Jesus: His Perfect and Complete Witness

 

And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”  Mark 15:39

 What was it the centurion saw that convinced him that Jesus was God’s Son? This scripture tells us that the centurion confessed this after he saw how Jesus died. I don’t think it was the moment of Jesus’ passing* that impressed this truth on the bystanders, but all that they had witnessed leading up to it. So, what was different about how Jesus died?

 Perhaps the centurion first saw Jesus as He was led to Pilate, bloodied and bruised from the beating He had received from the high priest’s guards and compatriots. Perhaps he was in the room when Pilate questioned Jesus and Jesus remained silent before him, as a sheep before the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7) except when He was asked outright if He was the king of the Jews and Jesus confessed only that Pilot had said it was true. Scripture tells us that Pilate was amazed that Jesus remained silent before him, but those in the room witnessing it must have been as well. Brought to the palace, perhaps this centurion was part of the cohort that put a purple cloak on Jesus. Maybe he was even the person who braided together a crown of thorns and then cruelly pressed it into Jesus head before mocking Him, beating Him further with a staff to the head, and spitting on Him. After all this, Jesus was unable to physically carry His own cross, as was the tradition for condemned prisoners. He just didn’t have the strength for it, and no amount of pressure or prodding would change that. The centurion certainly wasn’t going to do it, and he knew that if he asked one of the nearby Jews a riot might ensue, so when he saw a Cyrene, a foreigner from North Africa likely in town for the Passover, standing on the side of the road with his two sons, Alexander and Rufus, the choice was clear. But even absent of the physical weight of the cross, Jesus wasn’t able to make it to Golgotha under His own power as it says in verse 22 that they brought Him there whereas in verse 1 they “led” Him to Pilate. A long-standing tradition was to offer the condemned a narcotic drink, wine mixed with myrrh that had been prepared by the respected women of Jerusalem in response to Proverbs 31:6-7, “Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those who are bitterly distressed; let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more.” But the centurion, to his amazement, saw Jesus refuse even this small comfort, preferring to remain clear headed to His last breath. The centurion surely witnessed the crowd taunting Jesus, saying to Him, "If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself!" The criminals being crucified on either side of Him joined in the mocking until at last one of them said to the other, “Don't you fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we rightly so, for we are getting what we deserve for what we did, but this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom." [Luke 23:40-42 NET]. Around noon, after Jesus had been on the cross for three hours, darkness fell over the land, not for a moment as a cloud passed over the sun, but for three more hours. In this unnatural darkness, the centurion heard Jesus cry out to God, asking why He had forsaken Him as He took the full burden of the sins of the world upon Himself and endured separation from the Father for the first and only time. As the centurion stood guard, Jesus even considered His mother, asking John to care for her as his own – in horrible pain and agony Jesus was still thinking of others above Himself. At last the torture was over and after tasting the vinegar offered Him Jesus gave up His spirit, but the testimony of His identity was not over because just then the whole area was shaken with a tremendous earthquake! Later the centurion would hear accounts of the temple curtain being torn in two from top to bottom, an impossible act but other accounts of the dead being resurrected and seen all over Jerusalem were even more amazing! The centurion didn’t need those additional proofs to convince him, though, as scripture records his confession "Truly this one was God's Son!" came along with the earthquake.

Here's the Thing: Jesus preached to crowds and taught the disciples with His words,  but even more than that He gave His testimony with how He lived and how He died. This teaches us that what we do, what we say, how we act matters. The world is watching, what will it learn from you?

*Details of this event are taken from Matthew 27, Luke 23 , John 19 and Mark 14 and 15