And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull). And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him. And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!”
The Roman crucifixion was one of the most barbaric forms of death. The intent was to inflict as much suffering on a person as possible, to kill them, but to delay their death as long as possible. The main cause of death in a crucifixion was asphyxiation. The person nailed or tied to the cross by their hands and feet would be suspended in midair. Their body would soon be exhausted and in this tired state they would begin to slump and that would close off their ability to breathe. The more they pushed up to breathe the more pain they would feel from the nails in their feet and hands. The death was meant to be prolonged and as painful as possible. According to our above text and what follows, Jesus did this pushing up and down to breathe from almost six hours, from 9:00 AM in the morning to 3:00 PM in the afternoon. If that was not enough of pain and suffering from this method, the above text tells us that those walking by and eventually all those who condemned Jesus would mock and ridicule Jesus. To show their perceived guilt of Him, they hung Him next to two common criminals. They did this at a place where all would see the worst of mankind put to death. Why? To justify their actions and to make Jesus suffer in such a way that their own self-righteousness could be shown. They stood in their self-righteous, clean robes, ridiculing the God of the universe to make Him suffer as much as He possibly could. Of course, they missed the entire point. For as bad as this was on Jesus body it was a joy for Him because He was doing all this to provide salvation for the very people who mocked Him:
Hebrews 12:2 (ESV)
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Yes, Jesus had a picture of the joy of heaven before Him. But when it reads for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, it means He had joy in giving His life for mankind’s sin. As we read the suffering of Jesus we need to understand that it was the joy of Jesus at the same time. He had joy at giving His life for us. The deeper they made the suffering, the more He removed that same suffering from all those who would put faith in His substitutionary atonement for us. His suffering was joy to Him and ended up giving joy to us.
No comments:
Post a Comment