Wounds Of Jesus

WOUNDS OF JESUS

And one will say to him, ‘What are these wounds in your hands?’ Then he will answer, ‘Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.’ (Zecharaiah 13:6)

“Julius Caesar” is a well known drama written by the great playwright Shakespeare. Julius Caesar was a Roman statesman and military general. For fear that Julius Caesar was gaining too much popularity and was ambitious to become the king as a result of his many victories, his conspirators take Brutus who is a good friend of Caesar into their confidence. Together, they plan to kill Caesar convincing Brutus that it was for the welfare of the country that it must be done. So the story goes and inspite of many warnings , Julius Caesar still comes to the Capitol after his return from war and there he is brutally stabbed by Marullus, Flavius and other conspirators. But the most hurting and fatal injury that is inflicted to Caesar is the stabbing by Brutus. When Caesar turns around and recognizes that Brutus , his dearest friend has joined hands with his enemies, he gasps, “Et tu Brute!” meaning ,”You too Brutus!” and he falls down dead. The wound and agony that led to Caesar’s death was not so much the piercing of the dagger as much as the agony inflicted in the soul by the one whom he had trusted and loved so much had betrayed and stabbed him.

Of course, this story is no comparison to what our Saviour Jesus Christ has suffered. But in the Scripture portion that we’re studying today, the prophet Zechariah records in verse 6 of the 13th chapter- “And one will say to him, ‘What are these wounds in your hands? Then he will answer, “Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.”

Truly, aren’t wounds inflicted by friends more agonzing than the hurt from those we know hate us? Jesus came to His own and His own did not receive Him (John 1:11). Again in John 15:18 we read Jesus telling His disciples, “You know that the world hates you because it first hated me. If you were of the world , the world would love you. Yet because you are not of the world, I chose you out of the world it hates you.”

The extent to which the world hated Jesus is evident in the unfair arrest, trial and crucifixion. In any trial, an individual who’s convicted of some crime is arrested and imprisoned and later tried in the courts of law and only then the judgement is given. But in Jesus’ case, the trial was unjust at every step. Jesus was arrested first by betrayal of Judas at a time when Jesus was in prayer. After the arrest the high-priests and the Sanhedrin started searching for a cause to convict and comdemn Jesus. Unable to lay upon Jesus any valid accusation worthy of death sentence, they transferred Him to the Roman authority laying charges that Jesus was defying the Roman government and claiming to be the King of the Jews. In less than 24 hours they had arrested, accused Him before the Sanhedrin, took Him to Pilate, then to Herod and then back to Pilate and secured the orders for death sentence by crucifixion.

We are not sure who invented punishment by crucifixion, but it was one of the most heinous, most inhuman and cruelest way to put a person to death. The person was nailed to the cross in an open and high place where every one could see and mock them. It was a very slow process of leading to death involving excruciating pain and torture. Crucifixion is no longer practiced as a form of punishment. All the governments of the world have unanimously decided not to use crucifixion to execute any criminal ; one may be hanged or shot but never crucified.

The saga of Christ’s suffering was not just the crucifixion. Crucifying was the Roman form of execution : the Jews punished by scourging or whipping. It was most unjust that Jesus was made to suffer both the punishments. The Jewish court would order 40 slashes for the worst crime. The whip was a very cruel instrument designed to tear the skin and the muscle of the accused. One study says that the whip was made of three strong strings woven together with four hooks of bone or metal at the end of each string. So it meant 12 wounds at one whipping. Many times the accused would die by bleeding caused by whipping alone. Jesus was whipped 39 times. His whole body was bleeding ; and as if that didn’t quench their thirst for blood, they weaved a crown of thorns and thrust it upon His head, so that even His face was drenched with blood.