<p>15:36 <i>And one ran and filling a sponge full of vinegar, put it on a rod and gave it to him to drink, saying: Leave him be. Let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down-</i> When we read that &ldquo;someone&rdquo; offered him a sponge with wine mixed with myrrh (Mk. 15:36; Mt. 27:48), we recall the use of myrrh in preparing bodies for burial (Mk. 14:3; Lk. 23:56; Jn. 12:3; 19:39). Pliny (<i>Natural History</i> 14.15.92,107) records: &ldquo;The finest wine in early days was that spiced with the scent of myrrh&hellip;I also find that aromatic wine is constantly made from almost the same ingredient as perfumes, from myrrh&rdquo;. This alerts me to the real possibility that the unnamed bystander who did this was Mary Magdalene. Earlier she had anointed the Lord&rsquo;s body with myrrh &ldquo;to the burial&rdquo;. And now she has prepared the most expensive form of wine as some sort of pain killer. Perhaps the Lord was so touched by this that He accepted it, but didn&rsquo;t drink it. His doing this is otherwise very hard to understand. Her love was on one hand inappropriate, and yet the Lord still accepted it, even though He couldn&rsquo;t use it. He could have felt angry with her for tempting Him to the easier way. But He didn&rsquo;t. And in so doing He showed her that the essence of the cross is that there is no easy way. The principles of all this are to be reflected in our cross carrying.&nbsp;</p>