This Is Some Rescue - Mark 15:22-32 Series

Mark 15:21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was pass-ing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. 22 They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). 23 Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24 And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. 25 It was the third hour when they crucified him. 26 The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. 27 They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. 28 29 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "So! You who are going to de-stroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 come down from the cross and save yourself!" 31 In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! 32 Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him. 33 At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Introduction

What Is a Savior?

The Bible is full of promises that God will deliver you from trouble. God is our pro-tector, our refuge, our shelter, our deliverer, our savior.

Psalm 50:15 Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you.

That’s how it’s supposed to work. But can you really count on that promise? Why are there so many times when you call out in the day of trouble and he doesn’t deliver you? You beg God for help, and things only get worse?

We understand that there are times when God has to allow a hardship to continue for various reasons. But so often that seems to be the rule rather than the exception. God said to call on him in the day of trouble and he would rescue us, but if he only answers that prayer 10% of the time, how can we take comfort in those promises of deliverance? What does it mean, exactly, when God says he is our savior?

In the crucifixion account, Mark is teaching us all about exactly who Jesus is to us. In the trials, Mark said, “Here, let me introduce you to Jesus the prophet.” Then Jesus the Messiah. Then Jesus the Son of God. And then last week, Jesus the King. Now one more. After Jesus is put up on the cross, Mark says, “Let me introduce you to Jesus the Savior.” And he’s going to teach us some things about our concept of saving and God’s concept of saving.

At Golgotha

The Skull

We left off last time with Simon carrying the cross, which was a walking parable of what it looks like to be a Christian.

22 They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull).

That’s where you have to go if you follow Jesus—the place of the skull. And you don’t need a Bible background encyclopedia to know what that means. Skulls have to do with death. Pirates flew skull and crossbones flags as a symbol of terror. We use it to warn about deadly poison. People use skull decorations on Halloween, when the objective is to scare people. No matter what century you’re in or what culture you’re in, it’s a symbol of death. So they take Jesus to the skull and crossbones place—a place of death, execution, and for the Jew, the worst kind of uncleanness.

By the way, Golgotha is Aramaic. The Greek word is kranion, and the Latin transla-tion is Calvary. We use the Latin word more than the Aramaic because of our songs. Cal-vary rhymes with a lot more words than Golgotha. And Calvary Church sounds a little more inviting than Golgotha Church. But that word really isn’t supposed to sound inviting. It should sound terrifying.

There are traditions on the location of Golgotha, but we don’t know where it was. All we know is it was along a busy roadway and was outside the city gate.

Outside the Camp

And Mark says they led him “out” there. That’s significant because if you look up the phrase “outside the camp,” it comes up 26 times in Exodus through Deuteronomy. God gave a lot of regulations about how defiling things had to be taken outside the camp so the living space of the people wouldn’t be defiled. And all that was put in place to ultimately teach us something about the death of Jesus.