CRUCIFIED

The soldiers laid the cross flat on the ground and made Jesus lie on it, His arms stretched out along the cross beam on either side. Jesus knew what was coming and no doubt His flesh did draw back, but not in a literal sense. With no hesitation, except that caused by His broken physical condition, He positioned Himself on the cross. An unnamed soldier who should forever live in infamy took a spike and hammer and viciously drove the spike through one of Jesus’ outstretched hands. To the soldier it was as though the hand were a block of wood he was fastening to the cross. It was not so with Jesus; soft flesh was torn apart by the iron spike and the pain flashed up His arm and into His whole being. Then he nailed the other hand with the stabbing pain again accompanying it.

Next, they nailed Jesus’ feet to the cross with the same unconcern by the soldiers, but a doubly cruel pain suffered by Jesus. They thus impaled the Lord of glory on all the outrages and abominations of fallen man. They lifted this mighty God and this broken Man upon the tree so that He was hanging, a tragic and repulsive sight, between heaven and earth where He was accepted by neither. Here was this accursed and innocent Man, hanged for all the world to see as a sort of invective that mankind hurled in the face of God Himself! And still God let them live in their sin and madness.

Pilate had an inscription written and placed over Jesus’ head. It read, JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. It was written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek so that all who passed by could understand. The chief priests disapproved of the sign and, while Jesus was suffering for them as much as for anyone, they continued to reject Him.

“Don’t write,” they said to Pilate, “‘The King of the Jews,’ but that He said He is the King of the Jews.”

“What I have written I have written,” Pilate said in refusal.  Somehow Pilate had been impressed that Jesus was someone special even though he, Pilate, was too weak to see that Someone accorded justice.

Meanwhile, the soldiers, insensitive to the suffering of Jesus right above their heads, were casting lots for His clothing. This indifference to human suffering was not an isolated incident; it was an example of the disregard for the life and miseries of others that was prevalent in that day. But, lest we consign all human callousness to that period of time, witness the many instances of man’s inhumanity to man today and you will realize that it has existed ever since Cain slew Abel.

There was no remorse, no compassion among the soldiers nor many of the onlookers at the scene. They did not know nor did they care that, with the weight of Jesus’ body pulling down on the spikes in His hands and pressing down on the spikes in His feet, the slightest move brought on even more intense pain. They were also oblivious to the suffering He underwent by His arms being stretched out while supporting the weight of His body. Nor were they aware or bothered about the high fever and great thirst brought on by death by crucifixion.

We do know there were some who wept for Jesus on the cross just as there were some whose hearts reached out to Him on His way to Golgotha. But the greater part were without feeling, without understanding, without love.

Some ridiculed Him: “Aha, you who were going to destroy the Temple and build it again in three days. If you are the Son of God come down from the cross.”

Of course the Jewish leaders took out their frustrations and humiliations of the past three years on the crucified Jesus. They were having their moment of celebration at the expense of the Man who had embarrassed them often and spoken so strongly against them.

“He saved others,” they jeered, “but He can’t save Himself. He’s the King of Israel. Let Him come down from the cross and we’ll believe in Him.”

Jesus’ mission precluded His taking vengeance of any kind at this time. His love forbade it and, in the midst of His wretchedness, He cried out on behalf of those who were crucifying Him: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”

The martyr Stephen spoke somewhat the same words when he was swept out of this life by a murderous tide of men, but, as gracious as his words were, they were not nearly so gracious as the words Jesus uttered. Jesus was the Creator God of all that exists; and He still loved enough to pardon His foes of their sins, if they would only turn to Him as the dying thief was about to do.

The two criminals who were crucified alongside Jesus, had both been railing on Him through their agony. One of them, though, aware of Jesus’ condition, which was similar to theirs, and seeing Jesus’ reaction to His tormentors, had to cease reviling Jesus. This sinner, in his own suffering, could only be awed by this Person who could be so loving and caring through the fire of such an ordeal. Remorse flooded his heart and he chided the other, unrepentant man for reviling Jesus.

Speaking as best he could, and in tortured, halting words, the now penitent sinner said to the other sinner who was still unrepentant: “Don’t you fear God, seeing we are under the same condemnation? And we are suffering justly, but this Man has done nothing wrong.”

He could not very well turn his head toward Jesus: he was in such extreme distress. But his words reached the heart of Jesus. “Lord,” he besought the Master, “remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”

Jesus, in turn, could not turn His head very well, but His words reached the heart of the penitent man: “Truly, today you shall be with me in paradise!”

Notwithstanding His own agony, Jesus could not ignore the plea of a repentant sinner. This, after all, was what the agony was all about. He was to exhibit yet another example of the divine love that shines through the darkest and most troubled circumstances. Standing at the foot of the cross were Jesus’ mother, her sister Salome, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. Nearby was John, who apparently was the only one of the disciples with courage enough to have come that near to the painful scene.

Jesus looked down at them standing there and spoke through parched, fevered lips to his mother, “Behold your son,” referring to John.

Then He spoke to John: “Behold your mother.”

Jesus could not elaborate on His meaning, but it was clear to both Mary and John. He was telling John to take care of Mary as his own mother and telling Mary to consider John as her son. This was a simple scene; but it was so very touching and was another witness to the love of God that does not overlook the small yet needful gestures in search of the grander feat.

Jesus was certainly accomplishing love’s greatest act in dying as He did, but that did not cause Him to overlook the physical and emotional needs of both Mary and John; and this was the essence of love also. Mary needed a son greatly, especially in the light of how Jesus was taken from her. The cruel and untimely manner of His death was a fulfillment of the prophecy made by Simeon when Jesus was presented in the Temple eight days after His birth. Simeon had told Mary, “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also… ” and Mary no doubt recalled it on that long, heartrending day. She needed John; and John, who was the disciple closest to Jesus, needed someone very close to him to assuage the grief he too felt at Jesus’ terrible suffering and death.

The spectacle of the Creator of all things being crucified by vile sinners was so contrary to divine order and reason that nature could endure it no longer. Around noontime the sun lost its light, leaving the land covered by a foreboding darkness. A sense of uneasiness enveloped the inhabitants of Jerusalem, especially those around the three crosses that now could scarcely be seen. It was strange, very strange that it should be this dark at noon. It was more than strange; it was ominous and most disconcerting, considering that there was no discernible natural cause for it. A silence had settled over the crucifixion site, punctuated only by the groans of the dying.

Suddenly out of the gloom, a chilling cry from Jesus pierced the air: “My God, my God! Why hast thou forsaken me?”

Everyone within hearing was shaken by the cry and waited nervously, not knowing what to expect next. The outcry had been wrenched from Jesus because the Spirit of God had totally rejected Him and was now literally leaving His Being. Jesus had been virtually abandoned by the Father early on in this day but the Spirit had not actually departed from Him. Now Jesus’ only Hope and Help was in the process of actually leaving Him and the leaving produced an unbearable throbbing and aching void. (And I know in my deepest awareness – in my gut – the Father also felt the grief of His Son when He had to leave the Son completely alone. The Father and human Son had truly been One – now an impossibly divided One — ripped asunder not by the power of sin, but by the strict righteousness and demanding justice of God.)

That which Jesus had dreaded most had now become hard, unbearable reality. There was no one with Him, not even His beloved Father. The pain was in truth excruciating, and Jesus died forlorn, forsaken and unforgiven of the mountain of sins He had not committed but had deliberately taken on Himself – because He loved as no other creature ever loved before or since.