Mark 15:39 “And when the centurion, which stood over against Him, saw that He cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, “Truly this Man was the Son of God.””
Matthew 27:54 says “… and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, “Truly this was the Son of God””.
A Roman gentile centurion, (I know it’s redundant), acknowledges the Son of God - being the Jewish Man, he just assisted in crucifying per instructions from his commander Pontius Pilate, the Governor; who was worried about the Jewish mob of all the chief priests, the Pharisees and the councils of the Sanhedrin, per Matthew 27.
It is my opinion that a lot of the Bible is a paradox, (“an argument that apparently derives self-contradictory conclusions by valid deduction from acceptable premises. …Opposed to common sense and yet is well founded or true.” New Oxford American and Merriam Webster Dictionaries) - like things that defy what we of this earth take as solid truth - like the air we breathe to live. We can not see it, nor taste it, although, we can feel its effects when it blows from whence it comes and then goes, but we see it not. Without it we die. Period. Something we can not even see… but we presume it to be… because we live…
The centurion, just doing his job… given that he was Roman, he did not care that he was given the job to oversee the crucifixion of another Jew… This was something that the Romans, the ruling body, did… But Jesus gave this centurion - a gift - the opportunity to profess that He was indeed the Son of God. Which had to be a paradox for the centurion… We know the end of this story - RESURRECTION on the third day… But at the time this centurion just saw and believed that he assisted in the killing of Whom he perceived to be, the Son of God… “How can this be… God’s Son, dead at my hands?”
Did this centurion feel shame? Confusion? Disgust of what he was a party to? Was he angered all the more at the Jews? Was he even more fearful - of God the Father? Did his heart break? Was his grasp of this world loosen as a result of his eye-opening moment?
…But the gift he was given. To know that indeed this Jew - Jesus of Nazareth was “Truly the Son of God!” There was a ember of light, a flicker of a flame - lit in his heart and mind - to settle, to chew upon, to ponder deeply… This Jesus was the Son of God - This is the gift that he had come to know. That this Son of God, cried out, (as in a victorious voice - “IT IS FINISHED!”), and gave up His life - in that He chose to…
Then the continuation of the paradoxical events… Third day… The first day of the week, Matthew 28… Jesus RESURRECTS! He lives. He was dead… but now He LIVES!
He is Risen… He is Risen INDEED!
Hallelujah!
Soli Deo Gloria
Nina
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