Mark’s meta-irony, 2

Some thoughts inspired by student papers on Mark 15:

The most obvious Markan irony in chapter 15 is the fact that the Roman soldiers mock Jesus for being king of the Jews when He in fact is the king of the Jews. God has the last laugh; God is not mocked, even when He’s mocked.

But there are more subtle ironies at work.

The Jews are seeking help from the Roman authorities to put Jesus to death. To make the charge stick, they have to translate their religious objections to Jesus into political terms: Jesus is fomenting revolution. Of course, as NT Wright has pointed out at length, this is precisely what many of the Jewish leaders have been doing for some time, and they show their hand when they choose to welcome Barabbas rather than Jesus.

The internal contradictions of the Jewish leaders are neatly exposed: They kowtow to Roman power, but at the same time prefer the way of revolution to Jesus’ “revolutionary way of being revolutionary” (Wright’s phrase). Mark thus exposes the inner continuity between Jewish and Roman programs: Jewish anti-imperialism is just as much an idolatry of power as Roman imperialism. Jesus, the dying Son of God, offers a way different from both.