What does Mark 15:34 Mean?

Verse Meaning

This cry came at the ninth hour, namely, 3:00 p.m. Jesus" cry expressed what the darkness visualized. Jesus cried out loudly, not weakly with His last available energy. His great agony of soul was responsible for this cry. Mark recorded Jesus" words in Aramaic. Probably Jesus spoke in Aramaic in view of the crowd"s reaction (cf. Matthew 27:46-47). [source][source]

[source]

"The depths of the saying are too deep to be plumbed, but the least inadequate interpretations are those which find in it a sense of desolation in which Jesus felt the horror of sin so deeply that for a time the closeness of His communion with the Father was obscured." ^[1] [source]

Jesus quoted Psalm 22:1. That is why He expressed His agony of separation as a question. Jesus was not asking God for an answer; the question was rhetorical. As Jesus used this verse, it expressed an affirmation of His relationship to God as His Father and an acknowledgment that the Father had abandoned Him. God abandoned Jesus in the judicial sense that He focused His wrath on the Son (cf. Mark 14:36). Jesus bore God"s curse and His judgment for sin (cf. Deuteronomy 21:22-23; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13). God, who cannot look on sin ( Habakkuk 1:13), turned His back, so to speak, on Jesus who bore that sin in His own body on the cross. Jesus experienced separation from God when He took the place of sinners ( Mark 10:45; Romans 5:8; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 Peter 3:18). [source][source]

[source]

Even though the physical sufferings that Jesus experienced were great, the spiritual agony that He underwent as the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world was infinitely greater. We need to remember this when we meditate on Jesus" death, for example at the Lord"s Supper. [source][source]

[source]

Context Summary

Our Lord refused to drink the potion prepared by the women of Jerusalem, in order to stupefy those who were crucified and so deaden the sense of pain, because He would drain the cup to its dregs. It was nine o'clock in the morning when He was nailed to the cross. His persecutors were, as they thought, destroying the Temple of which He had spoken in John 2:19, and making its restoration impossible. In fact, however, they were giving Him the opportunity of fulfilling His great prediction. He saved others; Himself He cannot save. Nature veiled her face from that awful spectacle. Christ was not really forsaken, but as our Redeemer he passed under the dark shadow of human sin. The access to the Holy of Holies is now forever free through the entry of our great High Priest. See Hebrews 9:7-8. What love inspired the women, Mark 15:40, to brave the horrors of the scene! And how good to see that God cares for the body as well as for the spirit of His beloved! For Joseph, see Matthew 27:57 and Luke 23:50-51. Born of the Virgin's womb our Lord was buried in a virgin tomb. [source]

Chapter Summary: Mark 15

¹  Jesus brought bound, and accused before Pilate
⁶  Upon the clamor of the people, the murderer Barabbas is released,
¹²  and Jesus delivered up to be crucified
¹⁶  He is crowned with thorns, spit on, and mocked;
²¹  faints in bearing his cross;
²⁷  hangs between two thieves;
²⁹  suffers the triumphing reproaches of the crowd;
³⁹  but is confessed by the centurion to be the Son of God;
⁴²  and is honorably buried by Joseph