The Death of Christ
The cross: it is the central theme to Christianity. We identify ourselves, our Lord, our God by particularly cruel form of execution. Yet we display the cross with pride. We wear it on t-shirts, on jewelry, some of us even tattoo it on our bodies. Why is it that we associate ourselves with such an offensive thing as a cross?
When we look at it today the cross is just a commonly used symbol. But it was not always such. The cross was extremely offensive. It was a form of execution that was done by the Romans on foreigners, on people they did not believe were really human. Did you know that it was illegal for a Roman citizen to be crucified except in cases where they revolted against the Roman government? Cyprian a Roman historian writes: “To bind a Roman citizen is a crime, to flog him is an abomination, to kill him is almost an act of murder: to crucify him is- What? There is no fitting word that can possible describe so horrible a deed.” Even the Romans found the cross to be offensive. It was the way in which they punished traitors and rebels. It was reserved for the worst of all criminals.
Do you know what happens to a body on the cross? What this form of death that we so proudly display today really was? Our word for excruciating is derived from crucifixion. The word that we use even today to describe an intense, unbearable pain comes from the cross. In fact the Latin word excruciates means ‘out of the cross’. If you have seen the Passion of the Christ with how graphic and intense that movie was, that is a watered down version of what a crucifixion really looked like. I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let me take a step back.
Jesus has been betrayed. One of his closest friends one of his own disciples has sold him out to his enemies. Jesus is taken by the religious leaders with help temple guards to be tried and executed. Now according to Roman law the Jewish leaders could not just go off and execute someone without permission. The Jewish leaders would have violated almost a dozen of their own laws during Jesus trial, but they cared not for rules they wanted him dead. He was not given a fair hearing. He was guilty and not given a change to prove his innocence. But the Jewish leaders still needed Roman support to execute Jesus. So they take him to procurator of Palestine Pilate.
Being procurator Pilate would have absolute power. There is no appeal higher than his word, except for that of Caesar. However only a Roman citizen could appeal to Caesar so this court was a high as it would go for Jesus. Pilate by all accounts given of his was a self seeking politician. He had been at odds with the Jews since he moved into Palestine. There had been a near massacre, a riot, and a number of red flags in his time. Due to Pilate’s shady past he was being watched very closely by Rome. So when the Jews bring a man to him and demand his death, they don’t even have to bring a charge up against him. They simply call him a criminal and demand death. Jesus trial does not even deserve to be called a trial.
Despite Pilates lack of scruples something about condemning a man who has done nothing contrary to Roman law does not sit well with him. Even if he is self seeking, he still has some value of the law. Pilate feels somewhat uneasy about killing an innocent man. He does not however have any problem scourging one. A scourging was a Roman form of punishment somewhat like a flogging…only worse. It was a preliminary to Roman execution but Pilate sends Jesus to be scourged before ever convicting him of a crime or even hearing a single charge against him.
So Pilate has Jesus scourged. His plan is to plea to the sympathy of the Jews. So he has Jesus scourged and then brought back out before the crowd. Pilate hoped that after seeing the battered and broken Jesus, the crowd’s anger would be subsided and they would no longer demand death. His plan did not work out as he has hoped.
A normal scourging was no small thing to watch. Usually two soldiers with flagellum’s would take turns lashing the victim. The victim would be tied to an upright post so his back was taught or dangled from two rings, or knelt over a stump. The style really didn’t matter for no matter how they strung the victim up his back would be taut for maximum effect. The victim would be stripped down and the flogging would begin. If you picture a whip like Indiana Jones uses you are picturing the wrong thing. Roman flogging was much more severe than that. Scourging was done with a flagellum or in some places also called a cat of nine tails. This flagellum consists of a wooden handle that the soldier holds and has nine leather thongs or ribbons that were tied to a handle kind of like the ribbons that dangle from the handle bars of a girls training bike. Except these ribbons were not decorative, they were designed to torture. At the end of each of the nine straps or ribbons would be embedded with sharp pieces of bone, metal, rock, or glass. There favorite thing to use was sheep bone because it cut the best. As the soldiers began the flogging each tail of the flagellum would wrap around the victim and the sharp chunks would actually grab hold of his flesh tearing into the sides and back of the victim. The bone, glass, and metal would rip and tear through the already tender skin and remove actual chunks of skin. Instead of cracking the whip over the back they would lash the whip across and pull down ripping of ribbons of flesh. This would quickly expose the subcutaneous tissue and eventually burst it. The scourging process was designed to be extremely painful and ultimately lethal. In many cases the time a victim would remain alive on the cross was dependent on how bad they were scourged. 6 out of 10 died from scourging alone because when they stood back up there was not enough flesh left to hold in their organs. Scourging would start at the shoulders and they would work their way down the back and all the way to the ankles of their victim. The scourging was so intense that by the time it was done the vertebrae of the back would be exposed to the open air. Many were blinded from scourging when the led balls from the whip would gouge out their eyes in the flogging process. They did this to Jesus. What I have just described to you is a typical flogging, Jesus’ flogging however, was particularly severe.
As if this pain was not enough the soldiers proceeded to mock Jesus. They dressed him as a king and mocked him. Putting a crown of thorns on his head and striking him. They put him in a scarlet robe and when they tore the robe off, they would have reopened the scourging wounds. At this point Jesus would have been in a pre-shock state. Before even going to the cross he was in serious if not critical condition.
Pilates last attempt is called an appeal to pity. Pilate brings up this bloody, weakened Jesus before the crowds hoping they will take pity on him. Jesus would not have been recognizable. His back was completely destroyed, skin from his chest and legs was broken or gone. His face was beaten and bloody. You would think that there would be some pity given to such a beaten man. They did not. The crowds of Jewish leaders who had no cause for killing Jesus, no law that he had broken or crime he had committed cried out Crucify him, Crucify Him! The religious leaders were ready to kill out of jealousy. When Pilate tries to release Jesus the Jews ask for Barabbas instead. They save a convicted killer, to kill an innocent man. So Pilate washes his hands of the trial. He had the power to stop it, but he gave Jesus over to the Jews to save himself. Pilate condemned an innocent man, the king of kings, to save a political career that would be over in three years. He tried to save himself from guilt but couldn’t.
Now the cross. Having flogged Jesus to an unrecognizable state the Romans then force him to carry his cross. At this time the posts for the cross would have been placed into the ground. That is the piece that sticks up into the air. Jesus was made to carry the cross bar called the patibulum which would have weighed between 75 and 125 lbs from the flogging site to the crucifixion site outside the city walls. Now the Romans did not invent crucifixion, but they did perfect it as a torture. They took nails 5-7 inches long and almost an inch wide and drove them into the hands of the victim. We have all seen the pictures with Jesus nailed on the cross by nails in his hands. This in not likely. The hand even if positioned perfectly could only support at most about 88 lbs. The hands do not support a great deal of weight especially when a body is jostling around. Now to the Romans the hand was anything from the tip of the finger down to the elbow. Since the Roman idea was to fix the person on the cross they would likely nail at the wrist near the radial and ulnar arteries between the bones. This would give plenty of support to dangle the body from the cross. It also had the added benefit of piercing the median nerve which would cause severe fiery pain to shoot up the arm and for the victims hand to be grasped in a claw. If you press hard right here on your wrist you can feel a painful sensation shoot up your arm. The harder you press, the more pain you will feel. Then the feet were nailed probably one nail through both feet causing the victim to have to turn his body to the side. This also adds a large amount of pain to the process.
Now fastened to the cross the victim would experience excruciating pain with every breath for their scourging wounds would rub against the wood plank of the cross. Nailed as there were normal breathing would be impossible. The body hanging from the cross would require a large amount of inhalation and exhalation. To do this would require lifting the body up and putting all the weight on the feet. This would cause severe pain. The body however will do this as a reflex so long as it has the strength. All in all the process of crucifixion was designed to be extremely painful. It was meant to maximize pain for a maximum amount of time. There have been fewer torments invented by man which are more severe than crucifixion.
Crucifixion brought death. But it did not always bring it in the same way. So, how did Jesus die? Victims of crucifixion could die from a few different things: most commonly asphyxiation or hypovolemic shock, but others would include blood loss, arrhythmias and congestive heart failure. But how did Jesus die? A common belief is that Jesus died of asphyxiation, however scripturally this cannot really be the case. If you remember Jesus last words he cries out in a loud voice It is finished! You do not cry out in a loud voice when you are dying from not getting enough air. If you remember from the account in John he tells of a soldier piercing Jesus side with a spear and blood and water pour out. After a person dies…they do not bleed. You bleed when you are alive because the pressure of your heart pumping blood. Once your heart stomps blood doesn’t pour out. So Jesus was alive until then. But why water? If blood comes out why does water also? Well, around your heart there is a sack called the pericardial sack which has liquid around the heart to protect it. Jesus literally died of a broken heart. You may hear all this and think its intense, feel grossed out or disguisted…good. Because he did all of that-for you. Every lash, every painful breath of air, everything Jesus endured it all for you.
Part Two:
On Sunday they hail him as king, on Friday the crucify him as a criminal, and on Sunday he raises from the dead.
We have talked about the cross. But that’s not really what Easter is about is it? Without the cross we have nothing. But Easter is not about the Cross. Our religion is not about the death of deity. It’s about the resurrection. Jesus is alive. He has risen. He went to the cross to die for your sins and for mine. But he didn’t stay dead long. Death has no hold on God. It is in the resurrection that we find our hope. It is in the resurrection that everything Jesus said and did was verified. For without the resurrection we could not know if Jesus really was the son of God. But because death had no hold on him, because Christ overcame death, he gave us a way to do so as well. Through him, we find life. Through the cross Jesus died for our sins so that we may have eternal life. When we take up our cross we will find that instead of death, it brings us life.
Why do we associate ourselves with the cross? Because it is the cross of Christ that brought us to salvation. So now we wear with pride what was once so offensive it would not be mentioned in polite conversation.
You have come here today…you are at the foot of the cross…will you carry yours? Will you honor your God who died for you, or will you leave here today and live for yourself? If an almighty God would endure the pains of a cross for you…what is it you can’t do for him?
