DAY SIXTY-EIGHT: 

The Crucifixion 

John 19:1-42 

The Raising of the Cross, by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1633

Yesterday we looked at Jesus' arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane and His trials before the Sanhedrin, King Herod and Pontius Pilate. The Sanhedrin found Jesus guilty of blasphemy (speaking lies about God) and sentenced Him to death. Under the Roman occupation they had no authority to execute anyone so they took Jesus to Pilate. Pilate passed this hot potato to Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch of Galilee and the son of Herod the Great. Herod was not impressed with Jesus and sent Him back to Pilate. The governor found himself in a tight spot. He was there to keep the lid on Rome's most volatile province. If he failed he would answer to Emperor Tiberius. He discovered that Jesus was no threat to Rome, but releasing Him was no simple matter. Pilate's offer to release a prisoner met with cries to release Barabbas rather than Jesus. The Jewish leaders shouted "If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar." All they had to do was send someone to Damascus to tell his superior, Lucius Vitellus, and Pilate's career was over. Pilate felt he had no choice and sentenced Jesus to death by crucifixion.

The cross has become a universal symbol of the Christian faith. There are many of them in our church and all over Sebring. We learn at our parents' knees and in Sunday School that Jesus died on a cross. Has this familiarity bred contempt? Is the cross so common that it has lost its meaning? Let's take a look at the cross and crucifixion.

The Romans learned the art of crucifixion from the Persians. In the Book of Esther we read that Haman built a gallows upon which to hang his enemy, Mordecai the Jew. It's possible, even likely that the word translated gallows is better translated cross. Haman didn't want a quick and painless death for his enemy. He wanted him to suffer.

How does crucifixion kill? Not through blood loss- the nails were positioned so as to minimize blood loss. The cross' victims died from asphyxiation. When we were kids we played on the monkey bars. Once I grabbed hold of one of the bars and let my feet dangle. I wanted to see how long I could hang there before my arms got tired. But I had to quit before my arms gave out. I found that I couldn't breathe. If you hang with your arms above your shoulders you can breathe out but can't breathe in. Someone nailed to a cross would have to push up on their feet, which were nailed into the cross along with the wrists, to rise up high enough to take a gulp of air before pain and fatigue made him sag once more. It might take three days or more for the victim to die.

Jesus, beaten within an inch of his life, had to carry his cross the half mile or so from the governor's palace to Calvary. The other accounts tell us that Jesus was just too weak to complete the journey and a bystander named Simon from the North African city of Cyrene was pressed into service. Once He arrived at the top of Golgotha the Roman detail drove nails through Jesus' wrists and into the crosspiece and another nail through His crossed ankles. Then the soldiers lifted the cross into place overlooking the city, with two thieves on either side. It was now the third hour, or nine AM.

Jesus spoke seven "last words," brief phrases He could speak with a quick breath:

• "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34);
• "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:43); 
• When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son," and to the disciple, "Here is your mother." (John 19:26-27); 
• And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46); 
• Jesus knew that everything was now finished, and to fulfill the Scriptures he said, "I am thirsty." (John 19:28); 
• "It is finished!" (John 19:30); and 
• "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." (Luke 23:46).

Each of these deserves a study of its own. Each tells a side of what Jesus experienced when He was on the cross.

From the sixth hour, Noon, to the ninth hour, 3 PM, the skies were dark. When Jesus died at 3 PM a violent earthquake struck the city and the curtain in the Temple that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies was torn in two from top to bottom. The soldiers prepared to break the legs of their prisoners so that they would not be able to push up to breathe and would die before sunset (the Jews didn't like prisoners left hanging on the Sabbath or during festivals). Jesus was already dead, and a soldier confirmed this by stabbing Him in the chest with his spear. John tells us that water and blood gushed out. This tells us that Jesus died from a ruptured pericardium, the sac around the heart. Literally, He died of a broken heart!

Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent Pharisee who believed in Jesus. offered his tomb for Jesus' burial. They had barely enough time to get Him inside the tomb before the sun set and the Sabbath began. Full preparations would have to wait until Sunday. 

We call what Jesus did on the cross the atonement. Atonement means righting a wrong and reconciling two parties who are alienated from one another. Adam and Eve rebelled against God and passed the curse of sin on to their descendants. God warned them that they would die on the day that they ate the fruit. Their intimacy with God died, but their bodies didn't. That's because God accepted a substitute for their lives: animals who were killed to provide skins to cover their nakedness. The substitute of an innocent creature satisfied God's justice and allowed Him to forgive their sins. All of the sacrifices of the Old Testament pointed toward this moment, when the Son of God would bear our sins in His own body. The Book of Hebrews explains how Jesus offered a better sacrifice than the priests, an atonement that not only takes away our sin but also the guilt that goes with it. 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 says, "All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." What a deal! Jesus took our sin and gave us His righteousness!

Tomorrow we look at the flip side of the coin with which Jesus purchased our redemption. He died to pay for our sins and then rose on the third day to assure us of eternal life.

Listen to Keith and Krystyn Getty perform their song "The Power of the Cross."