The Centurion’s Confession: Seeing God in the Crucified

Apr 30

“Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son!’”
—Mark 15:39 (NRSV)

Introduction: The Gospel’s Most Unlikely Witness

In nearly every funeral I’ve officiated, there’s a moment of quiet when the rawness of grief meets the finality of death. It’s often in that stillness that someone—a friend, a nurse, a relative—utters something unexpected, something like a truth we weren’t ready to hear: “They were so strong.” “I didn’t really know them until now.”

That’s what the Roman centurion does in Mark 15:39.

Up to this point in Mark’s Gospel, no human character has declared Jesus to be God’s Son. Demons have named him rightly (Mark 3:11), and God has spoken over him at his baptism and transfiguration (Mark 1:11; 9:7), but the disciples have misunderstood him at nearly every turn. It is not until Jesus is dead—broken, silent, and crucified—that a Roman soldier, an agent of the empire, says, “Truly this man was God’s Son.”

Why now? Why him? And what does it mean that this moment of divine recognition comes not in power, but in suffering?

This blog explores the centurion’s confession as the Gospel’s theological climax. Through trauma-informed biblical interpretation and Christological reflection, we will consider how Mark invites us to see God not in triumph, but in crucified love.

Exegesis: A Soldier’s Vision at the Cross

Mark 15:39 is deceptively simple. The centurion, who has likely overseen or participated in Jesus’s execution, sees “how he breathed his last”—and confesses Jesus as God’s Son. But this is not a generic observation. It’s deeply theological, and it’s full of narrative weight.

The Greek phrase ho centuriōn ho parestēkōs ex enantias autou (“the centurion who stood facing him”) emphasizes posture and perception. This soldier is uniquely positioned—physically and metaphorically—to see Jesus in death. And what he sees is not just a man dying, but a revelation of divine sonship.

Adela Yarbro Collins notes that this moment serves as a structural reversal of the mocking that surrounds Jesus earlier in the chapter. The soldiers, passersby, and chief priests have all ridiculed Jesus’s kingship and messiahship (Mark 15:16–32). But the centurion, witnessing the same scene, sees not defeat, but glory—of a different kind.

This reversal carries apocalyptic significance. As Peter Stevenson puts it, the Gospel of Mark does not build to resurrection but to recognition. The truth of Jesus’s identity breaks forth not in signs and wonders, but in how he dies—utterly human, utterly abandoned, and utterly faithful.

Theological Reflection: Cruciform Revelation

So much of Christian theology is built around the idea that we come to know who Jesus is through his resurrection. And that’s true, in part. But Mark invites us to consider something more radical: that the crucifixion itself is a revelation of divinity.

Jürgen Moltmann’s The Crucified God challenges any notion of a detached, triumphant deity who hovers above suffering. “The Christ event on the cross,” he writes, “is not a divine performance but the self-emptying of God into suffering”. In other words, the cross is not an obstacle to understanding God—it is the very place where God becomes most visible.

The centurion, standing in front of a mutilated man on a Roman execution stake, becomes the first person to see Jesus clearly. And it is not his miracles, his parables, or his power that reveal his identity—but his death.

For those who suffer, this is good news.

Trauma Lens: Seeing Through the Eyes of the Broken

In trauma studies, one of the core insights is that truth can emerge in the aftermath. Survivors often carry a way of seeing that others miss. They know what it means to live in a world where institutions fail, where justice is delayed, where pain is invisible.

The centurion may not be a victim, but he is—ironically—the one who bears witness. And trauma-informed readings of this text suggest that it is precisely in the moment of Jesus’s agony that divine meaning becomes legible. As Garber puts it, Mark 15 is not a “neutral record” of events, but a “wounded and wounding text”.

For survivors, the centurion’s confession is a theological invitation: You do not need to wait for the resurrection to see God. Look at the cross.

This does not resolve trauma. It doesn't erase it. But it dignifies it. It says: in your worst moment, God was already there—bleeding, gasping, dying, and holy.

Application: What the Centurion Teaches the Church

For pastors, theologians, and anyone seeking to live faithfully, this passage calls for a reorientation of power.

Too often, we associate divine revelation with grandeur—cathedrals, miracles, success stories. But the Gospel of Mark reminds us that God’s glory is not seen in sanitized sanctuaries, but in crucified bodies. Not just Jesus’s, but the bodies of the oppressed, the suffering, the abandoned.

We must become the centurion: standing near those who suffer, facing them, and bearing witness—not just to their pain, but to the presence of God within it.

This has implications for how we:

preach (centering lament as truth-bearing),
serve (accompanying those in trauma with humility),
and worship (allowing for unresolved sorrow in sacred spaces).

Mark 15 is not a footnote to resurrection. It is the ground zero of recognition.

Conclusion: Who Will You Stand Facing?

The centurion saw something the others missed—not because he was holier, but because he was present. He was there, facing the cross, watching Jesus breathe his last. And in that moment, the veil of misunderstanding lifted.

Mark wants us to stand there too.

Not to rush past Friday for Sunday. Not to dress up death with doctrine. But to face it. To face him. And to let our confession arise not from victory, but from witness.

“Truly this man was God’s Son.”
Still is.