The words of the charge against him, written up over his head, read – ‘THE KING OF THE JEWS.’
he who wants to be king
she who wants to be queen
she who wants to be king
he who wants to be queenrun into a larger don’t want
to run others for their benefit
covering my benefit one-to-one
of having a final saymocking another for not being king
mocks the one currently a king
thus a kingly position is revealed
it its rawest form self-protection
The formal charge includes a legal, technical term, αἰτίας, (aitias) which justifies this capital punishment. This continues the placing of an actual cause of Jesus’ death within the arena and power of the Roman occupiers, no matter how much the Sanhedrin would have done so, had they the legal authority to do so.
Sabin2144does help us see Mark continuing to play with his description. This may help Readers to also play with this story, particularly this chapter, and learn to mock that which deserves mocking—pretentious power that thinks that naming something actually makes it into what is named.
…Mark speaks of the title “the king of the Jews” as an “inscription” on Jesus’ cross (15:26). It was common Jewish idiom to speak of scripture as “what is written” or “what is inscribed.” Mark thus suggests that the mockery of Jesus is, in its own right, a “Scripture.”
Rome’s presence is contingent upon the destruction of actual ruling structures of the lands they occupy. For better and for worse, Rome accepts the consequences of ruling others for their own benefit. It is for their benefit that all pretensions to rule are dramatically squashed.
Here is another pretender brutally done away with. Time after time, in days ancient and contemporary, such raw power is seldom defeated for long (and Jerusalem will bear the brunt of this reality within decades of this crucifixion). The fall of such power will eventually come from the internal contradictions and rape of resources that underpin conquest.
Mark is clear that he is mocking all this mockery of Jesus. He sees through the attempts to destroy a return to a living community.