Mark 15: The Torn Curtain
· #gospels #mark
✝ Passage: Mark 15
Pilate seems to genuinely want an exit. He asks the crowd if they want Barabbas — a known insurrectionist and murderer — released instead of Jesus, apparently expecting the obvious answer (15:9-11). The crowd, stirred up by the chief priests, chooses the murderer. Mark doesn’t editorialize; he just lets the choice stand as its own commentary on what “guilty” and “innocent” mean once a crowd decides them.
Read it in the terminal:
bible mark 15
Mockery, dressed as royalty
The soldiers dress Jesus in purple, twist a crown from thorns, and kneel in fake homage (15:17-19) — cruelty performed as theater, mocking the very kingship the rest of the Gospel has been quietly building toward. The irony is thick enough that Mark doesn’t need to point it out.
The cry from the cross
At the ninth hour, Jesus cries out in Aramaic, and Mark preserves both the original words and the translation, as if the moment demanded precision:
“‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which is, being interpreted, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” — Mark 15:34
It is the rawest line in the Gospel — no theological cushion, just the honest cost of what’s happening.
A curtain, and a soldier’s confession
At the moment of death, the temple curtain tears top to bottom (15:38) — a barrier that had separated ordinary people from the innermost holy space, undone the instant Jesus dies. A Roman centurion, of all people, says what none of the religious leaders will:
“Truly this man was the Son of God!” — Mark 15:39
Questions for study
- The crowd chooses Barabbas over Jesus when both options are laid out plainly. What does that choice reveal about crowds — and about you?
- The mockery ironically dresses Jesus as exactly what he is. Where do you see truth showing through mockery or misunderstanding?
- Why might Mark preserve the cry of abandonment rather than smoothing it into something more comfortable?
- The curtain tears, and an outsider makes the confession insiders wouldn’t. What does that pairing suggest about who recognizes God?