He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Isaiah 53:2-3
“Reflection on the harsh reality of crucifixion in antiquity may help us overcome the acute loss of reality which is to be found so often in present theology and preaching.” This statement by Martin Henkel identifies a problem we often have with being disconnected with the severity of Jesus death. We shrug off the cost. We look past the horror. And as a result we forget just how desperate our situation of being “Bound in Sin and Nature’s Night” was.
So today, I want us to simply look at the horror. Because by looking I am hoping we will realize how great an escape happened at the cross. Our escape at the price of Jesus’ destruction. So read slowly and gape upon your escape…(all descriptions are taken from book The Crucifixion by Fleming Rutledge and ‘On the Physical Death of Jesus’ from Journal of American Medical Association)
PHASE ONE: The first phase of a Roman execution was scourging. The lictors (Roman legionnaires assigned to this duty) used a whip made of leather cords to which small pieces of metal or bone had been fastened. The victim would have been naked, tied to a post in a position to expose the back and buttocks to maximum effect. One writer, Thomas Cahill says that a naked victim would not be able to cover his genitals with his hands but would be utterly exposed to scrutiny, derision, and any obscenity that the spectators cared to hurl in his direction leaving the person as “a pitiable, shuddering worm of a man, a comic gargoyle.” With the first strokes of the scourge, skin would be pulled away and subcutaneous tissue exposed. As the process continued, the lacerations would begin to tear into the underlying skeletal muscles. This would result not only in great pain but also in appreciable blood loss.
PHASE TWO: The second phase was to be paraded through the streets, a small scale Triumphant Entry where the victorious Romans ridicule their vanquished foe. The purpose was to expose them to the full scorn of the population which allows them to join in the victory as well. When the procession reached the site of crucifixion, the victims would see before them the heavy upright wooden posts (stipes) permanently in place, to which the crossbar (patibulum) was to be attached by a mortise-and-tenon joint. The person to be crucified would be thrown down on his back, exacerbating the pain of the wounds from the scourging, and introducing dirt into them. His hands would be tied or nailed to the crossbar; nailing seems to have been preferred by the Romans. The patibulum was then hoisted onto the stipes with the victim dependent from it, and the feet were tied or nailed. At this point the process of crucifixion proper began.
PHASE THREE: The third phase is the prolonged duration of pain, that was the point. Most victims of crucifixion would last on the cross from three to four hours to three or four days. Those who have studied Jesus’ death, speculate that his relatively brief time on the cross is a direct result from the severe scourging he took. This probably resulted in more blood loss than usual, or he could have suffered a cardiac rupture because of the extremity of the pain. In any case, it has been surmised that “the major pathophysiological effect of crucifixion, beyond the excruciating pain, was a marked interference with normal respiration, particularly exhalation. Passive exhalation, which we all do thousands of times a day without thinking about it, becomes impossible for a person hanging on a cross. The weight of a body hanging by it’s wrists would depress the muscles required for breathing out. Therefore, each exhaled breath could only be achieved by a tremendous effort. The only way to gain a breath at all would be by pushing oneself up from the legs and feet, or pulling oneself up by the arms, either of which would cause intense agony.
PHASE FOUR: The fourth phase was misery. Add to the difficulty of breathing the secondary factors: bodily functions uncontrolled, insects feasting on wounds and orifices, unspeakable thirst, muscle cramps, bolts of pain from the severed median nerves in the wrists and hands, scourged back scraping against the wooden spites. It is more than any of us are capable of fully imagining. The verbal abuse and other actions such as spitting and throwing refuse by the spectators, Roman soldiers, and passerby added the final touch…He dies truly and completely alone, with the weight of his own body killing him as it hangs, causing his own diaphragm to suffocate him.
Fleming Rutledge goes on to write, “The mocking of Jesus, the spitting and scorn, the ‘inversion of his kingship,’ and the ‘studious dethronement’ with the crown of thorns and purple robe would have been understood as a central part of total rite of infamy, of which the crucifixion itself is the culmination.”
Oh the horror!
If this was meant for you and me, what we have done to deserve this punishment must be the real horror. Listen to this final quote from Fleming, “The important thing for our discussion here is that Paul’s announcement (kergyma) that God, in the person of his sinless Son, put himself voluntarily and deliberately into the condition of greatest accursedness – on our behalf and in our place. This mind-crunching paradox lies at the heat of the Christian message.”
Here are two questions to ponder:
- What stands out to you the most about this account of the crucifixion?
- How do you feel about Jesus now that you know what he endured on your behalf? Is sin really that bad to have Jesus die like this?
