabbath as Luke has it, but I’m not certain of anything. Your opinion is as valid as mine: what do you think?