Hey Joe,
Hope all is well and this finds you abundantly blessed. I have a question for you that I have been thinking about for a little over a week. In Mark 15:23 Jesus refuses the wine mixed with myrrh and then in verse 36 he accepts the sour vinegar. Doesn’t that strike you as peculiar? The vinegar is something that would wake Him up, as He was without a doubt tired. He wasn’t trying to quench his thirst, was he. But what do you make of the wine mixed with myrrh. It would be a sedative, so it would help with the pain. Look at this, He is being crucified which would be gruesome and excruciating. Wine mixed with myrrh might sedate him but not as much as maybe Demerol, oxycontin, morphine, or codeine. It wasn’t really going to help THAT much, was it. So the question is what made Him reject it? What is significant about wine mixed with myrrh? What does it imply that He is not willing to take something like that? How much would it have really helped? What does that imply? Figure that out and you will have the key to understanding the entire segment.
Blessings, Alipio