(Text and Audio)
Title: Then They Crucified Him
Let’s do a word exercise. Let’s come up with a list of single words to describe the worst pain you can imagine.
Do you know the origin of the word “Excruciating”?
(read/pray)
“Then they crucified Him…”
There is a temptation for me here to gloss over this. We have all heard detailed teachings on just how brutal the process of crucifixion is. Many of us have seen pictures, read articles, or seen movies like The Passion of the Christ, which do a very effective and accurate job of illustrating what a horrible death this process is.
But I think it’s necessary to dwell with this word and it’s meaning for a moment.
I want to suggest there are three main goals in crucifixion, two of them we probably already know, but the third is a bit more subtle and I don’t want us to miss it.
1. Crucifixion was designed to be a warning.
Crucifixion was often performed in order to terrorize and dissuade its witnesses from perpetrating particularly heinous crimes. Victims were left on display after death as warnings to others who might attempt dissent.
(The early church’s symbol was NOT the cross, but the Ichthus.)
2. Crucifixion was designed to NOT be merciful.
Crucifixion was usually intended to provide a death that was particularly slow, painful, and gruesome. The word “excruciating” literally means “out of crucifixion.”
3. Crucifixion was designed to be utterly humiliating.
While a crucifixion was an execution, it was also a humiliation, by making the condemned as vulnerable as possible. Although artists have traditionally depicted the figure on a cross with a loin cloth or a covering of the genitals, the person being crucified was usually stripped naked.
(You can see there is a huge gap between how Jesus dies, and how Paul dies, beheaded, as his Roman citizenship gave him the right to be.)
“…and divided his garments…”
Of course, Matthew is quick to remind his Jewish audience that the act of the soldiers casting lots for the right to have Jesus’s clothes was again a fulfillment of scripture, and again, Matthew appeals to a Psalm of David
Psalm 22:16 -18
For dogs have surrounded Me;
The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me.
They pierced My hands and My feet;
I can count all My bones.
They look and stare at Me.
They divide My garments among them,
And for My clothing they cast lots.
I want to draw attention to the particular line “They look and stare at me”. There is a palpable fear in the voice of David’s psalm that one of the worst fates a King could suffer, would be public humiliation. The King understood how much hope and security he represented to his people, and that all gets destroyed during a public humiliation and execution.
This thought brings my mind to a place that it doesn’t often go. Nothing is written about the minds and hearts of the apostles and disciples during the three days that Jesus was in the grave. By the time Jesus enters Jerusalem at the end of his ministry, riding in on a donkey, as the people coronate him a King and shout “Hosanna in the Highest!” The Apostles, who have spend three years with him, hearing his teaching, hearing his parables explained, seeing the myriad of miracles and authority over nature he exhibited, they are convinced he is the Son of God.
Peter says this just before the triumphal entry when Jesus asks him, “Peter, who do YOU say that I am?”
“Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.”
Imagine believing Jesus is the Son of God, and watching that Son of God not just die, but be crucified, be publicly humiliated, be mocked. Can you imagine what that would do to your faith, not just in Jesus, but in God himself?
You entire world would be shaken to its core in a matter of minutes. The doubt they must have wrestled with, the agony and confusion and torment their souls must have gone through!
This is why it’s important to dwell in this moment of Jesus’s last breaths. We must strive to understand not just what happened to him, but also what happened to those who pledged allegiance to him.
(read 36-37)
“Sitting down, they kept watch over Him there.”
For all parties, this was a spectacle.
For the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Jewish leaders: Here is the end of your rebellion.
For Pilate: Here is the result of your leadership.
For the Roman Soldiers: Here is what happens to those who challenge Rome.
For the confused apostles, disciples, and followers: Here is your savior.
“This is Jesus, the King of the Jews”
The placard over the cross was meant to specify the crime, so that the people would know that this was the end result of people to decided to live this way…again, it was a very powerful warning and dissuading technique.
John’s gospel gives us some particularly interesting information concerning the nature of this sign:
John 19:20 -22
Then many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Therefore the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘He said, “I am the King of the Jews.”’”
Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”
Reflecting on this, J.I. Packer writes, “Pilate was insulting the Jewish leaders, but the irony of its truth was apparent to the early church.”
To be sure, it is a small stand that Pilate takes here, and in terms of actual justice, it is far too little to late…but isn’t that the truth of the cross itself?
There has been no man in human history less deserving of death, particularly the horrors of crucifixion, than Jesus Christ. It is the most unjust act of all time.
And yet, there is no human being in history less deserving of heaven than you or me. And heaven can only be realized if we accept the gift of the cross.
Our society screams and cries out “Justice! Justice! Justice!”
And scripture screams back, “You don’t want Justice! Justice is YOU in HELL! You want mercy! You want Grace! Therefore, you NEED the cross.”
For only in partnership with the greatest act of injustice can you find mercy.
Pray
Q/A