Words are powerful as they evoke
certain emotions and make people act or react in a certain way. Certain words
like “Lynching, Execution, Assassination, and Murder” touch our core and stir
up all sorts of emotions. These terms do not come close to “Crucifixion,” says
Fleming Rutledge, who wrote an over 600-page book on “The Crucifixion.”
That one word evokes “horror.” The
term suggests other levels of significance as well: It is a single death that
stands for many deaths; it is an innocent death that results from the evildoing
of others; it is an iconic death that takes on a universal meaning. These are
some of the implications in the use of the term “Crucifixion,” but perhaps most
importantly, it implies an extremity of dehumanization and, therefore, of
godlessness.”[1]
In recent decades, there has been a shift
of focus from crucifixion to resurrection among Christians. What is more
important, Good Friday or Easter? It is like asking when making a ham and
cheese sandwich, which is more important, the ham or the cheese? It is not a
ham and cheese sandwich if you don’t have both of them. Moving from the
ridiculous to the sublime, argues Fleming, “You can’t have the crucifixion
without the resurrection and vice versa.”[2]
The Passion and Resurrection are
bound together in one narrative, notes another theologian. Tonight, for us to
fully understand and appreciate the death of Christ on the Cross, we must grasp
the depth of His passion leading up to His Crucifixion.
By reading the narratives in Matthew
26:36–27:56, Mark 14:32–15:41, Luke 22:39–23:49, and John 18:1–19:37, we will get the
full extent of Jesus’ heart-wrenching passion that began in the Garden of
Gethsemane, continued up to Golgotha (the place of the skull) and ended with
His humiliating death on the Cross. We reflect on The Passion of Christ. Mark
15:1-32.
I would divide
the Passion of Christ into three scenes in the narrative. We would have had so
much gruesome graphic content if there had been video cameras. God had recorded
those events with some horrific details to remind us of what it took Jesus to
bring about our salvation.
I. The Passion of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. (Mark
14:12-42)
On the first day
of the festival of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the
Passover Lamb, Jesus ate his last supper with his beloved disciples. Unlike any
other Passover meal, he introduced a tradition that would remain until his
second coming.
That
tradition is now known as “Communion. Jesus symbolically offered
his body and his blood, which would redeem humanity of their sins. No usual
jubilation was associated with the Passover celebration in that room. Instead,
there was sadness. He revealed to them that one of the twelve would betray Him.
Peter’s pride might have been hurt when Jesus said that night before the
rooster crows he would betray Him three times.
Jesus took
his disciples from the upper room to a familiar place called Gethsemane. Taking
three of his closest friends, Peter, James, and John, further into the garden,
he revealed to them his deep anguish, saying, “ My soul is overwhelmed with
sorrow to the point of death. “Stay here and watch.” From that point, He had to
go through the agony all by himself.
Going a
little further, he fell to the ground and prayed that the hour might pass from
him if possible. “Abba Father, he said, everything is possible for you. Take
this cup from me. Yet, not what I will but what you will.” He prayed such
anguishing prayer three times. Luke describes Jesus’ passion this way, “And
being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of
blood falling to the ground.” (Luke 22:43-44). Jesus poured out his deepest
anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane for the sins of Adam and Eve committed in
the Garden of Eden.
An angel strengthened him, but his passion continued from Gethsemane
into Pilot’s Court.
II. The Passion of Christ In Pilot’s Court. (Mark 15:1-20)
The time for
everything the prophets wrote about the Son of Man was now nearing to be
fulfilled. It was early in the morning when the chief priests, elders, the law
teachers, and the whole Sanhedrin bound Jesus and handed him over to Pilot.
Jesus remained silent against baseless accusations and the witnesses who
couldn’t agree with each other.
Pilot was amazed
by Jesus’s silence and tried to release him but was prevented by the loud
shouting of the crowds. The crowds that shouted earlier Hosanna, Hosanna now
shouting Crucify Him. They wanted Barabbas, an insurrectionist, to be released
instead. In the end, Pilot released Barabbas and handed Jesus over to be
flogged and to be crucified.
Roman
flogging was a cruel act of punishment. Jesus received 39 lashes with a Roman
whip, consisting of a short, wooden handle with several 18- to 24-inch-long
straps of leather protruding from it. The ends of these leather pieces were
equipped with sharp, rugged pieces of metal, wire, glass, and jagged fragments
of bone. As if that wasn’t enough, the soldiers humiliated Jesus by putting a
purple robe on him, twisting together a crown of thorns, and set on him and
repeatedly stuck him on the head with a staff and spat on him.
Luke
mentions that the guards blindfolded him, beat him, and mocked him by demanding
him to prophecy who hit him. Along with that, they hurled many other insulting
things at him. Can you imagine how Jesus must have looked like after enduring
the torture by the guards? Isaiah
50:6, “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled
out my beard, I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.” Isaiah 52:14,
“But many were amazed when they saw him. His face was so disfigured he seemed
hardly human, and from his appearance, one would scarcely know he was a man." The Passion of Christ continued from the Pilot’s court to Golgotha as He
carried a heavy cross that weighed approximately 165 pounds.
III. The Passion of Christ on The Cross at Calvary (Mark
15:21-39)
It was around
9:00 A.M., and they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (Calvary), they
crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would
get. It fulfilled a prophecy in Psalm
22:18, “They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garments.” Jesus was nailed to the Cross along with two
other criminals. While enduring pain, Jesus interceded for his persecutors.
(Matt 23:34). In Ps 22:15, we read, “They pierce my hands and my feet.” Isaiah
53:12 reads, “Because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with
the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the
transgressors.”
Around
noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at
3:00 P.M., Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sbachthani?
(which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?) (Psalm 22:1). With a
loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two
from top to bottom. “Jesus fulfilled 27 Messianic Prophecies in one day. And
these are some of the 300+ Messianic prophecies that He has fulfilled through
His birth, life, and resurrection.”[3]
Why did
Jesus go through such passion before and during his death on the Cross? The OT
law tells us that without shedding blood, there is no forgiveness. (Heb 9:22).
It was not the blood of the goats and the bulls but the perfect lamb of God
that was Jesus. His blood satisfied the wrath of God and offered forgiveness to
sinners. Isaiah 53:3-6, “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of
suffering, and familiar with pain. He was pierced and crushed for our sins. We
are healed by his wounds. What would you do with Jesus, who bled, died, and
rose on the third day? Will you reject Him or believe in and accept Him as your
Lord and Savior? Whatever you choose today will carry eternal consequences for
your life.
