The two minutes or so following the death of Jesus, according to Mark's Gospel, are filled with wild confusion. Yet they are also the most significant minutes in the history of the world, the beginning of a new relationship between God and humankind.
From noon that Friday until three in the afternoon the world is cloaked in ominous darkness (15:33), as if light, the first of God's creatures, has been negated. The old creation has ended as it began, in darkness and meaningless chaos.
There is a terrible pause. Then Jesus utters a formless cry and breathes his last, and all at once "the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom" (15:38). In the older translations the curtain is called a "veil," but that gives the modern reader a false impression. This curtain is by no means diaphanous; it is thick and heavy, less of a veil and more of a carpet, thick and richly embroidered with images of angels. It closed the opening between the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, the innermost sanctum of the Jerusalem Temple, which only the High Priest could enter and then only once a year, on the Day of Atonement, to sprinkle sacrificial blood for the sins of the people. There was the strictest taboo against anyone else penetrating this room. Death was the forfeit.
Indeed, so holy was the place that the High Priest's robes were sewn with tiny golden bells so that when he did enter, he could be heard moving about. And a rope was tied to his leg before he entered, so that if the noise of the bells ceased those waiting outside would know that he had died during the performance of his duties, and his body could be hauled out without further desecration of the place behind the curtain.
By Jesus time the Holy of Holies was an empty room. The Ark of the Covenant, which it had once housed, had long since been destroyed or lost. But the room and the curtain that covered its entrance still had great symbolic power, a barrier representing the absolute transcendence of the God who is infinitely above and beyond the created universe, whose very name is so holy that it cannot be uttered.
So the cutting of the curtain from top to bottom at the moment of Jesus' death would be an act of wanton destruction and sacrilege, if God himself not already done it. He cut through the barrier from within to let himself out of the stuffy precincts of human religion. Now he is indeed Emmanuel—God with us. He not only is born among and lives with us, he also dies with us. With the death of Jesus the distance we had created between ourselves and God is finally and completely erased. Transcendence is swallowed up in immanence. Jesus dies so the men and women may live, and his Spirit is now completely present in the world. He is with us, the Good News. Now we can never be left alone.
In Mark's Gospel, the moment of Jesus' death represents the quantum leap forward into the Kingdom. Hidden until now, the true identity of the Man of Power and Mystery is suddenly revealed. The great irony for Mark is that the only person present who understands what has happened is the nameless Roman officer in charge of Jesus' execution. The last one who should recognize who Jesus is is the only one who does.
It is difficult to know what to make of the centurion's confession. Does he really understand what he is saying? "Surely this man was God's Son" (verse 39) can be as easily translated, "Surely this was the son of a god"—and that is a pretty ambivalent confession. But faith is always ambivalent. No one fully understands who Jesus is or what happens on the cross. But that doesn't matter. For Mark the centurion's confession is still the climax of his gospel story. In his telling of it, Jesus' family does not know who he is. His disciples do not know who he is. The religious leaders of his own nation do not know who he is. His true identity remains hidden until the very moment of his death. And even then it is revealed only partially and incompletely to the eyes of faith.
Our faith is like the faith of the centurion; he reminds us of ourselves. He is uncertain, confused, knowing what he sees on the cross has changed everything, and yet unable to grasp its full meaning. Seeing the light, he is still in the dark—and so are we.
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