Thursday, April 24

To listen to the audio version, click here. 

Oh yeah, by the way…He is still risen!

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.  The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said,  “Surely this man was the Son of God!”   - Mark 15:37-39

Mark doesn’t use a lot of words to tell us what is going on, but there is a lot of meaning packed into those few words.  The moment that Jesus dies, the temple curtain is torn from top to bottom.  Keep in mind that this temple curtain was no flimsy drapery, it was not a shower curtain.  The curtain which separated the Holy of Holies was heavy and thick, almost as substantial as a wall.  According to the Rabbis the curtain was a handbreadth in thickness, and woven of seventy-two twisted plaits, each plait consisting of twenty-four threads.  It was sixty feet long and thirty wide.  Two of them were made every year, and according to the Talmud, it needed three hundred priests to manipulate it.  The holy of holies symbolized the very presence of God and only the High Priest could enter there once a year on Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement).  The people depended on the High Priest to make the acceptable sacrifices for their sins.  Look at what the writer of Hebrews has to say about how Jesus Christ has changed our access to God by His death on the Cross.

Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.  Such a high priest meets our need — one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.  Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.  – Hebrews 7:25-27

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith,  
- Hebrews 10:19-22

Jesus is our High Priest!
The Temple is His Body!
The massive curtain that kept us out has been removed!
The perfect sacrifice has been made!
We can come in now with confidence and assurance!
Do you grasp that?  We can come in!

Right here in this passage, Mark shows us the first person to “enter in” after the crucifixion.  His confession, “Surely this man was the son of God” is momentous because the very first line in the first chapter of Mark refers to Jesus this way, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  (Mark 1:1)  Up to this point, nobody had yet figured out just who Jesus really was.  Even Peter’s profession of Jesus as the Christ (Mark 8:29) proved to be a partial understanding until after the resurrection.  The first person to “get it” was a Roman Centurion!?  

The only person a good Roman would ever call the “Son of God” was Caesar himself, but this man gave that title to Jesus.  This Centurion would have been a hardened and brutal man, used to seeing blood and death.  But something about the death of Jesus so deeply impacted him that he was moved to confess the deity of Christ.  The Centurion had seen it all.  The loud cry of Jesus is unusual because victims of crucifixion usually have no strength left, especially when near death.  But Jesus’ death was no ordinary one, nor was his shout the last gasp of a dying man.  It was not a cry of defeat, but a shout of victory.  At the beginning of the crucifixion he was an unbeliever.  But he heard Jesus pray for him,  “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

It really is amazing to think about the fact Jesus’ disciples, who had been told by Jesus repeatedly that this would happen, were confused and they all fled in fear.  The religious leaders and teachers of the law, who studied the Scriptures daily, rejected the Son of God as they stood mocking Him in the crowd.  It is a pagan Roman soldier (and a dying thief) who “gets it” and “gets in”!  

Nobody is beyond the love of God!  Whoever you are, wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done…The love and forgiveness of God is available to you through Jesus Christ!  His death has paid for your sin, and his resurrection from the dead promises you eternal life!

Jeff Frazier