Key Passage
Some of the people standing there heard this. The people said, "Listen! He is calling Elijah." One man there ran and got a sponge. The man filled the sponge with vinegar and tied the sponge to a stick. Then he used the stick to give the sponge to Jesus to drink from it. The man said, "We should wait now and see if Elijah will come to take him down from the cross."
— Mark 15:35-36 ERV (Read Full Text)
Key Thought
From the vantage points of Jesus the Messiah and of the Gospel of Mark, Elijah had already come. John the Baptist was the Elijah who was to precede the Messiah. Those in power had John murdered; now they were doing the same with Jesus. Those who are at the Cross to mock the Lord Jesus misunderstand what he said. They simply turn Jesus' words into another way to mock, belittle, and humiliate him more. Little do these mockers know that what Jesus endures on the Cross ends up defeating Satan and bringing life to those who will call upon him as Lord. Elijah didn't come and take Jesus down from the Cross. However, God the Father did come and raise him from death in his tomb. Yet even in this moment of horror and humiliation with his crucifixion, the Cross touches the heart of a hardened soldier and opens his heart to the truth about Jesus—he is the Son of God. (See verse 39.)
Prayer
O Father, I am saddened that it took the humiliation of the Cross to break through to our hardened hearts. Yet, dear Father, thank you for paying that price. I pray that the story of Jesus will reach hearts that no other story can. Please help me to never be ashamed of the message of that Cross. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Related Scriptures
In Christ you had a different kind of circumcision. That circumcision was not done by the hands of any person. I mean you were made free from the power of your sinful self. That is the kind of circumcision Christ does. When you were baptized, {your old self died and} you were buried with Christ. And in that baptism you were raised up with Christ because of your faith in God's power. God's power was shown when he raised Christ from death. You were spiritually dead because of your sins and because you were not free from the power of your sinful self. But God made you alive with Christ. And God forgave all our sins. We owed a debt because we broke God's laws. That debt listed all the rules we failed to follow. But God forgave us of that debt. God took away that debt and nailed it to the cross. God defeated the spiritual rulers and powers. With the cross God won the victory and defeated those rulers and powers. God showed the world that they were powerless.
— Colossians 2:11-15
Those children are people with physical bodies. So Jesus himself became like those people and had the same experiences people have. Jesus did this so that, by dying, he could destroy the one who has the power of death. That one is the devil. Jesus became like those people and died so that he could free them. They were like slaves all their lives because of their fear of death.
— Hebrews 2:14-15
I hope I will never boast about things like that. The cross (death) of our Lord Jesus Christ is my only reason for boasting. Through Jesus' death on the cross the world is dead to me; and I am dead to the world.
— Galatians 6:14
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