Mark 15 ³⁷But Jesus, having let go a loud cry, expired. ³⁸And the veil of the sanctuary was rent into two from top to bottom. ³⁸But the centurion who had been standing there opposite him, having seen that he thus expired, said, "Truly this man was God's Son."¹

Introduction

What is the meaning of an event recorded in the Bible? How does one come to know that meaning? Can a biblical text have more than one meaning? Does the text harbor its own mean-ing(s) or do we look beyond the text for clues? While readers of this publication, especially those who have been part of an ICJS Mini-Course, Congregational Project, Educators' Study Group, or Scripture Forum, know well that responding ade-quately, if not fully, to these questions surely exceeds the limits of a brief essay, nonetheless the question haunts: "How do we know what a text means?"

This essay explores one line of inquiry in response to that question. It is predicated on the following hypothesis: that a more expansive understanding of a text's meaning emerges only if, and when, the reader actively moves beyond the limits of interpretation set by the text's author. Put more boldly, understanding requires that the reader demand more from the text than its author might want the reader to learn. It demands that the reader, by an act of creative and imagi-native fidelity, press the text beyond the author's intent to discover other, albeit hidden, perspectives preserved in the text itself, and to explore the promise of a surplus of meaning that other perspectives hold.²

I shall test out this hypothesis by focusing one one verse in the penultimate chapter of the Gospel according to Mark, Mk 15:38, the verse that follows immediately after the account of the death of Jesus.

   And the veil of the sanctuary was rent into two from top to bottom.

I want to begin, however, with a brief explanatory word about the nature of the literary genre known as gospel. At its core, a gospel is a theological document. That is to say, its purpose is to preserve and advance a claim about God, and about God's relationship to the world and to humankind. The impetus that created the gospel genre was the desire on the part of Jesus' followers to preserve for future believers the meaning and significance of their experience of and encounter with the God of Israel made manifest to them in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. As such, the gospels are neither histories of the early church nor biographies of Jesus. To read them as if they were is to misunderstand the nature of the genre and thus to miss the gospels' import for the life of faith. In other words, the rules governing the interpretation of a gospel text are different from those that pertain to historical documents or to biographies. The most important clues to the meaning of a gospel passage do not reside primarily in the literal historicity of the event or in the literal meaning of its words. They lie first and foremost in an acknowledgment that the intent of the gospel, which may be more expansive than the intent of its author (a point to which I shall return later in this essay), is to instruct its reader to understand that the God of Israel has spoken a definitive word to the world through the Galilean Jew, Jesus of Nazareth . . . albeit with different meanings for Jews and Gentiles.

Written between the years 70-125 of the Common Era, the gospels preserve four different accounts directed to four very different communities of Jesus' followers, each facing its own distinctive challenges. Each gospel is a unique response to four fundamental questions posed by the communities to whom they were written: (1) What is the meaning and significance of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth for us, in this time, and in this place? (2) What does God intend to teach us in and through the events of Jesus' life and death? (3) What did God reveal to us by raising the dead man Jesus to new life? and (4) How am I to live and behave if I profess Jesus to be the Christ of God?

To appreciate and apprehend more fully the meaning of a gospel passage thus requires some knowledge of the author's theological vision and purpose, since it is this vision and purpose that most shapes the manner in which the writer tells the story of Jesus. All of which is to say that a gospel text is written from a particular point of view. The story is told from the perspective of the author. Thus, with regard to Mark 15:38, it is more appropriate to ask: What does Mark want his reader to learn by including this detail at this particular place in the passion narrative? More broadly: Why did Mark cast the death of Jesus as he did? What is the "big story" Mark wants his reader to learn?

Against these introductory remarks concerning the genre of gospel, the questions that occupy this essay come into full view: Are there other perspectives within the text itself that, if given voice, might shed additional light on the text's mean-ing? What more might we learn from the detail of the rending of the sanctuary veil if we linger over it awhile, listening for other voices, each with its own unique prespective, each awaiting an attentive ear and an open heart?

This essay is divided into two parts. Part One presents a syn-opsis of traditional Christian exegesis of Mk 15:38. As such, it addresses the following questions: What did Mark intend to convey to his first-century reader, and to us, by recording the rending of the sanctuary veil in the way that he did? What did he want to teach his reader concerning the meaning and significance of Jesus' death, especially with regard to its implications for the reader's understanding of Judaism and the Jewish people?

Part Two takes a different turn. The daring of understanding the gospel as a living word of the living God is that it invites an interpretive move beyond the limits set by historical-critical exegesis. Part Two exercises a creative freedom that makes an imaginative move to recover what the rending of the sanc-tuary veil might signal if it were viewed from the vantage point of God. As such, it will address these questions: What might we learn if God were to instruct us about the meaning of the rending of the sanctuary veil? What might that instruction add to the historical-critical interpretation of Mk 15:38? What effect might it have on the questions -- and Mark's answers -- concerning the meaning and significance of Jesus' death? What implications might it hold for our understanding the rela-tionship between Christianity and Judaism?

Mark 15:38

The Gospels record two sets of happenings that follow immedi-ately upon the account of Jesus' death. The first involves external, or physical, effects; the second records reactions of witnesses to that death. The first set includes (1) darkness coming over the whole land from the sixth to the ninth hour; (2) the rending of the sanctuary veil into two from top to bottom; (3) the earth shaking; (4) rocks splitting; (5) tombs opening; and (6) the raising of bodies of many holy ones who had fallen asleep, their entering into the holy city and appearing to many. The second set includes the reactions of people who were present at the death of Jesus: the centu-rion, those who kept watch over Jesus, the assembled crowds, the women, the "hostile" Jews, and the soldiers who came to take the body away.³

The verse that is the focus of this essay, the rending of the sanctuary veil, falls into the first category: external effects. It appears, virtually identically, in three of the four canonical Gospels: Matt 27:51, Mk 15:38, and Luke 23:45b.

PART ONE

Mark 15:38, as traditionally understood⁴

   And the veil of the sanctuary was rent into two from top to bottom.

How does Mark want his reader to understand this verse? What does he want to teach, and what clues does he provide to shape the reader's understanding of its meaning? Brown maintains that the answer to these questions lies in two lin-guistic clues embedded in v. 38. The first is the verb Mark uses to describe what happens to the sanctuary veil; the second is Mark's use of, and the connections he makes with, the word sanctuary.

The verb Mark uses to describe what happens to the veil of the sanctuary immediately following Jesus' death is a form of the Greek word schizein, to rend. It is in the passive voice, indicating that God is the agent of the action. That is to say, what happens to the sanctuary veil is not a natural disaster or an odd coincidence. God has rent the veil of the sanctuary into two from top to bottom. Mark uses this same verb in only one other place in the entirety of his Gospel. In the first chapter (Mk 1:10-11), we read that immediately after Jesus is baptized by John the heavens are rent (the verb is in the passive voice here as well, therefore read, God rends the heavens) and a voice (God's) declares of Jesus, "You are my beloved son." Now, at the end of the Gospel, God acts again, this time rending not the heavens, but the veil of the sanc-tuary. And as in the first rending, a declaration concerning Jesus follows. But in this instance, it is not God but the cen-turion, who declares: "Truly this man was God's son."

The inclusio is now complete: At the beginning of Jesus' public ministry God rends the heavens in a beneficent act and de-clares Jesus to be his beloved son. At the end of Jesus' life, God rends the veil of the sanctuary in two in a violent act, and a centurion acknowledges what God had declared at the beginning of the Gospel: "Truly this man was God's son."

To appreciate the full import of this inclusio, one additional detail concerning the manner in which Mark has constructed his passion narrative is necessary. Throughout the passion account, Mark makes clear who is responsible for what hap-pens to Jesus. The Jewish authorities in Jerusalem sought after ways to arrest and kill Jesus (Mk 14:1), they sought testimony against Jesus to justify their putting him to death (Mk 14:55), at his trial they mocked his identification as the Christ, the son of the Blessed (Mk 14:61-64), they consulted together regarding Jesus' fate, they bound him, and they had him led away to Pilate to be crucified (Mk 15:1-3).⁵ As clear as is their refusal to acknowledge Jesus' identity, so too will be God's response to that refusal. According to Mark, the violent rending of the sanctuary veil is an unambiguous sign of God's anger at the Jewish authorities for decreeing death to God's own son, and God's raising from the dead that same son will be an unambiguous sign that God has vindicated Jesus.

Mark makes clear the full consequences of the refusal by the Jewish authorities to acknowledge Jesus' identity in the verse that immediately follows the rending of the sanctuary veil. It is a centurion who does what Jesus' own people could not, or would not, do. It is an "outsider" who both recognizes and confirms what God had declared at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry: "Truly this man was God's son." By means of this narrative inclusio Mark wants to instruct his reader that from this moment on, God will turn to and rely on "outsiders" to recognize his beloved son. Raymond Brown's assessment of the linguistic evidence regarding Mark's use of the verb schiz-ein is this: "The centurion who recognizes Jesus' true identity may represent the Gentiles ready to acknowledge what the Jews denied" (Brown, Death, p. 1109).

The second linguistic clue to Mark's intent is found in his con-necting God's violent act of rending with the veil of the sanctuary. Because the sanctuary was the dwelling place of the Most High, because it was the locus of God's most pro-found presence, and because the general function of the veil was to separate the holy from the profane, the image of God's rending the veil of the sanctuary conjures up powerful associations and implications. It is God who has destroyed the "barrier" that once separated the holy from the profane. God's presence is no longer confined to that place. Indeed, without a veil, the Holy of Holies cannot contain the deity's presence. It has departed the sanctuary. It has been set free. And as a result, that place is no longer holy. From this time hence, nothing will separate God from God's people.⁶

Thus, in rending the veil of the sanctuary in two from top to bottom (a detail that can only imply that it is beyond repair), Mark means to make clear to his reader that with the death of Jesus the sanctuary went out of existence. The Jerusalem temple is no more because God is no longer present in that place. God's presence, once confined, is now available to all who follow Jesus.

This synopsis provides an overview of traditional Christian exegesis of Mark 15:38. It also illustrates the intractable problem of Christian triumphalism. To quote Raymond Brown, "An interpretation of what the Gospel(s) narrate here is, in my judgment, relatively simple" (Brown, Death, p. 1109). Brown is accurate when he says "an interpretation." And I have tried to depict accurately the main lines of that interpretation. To the extent that I have done so, it seems to me that Brown (and perhaps other historical-critical interpreters) is open to some criticism on two counts. First, there is nothing "simple" about Brown's interpretation. I have no doubt that it is an accurate assessment of what Mark intended to teach his readers: (1) that God has responded violently and definitively to the Jewish refusal to acknowledge Jesus as God's beloved son, and to Jewish complicity in his death; (2) that God has departed the Temple and has taken up residence in the Church; (3) that God has found a "new" Israel, a "new" people, and made a "new" covenant; and (4) that the "old" has passed away because it did not recognize and acknowledge God's own son. That may indeed be what Mark intended to teach his reader. But an interpretation that lends itself to and clearly supports a theology of hate for Judaism and the Jewish people, that has been used throughout most of Christian history to justify a teaching of contempt toward Judaism and the Jewish people, that has justified unspeakable acts of violence and death towards women and men who knew what the church forgot all too quickly, that "the gifts and the calling of God are irrev-ocable" (Rom. 11:29), such an interpretation is anything but "simple." For Brown (and others) to simply lay out what Mark intended against the backdrop of such a history is beyond my imagining. Which brings me to my second criticism.

While Brown may acknowledge that his is "an" interpretation, there is little doubt in my mind that he represents a mind-set among historical-critical exegetes who operate out of a methodological arrogance that, on the one hand, acknowl-edges other methods of biblical interpretation, but, on the other hand, functions as if historical criticism were the definitive method. I believe this is the case because these exegetes (wrongly) assume that the author's intent is the definitive (read only) voice. For them, the author's perspective is synonymous with the meaning of the text. But the author's intent is not the only voice in the text. It is the text that is definitive. It is the text, and not the author, that provides the definitive voice for the faithful. The author's intent is an important perspective, to be sure, one that the reader must acknowledge and reckon with. Brown (and others) has made clear what Mark intends by having God rend the veil of the sanctuary in two. But, and most especially, with a text whose authorial intent is so deeply supersessionist, is it not incum-bent upon Brown (and others) to, at the very least, acknowledge that Mark's anti-Jewish polemic has contributed to church teaching that has had tragic consequences for Jews throughout Christian history? Mark's voice must not be allowed to mute other voices.

Perhaps a way to counter the indisputable anti-Jewish polemic in Mark's passion narrative is not to deny it, or ignore it, or explain it away, all of which are commonly employed strat-egies, but rather to search for other perspectives and listen for other voices within the text that might offer a counter-balance or an alternative interpretation . . . which brings me to Part Two of this essay.

PART TWO

Mark 15:38, "if one may suppose" from God

What might God have intended by rending the veil of the sanctuary in two from top to bottom? What instruction regard-ing the meaning of Mk 15:38 might God offer? If God were given voice -- and we were to listen -- what might we hear?

A clue from three sources: (1) The Babylonian Talmud (Mo’ed Qatan 26a) lists the destruction of the Temple and the de-struction of Jerusalem as among the mournful occasions when one rends one's garments, not to be sewn up again. (2) In 2 Kings 2:12-13, Elisha, inconsolable after Elijah is taken up to heaven, "took hold of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces." (3) In his commentary on Mk 15:38 Raymond Brown asks, almost in passing, "If wrath is the dominant symbolism of the rending in Mark 15:38, is there also an element of sorrow at what has happened to Jesus and/or what is happeing to the sanctuary and to Jerusalem . . . The evidence is not con-clusive, but one should not discount the added motif of sorrow" (Brown, Death. p. 1101).⁷ But Brown does discount it, and in so doing, passes over nothing less than a key to un-locking what I believe is a new understanding of Mark 15:38, one that challenges the prevailing anti-Jewish bias of the author.

So we ask: What might be the effect of an exploration into the added motif of sorrow as a reason for God's rending of the sanctuary veil? How might God instruct us -- and Mark -- with regard to what God intended by rending the veil of the sanc-tuary? If we were to listen closely might we hear God saying to Mark, and to us: "You got it wrong. You have misread the sign. I am not rejecting the Jewish people, nor am I abandon-ing the Temple. My love for them, like theirs for me, will endure forever. I rent the veil of the sanctuary as an act of mourning, as a sign of my profound grief at the death of this Torah-observant Jew.

If we "make room" for contemplating God's action as a sign of mourning, if we take to heart God's grief signaled by the rending of the sanctuary veil, if we add this voice to Mark's, what now can we say? We hear multiple, contradictory, and oftentimes dissonant voices. We should not silence them. We view conflicting perspectives. We should not harmonize them. Perhaps among the many lessons the gospel teaches is this: that the meaning of a biblical event is not self-evident, espe-cially if that meaning diminishes, demonizes, or seeks to destroy any of God's beloved. We Christians, unaccustomed though we are to living with multiple authoritative voices, must learn how to live in those uncomfortable places where there are no easy answers, but only a lasing promise: "I am with you all the days, even to the completion of time" (Matt. 28:20).

Endnotes

¹This translation is that of Fr. Raymond Brown, The Death of the Messiah, from Gethsemane to the Grave: A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels (Doubleday, 1994) Vol. Two, pp. 1097-98. All subsequent references to Brown will refer to this volume.

²While Jewish readers may find this move somewhat "old hat," it is my sense that for many Christians this proposal to move beyond what the author intends, indeed, to posit that the text might hold meanings beyond the author's intent, may seem foreign, perhaps even disquieting.

³This list is a compilation from all four Gospels. See Brown, Death, p. 1098.

⁴For this overview of historical-critical exegesis of Mk 15:38 I have relied principally on Brown, Death, pp. 1097-1140. Although written a decade ago, it remains the single most important exegetical volume on the biblical accounts of Jesus' passion and death, in part because Brown incorporates the work of biblical scholars whose findings have influenced the interpretation of these gospel accounts, and in part because Brown is a consummate scholar in his own right, and perhaps the definitive Johannine scholar of the 20th century.

⁵Throughout Mark's account of Jesus' passion, he refers to these Jewish authorities variously as chief priests, scribes, elders, the whole Sanhedrin council.

⁶These allusions would not be altogether foreign to Mark's Jewish readers. Late Second Temple literature gives evidence of similar imagery. For example, in Ezekiel 9-10, written just prior to the destruction of the Temple in 587 BCE by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar (understood here as instru-ments of God), the glory of God departs the Temple in anger as a consequence of the idolatries practiced there. In 2 Baruch 6, written in the latter half of the 1st century CE and describing the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans (portrayed as the Babylonians), an angel takes away the veil of the sanctuary and all the contents of the Holy of Holies before the voice says, "Enter -- he has left" (8:2).

⁷Recall that Mark wrote his Gospel shortly after the destruc-tion of the Second Temple by the Romans in 69-70 CE.