Bible reading: Mark 15:25-39.

Message.

When I was eight, my parents took me to a performance of J S Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion”. It’s one of the greatest works of Western choral music, but I didn’t find it a profound experience, either musically or spiritually; in fact, it was deadly dull. The music was too advanced for me; the concert went on for ever (although there was a break for tea in the middle); to cap it all, the piece was sung in German so I didn’t understand a word! Since then, I have come to appreciate the “St. Matthew Passion” more, and I’ve enjoyed hearing and also singing its companion piece based on St. John. Both take their hearers on a spiritual journey through Good Friday. The Passion story is told in the words of the Gospel; solo arias provide reflective meditation on what is going on; and there are hymns in which the audience can join.

Perhaps the greatest moment in this piece comes towards the end. After a sequence of musically jagged choruses and arias representing Jesus’ suffering, death and the dramatic events which followed, there come eight bars of the most profound and moving music, as the choir take up the words spoken by the Roman centurion as he looked on: “Truly this man was the Son of God

So what did the centurion mean when he called Jesus the Son of God? Well, when we examine the words more closely, we find that they are not quite the resounding confession of faith that we might like them to be. To start with, there seems to be a bit of confusion as to what the man actually said. For in Luke’s Gospel we are told that his words were not, “This was the Son of God” but merely, “This was a righteous man” – although he could of course have said both phrases and been reported in different ways! “The Times” and “The Sun” don’t always quote speeches in the same way – yet they may both be correct!

More significant are ambiguities in the Greek language over the use of the definite and indefinite articles – that is, between ‘the’ and ‘a’. This might sound like a point of grammatical trivia which you don’t want to hear on Good Friday, but it’s important as it means we can’t be 100% sure of what the centurion was implying. Did he mean to call Jesus “the Son of God”, regarding him as unique and divine? That would have been surprising for a Roman who believed in a whole pantheon of gods from Jupiter and Juno downwards. Or did this man mean the much less forceful phrase “a son of God”? If he did, then he was basically recognising Jesus as no more than a good and godly man.

We must therefore beware of reading too much into the centurion’s spontaneous comment. His words are a far cry Peter’s great confession of faith, “You are the Messiah, the Christ”, based on many months spent observing Jesus’ life, words and miracles. And they are even more distant from John’s considered approach in his Gospel, written after years of reflection on Jesus and on his life’s meaning, where he declares, “We have seen the glory of the Son of God”.

So the centurion isn’t giving us a carefully worked-out theological statement about who he thinks Jesus is – he cannot, as he doesn’t possess sufficient information about this Galilean rabbi to do so, even if he’s heard stories about him. Nor is he saying that he will become a disciple of the man he has just seen dying – this execution is a Jewish affair of no relevance to him, and it’s clear that Jesus’ story is ending, not beginning. The centurion knows nothing about the resurrection which, of course, hasn’t yet happened; and we have no idea if he later became a Christian: we’d like to think so, but probably not.

Nevertheless, there was something about the manner of Jesus’ dying which had a profound impact on this man, probably battle-hardened and well used to the sufferings of convicted criminals; there was something which told him that Jesus was special, even (possibly) unique. So what had so affected him? Well, Matthew does give us some clues; in particular he links the centurion’s statement with some astounding events which are only recorded in this Gospel: the darkness which falls on the land, corresponding precisely with Jesus’ hours of torment; and the earthquake which shakes the ground as Jesus dies, opening graves and tearing apart the Temple curtain in a highly symbolic way (although the centurion at Calvary would not have witnessed that). In an age when people saw spiritual significance in many natural phenomena, the centurion would have seen great meaning in these disturbing events.

But was there also something more subtle which had influenced the Roman? Was it the way in which Jesus meekly, almost passively, seemed to accept his suffering, without the curses and screams of other condemned men? Was it the way he had spoken calmly with his fellow victims, even with his disciples and his mother looking from below? Was there some kind of intangible radiance and peace that seemed to suffuse his being, despite his agony? Of course, we cannot ever know; but it’s clear that the manner of Jesus’ death had made a profound impression on this military man. And I’m sure that, whatever else his comment may have meant, it did say, “You’ve got it terribly wrong. You’ve murdered a good man who didn’t deserve to die”.

I’d like to make three final points this morning.

First, the centurion cannot have known everything about Jesus that first Good Friday. He hardly understood what he was saying when he called him “Son of God”. And, as I’ve said, we have no idea whether he ever became a Christian believer, although it would be nice to think that he did.

Many people come to faith in stages. They doesn’t understand very much about Jesus or the Church when they make their first tentative steps towards God. In a secular world we cannot expect them to know everything; our duty is to nurture and inform the delicate plant that is growing within them. And, when they say something that they don’t understand, we must explain the meaning carefully to them.

Second, I’ve said that there was something about Jesus which attracted (or intrigued) this Roman soldier. He recognised that he was different to all the other people he had seen dying on Calvary’s hill. We know that people today often find Jesus much more attractive than the Church he founded. So how can we present our Saviour to the world in ways that might draw people to him today?

That, finally, leads us to our own selves. The scene at Calvary was a once-off event, never to be repeated. Jesus isn’t dying there this Good Friday, nor will he next year. Today we are his representatives, his witnesses, even his icons in the world. So I ask: is there something attractive about us which reflects our Lord and declares him to the world? That’s a tall order, I know; but that is every Christian’s calling. I hope that as we take up our crosses, this Good Friday and indeed every day, people will be able to see both the death and life of Jesus within us; and will almost irresistibly be drawn to faith in him.