Crucifixion was a brutal way to die. As central as the crucifixion of Jesus is to our faith, it is odd that we know so little about it. Most of us have some general idea about what crucifixion involves—nails in the hands, hanging from a wooden post—but the details are not well known. Interestingly, as crucial as the cross is to the biblical narratives, the Gospel writers themselves give us almost no description at all. I suspect that is for two reasons.
First, there is little information about the details of crucifixion in the Bible because the contemporary readers of the Bible knew all about it. Crucifixions were not at all unknown in the Ancient Near East, and the Roman government employed the method frequently—it would have been unusual to grow up in any urban area and not have seen someone crucified. One figures the Gospel authors did not need to explain crucifixion to their audience, which would have been much too familiar with the practice.
Crucifixion was a brutal way to die. It was used by the Roman government, not only as a means of capital punishment, but as a public deterrent, a warning to all others of the consequences of rebellion. It was one thing to be threatened with death, but a much greater threat was death by crucifixion. The physical aspects of crucifixion are horrific to contemplate. The imagination is simply insufficient to envision what occurs. If you have a strong stomach, I would suggest an article that came out a few decades ago in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Second, the Biblical authors do not detail the process of crucifixion because it would be a distraction. So brutal was death by crucifixion that it can easily mask the much more significant suffering by our Lord on the cross. Focusing on the physical anguish of Jesus can be so disgusting, so offensive, that we fail to look beneath to see the much greater suffering of Christ for our sin.
The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), but the death spoken of here is eternal death, separation from God, spiritual death. What Jesus experienced on the cross was so much more devastating than simply the physical pain, as unthinkable as that might be. For the real brutality that Jesus experienced was the spiritual death that He took for each of us. To be separated from the Father was more devastating than any amount of physical pain.
Crucifixion was a brutal way to die, and the death that Jesus endured involved all the pain, suffering and humiliation of the cross. But, His great sacrifice was not His physical suffering, but His life as a payment spiritually for your sin.
As we reflect upon this on Sunday, read Mark 15:16-32.
- Contrast the detail given about the soldiers’ mockery of Jesus and His crucifixion. Why the emphasis on mocking Him? Why is this important in the story?
- Simon of Cyrene is drafted into carrying the cross for Jesus. What point do you think the Gospel writers are making by including this detail? What spiritually might it mean in your own life?
- Jesus rejects the wine and myrrh that is meant to deaden the pain of crucifixion. Why do you think He did that? What point might He have been making?
- The charge against Jesus is “the King of the Jews.” Why is this a “charge” against Jesus? How does this explain His crucifixion? How willingly do you embrace His Kingship?
- Look at the mockery of the chief priests (verses 31-32). What is so very ironic about this mockery?
By Henry Knapp