Show Don't Tell: Mark 15:33-41

Instead of saying "Jesus died on the cross," feel the darkness fall. At noon, darkness comes over the whole land until three in the afternoon. Three hours of midday darkness. At three, Jesus cries out in a loud voice: "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?"—"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The opening of Psalm 22, prayed in agony. Some standing near say: "Listen, he's calling Elijah." Someone runs, fills a sponge with wine vinegar, puts it on a staff, and offers it to Jesus to drink. "Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down." With a loud cry, Jesus breathes his last. The curtain of the temple is torn in two from top to bottom—not from bottom to top, but from heaven down. The barrier between God and humanity ripped open. The centurion standing there in front of Jesus, seeing how he dies, says: "Surely this man was the Son of God!" A pagan soldier confesses what Israel's leaders reject. Some women watch from a distance: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome. In Galilee they had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem are also there.