Last Days: Execution

Last Days: Execution Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, John 19 Palm Sunday, March 24, 2013

Since the beginning of the year, we have been listening to the words of Jesus and looking at His life in detail. The biblical accounts of His life slow considerably, giving much more detail about the last week of His life. For example John’s gospel has 21 chapters. The first eleven chapters cover a three-year ministry, while the final ten chapters document Christ’s final week. We read in considerable detail about the hopeful cheers and waving of palms on Sunday morning of that week. Branches are stripped from the trees to announce and welcome the arrival of the Messiah. Sunday is a glorious parade of national pride and patriotic expectation that soon the Promised One would free His people from the Romans. By the end of the week, there are no more cheers. The death-march from Jerusalem to Calvary is light-years away from the triumphant entry into the city. Jesus is being offered as a political scapegoat by the Jewish leaders and as a sacrifice for sin by His Father. This is the hardest part of the story to tell. Crucifixion was a form of execution that had been used for at least 600 years before Jesus. It is particularly humiliating and extremely painful. A word was invented to describe the experience of suffering and death on a cross: excruciating. Excruciating pain is “pain from the cross,” beyond description. It is not easy to share this part of Christ’s story aloud. Please forgive me while we look at the violent execution of a gentle teacher and healer.

As you recall, Jesus has had no sleep since He had been praying all evening into the night. He was in such an emotional and mental state, he was suffering from an uncommon syndrome called hematidrosis—capillaries in the sweat glands break and blood comes from one’s pores. before being arrested and appearing before Annas, Caiaphas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate, Herod, and Pilate again. There are no notes that Jesus ate or drank anything again after the Passover meal. Blindfolded, He had been beaten by Jewish temple guards as He appeared before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin. Herod’s guard had mocked and insulted Jesus before sending Him back to Pilate. When He returned to Pilate, the governor had Him punished by His own soldiers. They had twisted together a crown of thorns and pushed it onto His head. As they called out, “Hail, King of the Jews,” they struck Him over and over again in the head with a staff. He had endured a night of intense psychological and physical stress. A flogging by Roman soldiers was not a minor punishment. A whip was made of braided leather strips with metal balls woven into them. They left deep bruises, caused swelling, and the round bits as well as bits of bone or other metal in the leather would tear away at the victim’s flesh. The scourging would have peeled away skin and torn muscle from His backside, from his shoulders to his knees, laying bare bones. Many prisoners died of the flogging before they ever made it to the cross. The victim entered hypovolemic shock, which means there is a very low volume of blood. The heart races to try to catch up. Blood pressure drops, causing dizziness or fainting. Kidneys stop functioning to preserve fluid levels in the body. Finally

Last Days: Execution, Page 1 of 4 there is great thirst to replenish the lost blood volume. Long before Golgotha, Jesus was already in very critical condition. It is in this state that the Roman soldiers made Jesus carry the patibulum, the horizontal cross piece through the streets of Jerusalem. Eventually, they grabbed a man named Simon the Cyrene and forced him to carry the crosspiece for Jesus to Calvary. A great number of people followed Jesus all the way to Golgotha, weeping and beating their chests in grief and sorrow , maybe even singing funeral songs along the way. There are women following Him, likely the same group who came to care for His body after His death, and a few of them are identified—Jesus’ own mother Mary; Mary Magdalene; Salome, the mother of James and John; and another Mary, Alphaeus’ wife and mother of the other James. We read in Luke 23 that Jesus turned to address this group of mourners: “Do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.” Presumably, the apostle John was in the group, too, as Jesus would speak to both John and Mary from the cross in just a little while.

They reached Golgotha about nine in the morning, where Jesus was laid on the crosspiece and nailed to it with sharp iron spikes about six inches long. Considered a part of the hand, the nail would likely have been driven through each wrist, crushing the large median nerve that runs the length of the arms into the hands. After hoisted the patibulum onto the vertical piece that was usually permanently placed, Jesus’ feet would have been nailed into place as well, either on the front or on the sides of the cross. As they executed Him, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). John (19:23-24) records that the execution squad divided Jesus’ clothes and split them four ways, and gambled to see who would get the last piece, a seamless, woven tunic. In doing so, these Gentiles fulfilled scripture from Psalm 22:18. Jesus’ entire experience is laid out in Psalm 22, centuries before. It seems that, fairly quickly, Jesus speaks to family and friends who are there. From the cross, Jesus tells His mother, “Woman, here is your son,” indicating John. And to John, Jesus says about Mary, “Here is your mother.” Each was to look after the other. Matthew tells us that at Golgotha, He was offered bitter wine, laced with myrrh, which would have had a narcotic effect—lessening some pain and quickening His death. He had told His friends that He wouldn’t drink wine again until He drank it with them in the new kingdom. He refused once He tasted what it was. Convicted rebels were executed with Him, one on each side. One of them mocked and insulted Him. The other rebuked him and said, “Don’t you fear God since you are under the same sentence. We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” He then spoke to Jesus, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” Jesus answered, “Today, you will be with Me in paradise.”

Crowds of people came by to insult and degrade Him. Many of those who had been part of the flurry of false testimony and trials were there to gloat. “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down

Last Days: Execution, Page 2 of 4 from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” “Let Him save Himself if He is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” “He saved others, but He can’t save Himself. He’s the king of Israel! Let Him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in Him. He trusts in God, let God rescue Him now if He wants Him.” The Jewish authorities objected to the reason for execution posted above Christ’s head: “This is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” INRI (Latin). It was posted in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek.

At noon it went dark for three hours. It’s as if God turned out the light so no one could see His Son’s suffering. For those three hours, it is dark and quiet, but then at three o’clock, things happened very quickly. Again, referring to Psalm 22:1, Jesus cried out to God, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” To be crucified is to die an agonizingly slow and painful death by asphyxiation. In order to exhale, the victim must push up against the nailed feet to gasp for another breath of air—rubbing a raw back against the rough wood of the cross as he moved, only to sink down again. This would be repeated again and again, until exhaustion and pain proved too great, and there was no strength to push for breath again. The build- up of carbon dioxide would eventually cause the heart to beat erratically, right before it arrested, and the victim died. Jesus suffered this way for six hours that Friday. He was offered wine vinegar to drink and refused. Then Jesus cried out, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit,” and then, “It is finished” (John 19:30), and He breathed His last. At the very moment He stopped breathing, Matthew tells us that there was an earthquake, rocks split, tombs were opened, and many holy people were raised from the dead. With immense spiritual significance, the heavy curtain in the temple that separated the Holy of Holies from all of humanity was torn in two, from top to bottom. God did the tearing, and gave access to all to God. Jesus had said a day before, “I am the way. No one comes to the Father except by Me” (John 14:6). Roman soldiers and others there declared, “Surely this was a righteous man. Surely He was the Son of God.” As He suffered from hypovolemic shock, Jesus’ heart failure would have caused fluid to build up around his heart, called pericardial effusion, and around His lungs, called pleural effusion. When the Roman soldier runs a spear into Jesus’ side, blood and “water” flow, showing that the soldier had punctured His heart and lungs. There was no question that Jesus was really dead.

The cross is a symbol that is incomprehensible to many. Paul writes, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God,” (1 Corinthians 1:18). There is no logical reason that anyone would choose to endure this sort of torture and death. None except for love. That’s why the cross is both terrible and wonderful. For those who believe in Jesus, the cross is not just a symbol of pain and execution, it is a message of love. That is why we wear it. That is why we include it in our clothing, our buildings, our art, and our music. God’s love is best expressed through a cross that is at once, both scandalous and beautiful.

Last Days: Execution, Page 3 of 4 Philippians 2:8. “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross.” Hebrews 12:2. “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” 1 Peter 2:23-24. “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. ‘He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’”

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