THE TEXT BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO COMMENTARY BY FR. FERNANDO ARMELLINI

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A good Sunday to all. 

Today, there is almost unanimous agreement among biblical scholars that the passion narratives of the four evangelists are based on an older, original story written a few years after the events. The oldest evangelist, Mark, takes this account almost literally. 

Why do we say this? When we read it, we often hear mention of the high priest, but we are not told his name. The other evangelists took this original text and used it as an outline of the facts. When they mention the high priest, they always add Caiaphas. The original text was written shortly after the events it describes. Caiaphas is not mentioned because he was still in office; since Caiaphas fell in the year 36, this original passion text must have been written before then. 

It was a very dear account for the first-generation Christians; it was often read in the assemblies, and we wonder why, because they wanted the Christians always to contemplate the true face of God, the face of God who is love, only love, revealed on Calvary, in the life-giving face of Jesus. Man has always wanted to see the face of God. 

We remember Moses asking the Lord: “Show me your face”; then the psalmist: “Do not hide your face from me, Lord, your face, I seek.” As they read this page, the Christian community contemplated this face of God: love. This primitive account was then taken up by the four evangelists, who added details, the essential ones, that highlighted the catechetical themes they considered significant and urgent for their communities. 

Today, we will approach the account found in Mark, which preserves, almost to the letter, the primitive account so loved by the first community. For that reason, I would say we approach this page with an attitude full of emotion, and we can even imagine listening to it, standing among the Christians of the first community of Jerusalem. We will dwell on just a few details that appear only in Mark’s account. 

We begin by highlighting a first feature. Mark, unlike the other evangelists, emphasizes Jesus’s very human reactions to the death that awaits him. He presents him as frightened. Let us listen: 

They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray.’ He took Peter, James, and John with him and grew deeply distressed and troubled. ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,’ he said to them. ‘Stay here and keep watch.’ He went a little farther, fell to the ground, and prayed that the hour might pass from him, if possible.

Only Mark notes that Jesus in the Garden of Olives realized he was to be put to death and says he was “deeply distressed and troubled.” The other evangelists avoid portraying a fearful Jesus, almost shaken by fear he cannot control. History remembers many heroes who faced death with serenity and contempt for suffering. Let’s think of Socrates, who, after having serenely discoursed with his disciples about the immortality of the soul, takes the cup of hemlock and calmly drinks the poison, then recommends to his disciple Craton that he offer a rooster to Aesculapius, the god of health, because for Socrates, death was a healing of the fragile condition in which man lives. Jesus must not be placed among these characters. 

Jesus wept; he was afraid of death because he loved this life, this earthly reality. In Gethsemane, he looked for someone who understood him, someone who would be near him at the moment of the most dramatic choice of his life. He could also have recklessly fled in the face of death, but he did not. It is consoling to us that the events took place as Mark tells us, as we contemplate this ‘man’ Jesus. He is not a superman; he is our fellow sufferer. We feel close to him, as one of us. When life puts us in front of a tough test and even death, we get scared, and if that difficult moment is not lived in the light of God, we can lose our minds and make wrong decisions. Jesus teaches us how to face these situations: by praying. 

In Gethsemane, Jesus prayed like this: ‘Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.’ 

Only Mark, referring to Jesus’ prayer to the Father in Gethsemane, notes the Aramaic appellative he used: Abba. The rabbis said that when a child began to taste wheat upon weaning, he would learn to say ‘abba’ and ‘imma.’ You hear the expression of a child beginning to pronounce his first words; he can’t say ‘daddy’; he says ‘ba’ or ‘ma’ for daddy and mommy. Adults avoided using the childish expression ‘abba,’ but when their father was old and declining, they would resume calling him ‘abba,’ giving the father the impression that they were still children, so he would still feel young. ‘Abba’ is a child’s word because it expresses the trust and tenderness of Jesus toward the Father, and that same word Jesus will put on our lips in prayer because when we address God, we must cultivate this trust and tenderness. 

We, like the adults of Jesus’ time, find it difficult to use the word that should be translated into English as ‘daddy,’ the expression children use with their fathers. As adults, we no longer use it. Jesus invites us to cultivate the relationship he had with his Father, an invitation to never doubt, even in the most seemingly absurd situations, that God is close to us and loves us. And this prayer helps us always remember that he is ‘Abba’ and that he holds the destiny of our lives in his hands, so we are in good hands. We can understand this only by praying in all the difficult moments of our lives. 

Jesus addressed his Father and called him ‘Abba.’ Was he perhaps doubting that God was a Father who accompanied him? No, he showed complete trust and confidence in his Father. Another characteristic of Mark’s narrative is that it contains no reference to Jesus’s reaction to two gestures that occur during the arrest in Gethsemane. 

The first: Jesus says nothing when Judas kisses him; then he does not react when one of those present draws his sword. 

As he spoke, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent by the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders. The betrayer had arranged a signal with them: ‘The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.’ Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, ‘Rabbi!’ and kissed him. The men seized Jesus and arrested him. Then one of those standing nearby drew his sword and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his ear. “Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.’ 

All the other evangelists relate some words that Jesus addressed to Judas; Luke, for example, says: “Judas, with a kiss do you betray the Son of Man?”; and Matthew, when Peter puts his hand on the sword, refers to Jesus’ words: “Put your sword back in its sheath.” Mark shows us Jesus, who does not rebel against events he cannot avoid; he accepts almost passively what happens to him, and in the end he simply says that the Scriptures be fulfilled. 

What does the evangelist Mark want us to understand from Jesus’ silence? He wants the Christians in his communities to contemplate a meek, unarmed Jesus who surrenders to his enemies without retaliation. There are moments in our lives when we can do nothing but accept events. The one who has accepted the proposal of a new man made by Jesus must recognize that he lives among those who still belong to the kingdom of the beasts, those who are not involved, like Judas, in the new world, in the new humanity. 

The Christian must know that he will also have to face falsehood, hypocrisy, injustice, and violence, the behaviors of those who still belong to the old world. How should one respond in these situations? Here is Mark, who places the person of Jesus before the disciples; it is like him that we should behave. And then, in Mark, Jesus does not deign to utter a word of reproach for Peter’s foolish gesture; the fact that he puts his hand on the sword is so far from evangelical principles that it does not even merit consideration. Peter was still operating by the world’s criteria and solutions to the problems it poses. Jesus had told him: “You reason according to people, not according to God.” 

The disciple who, like Peter, believes he can initiate the new world using the methods of the old world, namely violence and force, not only fails to create a new world but also worsens the old one. The one who uses violence moves further and further away from the Master and plunges into the darkness of the night, as Peter did. All the evangelists say that as soon as the disciples realized that Jesus did not react, did not fight, and did not invite them to fight, everyone deserted him and fled, but only Mark remembers a curious detail: 

After Jesus was arrested, everyone deserted him and fled. A young man wearing nothing but a linen garment was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.

The detail of this young man running away is marginal; we wonder why the evangelist included it. The standard interpretation treats it as an autobiographical detail, and the tradition has identified that boy as Mark, but we wonder whether this apparently comical scene does not have a symbolic meaning. I think the message can be read by paying attention to certain terms the evangelist Mark chooses carefully. The first ‘νεανίσκος’ = ‘neaniskos,’ Greek for ‘young man,’ refers to someone about 15 to 18 years of age. And we find that in the Gospel of Mark, this term is used only here and when another young man appears at the tomb on Easter day, clothed in a white robe, who says to the women: “You are looking for Jesus the crucified; he is not here.” 

This young man in Gethsemane is wrapped in a white sheet, but the Greek term Mark uses is ‘σινδόνα’ (‘sindóna’), meaning ‘shroud’; he is wrapped in a shroud and is naked. The naked body is placed in the shroud and laid in the tomb. What does Mark want to suggest? The guards manage to catch this young man as they catch Jesus. But what does this young man leave in the hands of the guards? The shroud. He flees naked. 

That young man, Mark suggests, is the image of what happened to Jesus. Jesus has been caught, but what will Jesus leave in the hands of these guards serving the powers of this world? He will leave the shroud, not his person. In Jesus, the life of the Eternal was present in its fullness, and this life of the Eternal escapes the powers of this world. That is exactly what happens to us because we, too, have received the gift of this life from the Eternal, and so when our biological life grows, it comes closer and closer to its conclusion with each passing day. 

When we conclude our lives, what can the world hold? Our remains, the shroud, not our person. In contemplating this scene of this young man, we see what happened to Jesus. Like the young man, Jesus left his shroud to enter the life that is ever young. What happened to Jesus is the image of what happens to each of his disciples; the entrance, after leaving our remains, into a life eternally young. 

According to Mark, another characteristic of the passion narrative is Jesus’s silence. In Mark’s passion narrative, Jesus remains silent before the religious authorities who ask him whether he is the Messiah, and before Pilate, who wants to know whether he is king. He simply answers, ‘I am,’ and nothing more. 

Then the high priest stood before them and asked Jesus, ‘Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?’ But Jesus remained silent and did not answer. Before Pilate, the chief priests were accusing him. Again, Pilate questioned him, ‘Have you no answer? See how many things they accuse you of.’ Jesus gave him no other answer, so Pilate was amazed. 

During the trial, nothing came from the mouth of Jesus until the insults, provocations, lies, and false witnesses. Jesus is silent; he answers nothing, and he knows that those who want to condemn him are aware of his innocence; he knows that his enemies have already decreed his death. Therefore, it is not worth lowering himself to their level to argue with them; it would be useless; therefore, he is silent. There is a silence that is a sign of weakness and lack of courage, that of those who do not intervene to denounce injustice because they are cowards, those who seek their interest more than the truth, and those who do not want to make enemies with the people they count on to receive favors. This is a bad silence. 

If, instead, it is a silence that is a sign of strength and courage, the silence of the one who does not react to provocations, the silence of the one who does not cower before arrogance, insult, or slander; the noble silence of the one convinced of his loyalty and righteousness, and sure that the just cause for which he fights will eventually triumph. The Christian is not a coward who resigns himself and does not fight against evil; he loves truth and justice more than his own life and has the strength to be silent, as the Master did, never resorting to the means employed by the one who attacks him with slander and disloyalty. 

All the evangelists note that after an initial enthusiastic welcome, the crowds gradually parted from Jesus, and that in the end, only the 12 remained with him. These, in turn, fled at the time of the decisive election, but no one, like Mark, highlights the loneliness of Jesus during the passion. Let us listen: 

Those passing by reviled him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself by coming down from the cross.” Likewise, the chief priests, with the scribes, mocked him among themselves and said, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.’ Those who were crucified with him also kept abusing him. At noon, darkness fell over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ 

Reading the passion narratives of the other evangelists, we always find someone by Jesus’ side, willing to help him. For example, the evangelist John remembers the beloved disciple and also remembers Peter, who follows Jesus at least to some extent. Matthew remembers Pilate’s wife, who commands her husband to say: ‘Let this man go… for last night I was troubled in my sleep.’ Luke recalls that on the way to Calvary, there is a great multitude of people, there are the women who follow Jesus, and then Luke mentions the good thief at Calvary. 

In Mark’s Passion narrative, there is no one. Jesus is rejected by the crowd, which prefers Barabbas; he is ridiculed and beaten, humiliated by the soldiers, and insulted by the passersby and the leaders of the people present at Calvary. Beside him, there is no one; only at the end does Mark note that some women watched from afar. All alone, Jesus feels the anguish of one who is sure he has committed himself to the Lord for a just cause but feels defeated, and there is his cry: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” A cry that seems scandalous but expresses his inner drama. 

At the moment of death, Jesus experienced impotence and failure in the struggle against injustice and falsehood. He felt defeated. The one who commits to living coherently as the new man, the one who wants to build the new world as Jesus did, must recognize that at the crucial moment he may be abandoned by his friends, rejected even by his own family, and may feel abandoned by God, who does not perform any miracle in his favor. In these moments, he can also utter the cry Jesus uttered, but do so with Jesus. 

According to Mark, the climax of the story of the passion of Jesus is the profession of faith, not by one of the disciples but by the centurion at the foot of the cross. It is the most important moment in the Gospel of Mark. 

One of the soldiers ran, soaked a sponge in wine, placed it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink, saying, ‘Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to take him down.’ Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. The veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. When the centurion who stood facing him saw how he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’ 

From the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, the multitudes ask, “But who is this that casts out demons, who performs wonders?” and the disciples ask, “Who is this man whom the waves of the sea obey?” Yet no one grasps his true identity. When someone proclaims him the Son of God, let us remember, for example, the demoniac in the synagogue of Capernaum who cries out: “I know who you are, the holy one of God.”Immediately, Jesus says: “Be silent.” And Jesus always imposes this silence; no one must reveal his identity. Why? Because the wonders he performs could be misinterpreted; that is, he could be considered a messiah according to the people’s expectations, a glorious, conquering, dominating Messiah who performs prodigious miracles. NO. 

Jesus had come to reveal the true face of God, and that face would be revealed in its fullness at a precise moment in his life: at Calvary. What happens at Calvary? The disciples have all fled, and the multitudes who acclaimed him are no longer there; they have disappeared. There is a centurion, the one who leads the soldiers who have crucified Jesus. The text says that, seeing how he has died, he exclaims: “Truly this man was the Son of God!” 

When someone, during his public life, used this expression, Jesus immediately imposed silence. Here, Jesus can no longer impose silence because he is dead; from here on, we can proclaim his identity as Son of God because there is no longer any possibility of misunderstanding. He is the Son of God; that is, he reveals the face of the heavenly Father because the expression ‘son of’ means ‘like unto,’ rather than ‘generated from.’ Henceforth, those who recognize in the face of Jesus the face of the Father are not the disciples but the centurion, a Roman soldier. 

Now everyone can recognize Jesus, the Son of God, because when they see how he died, they see the depth of the love he testified to. The total gift of life is the ultimate sign of love; it reveals the face of God in its fullness, and the centurion recognized this identity. In this context, it became evident that the meaning of the temple’s veil being torn in two from top to bottom was clear. 

The evangelist Mark uses the same verb that was used at the time of Jesus’ baptism, when it is said that the heavens were torn, were rent asunder; ‘σχιζω’ = squizo means to break in such a way that it can no longer be mended. What was considered the seven heavens, with the throne of God above them, is broken, and they were closed, and now they are rent asunder. Harmony has been restored between heaven and earth. Before, there was the silence of God because God did not send prophets anymore, as people did not listen to them. But now those heavens are torn apart. 

God has sent his Son; peace has been restored between heaven and earth. And now the heavens are not only rent asunder, but all the barriers of the earth have fallen, those barriers that kept people from meeting each other with the Lord. The veil of the temple separated the holy from the holy of holies, where it was believed that God, the Lord God of Israel, was present; only the high priest could enter once a year. Now the veil has been torn from top to bottom. There has been no material tearing of the veil of the temple, but a prodigy far more extraordinary has occurred. Now the Father’s house is wide open for all his sons and daughters. All his sons and daughters may enter the house, even if they are sinners, because God considers every person his son or daughter. 

After the death of Jesus, all the evangelists introduce Joseph of Arimathea, an authorized member of the Sanhedrin, who went to Pilate to obtain permission to bury the crucified one, but only Mark specifies that it is a courageous gesture: 

When evening came, on the day of preparation, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a distinguished member of the council who was himself awaiting the kingdom of God, came and, with courage, went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was amazed that he was already dead. He summoned the centurion and asked whether Jesus had already died. When he learned this from the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. Having bought a linen cloth, he took him down, wrapped him in the linen cloth, and laid him in a tomb hewn out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Joses, watched where he was laid. 

It is easy to declare oneself a disciple of Jesus when the multitudes acclaim him, but to present oneself as his friend in the face of the authority that condemned him requires great courage, and it is this courage that Mark emphasizes in Joseph of Arimathea. Mark wanted to send a message to his communities, and it is also very important for our communities today. The evangelist wanted to present this person to his Christians and to us because, too often, disciples become opportunists, inconstant, weak, and lacking courage. When it is necessary to profess their faith before those who do not accept it, they are tempted to be ashamed of the moral values taught by Christ. Perhaps to avoid displeasure or simply not be laughed at, they easily adapt to current morals. 

The evangelist Mark says that a true disciple is a courageous person who gives testimony with his life and his word to the proposal of the new man that Jesus came to make. 

I wish you all a good Sunday and a good start toward Easter.