The Ransom and the Model: Mark 15:1-24

As Jesus goes to the cross, he stops teaching, but Mark starts teaching us in parables. He introduces two characters who are the human face of the implications of the cross.
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It is ironic that the Chief Priests, Scribes, and the crowd at Pilate’s audience clamor for him to release
Barabbas. Barabbas is the kind of man they are portraying Jesus to be—one who has rejected the authority of Rome, a challenge to Caesar. But Pilate knows that if Jesus were such a man, they’d be clamoring for him to be released (because they hate the authority of Rome). Barabbas is one such man, and until a few hours ago, the third cross being prepared for the condemned men had his name on it. But in a moment of unexpected grace, Barabbas is set free, while Jesus goes to his cross. Lucky Barabbas!

But Barabbas has a significance beyond his own story of freedom. Barabbas is the only untranslated Aramaic in Mark’s gospel, but Mark has given us the pieces of Barabbas’ name to be able to work it out ourselves. In Mark 10:46 we learn “bar” means “son of”, and in 14:36, in Jesus’ prayer, we learn that “abba” means “father”. Barabbas was a rebel, a “son of a father”, which is about as generic a boy’s name as you can get. We are all rebels, children of our parents. Barabbas is “Joe Everyman” and his cross was ours. Jesus took our place upon that cross. As he himself said, he came “as a ransom for many”.

Then Mark introduces another new named character in his story, Simon of Cyrene. Usually, if you want to name someone, you might say, as Mark does, “Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus.” But it was rarely done to identify someone by their children, unless the children would be known to the people you are writing to. Indeed, I assume that Simon of Cyrene became a believer, and his (now adult) children are known to the people of Rome, where Mark is first putting his gospel on paper. And Paul mentions a Rufus living in Rome (Romans 16:13) when he writes his letter to that church, before he arrived in Rome shortly before his death. So the most logical explanation of this is that Simon of Cyrene, a random passerby at the time of Jesus’ death, became so taken up by the story that pressed itself upon him that he followed up with it, joined the believers in Jerusalem, and eventually his children were believers in Rome.

Jesus, in Mark 8:34, said to his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Simon of Cyrene is the first person to take up the cross, literally Jesus’ cross when he no longer could carry it, and follow Jesus along the way to his death. This would have had a profound impact on Simon, and he is a model for us of one who follows Jesus, saying yes to suffering, to the cross we each must bear, and saying yes to Jesus’ call to follow him to our death, whatever death comes. Jesus’ death, not ours, is the ransom. Our suffering or death cannot save anyone. But Jesus does promise that, as we follow him, saying yes to suffering in his name, our death can be, like his, redemptive. Our suffering can be meaningful, purposeful, healing and redemptive in our own life and the lives of many others. By the power of Jesus’ cross, our suffering too has power.

So Jesus’ death is a ransom. Jesus faced a grim and painful death on a cross marked out for us. He died for us. Yet also Jesus’ death is a model. We are called to follow him and embrace redemptive suffering in his name.