The End...

“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” - John 19:28-30 ESV

At the age of 33, Jesus was condemned to death by crucifixion.

At the time, crucifixion was the "worst" death. Only the worst of criminals were condemned to be crucified.

Yet, it was even more dreadful for Jesus. Unlike other criminals condemned to death by crucifixion, Jesus would be nailed to the cross by His hands and feet.

Each nail was 6 to 8 inches long.

The nails were driven into His wrist.

Not into His palms, as is commonly portrayed.

There's a tendon in the wrist that extends to the shoulder. The Roman guards knew that when the nails were being hammered into the wrist that tendon would tear and break, forcing Jesus to use His back muscles to support himself so that He could breathe.

Both of His feet were nailed together. Thus He was forced to support Himself on the single nail that impaled His feet to the cross.

Jesus would not be able to support himself with His legs because of the pain so He would have been forced to alternate between arching His back and using his legs to be able to continue to breathe.

Imagine the struggle, the pain, the suffering, the courage.

Jesus endured this for over 3 hours.

Can you imagine this kind of suffering?

A few minutes before He died, Jesus would have likely stopped bleeding. At that point, He would have been simply pouring water from his wounds.

From common images, we see wounds to His hands (wrists) and feet, and at the end, a spear wound to His side. But many of His wounds were internal.

The human adult body contains about 5 liters (just less than a gallon) of blood. Through out the day, Jesus poured all 5 Liters of his blood.

Prior to the nails and the cross, and the spear to His side, Jesus was severely whipped and beaten by the Roman soldiers.

He was first stripped of all clothing, then tied to a post with his hands above his head (to stretch the skin and making the wounds worse).

He was then flogged by one or two people with a whip (or flagellum). This whip (often called a cat-o-nine tails) consisted of a handle (about 18″ long) with 9 leather straps about 6 or 7 feet long, and at the end of each strap was small lead balls mixed with pieces of animal bone or metal.

These would tear into the body more and more with each successive lashing, with the lead balls ripping into the skin and the jagged pieces of bone or metal tearing it out.

As the flogging progressed, muscles, vital organs, and even the spine could likely be seen openly.

Huge strips of skin were most likely hanging from His body.

According to Jewish law, this beating had to be stopped after 40 lashes.

However, the Jews made a tradition of 39 lashes, just in case a mistake in counting was made.

The Romans had no such law though, and may or may not have exceeded this limit.

After this kind of flogging, the victim would be untied and would fall to the ground, often unconscious, sometimes dead. Never even making it to the crucifixion.

Jesus survived it without losing consciousness.

But it didn’t just end there.

Then came the beating.

A beating so horrific that His face was bloodied and torn, and his beard ripped from His face.

Then, the crown of thorns.

The crown with two inch thorns that would cut deeply into His scalp.

Most men would not have survived all this torture. But Jesus did.

Maybe we can envision all the blood, pain and torture, but we have not yet mentioned the muscle fatigue and humiliation Jesus suffered from carrying His own cross.

He carried the cross for about 2000 feet (that’s over 2 1/2 football fields in length), while the crowd watched, shouted insults, spat on Him and likely, threw stones.

Most crosses at the time weighed approximately 300 lbs., 100 lbs of which was the cross beam (the higher part) where His hands were nailed. And He carried it after being flogged, beaten and bloodied.

Jesus endured this entire experience, so that we might be saved, might be forgiven, might have eternal life, might have free access to God.

So that our sins could be "washed" away. All of them, with no exception, covered by the blood of Jesus.

And all we have to do is ask, trust, believe.

Jesus died a criminals death so that we (you and me) might have life.

What will you do with this information?

What will you do with the knowledge that Jesus endured all this, including death on the cross for you and me?

What will you do with the cross?

What will you do with the Death of Jesus?

The End...

Or rather... The End of the Beginning

Keep the Faith... Carpe Diem