To return to those tricky Markan passages, few passages have caused theologians such difficulty as Jesus’ last dying words in Mark (and Matthew). For trinitarian Christians, it seems to be beyond paradoxical for God the Father to forsake God the Son on the cross. Before I look at how exegetes or systematic theologians have dealt with the passage, first I want to look at a few examples of the role it has played in popular Christian worship songs.
Although both songs are surprisingly packed in with a lot of theology when one compares them to much of contemporary popular Christian music, they both read what transpired at the crucifixion through a particular lens. Specifically, the songs seem to advocate a penal substitution view where Jesus took on the sins of the world upon himself and became the recipient of divine wrath and the Father literally “turned his face away.” Since my area of expertise is not in systematic theology I welcome the contributions of theologians in the comments section (do you believe this was a literal separation of Father and Son or more how Jesus felt with raw human emotion and, if the former, how does that not affect the unity of the Trinity or slide into tritheism? – Update: for a canonical-systematic theological treatment of the issue check out this book review by Abram K-J). However, while I believe this later theological reflection is perfectly legitimate, I also think if we want to try to get at how Mark would have been heard by its intended audience we need to be careful to not impose later categories from Nicea when doing exegesis. So just some notes…
- In Mark 15:34 Jesus cries out “E’lo-i, E’lo-i, lema sabachthani?’ (ελωι ελωι λεμα σαβαχθανι) which Mark translates “my God, my God why have you forsaken me.” The mocking bystanders mishear this as a cry for Elijah, assuming Jesus was invoking the eschatological coming of Elijah (cf. Mal 4:5) to deliver him. Those without ears to hear sets up another scene of Markan irony, for Elijah had already come (John the Baptist) and they mistakenly believe that if Jesus really was special he would be divinely rescued from the cross.
- Matthew 27:46 changes Jesus address from Aramaic to Hebrew (ηλι ηλι) (eli, eli), perhaps to make it easier to see the confusion about Elijah (?), but retains the translation that Jesus cries out about being forsaken by God. Yet Luke omits the line and puts in its place a much more trusting sentiment as Jesus commits his spirit to God (Lk 23:46). John may or may not know Mark but he also does not have the words, opting instead for Jesus to announce that it has been accomplished (John 19:30). The Akhmim fragment (Gos Peter?), which again is widely debated if it is dependent on the Synoptics Passion Narrative or develops shared oral/written traditions in its own way, has Jesus cry “my power, you have forsaken me” (5:19). This may be seen as docetic (i.e. Jesus only “seemed” human) (see Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.12.1-6 on bishop Serapion’s later judgment on it) or fits in with the complaints of some heresiologists about groups who divide the spiritual Christ from the human Jesus, yet ”power” may also just be a circumlocution for “God.”
- This leads to the last question. Do you think in Mark this should be interpreted as another cry of an innocent victim facing the horrors of crucifixion and lamenting about how God has abandoned him to this fate? Or do you think this should be interpreted with reference to the Psalm as a whole, where Mark intends Jesus to have fulfilled the entire pattern of the Psalm of the innocent righteous one who will be vindicated in the end?
I am not going to postulate that Jesus may have said that, but rather these so-called final words seem to me fairly representative of what some early followers might have thought of Jesus (which would corroborate my view of the historical Jesus BTW): Jesus, thought to to be the Chosen One (alias king of the Jews when the Kingdom comes), therefore believed protected by God, unexpectedly was put to death.
No prediction by Jesus he would suffer & die then resurrect after 3 days: that was invented later …
Somehow, those words got heard by Mark’s community, were believed true by many, and “Mark” had to incorporate them in his gospel for sake of bringing an air of authenticity, even if that conflicted with the predicted passion & resurrection.
Thanks Bernard, it is a good point that it seems unlikely that Jesus made the 3 explicit passion predictions as recorded in Mark when it seems to have come as such a shock to his followers so that may be read back post-Easter. So it is possible that, as you say, Jesus “unexpectedly was put to death” and therefore this was a cry of dispair that he was not delivered nor had the kingdom come. However, it is possible that the historical Jesus could have anticipated his martyrdom (like the Maccabean martyrs or John the Baptist) as part of the tribulation preceding the coming of the kingdom (see Scott McKnight, Dale Alison, Maurice Casey). So if the fate of martyrdom was not completely unanticipated, could Jesus, or at least how Mark portrays him, be experiencing a moment of doubt and second-guessing the divine purposes when faced with the horrors of crucifixion?
The Passion Narrative is perhaps my favorite aspect of New Testament studies and this episode certainly lends itself to much fascinating debate and speculation. So as far as my interpretation of Mark’s account of the Passion goes I would have to answer that I am in deep agreement with Dale Allison and Raymond Brown. The Passion narrative is deeply colored with apocalyptic imagery and language, hence the darkness, the cry of despair, and the rendering of the temple sanctuary’s veil. So with that aside I think much can be learned from Raymond Brown’s discussion of Jesus’s cry of despair. It is hard to see how Eloi could be mistaken for Elijah in both Aramaic and Hebrew. One would have to ask however if Mark or his audience would have been in any position to know about the correct rendering of Elijah’s name. So I personally don’t think that devoting countless hours to tackling the Eloi/Elijah issue from a linguistic standpoint promises much results. It would seem to me that hearing Jesus’ call for Eloi mistaken as a call for Elijah has to do with Mark’s apocalyptic framework. As it is very plausible, in my judgement, that Mark’s depiction of the onlookers/blasphemers was colored by the early Christian and Jewish expectation for the Elijah’s return.
As for why the crowd offers Jesus wine, I am not entirely sure. It made sense the first time around as it could legitimately be interpreted as part of Jesus’ trials on the cross, think of the tribulation. But the second time around it comes across as akward as far as the context goes.
So in the end I am content to interpret the various episodes on the cross through an apocalyptic framework, more specifcally through the tribulation/final test. Jesus’ cry is certainly shocking to those accustomed to picturing Jesus’ final moments on earth as some serene or triumphant event but I personally feel that Mark’s testimony is a needed correction for modern Christian’s who need to be shaken from their complacency and tendency to see discipleship as something easy or as a garunteed way to wiggle out of life’s trials or uncertainties. Which brings me to say something that I am always fond of telling my fellow Catholic, if God made it so that his only son would die then what makes you think that he has anything pleasant in mind for you? This of course is a joke but one that I think has much truth in it albeit for reasons different from my teasing portrayal of the Almighty.
Anyway, I myself, as a relatively orthodox
Roman Catholic, don’t feel the need to explain away the text. It’s very beautiful and inspiring and it consoles me in a strange sort of way.
So I doubt that Mark intended for
his audiences to hear Jesus’ death cry as a cry of victory, he may have quoted the beginning of the psalm, a psalm that ends on a
high note, but if he wanted his listeners to think that Jesus saw his demise positively than quoting the most despairing verse from the psalm is a strange way to do it , afterall Luke and John quote the most trusting and serene verses from their psalms, why could not Mark?
As far as how I square my theology with this, I would answer that like all of us at one time or another Jesus felt abandoned by God and in a way totally within the confines of faith expressed his disillusionment with God’s silence. But I think that God is always with us, even if we have a hard time seeing it and so unlike Moltman I don’t see this cry of despair as a fracture within the Trinity.
Thanks Brian, it is hard to disagree with scholars like Dale Alison and Raymond Brown. I agree on the apocalyptic imagery in the crucifixion, though perhaps some details may just be for the historical versimilitude (the wine you mention), and that the lament of Jesus in Mark should be understood as literally as possible without trying to remove some of the suffering by appealing to the happy ending of the Psalm.
I see literary concerns, irony and reversals, as paramount in interpreting this.
Mark’s Passion is constructed out of details from Psalm 22, so it’s a literary reversal; the first despairing line concludes the episode. I think we’re meant to remember Jesus’s words at 8:35-6, and the conclusion at 8:38, too, if we were inclined to be “ashamed” of his dying “words” (I’m looking at you, Luke). And I do think that we are to take Jesus’s abandonment quite literally. We are meant to understand that here at the last the spirit which possessed Jesus at the baptism truly does abandon him, for if it were not so then his sacrifice would not be complete. If he is not truly forsaken, then his exaltation has no force.
As for the passerby and their confusion between Jesus addressing his father and calling for Elijah to save him, it’s classic Markan irony. They mockingly wonder whether Elijah will come and “take him down” when the cosmic reality is that Jesus’s trajectory is up, to the right hand of the Father in Heaven. Uprightness, being “lifted up,” is a symbolic marker of the indwelling of the Spirit throughout the gospel, and this theme culminates here but of course the crowd does not understand, assuming that Jesus would want to “save his life” (8:35-6 again).
Thanks C.J. for passing along these comments and interesting connections you make (e.g., about going up or down). Also interesting that you read it as suggesting that the spirit that indwelled Jesus from the baptism as literally abandoning him – one might object that this reads too much into a common lament of yet another innocent martyr, but this does sound similar to my comments about certain adoptionist readings known to Irenaeus and later heresiologists (possibly the view of the Gospel of Peter?).
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