Luke 23:33. And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.
HOLY SATURDAY!
Ah Friends, it’s Holy Saturday. Most of the excitement from the tumultuous events of Good Friday has now subsided, and Jesus is lying quietly in His borrowed tomb. ‘Glory Hallelujah!’ And as promised, I’ll do what I’d planned to do yesterday, but which the Lord in His wisdom postponed to today. For good reason too, because I’m going to approach it from a different and better angle. And who says our wonderful God doesn’t move in mysterious ways eh! I’m going to deal with Jesus’ suffering from a purely physical aspect, using some information from the novel, ‘The Sacred Bones,’ by Michael Byrnes. I mentioned it awhile back, noting that you should not read it unless your faith was strong, since it could cloud your mind with all sorts of doubts. It’s basically a story of intrigue, where two forensic scientists, a female American and male Italian are working in a highly sophisticated basement lab of the Vatican, looking at some bones found in a Jewish ossuary (coffin)) dated in Jesus’ time, trying to figure out how the person died, and if it was possibly Jesus. Let’s look at some of their findings after putting the bones under a microscope. They found no head trauma, but the Good Book says that when Jesus gave the high priest a smart-aleck answer; ‘one of the officers which stood by struck Jesus (gave him a blow) with the palm of his hand, saying, Answerest thou the high priest so? (John 18:22) And after Pilate was finished with Him, ‘the soldiers plaited (twisted) a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe. And said, Hail, King of the Jews! And they smote (struck) Him with their hands.’(John 19:2-3) So it’s obvious they roughed up Jesus with their hands and emotionally humiliated Him before taking Him out to be crucified. His head must also have been punctured in several places by the crown of thorns, with blood seeping down His face from them. The scholars claim that the last set of physical abuse was possibly with fists as opposed to the slap before. The scientists found a huge tear in the dried cartilage attaching the ribs to the chest plate. Then the humerus and clavicle were separated from the scapula. They contended that it was a violent dislocation which had taken place before death. Most of the ribs looked like they hand been racked with thick nails to produce long, scalloped gouges. And they found metal deposits there. The final analysis was that if the bones there looked so bad, then the muscle and flesh that covered them would have looked even worse, leading to the conclusion that the man had been flayed (flogged), with a barbed whip to boot. What does the Good Book say? ‘Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him (whipped Him with a Roman scourge).’ (John 19:1) And what was a Roman scourge Friends? Hear the scholars’ explanation: ‘Scourging (whipping) often preceded crucifixion. The Roman flagellum consisted of a whip, split into several strips, into which sharp bones (or metal) were embedded so as to cut the flesh.’ Note too the soldiers roughed Him up after He’d been scourged. So imagine having your back cut with wicked stripes and thorns puncturing your head, then being physically abused. Significant damage was also found on the inner surfaces of the bones joining above the wrist, as though it went through a grinder, with what appeared to be wood fibres embedded in the bones. Two bones in the left foot had also been fractured and looked similar to the wrists. From the diamond shaped indentation in the bone, and more wood splinters, they concluded that a nail caused the fracture. It also looked like the nail had missed the first time, possibly because the feet were nailed one on top of the other. Furthermore, the tears in the cartilage and hairline fractures below the knee indicated that the knees had been broken. To quicken death those crucified often had their knees broke. They broke the knees of the two thieves crucified with Jesus, but Jesus did not suffer this fate because when the soldiers came to take Him down, He was already dead. ‘But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water…For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken. And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.’ (John 19:34, 36-37) The first scripture refers to Psalm 34:20, and the second to Zechariah 12:10. Friends, time and space are running out, so I’ll quickly condense some of the horrible attributes of crucifixion. Firstly, it was a brutal punishment used by the Romans to send a potent message of fear to Roman citizens. It was very public and humiliating. Victims would be stripped naked and hung along major thoroughfares. It was a very dishonourable way to die, and mostly used for low class criminals and enemies of the state. I guess Jesus was considered an enemy of the state but crucified between two low class thugs. Scourging was a starting point to make the victims more compliant. The victim was usually impaled on some kind of cross by long spikes driven through their hands and feet. I guess all this was done before the cross was raised upright, for a rope was hung around the arms for additional support when the body was raised upright. And though we see crucifixions with nails in the palms of the hands, this wasn’t very practical because the small bones and weak flesh in the hands couldn’t support the full weight of a body, so huge iron spikes, measuring around 18 centimetres would be driven into the wrist, just above the ulna and radius, with a large wooden washer to keep it in place. That crushes or severs the median nerve, sending terrible waves of pain up the arm, instantly paralyzing them. After nailing both wrists, then the body would be violently hoisted. Then the feet would be laid over each other then nailed to the post. Apparently this caused a lot of struggling and flailing about, so to prevent that, sometimes a supporting peg, called a sedile, was inserted between the legs. A nail was pounded through the penis and into the sedile to secure the victims to the cross. What utter horror Friends! And the sad fact is that no one thing really killed the victim, though they all contributed. And one could be on the cross for days before a welcome death came. Oh Friends, I sure hope I’ve achieved my purpose with this Lesson 101 on crucifixion; that of getting us to appreciate so much more the horror and agony that Jesus went through on that cross to pay for our sins. It also shows the depth of the Father’s LOVE for us, that He willingly allowed His Son to pay the exorbitant price His justice system called for, for our redemption. Let’s hope from now on, most of us will have a much better appreciation and LOVE for Jesus. Much LOVE!…man’s inhumanity to man has made countless millions mourn…and sadly it’s still doing so…time to stop it… P.S. The commentary above is a combination of my words and author Michael Byrnes, but they are so intermingled that it would have taken too much time to try and separate them and made the reading too difficult, so I just lumped them all together and acknowledge Mr. Burns’ contribution. Much LOVE!
SCRIP-BITS 