Resources > Adventure Link CSI Jerusalem...The Cross Posted by Rev. Jeff Dixon, Senior Equipping Minister, Covenant Community Church on Mar 25, 2005, 07:12

The Adventure Link

CSI: Jerusalem

The Cross

The events have now almost all unfolded. We have seen the plot, the conspiracy, and have seen the interaction of all those involved. Jesus has been beaten and is now about to be crucified....we continue our investigation.

The flogging administered by Pilate was merely the beginning of a long series of physical and emotional tortures that would finally culminate in the death of Jesus. It was accompanied by cruel mockery, which the pagan Roman soldiers apparently administered purely for their own amusement. Matthew describes the scene:

Then he released Barabbas to them; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him. And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Then they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the head. (Matthew 27:26–30)

Despite the fact that these soldiers had no reason whatsoever to heap such scorn on Jesus, they evidently took great delight in doing so. A catalogue of the pains of crucifixion would fill an entire volume, but Scripture lays particular stress on several aspects of the tortures Christ endured.

The Roman soldiers had no idea whom they were tormenting. As far as they were concerned, they were simply crucifying another criminal under orders from Pilate, their commander-in-chief.

Pilate’s orders were to scourge and crucify Jesus, but the cruel mockery they heaped on Him reveals their own wickedness. Jesus had already been slapped and beaten repeatedly, even before He was delivered to Pilate, so his face was undoubtedly swollen and bleeding already. After the scourging, His back would be a mass of bleeding wounds and quivering muscles, and the robe they fashioned for Him would only add to the pain of those wounds. They stripped Him of His own garments, which suggests He was quite literally naked apart from the robe they fashioned for Him. Their aim was clearly to make a complete mockery of His claim that He was a king. To that end, they fashioned a crown of thorns. Caesar wore a laurel wreath as a crown; thorns were a cruel corruption of that. These were no doubt the longest, sharpest thorns that could be found; many varieties of these grow in Jerusalem to this day—some with two-inch barbed quills that would penetrate deep into His head as the crown was pressed hard upon Him.

The reed in His hand was a further attempt to lampoon His royal claim. The reed represented a scepter—but was a weak, frail imitation of the scepter Caesar carried on festive state occasions.

 “And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified” (Matthew 27:31). Victims of crucifixion were usually made to wear a placard around the neck on which was written the crime they were condemned for. It was part of the shame that was deliberately inflicted on victims of crucifixion They were led through the streets and made to walk in a public procession in order to maximize the humiliation of the spectacle.

They were also forced to carry their own cross to the place of execution. That practice was what Jesus referred to earlier in his ministry when He told the disciples, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8:34). Some have suggested that Roman victims were made to carry only the lateral crossbeam (known as the patibulum), which was later attached to the top of a vertical beam, which was already planted firmly in the ground. But Scripture seems to indicate that Christ was bearing the entire cross. A Roman cross large enough to crucify a grown man might weigh as much as two hundred pounds—an extremely heavy load to bear in any circumstances. But for someone in Jesus’ already weakened condition it would be virtually impossible to drag such a load from the Praetorium to a place of crucifixion outside the walls of Jerusalem.

After several hours of such sheer agony, combined with blood loss and shock, it is no wonder He was too weak to carry a two-hundred-pound cross to Calvary by Himself.

Even with Simon carrying His cross, Jesus apparently was too weak to walk unsupported. Mark 15:22 says, “they brought Him to the place Golgotha,” using a Greek expression for “brought” that suggests He was actually borne along to that place—probably walking with much difficulty, needing constant support from the soldiers along the way.

Simon the Cyrene was no idle spectator wishing to mock Jesus like the rest of the crowd. Mark 15:21 says, “He was coming out of the country and passing by.” As Jesus was leaving the city, Simon was apparently entering, and by divine appointment, he was at exactly the right place at the right moment to be of help to Jesus.

Christ’s last public message was given on the road to Calvary. Luke describes it:

And a great multitude of the people followed Him, and women who also mourned and lamented Him. But Jesus, turning to them, said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed!’ Then they will begin ‘to say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!” ’ For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?” (23:27–31)

The place where Jesus was crucified was called Calvary (a Latin adaptation of the Greek term that appears in the biblical text: kranion, “a skull”—Luke 23:33). The Aramaic name for it was Golgotha, also meaning, “a skull.” Nowhere in Scripture is it called a hill, but it is generally assumed that this spoke of a promontory, craggy knoll, or incline that had the appearance of a skull. There is such a place, known as Gordon’s Calvary, just north of Jerusalem’s city walls. It still can be seen today and still bears an uncanny resemblance to a human skull.

Matthew writes, “And when they had come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, Place of a Skull, they gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink. But when He had tasted it, He would not drink” (Matthew 27:33–34). Apparently just before they nailed Him to the cross, the soldiers offered Him this bitter drink. “Sour wine” is vinegar. “Gall” is something that tastes bitter. Mark 15:23 says the bitter substance was myrrh, which acts as a mild narcotic. The soldiers may have offered it for its numbing effect just before they drove the nails through the flesh. When Jesus tasted what it was, He spat it out. He did not want His senses numbed. He had come to the cross to be a sin bearer, and He would feel the full effect of the sin He bore; He would endure the full measure of its pain.

“Then they crucified Him” (Matthew 27:35). Crucifixion was a form of execution that the Romans had learned from the Persians. It was also practiced in pre-Roman times in Phoenicia, Carthage, and Egypt. But it evidently originated in Persia. By the time of Christ, crucifixion had become the favorite method of execution throughout the Roman empire, and especially in Judea, where it was regularly used to make a public example of rioters and insurrectionists. According to Josephus, after Herod the Great died, the Roman governor of Syria, Quinctilius Varus, crucified two thousand men in order to quell an uprising. Josephus also says that Titus crucified so many people when he sacked Jerusalem in a.d. 70 that there was no wood left for crosses and no place left to set them up. By the time of Christ alone, Rome had already crucified more than thirty thousand victims in and around Judea. So crosses with dead or dying men hanging on them were a common sight around Jerusalem, and a constant reminder of Roman brutality.

The exact process used in Jesus’ crucifixion is a matter of some conjecture. None of the gospel accounts gives a detailed description of the method used on Him. But we can glean quite a lot of information from the incidental details that are given. From Thomas’s remark to the other disciples after the crucifixion (“Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails … I will not believe”—John 20:25) we learn that Christ was nailed to the cross, rather than being lashed by leather thongs, as was sometimes done.

We also can glean from secular accounts of crucifixion in Jesus’ time some of the details about how crucifixion victims died. Christ would have been nailed to the cross as it lay flat on the ground. The nails used were long, tapered iron spikes, similar to modern railroad spikes, but much sharper. The nails had to be driven through the wrists (not the palms of the hands), because neither the tendons nor the bone structure in the hands could support the body’s weight. Nails in the palms would simply tear the flesh between the bones. Nails through the wrists would usually shatter carpal bones and tear the carpal ligaments, but the structure of the wrist was nonetheless strong enough to support the weight of the body. As the nail went into the wrist, it would usually cause severe damage to the sensorimotor median nerve, causing intense pain in both arms. Finally, a single nail would be driven through both feet, sometimes through the Achilles’ tendons. None of the nail wounds would be fatal, but they would all cause intense and increasing pain as the victim’s time on the cross dragged on.

After the victim was nailed in place, several soldiers would slowly elevate the top of the cross and carefully slide the foot into a deep posthole. The cross would drop with a jarring blow into the bottom of the hole, causing the full weight of the victim to be immediately borne by the nails in the wrists and feet. That would cause a bone-wrenching pain throughout the body, as major joints were suddenly twisted out of their natural position. That is probably what Christ referred to prophetically in Psalm 22, a psalm about the crucifixion: “I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint” (v. 14).

The Romans had perfected the art of crucifixion in order to maximize the pain—and they knew how to prolong the horror without permitting the victim to lapse into a state of unconsciousness that might relieve the pain. The victim of crucifixion would experience waves of nausea, fever, intense thirst, constant cramps, and incessant, throbbing pain from all parts of the body. Sleeplessness, hunger, dehydration, and worsening infection all took their toll on the victim’s body and spirit as the process of crucifixion dragged on—usually for three days or so.

Death normally came from slow suffocation. The victim’s body would hang in such a way that the diaphragm was severely constricted. In order to exhale, he would have to push up with the feet so that the diaphragm would have room to move. Ultimately fatigue, intense pain, or muscle atrophy would render the victim unable to do this, and he would finally die from the lack of oxygen.

Dehydration, hypovolemic shock, and congestive heart failure sometimes hastened death as well. In Jesus’ case, it seems likely that acute exhaustion was probably another major contributing factor.

Aside from the physical pain of crucifixion, the most notable feature of this type of execution was the stigma of disgrace that was attached to it. Victims were mercilessly taunted. They were usually hanged naked. They were deliberately made a spectacle of shame and reproach. Hebrews 12:2 refers to this when it says Christ “endured the cross, despising the shame.”

Scripture indicates that Christ was deliberately stripped of all clothing and dignity when He was crucified. In fact, the soldiers who kept guard over Him gambled for what remained of His clothing. Matthew writes, “Then they crucified Him, and divided His garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet: ‘They divided My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.’ Sitting down, they kept watch over Him there” (Matthew 27:35–36). The prophecy referred to is Psalm 22:18, which foretold the casting of lots for Jesus clothes. This, too, was part of God’s sovereign plan from the beginning.

Jesus was crucified…for the sins of the world.