The Cross: The Kingdom of God in Power

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I have always been perplexed by the words of Mark 9:1: “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power” (NIV). In context, this is uttered after Jesus accepts Peter’s confession of him as “the Messiah,” but he then explains that this “Messiah” is also the suffering and rejected “Son of Man,” and following him requires disciples to “ take up their cross and follow me” (Mk 8:34). This juxtaposition of (a) Messiah = Son of Man who suffers with (b) Kingdom of God in power, means, somehow, even cryptically, or mysteriously, that God’s kingdom comes in the Messiah’s crucifixion.

The kingdom of God is the coming of God as king, revealing his kingly power to rescue and redeem his people. But how can a crucifixion, paradoxically that of God’s Messiah, possible be the vehicle for the display or the enactment of God’s royal power?

We must remember that the Marcan passion narrative which narrates Jesus’s death is dominated by the theme of Jesus as king. The word “king” is used six times in Mark 15 and exclusively of Jesus (vv. 2, 9, 12, 18, 26, 32). The mocking titulus “King of the Jews” placed above the cross expresses a stark irony, since Jesus, as Messiah, is the true and anointed king of Israel and yet he is found her in the midst of powerlessness, in the zenith of degradation, death, and despair. Across Mark’s Gospel, Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God and yet what we find placarded above him at the end of the story is the mocking announcement of the kingship of the crucified.[1] But Pilate’s taunting jibe designed to warn and wade off any would-be royal claimants, anyone bold enough to declare themselves as “king” in Israel or over Israel, actually testifies to an important claim. Jesus is the King and this is how the Kingdom comes! For it is in the midst of Jesus’s own powerlessness that we see the kingdom of God in power!

Remember too that at the cross, Jesus is hailed as “Son of God” by the Roman centurion who saw him die (Mk 15:39). This is more than, “Gee, what a brave and noble guy,” as the title “Son of God” was a designation for a king in both Jewish and Roman contexts. On the Jewish side, the Davidic regent of Israel was celebrated as Yahweh’s own son to highlight his role as one who represents God to the people and the people to God (see 2 Sam 7:14; Pss 2:7; 89:26-27). In addition, “Son of God” or something like “Son of the divine Augustus” was common political fare in Roman coins, inscriptions, and propaganda. Moreover, the Marcan account of the crucifixion is told in such a way as to make deliberate parallels with a Roman triumphal procession, a public parade of sorts where a conquering general, consul, or emperor would return to Rome after a victorious campaign, to much pomp and pageantry, with booty and prisoners in tow, with sacrifices offered, and celebrations made. Looking at Mark 15, the salute by the praetorian guard, the purple robe Jesus wears, the long drawn out journey along the Via Dolorosa, the requisition of a bystander to lead the sacrificial victim, the co-regents on either side of the triumphator, the acclamation of Jesus as Son of God by a centurion  –parallels that would be provocative and patently obvious to Graeco-Roman readers – prove that the crucifixion of Jesus is in fact the triumph of Jesus as king and a manifestation of God’s kingly power.[2] In the words of Paul Barnett: “Mark wants us to understand that, incredible as it may seem, ‘the kingdom of God’ actually begins with the crucifixion of ‘the king of Israel’”.[3]

But how is this power? Jesus is the one who “came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10:45). It is by renouncing power to save himself that the power to save others is unleashed with formidable force. This is why Jesus, despite being tormented by the priests, does not choose to come down from the cross and save himself (Mk 15:31-32). The very same power that pillaged the demonic realm and stilled the storm on the sea of Galilee is now displayed in the apex of human weakness and suffering, under the weight of evil, and in the midst of barbarity and cruelty. In a strange irony it is in Jesus’ outright refusal to save himself, with an awesome display of heavenly power that will implement the salvation of others by ransoming their sins. It is also this very salvation that proves that Jesus is King.

Those disciples who stayed loyal to Jesus, who followed him around Galilee, Judea, to Jerusalem, and even to Golgotha, what they saw there was what Jesus promised. Not a mere martyr, not just another example of Roman brutality, not a cause for a Jewish uprising, not another instance of religious fanaticism combined with a quest for self-destruction. What they beheld was the kingdom of God in power, God’s king saving his people, from evil, not with legions but with love, not with violence but as a victim, suffering under evil in order to liberate those gripped by evil.

God’s kingdom centres on the cross of Jesus as the epitome of power-in-powerlessness. It is the power of promises made good, redeeming love, self-renunciation and self-giving, and service for others.

That is the easter story.

God’s Kingdom, redemption for many, power-in-powerlessness, a royal procession, and the cross of Jesus.

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[1] M. Eugene Boring, ‘The Kingdom of God in Mark’, in The Kingdom of God in 20th Century Interpretation, ed. Wendell Willis (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987), 144.

[2] Thomas E. Schmidt, ‘Mark 15.16-32: The Crucifixion Narrative and the Roman Triumphal Procession’, NTS 41 (1995): 1-18.

[3] Paul Barnett, ‘Mark: Story and History’, in In the Fullness of Time: Biblical Studies in Honour of Archbishop Donald Robinson, eds. David Petersen and John Pryor (Homebush West, NSW: Lancer, 1992), 34.