It is Good Friday as I write this, though it may be a different day when you read it. Good Friday, the day we commemorate when Jesus was brutally abused and then crucified, all to pay the debt for our sins. What exactly did Jesus go through on that day? We read the Good Friday narratives in the Gospels, but they just say simple words, such as that He was flogged, carried His cross, and then was crucified. No other details or descriptions were given. Many of us have a crucifix hanging in our home and our church, and we have seen paintings of the crucifixion, but they are rather sanitized. Several years ago I read a physician’s account of what exactly Jesus would have gone through during His crucifixion. I would like to share some of that with you, along with my own thoughts, as we take a closer look, and meditate on what our Lord went through for each of us.
The suffering of Jesus on that first Good Friday really begins on the night before, when He was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Following the Last Supper, Jesus and His disciples went to the Garden, and there He spent several hours in intense prayer. Jesus knew what lay ahead of Him for the next approximately 18 hours. He knew what unspeakable and terrible agony He would go through. We read in the Gospels that Jesus prayed so intensely that His sweat became bloody (Luke 22:44). Occurrences such as this, though quite rare, are medically verified. It is called hematidrosis, and happens when someone is in such intense emotional distress that the tiny capillaries in the sweat glands break, mixing sweat with blood, often leaving the person physically weak.
Following Jesus’ arrest, He was roughly brought by the Temple guards to the High Priest and Sanhedrin. After going through the mockery of a phony “trial”, Jesus was blindfolded, spat upon, and repeatedly slapped in the face (Luke 22:63-65). These slaps were undoubtedly given full-force, though not quite a punch, as some of the Gospels indicate it was with the palm of the hand. What made it even more traumatizing was being blindfolded when this happened. Then the battered, bruised, and dehydrated, Jesus was sent to Pontius Pilate.
Neither Pilate nor King Herod thought Jesus was worthy of execution, but bowing to the pressure of the High Priest and Sanhedrin, Pilate ordered Jesus to be scourged and then crucified. This is where the torture really began. As bad as a whipping with a belt or even a horse whip would be, a Roman flogging was much, much worse. First the victim would be stripped of clothing, and then tied by their hands to a post overhead. The victim was then flogged with a scourge of rope and leather which was embedded with metal balls, bones, and spikes. A strong Roman legionnaire would proceed to flog the victim, and would not show mercy. This scourge would quickly tear through the skin, then the muscle, and often go down to the bone. Flogging, alone, could and did often kill a person. The Bible does not specify how many lashes Jesus was given. The Law of Moses said no more than 40 were to be given (Deuteronomy 25:3), but these were Romans who wouldn’t have to follow that law.
Jesus was then dragged away, and the soldiers decided to have some cruel sport at His expense (Matthew 27:27-31). Hearing that some had called Him a king, they crafted a crown made of thorny branches which they crushed down upon His head. Though the type of plant that was used is not specified, some believe it to be the euphorbia milii, which has very long, sharp thorns. Wounds to the head often cause a lot of bleeding, so this would have shed even more of Jesus’ Blood. They also gave Him a rod as a “scepter”, which they beat Him with, and wrapped a scarlet cloak around Him as a “robe”. When they removed the cloak, it would have begun to cling to the blood clots from the scourging, and removing it would have been painful, just like removing a surgical bandage without care.
Following this treatment, Jesus was then made to carry His cross to the execution site of Calvary, also called Golgotha. Often the victim would only carry the crossbeam, which was easily at least 100 lbs. This was laid upon Jesus’ back and shoulders, already ripped open during the flogging. Weak from the abuse, loss of blood and bodily fluids, along with dehydration, Jesus stumbled multiple times, until they called on Simon of Cyrene to help carry the cross (Luke 23:26). When they arrived at Golgotha, the soldiers attempted to give Him wine mixed with pain killing drugs, but Jesus refused it (Mark 15:23). Jesus would take the full punishment for our sins, with nothing to dilute or diminish it.
Jesus was thrown down onto the cross where His hands and feet were nailed to the wood with large stakes. When the cross was raised, the weight of His body pulled upon the nails in his hands, actually wrists, and the pain would increase. In order to alleviate the pain, crucified victims would try to push themselves upward, then putting weight on the nail through the feet. That would then, likewise, put terrible pain on the feet. Repeating this would bring cramps to the muscles of arms and legs, inhibiting the movement. Air could be brought into the lungs, but not exhaled. Carbon dioxide would build up in the lungs and bloodstream, and the cramps would partially subside, then allowing the victim to shift his weight and exhale.
This cycle would continue over and over, and slowly the pericardium (membrane sac that encloses the heart) would fill with serum and compress the heart. The heart would struggle to beat and the lungs struggle to gasp air. The soldiers would often try to end this cycle after a number of hours, because sometimes death could take many hours or even days to occur. They would break the legs of the victims so they could not move to relieve pressure and achieve a breath. However, when the soldiers came to Jesus, they found He was already dead. The soldier then took his lance and drove it between ribs, through the pericardium, and into His heart, bringing forth a water-like fluid and blood (John 19:34). Jesus did not die from the usual suffocation that crucifixion victims usually die from, but instead from heart failure due to shock and the constriction of the heart by fluid in the pericardium.
This was a gruesome tortuous death that the Lord endured for us, in atonement for our sins. What the religious leaders and the soldiers thought was the end, was not the end of the story. As a preacher once said, “It’s Friday, but Sunday is coming!”
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