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‘He saved others, but he can’t save himself. Let this Messiah,
this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may
see and believe’. Finally, those crucified with Jesus also heaped
insults at him (Mark 15:32).

Luke 23:36-37 also mentions mocking by Roman
soldiers: ‘The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering
him sour wine, and saying, ‘If you are the King of the Jews,
save yourself’. In Matthew 27:42 people, priest and the elders
mocked Jesus, and shouted at him while he is hanging on the
cross: ‘He saved others; let Him save Himself, if He is the Christ,
the chosen of God’. Timothy C. Gray a noted NT scholar is of
the opinion that in the Gospel of Mark, the mocking of Jesus on
the cross ‘takes up the two charges levelled against Jesus at his
trial’. Firstly, that Jesus ‘threatened the temple with destruction’
(14:58 and 15:29); secondly, that Jesus ‘claimed to be the Messiah’
(14:61-62 and 15:31-32).

While the first stage involves mockery by Jews, the
second stage mockery by gentiles, and the third stage has both
together. Leithart notes that at this point ‘Jews and Gentiles,
governors and criminals, scribes and commoners, all humanity
join in a single chorus of blasphemy’.

For Matthew, the cross is mainly about man’s mockery
of God. The scene when Jesus was mocked while he was on the
cross, is also a manifestation of the mercy of God through Jesus,
who himself is mocked, humiliated and in pain. Two men were
crucified at the same time as Jesus, one on his right hand and
one on his left. Both of the ‘thieves’ mocked Jesus in different
ways (Matthew 23:39-43). Jesus promised to one that he will
be with him in the Paradise, right in front of those who were
mocking him. God saves through Jesus, because God is full of
mercy, a mercy revealed through Jesus Christ that says to a thief,
today you will be with me in Paradise.

When we look at today’s situation, in the times of
explosion of social media like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram,
we see a similar kind of mocking. In today’s language it is called

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Lenten Meditations Re - Imaging People