Good Friday Sermon: The Suffering of Christ
April 10, Anno Domini 2009
As we read the Gospel accounts, we are struck by the remarkable brevity and simplicity with which the Scriptures speak of the suffering of Christ. The Gospels merely relate the fact of his suffering without describing it in minute detail. But there is a reason for this, and really it’s not too difficult to understand. Those who lived at the time the Gospels were written and first distributed were well aware of the process of a Roman execution by crucifixion. The frequency with which it was practiced made the average citizen of the empire very familiar with it.
As those of that day read the Gospel narrative of the crucifixion of our Lord, no doubt horrific images were conjured up in their minds. They understood very well what intense suffering was endured by those who underwent the torture of crucifixion. I think that we who have never seen a crucifixion often speak too lightly of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. We often speak too casually, without realizing that it was not a mere death, but that it was a death that involved intense physical suffering.
Historically, a precursor of crucifixion was practiced by the ancient Assyrians. The Assyrians, at first, erected sharp stakes in the ground upon which they impaled the dead bodies of executed criminals and enemies in order to hold up their corpses to public humiliation. Later they would impale the condemned while they were still living, as a means of execution.
Crucifixion as we think of it—being tied or nailed to a stake as a mode of execution—appears to have first been practiced by the Persians. It was then adopted by the Greeks, though it was not a common punishment among them. And finally it was adopted by the Romans, who perfected it and used it quite extensively.
It’s not exactly known when the crossbeam was first introduced, but at the time of Christ the Romans used three different kinds of crosses. They used what has since come to be called St. Andrew’s cross shaped like this X; they used what is now called St. Anthony’s cross, T ; and finally there was what is called the Latin cross, which is the one with which we are most familiar, where the upright stake rises above the cross beam.
From the mention in the Gospels of an inscription being nailed above his head, and from the testimony of the early church fathers, Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, we believe that it was a Latin cross upon which our Lord was crucified.
The Romans called crucifixion “the slaves’ punishment” because it was not ordinarily allowed by Roman law for the punishment of the free-born or the citizen. The Roman statesman, Cicero, said: “Let the very name of the cross be far away not only from the body of a Roman citizen, but even from his thoughts.” Incidentally, we find in church history the tradition that St. Peter was crucified in Rome, but St. Paul, being a Roman citizen, escaped that cruel death and was more mercifully beheaded.
Crucifixion was generally used for the most vicious of criminals. Cicero called it “the supreme capital penalty, the most painful, dreadful and ugly.” The first century Jewish historian, Josephus, who witnessed thousands of crucifixions in the siege against Jerusalem, described it as “a most miserable death.” I’m convinced that most of the depictions we have of Jesus hanging on the cross are far too neat and clean. Crucifixion was a horribly bloody affair. And when we consider the scourging and the crown of thorns which preceded our Lord’s crucifixion, we must assume that Jesus was drenched with blood and his body racked with pain.
We are told that before Jesus was crucified, he was scourged (Matt. 27:26; Mk. ), and this is in keeping with usual Roman practice. According to Roman law, scourging always accompanied a capital sentence. The Roman scourge consisted of a handle with one or more straps of leather, and usually with bits of stone, bone or metal attached to them to make the beating more destructive and painful. The condemned was stripped of his clothes and was sometimes made to stand upright, being tied to a pillar, at other times he was made to bend over, being tied to a stake. As the lash came crashing down upon the body, it would strike the back and wrap around the sides to the face, chest and abdomen, the stones and metal digging deep into the skin. Then the executioner would then quickly pull the lash back ripping pieces of flesh from the body. Not once or twice was this done, but repeatedly, and with devastating effect. Josephus describes the effect of a Roman scourging on one occasion like this: they were “whipped until every one of their inward parts appeared naked”, meaning, their skin was peeled back from their bodies exposing raw flesh or muscle tissue. On another occasion he describes a man who “was whipped till his bones were laid bare.”
In many instances scourging itself was fatal. It was sometimes called “intermediate death.”
There are indications in the Gospels that the scourging inflicted upon Jesus was particularly severe. Pilate knew that the Jews had delivered him up out of envy. And three times he said, “I find no fault in him.” He was determined to let him go. He didn’t wish to put him to death, as the Jews had demanded. Perhaps he thought he could placate Jewish anger by having Jesus scourged. But he knew a mild flogging would never do to satisfy their cry for his blood, so we can be sure that in his wish to placate them he had him scourged to within an inch of his life. We find later that Jesus was so weakened, evidently from massive blood loss due to the scourging, that he was unable to carry his own cross. Isaiah described him prophetically like this: “His appearance was marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind” (Isaiah 52:14). His body was a bleeding mass of torn flesh.
After the soldiers scourged him, they threw his upper garment back on him and ushered him into the Praetorium where he was mocked and ridiculed by the whole Roman battalion. They again stripped him of his clothes and in mockery arrayed him with the purple robe of royalty. Then they wove a crown of thorns and placed it on his head, and put a reed in his hand and hailed him as the king of the Jews. They spat on him and took their turns hitting him in the face. Then they took the reed from his hand and beat him on the head, driving the thorns deeper and deeper into his scalp. The blood streamed from the wounds of the thorns; it soaked his hair and flowed down his face into his eyes and matted his beard.
Pilate then presented him to the people with the famous words, “Behold the man!” (Jn. 19:5) But the angry crowds were not appeased. Again they cried out for his crucifixion.
Finally Pilate, seeing it as politically expedient, consented to their demands. The soldiers ripped the purple robe from off his raw flesh, put his own garments back on him and laid the patibulum (cross beam) across his shoulders to carry to the place of execution.
It was a short distance (less than half a mile) to the place of execution. It was called Golgotha (or Calvary, in Latin). But somewhere on that short trek, whatever physical strength he had, left him, and another man, Simon of Cyrene (Mk. ; Matt. 27:22; Lk. ), was compelled to carry his cross. In fact, St. Mark says, “they brought him to the place called Golgotha” (). They “brought” him there. The original Greek word means to bear, to carry. It suggests that Jesus was so weak that he perhaps had to be supported on his way to Golgotha.
Once at the site of execution, where the upright stake was already in place, the cross-beam was laid on the ground, and Jesus, his back already raw from the scourging, was laid on the ground with his arms stretched out on the wood. Then his arms were probably bound to it with ropes while they drove five inch-long spikes into his hands, or more likely, his wrists. Then the cross-beam was lifted up and attached either by nails or by ropes to the upright stake. At about the middle of the upright post there may have been a block or a rest for him to support the weight of His body. Finally, his feet were nailed to the wood of the upright stake, either one nail driven into each, or perhaps a longer one driven into both.
It was a custom among the Jews to show mercy to those being executed by giving them a drink of strong wine mixed with myrrh so as to deaden the sense of pain. This drink was offered to Jesus, but he refused it; and he did so because he came not merely to die for us, but to suffer for us. And so there he was, fixed by nails to a cross, for six long hours, in excruciating pain.
Incidentally, the word excruciating, is derived from the Latin cruciare, meaning “to torment.” And cruciare comes from the Latin word crux, meaning “cross.” Excruciating pain, then, is the pain of crucifixion.
Alfred Edersheim, writes, “Avowedly, the punishment was invented to make death as painful and as lingering as the power of human endurance.” Indeed, it was not uncommon for one who was crucified to spend days upon the cross before finally succumbing to death. Death resulted sometimes through shock, and often through suffocation, as the muscles used for breathing gradually weakened. Death was sometimes hastened by breaking the legs to increase the strain on the body. Frequently the dead body was left to rot on the cross and be devoured by beasts and vultures. In our Lord’s case, six agonizing hours were spent on the cross. And then, weakened as he was by all that he suffered, he died.
Now as we think of the tremendous suffering of Christ, we would not be thinking properly if we failed to consider that He suffered on our behalf. What love Jesus has for us, that he should voluntarily undergo such suffering for our salvation! As he said himself, “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (Jn. ). Neither the Jews nor the Romans, nor both of them conspiring together, took Jesus’ life from him.
Do you remember when they came to apprehend him in the Garden of Gethsemane? He asked them, “Whom do you seek?” They said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” He said, “I am he.” Upon which, it says, they all drew back and fell to the ground. You realize this was not an act of voluntary obeisance as some have supposed. They had not come to worship him, but to arrest him. This was nothing else but an effect of Divine power, a proof that he could have destroyed them on the spot had he wished to do so—and a proof that they could not take his life from him, but that he laid it down freely. When St. Peter took a sword and cut off the right ear of the servant of the High Priest, Jesus said, “Put your sword back in its place… Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt. 26:52-53).
No, Jesus was not compelled against his will to die. No one took his life from him. He freely, of his own accord, laid it down for our sakes. How worthy he is of our love and devotion!
“Infinite grief! amazing woe!
Behold my bleeding Lord!
Hell and the Jews conspir’d his death,
And used the Roman sword.
Oh the sharp pangs of smarting pain
My dear Redeemer bore,
When knotty whips and ragged thorns
His sacred body tore!
But knotty whips and ragged thorns
In vain do I accuse;
In vain I blame the Roman bands,
And the more spiteful Jews.
‘Twere you, my sins, my cruel sins,
His chief tormentors were;
Each of my crimes became a nail,
And unbelief the spear.
‘Twere you that pull’d the vengenace down
Upon his guiltless head:
Break, break, my heart! O burst, mine eyes!
And let my sorrows bleed.
Strike, mighty grace, my flinty soul,
Till melting waters flow,
And deep repentance drown mine eyes
In undissembled woe.”
The Bible teaches that by faith we are united to Christ. The way it expresses it is that we are “in Christ.” This is the language it uses. We are “in Christ,” that is, in a covenantal bond with him. He is our substitute, our representative. All he suffered and accomplished was for us. All he has belongs to us. This means that our right standing before God the Father is grounded in Christ’s own right standing before him. If we abide in Christ, we can no more come under the Father’s negative judgment than Jesus himself can.
We have this assurance because Jesus died in our place, suffering what we deserved, in order to secure our forgiveness. But not only this, on the third day he rose again from the dead for our justification. “He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. ). His resurrection was his own justification, as the Father reversed the sentence of condemnation against him. The Jews and Gentiles conspired together to condemn him to death as a sinner, a criminal. But God reversed their sentence. He raised Him from the dead, and in so doing, he justified him, or vindicated Him—showed that he took pleasure in him—that he was, indeed, his beloved Son in whom he was well-pleased. The resurrection of Christ, was the Father’s testimony concerning him. It was the Father’s vindication of the Son. This is why St. Paul writes to Timothy,
Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:
He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated (justified) by the Spirit,
seen by angels,
proclaimed among the nations,
believed on in the world,
taken up in glory (2 Tim. ).
It was by the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus was raised from the dead (Rom. ; 1 Pet. ). This is why it says, “He was…justified by the Spirit.” And we participate in that justification because we are “in Christ.” We are in the Justified One. We have died with him; we were buried with him; and we have been raised together with him to walk in newness of life. Amen.