Life of Christ 172
It is 9 AM on Wednesday.
Tonight at sundown Passover begins. Pilate, hands still dripping wet from his
attempt to wash the responsibility for this crime off of them, stands before
the howling bloodthirsty mob of Israel's religious leadership and he gives
sentence that is should be as they required.
Immediately, Roman
soldiers reach for Him. They tear the simple robe off his back. Lifting His
arms they tie his hands to a post above His head and they send for the scourger.
A Roman soldier lifted
the whip above his head and swung with all his force until it struck the back
of Jesus Christ. At the end of the whip were several leather thongs in which
iron balls and sheep bones had been set. As the iron balls struck they caused
deep contusions and the bones cut into the skin and the underlying muscle. As
the flogging continued the lacerations widened and deepened. Soon ribbons of
flesh hung from his back, and blood first trickled and then ran down His body
to drip onto the stone flagged floor of the Praetorium. Thirty-nine times the
whip rose and thirty-nine times the whip fell.
Untying his arms from
the post the rough soldiers decided on a little sport. During Herod's brief
examination an hour earlier he had clothed Jesus in a rich purple robe in
mockery of His claim to be the King of Israel. It had been discarded in
Pilate's judgment hall but now someone grabs it, throws it round the huddled
bloody mess on the floor, and hauls Him to His feet. Someone else places a
staff into His hand in place of a scepter and another, having plaited a circlet
out of material from a bramble bush in the courtyard, places it on His head. Jeering,
they act out a little pantomime of bowing before Him.
Soon, though, the jeers
turn to blows. Someone grabs the stick out of His hand and pounds Him about the
head, driving the crown of thorns down around His scalp. A blindfold is tied
around His eyes and one at a time they take turns punching Him in the face and
stomach and demanding that He prophetically pronounce the name of the one who
had so struck Him. Some yanked chunks of hair out of His head as He sank to the
ground, weak from blood loss and repeated beatings. Gathering around the
pitiful figure still garbed in blood spattered purple one by one they take
turns, in contempt, spitting on this man who thought He could be the King of
the Jews.
A quaternion of four
soldiers is assigned to Him; they are not allowed to leave His side until He
has been pronounced as dead. Together with two other quaternions and prisoners
He is marched through the streets of the city. Going ahead of the sad little
procession was a man carrying a sign on which was written the crime of the
guilty party. The sign, penned in mockery of Christ and of the Sanhedrin, reads
THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS. In moments it would be nailed to the top of
the post from which He would hang.
That post was already
fixed in the ground on Golgotha but the crossbeam was not. Just prior to
leaving the Praetorium the soldiers stretched out Jesus' arms and tied the
crossbeam to them. Somewhere along the route through the city Jesus stumbled
and fell beneath the hundred pound weight of that crossbeam. The soldiers
forced Him to His feet but He fell again, weakened by repeated beatings and a
terrible scourging. In haste, they snatch a random man from the rapidly growing
crowd, and compel him, Simon was his name, to carry the crossbeam for Christ.
Three days ago He and
His Apostles had marched into the city surrounded by throngs of cheering,
shouting, singing Jews. Now the King of Israel, betrayed, abandoned, unjustly
sentenced, scourged, beaten, and mocked, stumbles through the same streets on
the way to Golgotha.
Those streets are
largely silent; the crowds looking on hushed. From somewhere up ahead a group
of women begin to lament loudly. As Jesus draws even with them He lifts His
thorn shadowed brow to look at them. Not unkindly, He tells them to save their
lamentation for their children – the children that thirty years would perish by
the hundreds of thousands in the Roman siege of a rebellious Jerusalem.
At the site of the
execution Roman law allowed a liquid narcotic to be given to the condemned man
so that some of his pain would be eased. Jesus refused this, choosing to remain
in full possession of His faculties but also choosing thus to experience
greater pain.
Upon arrival He was
thrown on His back and the crossbar that Simon had carried for Him placed under
His outstretched arms. Taking a six inch iron spike a Roman soldier knelt over
Him and placed it with great precision at the base of His hand where the wrist
begins. There the radius and the ulna of the arm join together at the hand and
with the carpals form a small opening of bone through which the median nerve
runs. Another soldier steps up and swinging a sledgehammer drives it through
His body and into the wood of the crossbeam. The process is then repeated with
the other arm.
Raised back to His feet,
Jesus was lifted into the waiting hands of Roman soldiers standing above Him on
ladders. Hoisted into the air from above and pushed from beneath His body hung,
swaying, suspended in mid-air by those two iron spikes. The crossbeam with its
now three hundred pound weight was then dropped onto the embedded post. Quickly,
the Roman soldiers grab His feet and holding them together place yet another
iron spike through them into the wood of the embedded post.
In this way, suspended
between earth and Heaven, the crucified man would torturously die by inches
over the next several days. He would die of exhaustion, of thirst, of asphyxiation,
and of blood loss from the constantly re-opened wounds on his back.
Looking on the assembled
Sanhedrin smiled with glee. Looking on, the imps of hell howled in silent
triumph. Looking on, His mother wept and recalled Simeon's prophecy of long ago
pronounced in that very city over her precious infant child. Behold, this child is set for the fall and
rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;
Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also. (Luke 2.34-35)
Along the way He kept His head. He won the thief
beside Him to Himself. He took care of His earthly responsibilities – His
mother. Stunningly, He forgave the assembled Romans and Jews who were murdering
Him. And the darkness stole into His soul as He contemplated being rejected and
abandoned - not just by His people, not just by His Apostles, but by God
Himself.
He who had known perfect
fellowship for eternity was now taking upon Himself the noxious stench of the
monstrous pile of humanity's sins against God.
And as the Father turned His back on the Son the true pain of the cross
was shown.
My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken
me?
Just over the city walls
in the Temple Jewish priests gathered by the thousands and Jewish men gathered
by the tens of thousands. One by one, hundreds of thousands of lambs were
slaughtered in representation of that long ago night in Egypt when only the
blood protected the people from the death angel. And hanging on the cross the
Lamb of God, with His life's blood streaming from His body, shouted a single
Greek word – tetelestai – which being interpreted is It is finished.
In moments, He dismissed
His spirit and died. And the Roman centurion looked up in awe and said, Truly, this man was the son of God.
Isaiah 53:3 He is despised and rejected
of men; A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: And we hid as it were our
faces from him; He was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, And
carried our sorrows: Yet we did esteem him stricken, Smitten of God, and
afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our
transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement of our
peace was upon him; And with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We
have turned every one to his own way; And the LORD hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was
afflicted, Yet he opened not his mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, And as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, So he openeth not his
mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from
judgment: And who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the
land of the living: For the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked,
And with the rich in his death; Because he had done no violence, Neither was
any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise
him; he hath put him to grief: When thou shalt make his soul an offering for
sin, He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, And the pleasure of the
LORD shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his
soul, and shall be satisfied: By his knowledge shall my righteous servant
justify many; For he shall bear their iniquities.
There is only one proper response to this. It is to
say, from the bottom of our hearts, 'thank you.' For mercy at no charge and the
price it cost Him to furnish it.
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