The Last Days of Jesus

"Are you still sleeping? Enough! The hour has arrived!" ( Mark 14:41).

In this last of our studies in Mark's gospel, we arrive at the tragic denouement, and surprise ending, of the story. Known in the church as the passion narrative, it is an intensely political drama, filled with conspiratorial back-room deals and covert action, judicial manipulation and prisoner exchanges, torture and summary execution.

Unfortunately, these raw themes tend to be suppressed by our traditional theological interpretations and pious liturgical reproductions of Holy Week—perhaps because these themes are so uncomfortably persistent in the political culture of our modern national security states. Yet we cannot understand the hope this story bears unless we come to terms with its tragedy.

Here Mark's double plotline converges. On the one hand, Jesus' alienation from the authorities, who strenuously oppose his kingdom practice of justice and compassion, reaches its consequence: arrest. On the other, the inability of Jesus' own disciples to understand and embrace his way—a crisis Mark equates with "blindness"—reaches its logical conclusion: desertion.

In Jesus' second apocalyptic sermon (13:3-37), Mark had suspended narrative time and space in order to invite us to consider a vision of the end of the world in which the powers are toppled by the Son of Man (13:24-27). We were exhorted to be ever vigilant for that moment (13:32-37), which Mark now re-enters the "real world" to narrate. That moment will catch us, like the disciples, off guard. We are plunged in 14:1 back into the heart of Jewish time and space: Jerusalem on the high holy days of the Passover. These feast days always occasioned political turmoil in colonial Palestine under the Romans, for it was a time when Jews reflected on the great Exodus story of liberation. So it is that Mark re-introduces the government conspiracy against Jesus in the context of official concern to keep order (14:2).

MARK BEGINS HIS PASSION narrative with two stories which present Jesus as the messianic king: an anointing (14:3-9) and a banquet (14:17-25). Each prepares the reader for the tragic turn the story is about to take, in which the king does not, as was envisioned by patriotic Jews, lead them to military triumph, but rather is defeated.

In an episode that again illustrates the least becoming great, it is a woman who takes the prophetic action of anointing Jesus' head (14:3; see 1 Samuel 10:1; 16:12f.). This act is singularly commendable (14:9) because she, unlike the (still blind) disciples, is not avoiding but anticipating the way of the cross and its consequences.

The authorities then decide to go undercover, recruiting Judas (14:10ff), a strategy intelligible only if Jesus' community has itself gone underground. This is precisely the impression we get from the elaborate instructions given by Jesus to his disciples in 14:12-16: a "runner" leads the fugitive community through the city to a "safe house." There, in an attic, they will celebrate the feast in the manner of the first Passover: eating "as those in flight" (Exodus 12:11).

From the outset this banquet is fraught with anxiety, as Jesus announces that he is aware of the infiltration (14:18), underlining the seriousness of the breach of trust in his allusion to the lament of Psalm 41:9. The community reacts with self-doubt, their solidarity beginning to unravel. The condemnation aimed at Judas, under lucrative contract as an agent (14:21), is a sobering reminder of Jesus' earlier warning: "At what price can one buy back their true self?" (8:37).

Despite all this, Jesus proceeds to affirm his solidarity with these betrayal-bound companions. As he did for the masses in the wilderness (6:41; 8:6), Jesus blesses and breaks the bread, but this time offers it specifically to disciples (14:22). So, too, he passes the cup, in Mark a symbol for suffering at the hands of the powers (compare 10:39; 14:36).

The extraordinary meaning of this ceremony lies in Jesus' interpretation, which he offers in lieu of the traditional Passover homily following the meal. Jesus boldly applies the elements of the meal not to the Exodus story but to himself (14:22, 24). Instead of the traditional eating of lamb, Jesus portrays himself as the "paschal lamb" (Exodus 12), who renews the "blood of the covenant" in his death (Exodus 24:8).

This Messianic banquet radically subverts the temple-based feast of Passover, for Jesus has already repudiated the oppressive temple-state (13:1ff). It expropriates the central cultic myth-ritual of the nation in order to narrate a new center for salvation history: the one who gives his life for the people. Jesus then announces that the feast has become a fast—until justice should reign (14:25; compare 2:21ff). He has overturned the last stronghold of the dominant socio-symbolic authority; in place of official cultus, he offers his "body"—that is, messianic practice in life and death. This implied opposition of temple and body will become explicit in Mark's narrative of Jesus' execution.

THE TRAGIC STORY LINE now approaches its climax in a rapidly escalating series of defections. After the meal, Jesus turns to his disciples and says simply, "You will all fall away" (14:27). He again appeals to Zechariah's shepherd parable (alluded to earlier in 6:34), in which the prophet, despairing over Israel's corrupt leadership, himself becomes "the shepherd of the flock doomed to be slain for those who trafficked in the sheep" (Zechariah 11:7).

As we have come to expect, this dark portent is immediately refuted by Peter (14:29). But as surely as he sets himself apart as the exception, Jesus counters that he above all will characterize the desertion (14:30). Peter's vehement protestations of loyalty (14:31) only deepen the tragedy, for his actions will utterly contradict his words. "They all said the same," says Mark, stressing the whole community's complicity in the delusion.

But the worst is yet to come. Remarkably, Jesus calls one more time for solidarity from his inner circle, withdrawing to pray (14:32ff). The strong language of Jesus' inner turmoil (14:33) is meant to make it clear that he is encountering his destiny not with contemplative detachment, but with genuine human terror. There is no romance in martyrdom—only in martyrologies.

Citing the psalmist's depressed lament (Psalm 42:6), Jesus concedes to his followers that he is profoundly shaken, and exhorts them to watch (14:34). His petitions (13:35) make it clear that the hour spoken of in the apocalyptic parable (13:32-37) is drawing near. Can the disciples stay awake?

They cannot; Mark underscores it three times. Peter earns one more rebuke (14:37f.); the one who moments ago was boasting of his courage does not have the strength (compare 5:4; 9:18) to wrestle with the forces of temptation (compare 1:13; 8:11; 12:15). Prayer is again revealed as the struggle to face both the demons within and the darkness of the historical moment (see 9:28ff), in order to summon the courage to go the way of the cross.

The disciples' eyes remain heavy (blind) as the hour arrives (14:41). With the narrative teetering on the verge of collapse, Jesus turns to face the music that has been playing in the background since the beginning of his ministry. The dialectic of intimacy and betrayal that has laced the passion narrative climaxes in Judas' embrace, and Jesus is seized (14:45ff).

THE ARREST SCENE, it must be said, reeks of the overkill so characteristic of covert state operations against civilian dissidents. The secret signal, the surprise ambush in the dead of night, the heavily armed escort, the instructions for utmost security measures—all imply that the authorities expected armed resistance (14:43ff). Mark's tone, however, condemns not the bystander who does skirmish with the police (14:47), but the sordid character of the whole operation, which provokes the very violence it purports to prevent.

Jesus remarks sarcastically, "So, you have come to arrest me with swords and clubs, as if I were a robber?" (14:48). The reference is to the activity of social banditry in the Palestinian countryside under colonial rule, in which peasant leaders formed guerrilla bands to harass their oppressors in a manner later associated with Robin Hood or Pancho Villa. Jesus, who will in fact be executed between two such robbers (15:27), taunts his captors with the fact that their ambush only unmasks their political weakness: "Every day I was among you in the temple, and you didn't dare seize me!" (14:49).

Jesus then calls upon a higher and deeper authority: the "script" of biblical radicalism (14:49; compare 9:12f.). It is this script that the authorities cannot understand (12:10, 24) and that the disciples cannot follow. It now dawns on the latter that Jesus does not intend to abandon this script, and they flee for their lives (14:50). The sheep have scattered, and the discipleship narrative has come to a grinding halt.

Yet, just as the reader buckles under the weight of this ignominious end, Mark throws us a life line. He has woven into this narrative two hints of reversal. The first came in 14:28, when Jesus turned to Ezekiel's version of the shepherd parable, which spoke not only of scattering but also regathering (Ezekiel 34:11ff). Jesus insists that despite the debacle the journey will continue—a promise we must recall when we come to the end of the story.

Less apparent, but of equal importance for understanding the surprise ending of Mark, is the curious parenthetical comment about the young man who flees with the other disciples, leaving behind a linen cloth (14:51). As will become clear in Mark's second epilogue, the young man fleeing naked symbolizes the shame of the discipleship community, leaving behind the garment which will become the burial wrap of Jesus (15:46). This young man, however, will reappear by Jesus' empty tomb, fully clothed in white robes (16:5). We shall see that this exchange of clothes, as in Jesus' transfiguration (9:3ff), represents both a promise and a challenge to the reader.

But at this point, all we know is that everything has gone sour. The discipleship community, as has so often been the case in the history of the church, has bailed out at the first occasion of conflict with the authorities, its dreams of a new order shattered by the brute force of state power. Jesus, now alone, goes to stand before a kangaroo court with no hope of justice. There his final struggle with the powers will be played out.

God's Kingdom
Mark's trial narrative, it has often been argued, intends to place culpability for Jesus' death squarely on the shoulders of the Jewish high court, the Sanhedrin. Such a reading, however, apart from having been a traditional fountainhead for Christian anti-Semitism, is suspect on both literary and historical grounds.

In occupied Palestine the Jewish colonial government did not have jurisdiction over matters of capital punishment; these had to be turned over to Rome. Our extra-biblical sources make it clear that Pontius Pilate was one of the most ruthless of the Roman procurators; there are no historical grounds for believing that he was anything like a puppet of Jewish leadership. And we must explain why Mark records a change in the charge against Jesus, from blasphemy (14:64) to sedition (15:2), such that he was crucified, a punishment reserved only for those convicted of insurrectionary activity.

A literary analysis of Mark's account reveals that he has constructed a careful parallelism between Jesus' two "trials." Both proceed along the same lines: interrogation, "consultation," and mockery-torture. In each case, the interrogation consists of two prosecutorial challenges. On the one hand, Jesus refuses to respond to the charges against him (14:60ff; 15:4ff); on the other, he returns the sarcasm when his character is impugned:

High Priest: "You are Messiah, Son of the Blessed?"
Jesus: "Am I?" (14:61ff)
Pilate: "You are the king of the Jews?"
Jesus: "You say so." (15:2)

A "consultative verdict" then follows. In the first hearing, the high priest secures the Sanhedrin's approval of a blasphemy conviction (14:63f.); in the second, Pilate "confers" with the crowd, which returns a sentence of death (15:6-15). Finally, Jesus is subjected to ridicule and torture, the common fate of all political prisoners (14:65; 15:16-20).

The double trial strongly suggests that Mark wished to portray the Jewish and Roman powers as fully cooperative in their railroading of Jesus, whom they perceived as a threat to their joint hegemony. Indeed, there are strong elements of political parody in his grimly comic caricature of these proceedings.

The highest Jewish court throws out due process in favor of a rigged hearing. Though they are unsuccessful in coordinating the testimony of hired perjurers, the council's fabricated charge does in fact, accurately reflect their case against Jesus. His repudiation of the temple-state poses a threat to the oppressive system they uphold (14:55-59).

Jesus makes no attempt to refute the charges because he under stands this is a political trial in which legal arguments are gratuitous. In the end, he convicts himself by his subversive confession of the apocalyptic Son of Man (14:62), who has already been revealed in the gospel not only as the one who defies the symbolic order (2:10, 28), but the one who will overthrow the powers (13:26).

Fully conscious of the irony, Mark portrays Pilate as the one who correctly identifies the issue as one of political authority (15:2). But his sardonic "King of the Jews" (as opposed to "King of Israel," compare 15:32), the title given to Roman client-rulers such as Herod, is a contemptuous reminder that the Jewish people are not sovereign in their own land.

Mark's Pilate is a sketch of procuratorial pragmatism at work. In a shrewd public relations ploy aimed at playing the unruly crowd's patriotism off against itself, he grants amnesty to a convicted terrorist (Barabbas) in order to keep Jesus—a deal he would strike only because he understood the latter to be the greater political threat. The cruel ridicule by Pilate's security forces makes the parody complete: Jesus is dressed up in a Roman military cloak and a laurel wreath, symbolizing the very militarism and imperialism he has resisted (15:16-20).

The fickle masses are also part of the farce. They go in a matter of days from hearing gladly Jesus' criticisms of the elite (11:38) to being manipulated by them into lobbying for his demise. Because it is historically inconceivable that Jews would ever have called for the crucifixion of one of their own, it has been suggested that Mark is satirizing the Roman Colosseum tradition, in which the crowd was given the choice as to whether a wounded gladiator (usually a war prisoner or condemned criminal) should live or die.

In this scene the "sheep without a shepherd" (see 6:34) are caught between the conflicting revolutionary claims of the urban guerrilla Barabbas and the Galilean "Messiah" Jesus. It is, of course, only a contrived choice, for in fact those mediating the contest hold actual power and have no intention of giving it up. The tragedy is that the masses again succumb to the will of their political and class opponents (who fear them! 14:2); as a result the status quo—which is to say their domination—remains intact (15:11).

Nor are the disciples spared, for sandwiched between the two trials is the bitterly pathetic cameo of Peter's denial (14:66-72). It is clear that Mark's passion story means to be a dramatic enactment of the central paradox of the gospel: To save one's life is to lose it (8:35). Peter represents disciples whose instincts for self-preservation overcome the call for self-denial (8:34), just as Judas (14:10f.) represents those who "sell out" (8:38).

Only Jesus is unashamed of the Son of Man. The time has arrived to take up the cross.

The Cross
A story that began heralding a way through the wilderness (1:2ff) now ends tragically, on the way of the cross. The cross: In Mark's time it scarcely could have been further from a religious icon. To restive imperial subjects, it conjured the fate awaiting those who dared challenge Caesar's sovereignty. To civilized Hellenists, it was a form of punishment so inhumane that Cicero once urged that it be "banished from the body and life of Roman citizens."

But to Jesus it symbolized the call to and cost of discipleship. And in Mark's story, it is portrayed as the great apocalyptic moment in which the powers are overthrown and the world comes to an end.

Jesus is marched, in the grand tradition of Roman conquest, to the site of execution (15:21-23). His clothes are divided (15:24), the first of three allusions to the great psalm of lament (Psalm 22:18). He is nailed up at the third hour (the first of Mark's three watches of the cross), and left to asphyxiate (15:25).

Gathered at Golgotha as on a tableau are representatives of the whole spectrum of Palestinian politics: the Jewish leadership, the Roman military, guerrilla rebels, the noncommittal bystanders, even a few disciples, watching in horror from afar. And here, at the climax to his story, Mark switches to the historical present tense, drawing the reader into the drama, as if to ask us where we ourselves stand.

For is there not a part of us in each character here? A part that, like the male disciples, is wholly absent from this spectacle, having long ago abandoned Jesus at the first whiff of confrontation? Or a part that, like the women, can only hold a vigil, incredulous and numb with sorrow? Or a part, like Jesus' detractors, that joins in the protest against this ending?

"Who indeed can believe" (Isaiah 53:1) that things have turned out this way? Do we not also long for Elijah to perform an 11th-hour rescue (15:35ff), that the story might come out right? Indeed, we might legitimately approach this cross with all those who have dared hope for a better world—especially those who have been crushed struggling for a justice that seems forever deferred—and demand an explanation. For who of us is prepared to accept that this is the way to liberation?

Jesus is ridiculed by all (15:27-31; see Psalm 22:7ff), yet there is an ironic, imploring tone to the taunt that he save himself. Even his opponents desire a less ignominious end to this tragedy. This thirst for last-minute intervention leads them finally to conjure one up: Jesus' gasp of anguish (15:34; see Psalm 22:1) is misinterpreted as a desperate petition to Elijah, the eschatological prophet who, they believed, would rescue Israel from judgment (see Malachi 4:5ff).

Indeed, their plaintive cry is the pitiful culmination to the struggle for faith that has characterized Mark's story. If only Jesus would come down from the cross so that we might see and believe (15:32)! Yet this is the moment in which our "blindness" will be most consequential, for to understand what happens next—the climax to Mark's apocalyptic war of myths—truly requires eyes to see (see 4:12; 8:18; 10:51).

FROM THE SIXTH to the ninth hour, the sun is darkened (15:33), a sign that recalls when God blotted out the sun for three days over Egypt to aid Moses in his struggle against Pharaoh's imperial order, which was legitimized by the sun god, Ra. But here it symbolizes the unraveling of the whole cosmic order of domination as promised by Jesus: "The sun will be darkened...and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming with great power...." (13:24ff).

We may recall that Jesus had three times portended his death at the hands of the authorities (compare 8:31; 9:31; 10:33; see "Embracing the Way of Jesus," August-September 1987). But he also spoke three times of the advent of the Son of Man, and in each case promised the listener that they would see this moment (8:38ff; 13:26ff; 14:62). Sure enough, Mark has gathered these same witnesses around the cross: the crowd, the authorities, the disciples. But what do they—what do we—see? Is it Jesus defeated, end of story? Or is it the Son of Man revealed, end of world—that is, of the world over which the powers preside?

To help us, Mark gives us a second, more specific and unmistakable, sign. As Jesus' body expires in a great death rattle, Mark reports that the temple curtain is rent in two (15:37ff). This sign confirms the fundamental conflict between Jesus' "body" (symbol of the community of messianic practice, 14:22) and the "sanctuary made with hands" (the legal, cultic, and political system of oppression), to which his opponents had unwittingly testified (14:58). The subversion of the dominant order legitimized by the temple-state is now complete.

The aftermath of Jesus' death provides no immediate evidence that anything has changed, however. Contrary to traditional interpretation, neither the so-called great confession of the centurion (15:39) nor the alleged mercy of the council member Joseph (15:42-46) can be considered discipleship stories.

The Roman soldier remains in his role, which is merely to verify the criminal's death (15:44). His utterance must be considered rather in line with the demons and political opponents, who are forever trying to control Jesus by naming him (1:24; 3:11; 5:7; 6:3; 14:61). In Mark it is only the divine voice that provides a reliable witness to Jesus as "Son" (1:11; 9:7); but at the cross, that voice is conspicuously silent (15:34).

Similarly, Joseph's mission is to beg the body from Pilate (evidence of how firmly in control of events the procurator was), not out of compassion, but in order that the corpse not profane the Sabbath! Joseph hastily wraps Jesus' body (in the linen cloth of betrayal, see 14:51) and puts it in a tomb, disdaining even the most rudimentary obligations of a proper Jewish burial. Like the Romans, the stewards of the Sabbath seem to have had the last word over the Lord of the Sabbath.

It appears, then, that the dominant order has prevailed after all. It was not Elijah who took Jesus from the cross but the Sanhedrin. The rolling of the stone over the tomb symbolically closes the story (15:46). Jesus is dead, the powers have taken over the narrative, and the disciples are nowhere to be seen, except for the women.

The Way of Discipleship
We have arrived at the second epilogue, where, as in 8:11-21 (see "The Miracle of One Loaf," May 1987), Marcan symbolics reach their resolution. The kingdom narrative has collapsed, but again Mark throws us a life line. He shifts the focus to certain women, who "followed Jesus and served him" from Galilee to Jerusalem (15:40ff). That is, unlike the male disciples, they have understood the vocation of service and hence could endure the cross. In the background throughout the story, the women suddenly emerge here as true disciples, offering us a glimmer of hope.

Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome (a counterpart to the male "inner circle" of James, John, and Peter?) reopen the story in 16:1-4 in their attempt to salvage some dignity by reburying Jesus. Joseph's actions are reversed: They buy spices, go to the tomb to properly anoint Jesus, and find the stone rolled away. The story is not closed!

The inertia of the tragic ending is now turned around. Jesus is not where the authorities had placed him, believing that this sordid episode was laid to rest (16:6). The women meet not Jesus but yet another mysterious young man (16:5), and the apocalyptic symbolics proliferate. He is "sitting at the right," the place of true authority, which the male disciples had coveted (10:37; see 12:36; 14:62). And he is "dressed in a white robe," the apparel of martyrdom (9:3; compare Revelation 7:9,13).

The women are deeply troubled to discover from him that the Nazarene—now renamed the "crucified one," the only legitimate discipleship confession—has gone (16:5ff). The young man then issues what is the third and last call to discipleship (16:7; compare 1:17; 8:34).

Mark's resurrection tradition offers no visions of glory or triumph, only the promise that Jesus is still on the road, and that we can see him again in Galilee. And where is Galilee? It is the place where "the disciples and Peter" were first called to follow Jesus. Which is to say, the discipleship narrative is beginning again. The story is circular!

No wonder the women bolt, mute from fear at this realization (16:8). Throughout the gospel, trepidation has accompanied those who journey with Jesus across seas of conflict (4:41; 6:50) and up to Jerusalem (9:32; 10:32). But this last passage is the most fearful of all, for a martyr figure beckons them (and us) to take up the journey afresh—now fully conscious of its cost!

What an ambiguous ending! It leaves us not with a neat resolution but a terrible ultimatum: We can see the risen Jesus only on the way of discipleship. From earliest times this has troubled readers of the gospel, leading to several attempts to append happier conclusions, with a more definitively triumphant resurrection. But the genius of Mark's "incomplete" ending lies precisely in the fact that it demands a response from the reader. The story of discipleship continues, and we cannot remain mere spectators.

THE GREAT PROPHET ISAIAH had promised that one day God would "destroy on this mountain the net that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations" (Isaiah 25:7). According to Mark, that time arrived in the life and practice of Jesus of Nazareth. Writing in the midst of the terrific pressures and suffering generated by the Roman-Jewish war of C.E. 66-70, Mark also understood his own historical situation clearly, and, with Jesus as his compass, took his stand.

Mark's Jesus repudiated the legitimacy of both the Jewish ruling class and Roman imperial oppression. His economic and political critique was sharp and specific, and it demanded that social reconstruction begin from the bottom up. Jesus' vision of inclusiveness and equality questioned all forms of political and personal domination.

This Jesus called for a revolution of means as well as ends, enjoining his followers to a practice of militant nonviolence and its consequences. Above all he relied on the contradiction of the cross—life given, not taken—as the only power that could remove the "veil" maintained by the powers over the nations.

Mark's gospel was, and remains today, a manifesto for radical discipleship. In our world, Isaiah's "net over all peoples" has become a noose, and the deadly logic of domination is pushing history into a cul-de-sac. Do we Christians believe Mark's story enough to assume an equally clear stand in this hour? We too are called to row against the storms of class and race oppression (6:48), to "give the hungry something to eat" (6:37), and to preach and cast out demons (3:14ff). It is up to us to carry on Jesus' challenge to the "mountains" (11:23) of institutionalized violence and injustice today.

Will we respond to this call? If we are honest, we will admit that the cross is so intimidating, and our blindness so pervasive, that we can only answer, "We believe; help us in our unbelief!" (9:24). We are somewhere between the young man who flees naked and the young man clothed in martyr's garb. Even our best efforts at faithfulness inevitably seem to founder upon betrayal and desertion—our own, and that of our friends.

But all that is part of the story, too. Indeed, it is at the point of facing not only death but the less ultimate tragedies of failure and disillusionment that the call comes again. It is then that our discipleship journey, like Mark's story, either truly ends or truly begins.

Ched Myers was a regional program director for the American Friends Service Committee when this article appeared.