13. The Crucifixion

It was an ugly brutal place.  Golgatha.  It was a place where the ground was blood soaked and the air reeked of death and fear.  Though you might not believe in ghosts you would rather not take your chances being here alone.  If it was between you and your destination you would take the long way around, unless of course it was your destination.

To be sent there, condemned, was to die a slow painful death.  Crucifixion was a particularly painful way to die.  There was not the suffocation that we tell ourselves, the diaphragm was not constricted so that the victim could easily breathe and the outstretched arms did not limit the ability for the lungs to fill.  The outstretched arms did lead to increasingly intense pain.  Suffocation would have inadvertently eased the death by hastening it, and by decreasing the consciousness of the victim, no such luck for those condemned to die this way.

The combination of blood loss and trauma from being whipped and then mounted on the cross killed the person, eventually the heart would give out either by arrest or by beating so hard it would tear. Other times the brain starved of blood would go first and the body followed. The person would experience fear, an intense need to escape, a hormonal response to the blood loss.  The victim would feel chilled as the extremities were starved of blood and warmth.

And he hung there – naked.

The Whipping

You would have not have recognized him as he hung there.  We have no idea what it meant to be whipped.  Oh yes, we saw Roots, and Mutiny on the Bounty, we know what a whipping is!  Bullshit.  The instrument of torture used on Christ was designed to tear flesh from the body.  Long leather tendrils would have had pieces of metal tied at the end in order to wrap around the body.  There would have been other pieces of metal, and broken pottery affixed to the whip so that those would bite into the skin.

Once the whip, cat-o-nine tails, had found its purchase of skin it would be pulled back to tear away chunks of flesh.  We are not told how many lashes Jesus received.  Some suggest that Mosaic law would have called for 39 lashes, but it was the Romans whipping him.  There were many people who did not survive being whipped.

Jesus did.

The Parade

Jesus was led through the streets.  This kind of public execution had in it a number of agendas.  One was to scare the people into compliance; the condemned was an example of what happens when you piss off the Romans.  The other, more sinister agenda was to give the people a target to vent their rage against – the victim - an appeasement of their lust for violence.

The dead-man-walking parade of Jesus would have been just for that reason.  You and I, yes both of us, would have jostled to the front so that we could spit at him, or kick, or throw something.  Here he was, the entertainment of the hour.  That slow rage that burned inside from being dominated by these stinking Romans could be vented on this man.  It would not matter who he was.

Jesus survived the parade.

The Words From the Cross

We hear them spoken aloud on Sunday mornings, and on Good Fridays.  We think that is how they were spoken; loud, clear and resonating with conviction.  I think they were mumble - muttered from a man who was exhausted, close to death, terrified and in anguish and agony.  Had you and I been there we would have had to check with other people to ensure that we had heard him correctly. 

Reflections

This week I will think quietly about what I have done.  Yes me.  I have already been clear that I do not believe that it was a god so angry at a creation that he just had to kill something so he sent his son to die for us.  It was us, you and I.  I would have cheered at the size of the chunks of flesh ripped from his body.  I would have spit on him and called him names as he stumbled in front of me.  I would have pounded in the spikes into his flesh.  I would have yelled at him for him to get his father to come rescue him.  And as he mutter-mumbled “My God, My God why have your forsaken me?”  I would have chuckled.

I would have been puzzled when he said, “It is finished.”

They will proclaim his righteousness,

declaring to a people yet unborn:

He has done it!

12. The Compassion of Christ

Hebrews 4:14 - 16 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Life can be brutal.  A friend of mine recently had a tragedy of magnitude visited upon her family.  The violence involved is mind-numbing and I have found that it has set off a cascade of memories of other ugliness that I have known about or seen:

          A mother prostituting her daughter

          A father killing his wife

          A husband stalked by his controlling and violent wife

          An infant picked up from the crib and thrown against a wall

          A father or mother sexually abusing a son or daughter (I have known all four variations of that)

These are just a few, but I think the point is made: we can be incredibly cruel to each other.  Each of these events was not limited to just the one occasion of damaging people.  They reverberate through the community of people that knew the perpetrator and knew the victim to injure those people as well.  They give license for others to do even more despicable acts. 

It seems to me that the only thing greater than our propensity to hurt each other is the grace and compassion of God.  I am always struck that Jesus came to earth fully human.  He was born, and thus knew what it meant to suffer.  They go hand in hand, ask any mother or father trying to comfort a baby who is getting their first teeth.  He would have known firsthand what it meant to suffer and to feel pain.  And he would have known all too well the tragedies of those around him.

He would have known children that would have been killed by a parent. (Such an abomination is not a modern day invention). He would have known women and men that had been raped as children.  He would have known families devastated by the death of a parent, or left staggered by the death of a child.  But he would have known of these even if he had not come to earth.  But because he came to earth he knew these people from a much different perspective. 

Matthew 9:35 & 36 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

He came to earth knowing that we would kill him.  He came knowing that he would know the injury of rejection.  And yet he came.  He knew the pain of betrayal.  He knew what it was like to be unjustly tried.  Jesus knew what it was like to be tortured for the morbid amusement of those torturing him.  He also would have known the claustrophobic fear of waiting for his life to finally drain out of him.  And he knew the agony of a mother’s heart-being-torn-out look as she witnessed her son being executed.

It is one of the chief reasons why I am drawn to him.  He is not a cold distant god waiting for us to get it right.  The humiliation, abandonment and degradation of the morning of Good Friday shows a God that intimately knows the brutality of humans.  He shares in our misery, he knows our pain. I think of the shortest verse of the bible.  The verse records Jesus’ reaction to his friend’s death.  “Jesus wept.”

As I find my knees to pray for my friend and her family I realize that even before I speak – he knows.  I am praying to a God who knows all too well the sorrow that lies within me.  I am praying to a God who, before knee has rested on pillow, embraces me.  While I believe this compassion existed in him before Good Friday, after all if there had been no compassion there would have been no Good Friday, I cannot help but to believe that his compassion holds a greater depth and a more tender texture as a result of his own suffering.

11. The Trials of Jesus

I want to be absolute heard, or I guess read on this matter!  THE ONLY PEOPLE THAT DID NOT BAIL ON JESUS WERE WOMEN!!

I have wanted to yell that ever since I attended a men’s conference where one of the ministers yelled to the crowd that at the time of his arrest, trial and execution that everyone abandoned Christ.  EVERYONE!!! eh hem....sorry not everyone, and perhaps Betty White is right when she said “Why do people say "grow some balls"? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina.”

Yes I know I left out some of the quote.  I did it on purpose.

Women, three in particular, bore witness to his death.  His mother, his aunt, and a prostitute;  Mary his mother, Mary his aunt, and Mary Magdalene.  To be fair to Mary Magdalene that assertion that she was a prostitute does not come from the bible and was added centuries later.  But all four gospels account for the women being there, only two add a man. 

Now on to the Blog -

Jesus was tried before the Sanhedrin, before Herod, and before Pilate.

I have benefitted from the death and resurrection of Jesus.  It is hard for me in to look back and truly understand and appreciate what these three groups were up to.  Not that I have taken Jesus and his gift for granted (I have), and maybe I have reached a place in my faith where I am complacent (I have) but I find it hard to imagine wanting to kill Jesus (methinks denial).

Intellectually, I get that the Jesus angered the three; the Sanhedrin, Herod, and Pilate.  It doesn’t help that I am in the midst of a renewed strength of love and faith with Jesus.  I understand that the Sanhedrin represents the behaviour that I want God to demand.  That Herod represents the fun and excitement I want at the hands of the saviour of the whole world.  As well, Pilate represents how I want God to stamp out injustice.

It is in the trials of Jesus that I most associate with his humanness.  He did not stand a chance, there was no way that he could win.

The Sanhedrin were ruthless – they had questioned Jesus before.  By whose authority did he teach?  What about marriage after the resurrection?  Should we pay taxes? How dare you heal on the Sabbath – tell a man he’s forgiven – talk to those people?  There was no answer that would satisfy them.  Their ultimate question, “If you are God, then why do you not behave the way that I want you to?”

To these Jesus said, “If I tell you, you will not believe me, and if I asked you, you would not answer.”

Then it was Herod’s turn, at first Herod was excited at seeing Jesus.  All that Jesus had to do was perform a miracle – entertain him.  You know!  My interest not only in what Jesus can do for me, but the move from peak experience to peak experience.  A cathartic conversion where my soul is set free, followed by another emotionally charged experience of the guy being able to see, to the conversion of the woman two rows over and five seats down. There is not much recorded about the exchange between Herod and Jesus, but Herod grows tired of him and sends him back to Pilate.

Then we have Pilate, was Jesus the God of social justice.  Was he the promised King of the Jews?  Had he come to lead the revolt against the occupying Romans? In the end, Pilate found him harmless, innocent, and wanted to release him.  It was the righteous ones that wanted him dead.

The Trials of Jesus ask me what is it that I want from Jesus.  Each of those aspects of following might seem valid.  All of them miss the point of his ministry, death, and resurrection. And, all three can carry ill intent.  But it was only the one, moral conduct, that insisted Jesus be killed.

10. What is the message of Jesus?

John 17:25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

Have I mentioned that the crucifixion of Christ, and his resurrection were events whose ramifications were so significant that we really don’t comprehend what happened?  Well they were.  There are four divergent, not competing, views of the death of Christ – Penal Substitution, Christus Victor, Ransoming, and Moral Influence.  Get a drink; coffee, tea or hot chocolate, and google those terms. 

Regardless of the view you may have of the death and resurrection of Christ it signalled the beginning of the end of Christ’s ministry on earth.  After his resurrection there were forty days that he continued to be amongst us.  Then he left so that the Holy Spirit might come.

John 16:7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

But, I digress.  Here we are on the night of the last supper.  Jesus is about to be betrayed, and handed over for torture and execution.  I believe his teachings that night were probably the most central to his message.  After all, he is about to be killed, and his followers will scatter.  It would be time to give the final instruction, the final teachings, before what would be a very traumatic time for the eleven gathered men.

And what were the messages that he gave?

They were not messages of condemnation; they were not messages of listen up you so-and-sos you need to behave, they were not messages of hate and pending punishment.  They were messages of encouragement and reassurance.  And once again Jesus gave a command.

John 15:12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

His message was love, love each other.  Yes he was talking to the eleven apostles that remained, but would that not be his message for you and I?  Once again, this time on the eve of his death, Jesus teaches love. 

Jesus talked of love.

As we move, I move, through the season of Lent, is it not the time to ask how am I doing with Love?  I am told that Lent is a time to join in the suffering of Christ through self-denial.  I wonder what he says about that?  For we are commanded to love.

9. Who Do You Say Who Jesus Is?

Hebrews 2:17 & 18 “For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”

The group of us meet weekly.  Our questions range from the absurd to the poignant.  Our discussions also cover that area from the deeply respectful to the sacrilegious.  It is understood that faith if is to express itself, at times, needs to border on the blasphemous.  A life of deeply lived love of God requires that love to have few if any barriers.

So the question posed was – “Do you think Jesus ever worried about being called up to the blackboard in math class?  After all, if he was fully human, then as an adolescent boy he would have erections that came for no other reason than he had a blood stream full of hormones.”

For Christians, and I include myself with this class, there is little doubt that Jesus is divinity.  He is the son of God.  Yet, for Easter, it is not his divinity that is important, but his humanity.  We have this sort of superhero view of the humanity of Christ.  Yes, he may have suffered the slings and arrows of life, but he was somehow impervious to them.  And it was this invincibility that made the execution of Christ tolerable to him; more of an inconvenience than a punishment.  Yes, the death on the cross was painful, even anguishing, but he was God; he knew that it would work out all in the end. 

Jesus would have suckled as a baby, soiled himself, been cleaned, teethed and cried.  As a child he would have fell and skinned his knee and sought solace from his mother.  I wonder what order he was picked in neighbourhood games, was he first or was he last?  Did he date?  I imagine that he grew up knowing that he would die – just like we all do.  Just as every other teenager has a time when they contemplate their own mortality.  At some point he would have known that would have been an ugly death. 

There is little doubt that the Cross was the focus of the life of Jesus.  It is the focus of our faith after his resurrection.  But today, it comes down to the question of who do you think Jesus is?  This is a question that has some profound implications.

I like the movie The Last Temptation of Christ.  I like its’ core message.  That Jesus would have experienced the conflict between his desires as a man and his divinity.  I also like to think that the temptations Christ faced came also from within, not just from Satan.  Many of our temptations arise out of our own desires and our wants.  I think the movie over does the struggle that Christ faced with his humanity, I don’t think there would have been the level of self doubt.  But, I am sure that the idea of settling down and raising a family while he ran a little furniture shop must have had some appeal to him. 

Mark 14:32 They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”

35 Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36 “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

Nowhere is the struggle for Jesus more clearly displayed than in the scene of the Garden of Gethsemane.  Other passages that record the event tell us that Jesus sweat drops of blood, such was the intensity of emotion. I have but only the vaguest of understandings of the stresses that Jesus felt.  I do believe that it was more than just his pending death that distressed him.  It was more than there day of torment that lay before him.  It was taking on the burden of our sins, bearing the brunt for an entirety of humanity’s sins.  I believe it was the depth of sorrow for us that we were so viciously rejecting God.

However, what I do believe that it was Jesus the man that was upon the cross.

Romans 5:17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!