Suffer, Die and Rise Again — Mark 8:27-35 and 9:30-37

There is little detail or description about crucifixion as capital punishment in ancient texts. German historian of religion Martin Hengel, in his extensive survey of ancient sources, said that the only detailed account of a crucifixion was in The Histories by Herodotus writing about Artaÿctes, a local ruler: “They nailed him to planks and hung him there. And they stoned Artaÿctes’s son before his eyes.” A few more descriptions come from Roman times but Hengel wrote that “the passion narratives in the Gospels are in fact the most detailed of all. No ancient writer wanted to dwell too long of this cruel procedure.”

Christian Devotion

In the four Gospels and throughout the New Testament, the death of Jesus is always associated with his resurrection. However, Christian tradition has emphasised his suffering and death. Popular piety grew up centring only on the suffering and death of Jesus without including the resurrection. This obscures the truth that it is the Risen One who was present in the communities from which the Gospels arose and who is risen Christ among us today.

Gerard Sloyan in The Crucifixion of Jesus: History, Myth, Faith provides an overview of the history of the unity of death and resurrection and how the two became separated. He explores two significant questions. How did the mystery of the cross become so separated from the mystery of the resurrection? And, what happened to the declaration, so clear in the New Testament, that “Christ, once raised from the dead is never to die again: he is no longer under the dominion of death” (Romans 6:9).

Death-Resurrection

Many marriage partners hyphenate their surnames as a way to emphasise their individual identity and their unity as a couple. Similarly, we can emphasise the unity of the mystery of the cross and the mystery of resurrection by hyphenating the two terms. I learnt this practice from Raymond Collins’ writing about passion-resurrection and crucifixion-glorification in John’s Gospel. I’ve adopted the practice to hyphenate death-resurrection and I think it can be applied to the whole of the New Testament.

In Mark 8:27-35 and 9:30-37 Jesus refers to his death-resurrection. The closeness of death-resurrection is clear when we look into the context of Mark’s Gospel.

People “Raised Up” in Their Households

At the tomb, the women are told that Jesus “has been raised” (egeiro, Mk 16:6). The verb egeiro hints that a more-than-human force has been at work and it describes God’s response to the suffering and death of Jesus. It is used to describe what happened to several characters within a household (oikos).

The term oikos referred to the household of an extended family in Jesus’s time. Jesus visited a household where he raised up (egeiro Mk 1:31) and healed the mother-in-law of Peter and she began to minister. Jesus returned to Capernaum where the man who was paralysed is “raised up” (egeiro Mk 2:9,11,12), healed and told to go to his household. At the synagogue leader’s household, his daughter is “raised up” (egeiro Mk 5:41, NRSV “get up”).

On the Sabbath in the synagogue, Jesus said to the man with the withered hand: “Rise up” (egeiro Mk 3:3, NRSV “Come forward”). On the roadside, Bartimaeus who is blind is told “rise up” (egeiro). Bartimaeus rises up (anistēmi) and follows Jesus “on the way” to Jerusalem (Mk 10:46-52). Jesus himself is forming a new household of God where all are welcome.

Forty years later in the Roman Empire, Christians gathered for worship in large households where they were to “raise up” one another to follow Jesus. And today we are “raised up” to live the death-resurrection of Jesus in our households of parishes, neighbourhoods and in our ever-new household of God, the church.

Formation of Disciples

The end of Jesus’s ministry in Galilee (Mk 1:14-8:30) comes to a climax when Peter declares of Jesus: “You are the Messiah” (Mk 8:29). Immediately, Jesus sets out with his disciples “on the way to Jerusalem” (Mk 8:31-10:52). The focus during “the way” is on the disciples’ formation. At the centre of both Mark’s Gospel and this journey to Jerusalem is the transfiguration of Jesus (Mk 9:2-10). Before and after his transfiguration, Jesus speaks three times of his coming death-resurrection.

In Mark 8:31 we read: “Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering … and be killed, and after three days rise [anistēmi] again.” Then, Jesus “called the crowd with his disciples and said to them: ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’” (Mk 8:34).

Transfiguration

Six days later, Jesus takes Peter, James and John with him to a high mountain where he “was transfigured before them.” The transfiguration reveals that the whole story is the cross-plus-transfiguration. God’s creative power transforms and transfigures suffering humanity into persons of radiant joy.

After Jesus’s transfiguration, Jesus and the disciples continue their journey to Jerusalem. In Mark 9:31, Jesus for the second time speaks of his death-resurrection and then again for a third time in Mark 10:34.

Our Religious Imagination

Images of the cross and crucifixes displaying a Jesus as dead are prominent in Catholic churches. Such images bolster a piety divorced from Jesus’s death-resurrection as depicted in the New Testament and in the art of early Christianity. Gerard Sloyan’s research traces how the artistic trend of the cross alone developed over the Christian centuries and continues to influence the Christian imagination in our time.

In early Christian art there are depictions of Jesus, but the symbol of the cross that is familiar to us was rare. There are a few in the catacombs. When Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire, Christ was portrayed as a royal, even superhuman figure. If the cross is imaged, it is jewelled or burnished gold. For example in the 6th-century Ravenna mosaics, the face of Jesus is often at the centre. Jesus is depicted on the cross, but not as a suffering or dead figure. He is presented as clothed and risen (see Tui Motu, March 2024, p25).

In some places influenced by Post-Vatican II aggornimento there is emerging a retrieval of the scriptural and theological understandings of death-resurrection of Christ in God’s household. Instead of using a “traditional” crucifix, some church buildings have hung one which depicts Jesus as the Risen One with the cross in the background.

In 1991 Pope John Paul II recommended that the devotion of the Stations of the Cross which used to end with Jesus’s burial be extended to include the resurrection. This aligned the popular devotion with Scripture by including the resurrection and post-resurrection scenes.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 296 September 2024: 22-23