The Political Execution Of The Nazarine

Most of us will never experience the physical pain associated with the ancient capital punishment of crucifixion. But each of us can empathize with the emotional pain experienced by Jesus during the last hours of his life. Think of how distressing it is when you are rejected, abandoned or betrayed. Try to imagine how traumatic it must have been for the Liberator when he was betrayed by friend, denied by disciples and abandoned by most of those who had a few days earlier acclaimed him as the messiah. During these trying hours, he had no chemical relief not even a friend to reassure or to console him. The God man had to endure this emotional trauma without human support or comfort.

Keep in mind that the Savior was fully human and therefore would have experienced an entire spectrum of emotions. The Liberator would have experienced a great deal of apprehension as he contemplated the ordeal that awaited him.. Crucifixion was quite common in first century Palestine. During the adolescence of the Liberator, there was a short lived revolt by one Judas of Galilee. To punish the insurgents and to serve as a deterrent to any other public resistance to Roman rule, the occupiers crucified some 1700 Jews. It is reported that the Romans crucified an insurgent every 30 feet for almost ten miles. Remember that sometimes it took days for the victims of crucifixion to die. I can not help but imagine that the odor and sight of decomposing bodies as well as the screams of the dying insurgents would have left a vivid impression on the young Jesus. He like every other first century Palestinian knew exactly what the barbaric execution of crucifixion involved and I am certain that this weighed heavily upon him that lonely Thursday evening.

On that night before his arrest and execution, I can only imagine the spiritual distress and anxious trepidation that Jesus experienced as he contemplated the gamut of excruciating pain that awaited Him. In Luke’s account of the passion he reports that the feelings of despair, discouragement and fear were so intense that his perspiration included drops of blood. The medical literature does report a disorder called hematridosis which is characterized by an excretion of blood pigments in the sweat. This phenomenon occurs during stages of severe anxiety.

As a therapist, I am quite aware that shared fear is diminished fear but in the midst of this acute anxiety Jesus lacked the human contact and support that he longed for. I can only imagine the feelings of distress and abandonment that he experienced when he discovered those he selected to be his support system were totally oblivious to his intense emotional turmoil. .

In the midst of this emotional suffering, there is a message of hope for us. It is a clear reminded that the Savior can indeed empathize with our feelings of loneliness, abandonment, rejection, anxiety, fear or depression because he experienced all these emotions the night before he died.

There was much controversy when the Mel Gibson’s production of the Passion of the Christ was released. Critics claimed that the ordeal was too frightening and that the graphic and relentless brutality left the audience emotionally drained and stunned. It is my contention that most disciples of the Christ find the cute sweet little Jesus boy of the Christmas season far more attractive than the battered, tortured and disfigured Christ of Holy Week. From what I have read in my research, the graphic bloody scenes of the Passion of the Christ minimized the brutality of the Liberator’s execution.