Sensory aesthetic texture in Mark 15:1-16:8

Definition of sensory aesthetic texture.

Mark 15:1-16:8 begins with Jesus' body, with its hands bound, being handed forcefully over to Pilate (15:1). The following verses then emphasize the use of mouths and ears. Pilate speaks to Jesus; Jesus hears and responds (15:2). Then the chief priests accuse Jesus many times. When Pilate invites Jesus to respond to the accusations of the chief priests, Jesus does not speak, and he does not use his mouth for speech again until he cries out at his death (15:34). In a context where Jesus is not able to use his hands for purposeful action, and the movement of his feet is dictated by people who lead him here and there, Jesus no longer uses his mouth. This is a dramatic development in the story of Jesus, a person who was described openly as a teacher the first time he entered a synagogue (1:21-28) and a person who is repeatedly characterized as a teacher throughout the narrative (Robbins 1992a). A central feature of the characterization of Jesus now abruptly ceases to function in the narrative. One could imagine that Jesus would have taught both Pilate and the chief priests about the kingdom of God and about true kingship. This is, in fact, what Jesus does in the Gospel of John (18:28-38). But not in the Gospel of Mark. The identity of Jesus emerges at the end of the Gospel of Mark not through Jesus' speech as a teacher, but through things that happen to his body.

When Jesus does not respond to the accusations against him, a new aspect of Pilate's body comes into view. The narrator now refers to Pilate's emotion-fused thought. Pilate marvels that Jesus does not use his mouth against the many accusations made against him (15:5). The narrator uses this same mode of emotion-fused thought earlier in the story to describe people's reaction in the Decapolis to the Gerasene demoniac's account of what Jesus had done for him (5:20). Also, the narrator uses this emotion to describe Jesus' reaction in Nazareth to people's disbelief (6:6). Now this emotion describes Pilate's disbelief that Jesus does not speak out and refute the accusations against him. Amazement in Pilate's mind, then, momentarily replaces Pilate's use of his mouth for speech as the narrator recounts that it was customary to release a prisoner during the Passover feast. Immediately again, however, mouths and ears dominate the scene as Pilate converses with the crowd about Jesus' body. In the end, Pilate frees the body of Barabbas and hands the body of Jesus over to be whipped and crucified.

Soldiers play a game with Jesus' body in the second scene (15:16-24). They dress it up and undress it like naughty, violent children playing with a doll. They focus their attack on the head of Jesus-- the body zone of his thought, feeling, seeing, hearing, and speech. There is no special attack on his ears or eyes. They do not, for instance, cut off an ear or gouge out an eye. These remain whole and in place to the end. Rather, his head as the center of his mode of understanding, feeling, and intention attracts the most attention. They put a crown of thorns on Jesus' head, they salute it, and they hit his head with a stick. Then, however, they mock Jesus' mouth, using their own mouths to spit on him and wag their jaws at his unspeaking lips, jaws, and tongue. Then they play with his entire body, dressing it up in purple, then undressing it. Only after they have played violently and flippantly with his body do the soldiers lead this "body" out to crucify it. Through all of this, Jesus has said nothing, and narrational discourse does not speak for Jesus' mind. It is as though Jesus has become not only speechless but also mindless. Earlier in the narrative, Jesus often reads the minds of others and speaks to them directly, powerfully, and authoritatively. Now the narrator speaks neither of thought nor of speech in relation to Jesus' body. The actively thinking, perceiving, willing, and exhorting Jesus has become a passively mute body that people lead around, beat, mock, spit on, and play with as they wish. There is a moment, however, when this passivity is broken. When they offer Jesus drugged wine, he does not let them put it in his mouth (15:23). Words no longer come out of his mouth. He also does not allow drink to go into it to relieve his pain. His mouth has become closed, both for giving and for receiving.

The next scene (15:25-32) introduces time into the mode of perception in the discourse. It was early in the morning, the beginning of daylight, when the chief priests, elders, scribes, and the whole sanhedrin handed Jesus over to Pilate. The activities that followed filled three hours of time. Now Jesus' body begins to hang on the cross. At this point, mockery of Jesus' body is not limited to the soldiers. Everything in the scene mocks his body. The cross itself mocks Jesus' body with an inscription that calls him "the King of the Jews." People who pass by mock his body with their mouths and their heads, taunting him to bring his body to action by coming down from the cross. Chief priests and scribes also mock his body with their mouths, reconfiguring the inscription on the cross to ridicule him as "the Messiah, the King of Israel." But then they add a reference to eyes and heart. "Come down," they say, "that we may see and believe." Just as Pilate's encounter with Jesus finally brought a response from inside his body --namely, he marvelled that Jesus no longer spoke-- now the chief priests and scribes evoke an awareness of eyes that see and hearts that believe. In turn, those who are crucified with Jesus utter words of reproach against him. In this scene, then, the relation of Jesus to the people around him is reversed. Earlier in the narrative, Jesus powerfully used his eyes, head, and mouth to challenge people to see and believe. In this scene, people energetically use their mouths and heads to mock what they see and to ridicule what Jesus has asked people to believe.

The next scene (15:33-39) begins with another reference to time. It took three hours for the door to close on any hope for Jesus' release. During this time, Jesus' speech stopped, his body was beaten and mocked, and his body was led off to be hung on a cross. Now the narration tells us that Jesus' body hung on the cross as an object of ridicule and shame for as long as it had taken for the public pretense of a trial, the physical abuse and mockery by the soldiers, and the journey to Golgotha at the beginning of the day. At the end of this time period, according to the narrator, the universe itself responded. The response was not a flash of light, a roar of thunder, a miraculous release of the body from the cross, and a glorious ascent of the body into heaven. Rather, the light that the earth gives forth during the day to give life to the world suddenly became darkness. In other words, the universe itself became passive, much as Jesus' body became passive during the scene with Pilate. Not only did all people forsake him, but the universe itself--with God as its inward center of emotion, thought, and will--withdraw into passivity. And the universe remained in this passive state for three hours, the same length of time as the opening series of events and the same length of time during which Jesus' body hung on the cross in ridicule and shame.

After three hours of passivity in the universe, Jesus cries out with a loud voice, "Eloi Eloi lema sabachthani," which the narrator immediately translates as "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" (15:34). But this simply brings forth more mockery. Some people standing by think Jesus has called out to Elijah. One of them runs, fills a sponge with vinegar, and extends it to Jesus on a stick so he will drink it and revive himself long enough to see if Elijah will come and help him. Instead, Jesus gives out his death gasp (15:37). At this point, the universe responds by splitting the curtain of the temple in two from top to bottom (15:38). In turn, when the centurion who is standing opposite the cross sees Jesus give out his last breath, he speaks out saying, "Truly this man is son of God." Finally, in other words, both the universe and someone near Jesus respond in a manner other than ridicule and mockery. But not until the moment of Jesus' death. Only when every function in Jesus' body has shut down, including the hope in Jesus' mind that perhaps it will be God's will to "take this cup from him" (14:36), is there some kind of response that affirms the meaning of Jesus' life. But what do these responses mean? What meanings do the splitting of the temple curtain evoke? What meanings attend the title son of God when it occurs on the lips of a Roman centurion? We must pursue these meanings in later sections.

In any case, in this scene Jesus once again uses his mouth. But Jesus uses his mouth not to teach but to cry out in despair after three hours of passivity in the universe in addition to the earlier hours of passivity in his body. One might have hoped that when Jesus became passive, the universe would have gone into action. Instead, the universe itself symbiotically moved into passivity along with Jesus. Jesus, however, momentarily goes into action at death. At this point, the universe strikes out by splitting the curtain of the temple in two. In addition, a foreigner in the land of Israel "sees" how Jesus dies and "speaks out." What does the future hold?

The narration does not stop here. Ironically and casually, it seems at first, narrational discourse indicates that three women observed all of these events from a distance. Recalling the zone of purposeful action, however, we can observe more fully the nature of the narrative description of the women. These women were followers of Jesus from the time he was in Galilee through the time when he came into Jerusalem. They did not flee when the other followers did; they simply remained at a distance to observe everything they could. These women "served" Jesus during the time he was travelling from Galilee to Jerusalem. Therefore, they have been engaged in purposeful activity for a significant period of time. Moreover, this is the activity angels performed when Jesus was in the wilderness prior to his entrance into Galilee (1:13). It is good activity. Peter's mother-in-law also performed this kind of activity after Jesus removed her fever (1:31). And this was the activity Jesus said that the Son of man came to perform and that those who wish to be first and great must perform (10:43-45). This narration, which appears to be simply a casual epilogue to the death of Jesus, recycles major topics of purposeful activity that occupy the narrative until the time Jesus is handed over to Pilate. Suddenly the topics of Galilee, following, serving, and going up to Jerusalem are "on the table again," so to speak. Much as the universe and the centurion respond to the death of Jesus, so the narration has found a way to revive the meaning of Jesus' life in the context of the death of his body. For Markan narration, we recall, endings simply are new beginnings.

The narration continues by referring to time (15:42). Reference to time played a significant role in moving the narrative forward from the point when it announced the approach of Passover in 14:1. And, as we have seen, the narration uses time dramatically to move the story forward from the time Jesus was handed over to Pilate to the moment of Jesus' death. Now the narration moves decisively beyond Jesus' death by referring to time. The narration refers to three items of time: (a) evening; (b) preparation; and (c) the day before the sabbath. Evening, according to Jewish time during the first century, represents the end of one day and the beginning of another. Preparation regularly refers to the day prior to a festival, but it can also mean the day of preparing for the sabbath. The reference to time as preparation deepens the mode of purposeful action the discourse introduced with its initial characterization of the women (15:40-41). Joseph now embodies the kind of purposeful action attributed to the women as he requests the body of Jesus, takes it down from the cross, wraps it in linen cloth, and places it in a proper burial place. Mark 15:42-46 focuses, naturally, on the entire body of Jesus. Joseph shows courage by activating his feet to go to Pilate and activating his mouth to request Jesus' body. Pilate once again responds with amazement (15:44). While earlier Pilate's amazement resulted in offering the crowd a choice to have Jesus or Barabbas released to them, here his amazement leads him to summon the centurion to verify that Jesus in fact has died this quickly. At this point, Jesus' corpse is the focus of attention in the narration. The centurion verifies that Jesus' body now is indeed only a corpse. Therefore, Pilate grants permission, and Joseph buys linen cloth, takes the corpse down, wraps it up, lays it in a tomb, and rolls a rock over the opening in the tomb.

Again the narration continues with a conclusion that is a new beginning. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses observe where Joseph lays the corpse of Jesus. And again the narration introduces time. When the sabbath is over, all three women who had observed the crucifixion buy ointments to anoint Jesus' body. When the women find an open tomb with a young man dressed in a white robe sitting in it, the narration turns to emotion and emotion directs the activities of the women's bodies. The women are amazed at what they find, they run out of the tomb and flee when they hear the words of the young man, they tremble and their minds go into disarray, they are filled with fear, and they tell no one anything. Much as Jesus himself had come to a point of speechlessness, so the women no longer speak. They remain people of action, in accordance with the characterization of them in the previous narration. Earlier, they followed Jesus and served him. Seeing the crucifixion and the burial, they bought spices and came to the tomb to anoint Jesus body. They are still filled with action. Filled with amazement, trembling, confusion, and fear, they flee from the tomb. But this is a move away from following rather than toward it. This was the response of the disciples earlier when Jesus was arrested (14:50). Now the women not only flee, they do not use their mouths to spread the information of what they have seen. According to our earliest manuscripts, this is where the text of Mark ends. One can see that the sensory-aesthetic texture of the ending moves rhythmically from action and speech inwardly to emotion and to action directed by emotion. Some interpreters think the narration had to continue further that 16:8. The sensory-aesthetic texture of the text, however, makes it clear that every ending is another beginning. Even the flight of the women, therefore, is not an ending that can remain an ending. Somehow, somewhere these women will enact the message of Jesus' death and resurrection in a form that transmits its meanings to other people's lives. The sensory-aesthetic mode in which this occurs moves beyond the mode of speech and action in teaching or the mode of speech and action in ruling others. Rather, the mode enacts a form of speech and action that embodies both the activity and the passivity of Jesus during this final time in the story. Jesus' feet had taken him toward Jerusalem. Jesus' mouth, hands, and feet had taken followers and others on a journey through healing, controversy, a vision of the future, service to others, and interpretation of the present. Now the task is left to those, both men and women, who find a way to embody this interactive mode of activity and passivity in daily life.

In summary, then, the sensory-aesthetic texture of the Gospel of Mark enacts a mode of action and speech that challenges alternative sensory-aesthetic modes of action and speech in the world. The sensory-aesthetic texture of the story itself challenges the innermost recesses of one's emotions, one's conceptual configurations, and one's will. Action is not enough. Passivity is not enough. Speech is not enough. Emotion is not enough. Will is not enough. Only a complexly interwoven matrix of activity, passivity, speech, emotion, and will mimetically enacts the sensory-aesthetic texture of the text.

From V. K. Robbins, Exploring the Texture of Texts, (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), pp. 32-6.

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