TGBC Friday, 12 Feb 2021. Mark 15:1-15. What's going on here?
Scoring us for our vanity and pride, Marcus Aurelius says that after death, what we have been and done, our fame or infamy, our reputation, good or bad, is worthless, has no value to us as the dead, no effect, benefit or disadvantage; and is remembered no longer than a generation or so by those who live on after us. Then as that generation passes, Time moves on, relegating us to its past, forgetting us as if we had never existed.
Still, I wonder what if anything Pontius Pilate might have done differently if he could have looked two thousand years into the future to see himself still reviled for his trial, scourging, condemnation, and execution of Jesus. IDK.
Also, comparing Mark's and Matthew's account of Jesus' trial before Pilate, I wonder why Matthew so embellishes Mark's simple and straightforward account (both below, scroll down), and goes to lengths to assign Jewish accountability, blame for the trial, torture, and execution that we call the passion of the Christ. Some scholars, I think Raymond Brown is one, speculate that what Matthew adds has to do with the Jewish sense of blood sacrifice required for sin - - in this case, specifically with Jewish self-examining and self-recriminating anguish about why God punished Israel by bringing on the Roman's 70 AD destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. (this is common in Jewish Heilsgeschichte, Joshua, Judges and the prophets witness God's bringing in enemies to punish Israel for sin).
Just so then, writing after Mark (65-70 AD?), it is suggested that Matthew (80-90 AD?) took up the Jewish self-recrimination to the effect that the Judeans' execution of the Son of God caused God's wrath to come down on them and allow the destruction; and so Matthew's account of the passion adds details that shift the blame (which actually was the Romans') squarely onto the Jews (Judeans). Does this suit Matthew's agenda of establishing the Jews' sin in rejecting Jesus (a charge that has caused cruel persecution with untold suffering by the Jewish people over the Christian ages)?
Answering my own question of "Why?", Matthew does this to deter the members of his Jewish-Christian church from leaving the church, abandoning Christ; a problem that he was facing that stirs his agenda in the first place.
Further to that line of contemplation, I was taken with Anu Garg's A.Word.A.Day posting this morning, not so much today's disgusting word as today's disturbing thought:
I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. -Charles Darwin, naturalist and author (12 Feb 1809-1882) [Ichneumonidae: The family of parasitic wasps that deposit eggs inside or on top of the larvae of other insects. Once hatched, the ichneumonid larva slowly eats its host alive from inside out.] - -
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- - which, like it or not, goes to the heart of the theodicy question: that a perfect, good, almighty, and all-knowing God permits evil and suffering; even, as above, designs it into creation.
Darwin's point about Ichneumonidae in caterpillar larvae can be extended pointedly to religious systems of sacrifice, blood sacrifice, including human sacrifice, creation in which the Creator requires sacrifice, a God who requires sacrifice. We deplore pagan worship that appeases the deity with child sacrifice as having God unspeakably wrong. In Jerusalem, the Temple was the place of sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin, including blood sacrifice of animals: did the Temple Jews have God wrong?
Further to the point: contemplating early Jewish-Christians understanding, and Matthew working with, the massacre of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple as having been God's rage for the passion of the Christ, and from Paul, developing Christian theology of blood atonement, understanding the crucifixion of Christ on Calvary as having been the only acceptable sacrifice to God for the forgiveness of human sin - - is inarguably of one piece with an answer to the theodicy question: do we understand God rightly after all?
... didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption ... a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world ...
Surfaces in my mind this morning, my theology professor's central question, "Who or What is God?"
Mark 15
Berea Study Bible [Online]
Jesus Delivered to Pilate
(Matthew 27:1–2)
1 Early in the morning, the chief priests, elders, scribes, and the whole Sanhedrin a devised a plan. They bound Jesus, led Him away, and handed Him over to Pilate.
2 So Pilate questioned Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?”
“You have said so,” Jesus replied.
3 And the chief priests began to accuse Him of many things.
4 Then Pilate questioned Him again, “Have You no answer? Look how many charges they are bringing against You!”
5 But to Pilate’s amazement, Jesus made no further reply.
6 Now it was Pilate’s custom at the feast to release to the people b a prisoner of their choosing. 7 And a man named Barabbas was imprisoned with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection. 8 So the crowd went up and began asking Pilate to keep his custom.
9 “Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” Pilate asked. 10 For he knew it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over.
11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas to them instead.
12 So Pilate asked them again, “What then do you want me to do with the One you call the King of the Jews?”
13 And they shouted back, “Crucify Him!”
14 “Why?” asked Pilate. “What evil has He done?”
But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify Him!”
15 And wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed Him over to be crucified.
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11 Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor, who questioned Him: “Are You the King of the Jews?”
“You have said so,” Jesus replied.
12 And when He was accused by the chief priests and elders, He gave no answer.
13 Then Pilate asked Him, “Do You not hear how many charges they are bringing against You?”
14 But Jesus gave no answer, not even to a single charge, much to the governor’s amazement.
15 Now it was the governor’s custom at the feast to release to the crowd a prisoner of their choosing. 16 At that time they were holding a notorious prisoner named Barabbas. b 17 So when the crowd had assembled, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” 18 For he knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him.
19 While Pilate was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent him this message: “Have nothing to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered terribly in a dream today because of Him.”
20 But the chief priests and elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus put to death.
21 “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor.
“Barabbas,” they replied.
22 “What then should I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” Pilate asked.
They all answered, “Crucify Him!”
23 “Why?” asked Pilate. “What evil has He done?”
But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify Him!”
24 When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but that instead a riot was breaking out, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood, c” he said. “You bear the responsibility.”
25 All the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”
26 So Pilate released Barabb as to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed Him over to be crucified.
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Reminder, that I'm dealing with The Good Book Club reading of the Gospel according to Mark as we would in our adult Sunday School class.
Art: Bosch again, Jesus before Pilate