O2272021 – Mk 8.31-38 Lent 2B
The disciples and those people listening to Jesus…
Would have heard “things” differently than WE DO TODAY.
When JESUS spoke about “taking up your cross, and following him,” they knew EXACTLY what he was referring to…
Their IMAGES would have been engrained in their “collective consciousness.”
“NEVER FORGET” is NOT something that was JUST SAID after the Holocaust or 911.
Those self-same words have been repeated many times throughout human history. NEVER AGAIN! NEVER FORGET! Never…
So, when YOU hear those words, about picking up your cross…something tells me…you think ONLY ABOUT JESUS. THEY WOULD NOT!
Just a little bit of history can serve as a quick reminder…
This comes to us by way of the Jewish Historian, Flavius Jospehus, who wrote a 20 volume historio-graphical work in Greek around the year 93 or 94 of the Common Era.
Crucifixion was of course a “barbarous punishment” that the Romans had DESIGNED for any and all trouble makers, the underclass and for slaves.
What we tend to forget in thinking about “Jesus’ death” is that HIS was ONLY ONE…….“of a-GREAT-MANY.”
In 4 B.C. for example, (around the time of Jesus’ birth), a good number of nationalistic Jews used the death of “HEROD THE GREAT as an EXCUSE to “RISE IN REVOLT” against the Romans with the idea of driving them all out —ONCE AND FOR ALL…
The Romans predictably STRUCK BACK with a VENGEANCE.
When the thousands of rebels FLED into the country, the Roman general VARUS HUNTED THEM DOWN.
The first-century Jewish historian Josephus tells it to us this way:
“Upon this, Varus sent a part of his army into the country, to seek out those that had been the AUTHORS of the revolt;
-and when they were discovered, he PUNISHED some of them that were MOST guilty, and some he DISMISSED:
-now the number of those that were CRUCIFIED “on this account” were TWO THOUSAND.
WHEN …two thousand of your fellow countrymen are crucified at one time…it is something you DO NOT FORGET…ever!
Now that would provide a VIVID set of MEMORIES for anyone..MEMORIES that would NEVER be forgotten.
Remember too that the Romans used crucifixion as a means of “quelling rebellion” IN ADVANCE and made “a GREAT SHOW” of the PUBLIC HUMILIATION and pre-crucifixion TORTURE – it is ONLY in religious art – that those on the Cross were allowed the DIGNITY of clothing.
The crosses of POTENTIAL or ACTUAL REBELS would be placed alongside PUBLIC ROADS where the NAKED BODIES would continue to hang for some time as A VISUAL WARNING.
Until such time as they FELL AWAY from their crosses and became food for ravenous feral dogs…and birds of prey.
Mark was writing just BEFORE or shortly THEREAFTER the total disaster of yet —“another FAILED rebellion.”
Something like 70 years after the first POST-HEROD-REBELLION, in Jerusalem and nearby Judea, THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS rose in revolt against the occupying Romans.
Initially with numbers on their side it looked as if THE REBELS would PREVAIL. Rome sent an army, beat them back and THEN BESIEGED JERUSALEM.
HUNDREDS attempted to escape and were shown NO MERCY.
AGAIN, the historian Josephus claimed “that 500-A-DAY were first whipped then tortured in the most public fashion and finally CRUCIFIED outside the walls of the city.
The Roman general TITUS, perhaps sickened by the SYSTEMIC CRUELITY continuing DAY after DAY, at least EXPRESSED PITY, yet clearly “BELIEVING” that only AN EXTREME EXAMPLE would totally extinguish the rebellion, he allowed it TO CONTINUE to its inevitable conclusion.”
PICK UP YOUR CROSS was not an idle threat. For some, it was a real possibility. IT WAS NOT A METAPHOR. BUT A REALITY. A REAL POSSIBILITY.
UNCLES, FATHERS, COUSINS, EVEN GRANDFATHERS, BROTHERS, SONS AND GRANDSONS, all GONE.
His words left behind images of inhumane suffering and horrific death…there was a reality behind these words, a possibility…
I wonder “how many” followers he picked up…that day?
Amen.