A Roman crucifixion began by flogging.[1] GOD ALMIGHTY was tied face first to a large post, with his hands stretched upward. He was naked, so his whole body, back, buttocks, and legs were exposed. He had already been beaten by the Jewish authorities, so his face was swollen, black and blue. The usual flogging instrument was a short whip with severed leather thongs. At the end of the thongs were small iron balls and sharp pieces of sheep bones. GOD ALMIGHTY was flogged by 2 soldiers, one on each side. The Jews would flog 39 times, one less that 40 lashes. But the Romans had no such limit. For them, crucifixion was intended to make the criminal die, and the scourging was designed to bring as much blood loss as possible. With each lash, the iron balls cut deep into the flesh of GOD ALMIGHTY, ripping back the skin and muscles. After the flogging, GOD ALMIGHTY was cut loose to fall on the ground. On his seared back was thrust a rough-cut beam of wood, the cross beam. The soldiers pulled him to his feet, and GOD ALMIGHTY was made to carry the cross beam through the streets of Jerusalem. The crowds jeered in ridicule. One of the soldiers walked in front carrying a sign bearing the criminal’s name and crime. In the case of GOD ALMIGHTY, the sign was a mockery. GOD ALMIGHTY was made to look like a clown. His sign included the moniker that Pilate thought so funny: “KING OF THE JEWS.”
When they reached the place of execution, as required by law, GOD ALMIGHTY was given a bitter drink of wine mixed with myrrh as a mild analgesic. He refused to drink it. GOD ALMIGHTY was then thrown to the ground on his back, and his hands were stretched out on the cross beam. From the archeological remains of a crucified body found around Jerusalem, we know the Romans preferred nailing the criminal’s wrists to the cross beam. The soldiers used iron spikes 5 to 7 inches long. GOD ALMIGHTY, nailed to the cross beam, was then hoisted up onto the execution poles that were permanently placed outside the city. His feet were then nailed to the pole. When the nailing was finished, the sign that was carried in front of the criminal, announcing his crime, was posted on the top of the cross for everyone to see: “King of the Jews.” “Hilarious!” thought the Romans.
The Romans crucified people naked, so GOD ALMIGHTY would have been hanging naked for all the world to see. The soldiers and civilian crowd often taunted and jeered the condemned man. In the case of GOD ALMIGHTY, the religious leaders, whom Jesus had so bitterly condemned only days before, were getting the last laugh.
The length of survival on the cross could range from a few hours to a few days, depending mostly on how severe the scourging was. GOD ALMIGHTY was left hanging for about 6 hours. Not uncommonly, insects would light on or burrow into the open wounds, eyes, ears, and nose of the dying victim, and vultures would tear at these sites. Death would come either by loss of blood or by slow asphyxiation. Breathing was extremely difficult because the arms were outstretched and the body pinned. The victim could inhale, but he could not exhale. GOD ALMIGHTY would fight to raise himself to get one small breath, and as he raised himself the scourging wounds on his back would scrape against the rough wood. Raising himself up on his arms sent searing pain throughout his body.
There he hangs, GOD ALMIGHTY, naked, beaten, ridiculed, humiliated, forgotten. The leaders have made a public spectacle of him. His closest followers have deserted him. His Mom is there at his feet, but she is helpless. “Is this what my son has come to?” At his last hour, he cries out “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” He is a mocked, beaten, bloody pulp, his ideas and cause totally rejected.
If this is GOD ALMIGHTY, what is HE trying to say to us? We must be clear that we would have never heard of this mocked, beaten, crucified Jesus had it not been for what happened three days later. The mutilated Jesus that was laid in the tomb on Friday appeared to his disciples on Sunday with a “brand new” body, transformed, different, glorious. It was this risen Jesus himself who explained to his disciples exactly why he, the Son of Man, had to suffer and die in this way. This Jesus, with a “brand new” body, explained what God was trying to say to us in such suffering and death. What is God saying to us?
THIS IS WHAT GOD IS LIKE
In the cross, Jesus displayed so piercingly and perfectly the true nature of God, and that nature is one of humble, serving love. Just as Jesus showed the full extent of his love by washing his disciple’s feet, he showed the very nature of God by suffering on this cross and washing all of our dirty souls. The cross shouts to us that God loves us more than he loves himself because that is the very nature of GOD ALMIGHTY.
GOD SUFFERS WITH US
The cross also proves that God is not “something up there where humans are not,” but suffers with us in our suffering. God himself is the one that is acquainted with our grief. God himself has joined us in our pain, suffering, and loneliness. God himself knows what physical pain feels like, what it feels like to be completely alone and “God-forsaken,” what it feels like even to lose a child. In Jesus, God has felt what it is like to have the legitimacy of your birth questioned, your work so difficult that even your family thinks you are out of your mind, betrayed by your closest friends, face the death penalty on trumped up charges, tortured with excruciating cruelty, and finally to be utterly humiliated and left terribly alone.[2] God himself even knows what it is like to die as a human. We worship a God who is “with us” in every way, one who knows how to comfort us in our suffering because he himself has suffered (Heb. 3:18). Edward Shillito, a veteran of the horrors of World War I, wrote in his poem “Jesus of the Scars:”
The other gods were strong; but thou wast weak;
They rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but thou alone.[3]
GOD HAS BOUND HIMSELF TO US FOREVER
Jesus’ “brand new body” had a remarkably surprising feature. The nail and spear wounds from the cross remained in his body after his resurrection. Jesus took these wounds with him when he ascended to the heavens. Why? Why does Jesus still have our wounds? Jesus still has wounds because something has happened in the cross that is permanent, forever, eternal. The wounds of the risen Jesus show us that God has irrevocably bound himself to humanity. You could say that God has indelibly marked in his own God-ness our humanity by the incarnation and cross of Jesus. That means that all that is good and right about this creation, about us, will without doubt ultimately triumph because God is bound to us—he will never, ever let us go.
GOD HAS DEFEATED EVIL FOREVER
If, in the cross, God suffers with us in our suffering, if through the cross God has irrevocably bound himself to us for all time, then in the cross God has also somehow defeated evil. Evil is the word we humans use to describe all that is terribly wrong with this world: the evil within us, the evil around us, and the evil of death. God has defeated this “evil” in this one central event that has forever changed the world—the cross of Jesus Christ. In the cross, we see something worse than death–it is evil. But in the cross, we see there is something more powerful than evil–it is love. At the heart of the universe is a furious, blazing, holy Love that will stop at nothing to change his children. The cross honors our freedom but confronts us with what is true about us. But the cross grasps hold of us and pulls us close to the very throbbing heart of God. How is evil overcome? Evil is never overcome by more evil; fighting is never overcome by more fighting; hate is never overcome by more hatred. Surprisingly, the only way to overcome evil is love. Love takes all the power out of evil. In his book, People of the Lie, psychiatrist Scott Peck quotes Gale Webbe, “The only ultimate way to conquer evil is to let it be smothered by a willing, living human being. When it is absorbed like a spear into one’s own heart, it loses its power and goes no further.”[4] And then Peck adds, “The healing of evil can only be accomplished by love. The healer must allow his or her own soul to become the battlefield. Whenever this happens there is a slight shift in the balance of power in the world.”[5]
God is the healer who has allowed his own soul to be the battlefield. He has allowed evil to unleash all of its power on himself so that those controlled by fear, addiction, guilt, resentment, bitterness, and hate can be set free: “If the Son sets you free, you are absolutely free” (John 8:36). God has also promised us (with his own blood) that this world is not all there is. Death sets the ultimate limit on the evil of this world, but God has overcome death and evil. Jesus is God’s pledge that “there will be perfect justice on the last day when God ‘will judge the world in righteousness by a man he has appointed.’ By raising Jesus from the dead, God has put the world on notice that judgment day is coming” (Acts 17:30, 31). As Jesus said, “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
I can now walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil. Who now holds my hands? I hold the nail-scarred hands of the Good Shepherd, and He will never let me go. I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither the past nor the present, neither evil nor angels, nothing in the whole universe will ever separate me from the love of God in Jesus Christ my Lord!
[1] For the classic study of Roman crucifixion, see Martin Hengel, Crucifixion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977).
[2] The playlet “The Long Silence” describes how the whole world puts God on trial for all the suffering of humanity, only to realize that God himself in Jesus has suffered with us. Read the “Long Silence” in John R.W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, Il: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 336.
[3] Edward Shillito, Jesus of the Scars, published after World War I, quoted in Stott, The Cross of Christ, 337.
[4] Gale D. Webbe, The Night and Nothing (New York: Seabury Press, 1964), 109, quoted in Scott Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), 269.
[5] Ibid.