Surely this man was the Son of God! (Mark 15.39)

Jesus' Sovereignty at Death

This centurion had probably supervised hundreds, possibly thousands of crucifixions. The Romans crucified criminals on an industrial scale — one Roman general lined both sides of the road into Rome for miles with crosses, a forest of them, to strike terror into anyone who would dare rebel against the Empire. This centurion had heard hundreds of death cries from crosses as he watched men die. But there was something different about this one. It was not a moan of defeat. It was not a sigh of resignation — the kind of thing he would have heard countless times as death overtook the wretched victim. It was not a cry of rage like the terrorists crucified alongside Jesus were shouting. This cry was different.

John 10:17-18 gives us Jesus' own commentary on this moment: "The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life — only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again." Jesus is not passively being put to death here. He is actively giving up his life. And that is something we have seen all through Mark's Gospel — Jesus is in control of everything that is happening. It is the Pharisees, the chief priests, the Romans, Judas — they are the ones being carried along by forces they do not understand and cannot control.

Consider the timing. The chief priests plotted that Jesus should not die during the Passover feast, for fear of a riot (Mark 14:2). And yet when did Jesus die? At Passover. As we read through the Gospels, Jesus is deliberately forcing their hand, accelerating events so that he dies as the Passover Lamb during the Passover feast. He is in control of the exact moment of his death.

Or consider that dramatic moment at his arrest in John 18:4-6. Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen, went out and asked: "Who is it you want?" "Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "I am he," Jesus said — and they drew back and fell to the ground. Why? Because the phrase "I am he" is, in Hebrew, the name of God — Yahweh, "I am who I am." At that moment it was as if Jesus drew back the veil of his humanity, and just a little of his divine nature peered through, and it terrified these tough Roman soldiers. Jesus could have slain them with a word. He could have summoned twelve legions of angels to annihilate his enemies. But he allowed them to tie him up and take him away. Nobody is taking his life from him.

Back in Mark 15, we see that Jesus is in control even of the very moment of his death. "With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last" (v. 37). All four Gospel writers choose their words very carefully here. Matthew and John say Jesus "gave up his spirit." Mark and Luke say he "breathed his last." Nowhere else in the Bible is anyone's death described in those terms. This is not how human beings die. We do not hand over our spirits. We do not actively choose when to breathe our last. We are completely passive in the process of dying — we simply wait for the end to come. Even in suicide or euthanasia, we are not sovereign over the moment of death. But Jesus' death is utterly different. Death does not take him; he surrenders his life.

John, the only Gospel writer who was an eyewitness of the actual death, adds an interesting detail: "He bowed his head and gave up his spirit" (John 19:30). That is the opposite of what you would expect. A man's head falls after he has expired — after his strength is gone. But Jesus bows his head and then surrenders his spirit. It is as if he is settling himself down for death.

The speed of Jesus' death was remarkable. It was quite normal for a crucified man to linger on the cross for two or three days. That was the average. But Jesus dies after no more than six hours. Pilate was astonished: "Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died" (Mark 15:44). It was so unusual that Pilate held an unofficial inquest. The other two men crucified alongside Jesus had to have their legs broken to speed up their death — when you are crucified you die from suffocation, and the only way to breathe is to push yourself up on the spike through your ankles; break the legs and the victim can no longer push up and quickly suffocates. But they did not need to break Jesus' legs because he was already dead. And those loud shouts at the very end — a man on the point of death on a cross does not cry out like that. Eyewitnesses tell us that as the victim's strength ebbed away, he grew quieter and quieter, with long periods of unconsciousness. Medically, physiologically, it did not make sense for Jesus to die at this point when he still had reserves of strength. He died at this moment because this was the moment he chose to hand over his life. The ransom was paid. It was finished.

This sovereignty is a source of immense comfort for us. If Jesus was in control of the circumstances of his own death, then he is completely in control of yours and mine. As Charles Spurgeon said: "The Christian is immortal until his work is done." Your life cannot be short-circuited by tragedy, accident, illness, or malice. The Lord has ordained the time, the place, the manner, every detail of our death. That does not mean it will not be painful — it may be. But it will be exactly as our Father in heaven intends. We do not need to be paralysed by the fear of death.

Jesus' Faith at Death

The other thing that must have struck the centurion — even if he could not fully explain it — was the faith of Jesus at death. Jesus' last words from the cross, recorded in Luke 23:46, are: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." He is quoting from Psalm 31:5, where David, a righteous man suffering unjustly, entrusts his life to God, believing that no matter how things look, his life is in God's hands, not in the hands of his enemies.

But notice something. Jesus adds a word that is not in Psalm 31 — that little word at the beginning: "Father." That is the word that was conspicuously absent in his cry of forsakenness: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" — the only time in Jesus' life he could not call God "Father." His first word from the cross was "Father, forgive them." His last word is "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." But for those three hours of darkness he had no assurance of his sonship. Now the word is back. He is completely confident that God in heaven is his Father, that he loves him, that he is going to receive him.

These words from Psalm 31 — "Into your hands I commit my spirit" — were the prayer that every Jewish child prayed at night, kneeling beside their bed before going to sleep. These are probably the words Jesus himself learned to pray as a child at the end of each day. If that is the case, it is even more striking: Jesus is so untroubled by the prospect of death that he thinks of it as no more terrifying than settling down for a good night's sleep.

And the wonderful thing is that because of Jesus' death, this is true for every believer. Jesus died saying these words so that we can say them at our death. Because he has won the victory over the grave, these words are true for us. His faith is a model and an example for us. John Wesley said of the early Methodists: "Our people die well." And that testimony has shone through the ages — Christians die well, with a peace in the face of death, because they know that the instant their heart stops, they will be in the presence of their Saviour, made perfect in holiness forever.

Death is the ultimate terror for the non-Christian. It is the end of all hopes, ambitions, and pleasures. It is the great unmentionable — the only taboo left. People will talk openly and shamelessly about absolutely anything except death. We hide it away in hospitals and funeral parlours. Just try asking someone at work tomorrow, at coffee time: "Have you thought about your death recently?" People do not want to talk about it. But if we are Christians, we do not need to fear death. It is not the end for us. In Christ we can say the words that made such an impression on that Roman centurion: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." Where are you entrusting your most valuable possession — your never-dying, immortal soul? Not to the grave, not to the void, not to the dark unknown — but into the hands of a loving Father. It is the safest place in the whole universe.

___

Listen to More from Mark

Previous: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mark 15.34)
Next: The Burial of Jesus (Mark 15.42-47)
View all sermons in the Mark series