Mark 15:25-39

“The Crucifixion”

Today, we reach the climax of our series where we have been taking an in-depth look at the last 24 hours of Jesus’ life. We have followed Jesus from the Last Supper, where he gathered with his disciples in that Upper Room; to his arrest and trial; to his sentencing before Pilate; and the scourging by the Roman Soldiers. And today, we reach the end of this story by following Jesus to his crucifixion. And all of this will hopefully help to prepare us for next Sunday, when we celebrate Easter … the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Today, I want to try to help you understand what really happened at Jesus’ crucifixion. We’re going to look at what the crucifixion means and what is the significance of his death? We’re going to look at the last seven words that Jesus spoke on the cross. And then finally, I’m going to invite you to see yourself in this story.

Let’s begin with what happened on the Cross. We know that the Romans used the crucifixion as a means of putting fear into the hearts and minds of the populace. If you were to see a crucifixion, you would be determined never to do anything that might lead you to be put on a cross. It was a frightening and terrifying death. All historians record that the crucifixion was a horrible and inhumane means of punishment, but it was a very effective deterrent to crime.

I want to help you to visualize for a moment what a crucifixion would have been like. The Romans crucified people along the main thoroughfares of the city, where the people had to walk by and see it. We learned last week that the victims would have been flogged first and then, they would have been forced to carry their own cross. The vertical beam would have been left in place where the crucifixion was to be held. It was the horizontal beam that would have been carried and this could have weighed up to 100 pounds. John tells us that Jesus carried his own cross for a time, then Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us that when he was unable to carry it any more, Simon of Cyrene was forced to carry it for him.

They climbed to the top of a hill called “Golgotha” or “Calvary”… “the place of the skull”. It was called “the place of the skull”, perhaps because the hill looked like a skull, but it might have also been called this because of the skulls lying around from former crucifixions. You see, typically the bodies were not taken down after a crucifixion. They were left hanging there, until the birds and animals had devoured the flesh. The bones were then scattered off to the side, unless there were loved ones who claimed them.

The goal of a crucifixion was to so torture a victim that they experienced great agony, but also that they would live as long as possible before expiring. So, someone could hang on the cross for 2 days before they finally died.

How were they hung on the cross? We know that this happened in a variety of ways. We know that the victims were not killed by the nails piercing their hands and their feet. So, it wasn’t necessary that nails be used. Sometimes, ropes were used or whatever was convenient for the Romans. Of course, we all have our images of how we think a crucifixion was done. Most of the paintings we have are of the victim’s feet being put on top of each other and a nail being driven through them on the front of the cross. But, consider the discovery that was made in 1968.

In 1968, archeological excavations discovered the bones of a victim who had been crucified during this Roman period and they found this heel bone with a nail through it. This is the only finding of its kind in archeology. Now, if you look at the right side of the nail, you will see that between the head of the nail and the heel bone is a piece of wood. So, what archeologists believe is that the nail was driven through a piece of wood first, then through the side of the heel, and then into the cross. The piece of wood would have prevented the heel from coming loose. In this next picture, you can see what this probably looked like. So, in this crucifixion, the feet would have been nailed to the sides of the cross, instead of both being nailed together on the front.

And upon the most recent research into this, it is thought that the crucifixion looked something like this next picture. The victim’s legs are nailed into the side of the cross. The victim’s arms could have been tied or nailed. In the bones that were discovered in 1968, there was no evidence of any nails being driven through the hands or wrist, so this is how this man would have been crucified. In Jesus’ case, we know that he was nailed through his wrists.

In most of the images we have of the crucifixion, the victims still have their undergarments on. But this is not how the Romans conducted their crucifixions. Part of the torture and humiliation of the crucifixion was that they stripped them naked for all the townspeople to see.

Now, there have been all kinds of theories developed by medical doctors about how one died from a crucifixion. You can go online and read about them. But the truth is that no one really knows, because we can’t replicate this without actually doing it and crucifying someone. Some believe it was by asphyxiation. Because of the way the knees were bent and the arms were stretched out, one could inhale, but you couldn’t exhale without raising yourself up. If this was the case, the longer one would have hung on the cross, the more exhausted they would have become and the more difficult it would have been for them to raise themselves up to exhale. So, gradually they would have asphyxiated or suffocated. This is one idea.

Another, is that there was an increase in fluids around the heart, which led to congestive heart failure. Some claim that due to the loss of fluids from the flogging and the nails, one became dehydrated and this was the cause of death. We’re not really sure. What we do know, is that it was an effective way of killing someone by stringing out their death through torture over a great length of time. And this is what happened to Jesus. He was nailed to a cross and he hung there for 6 grueling hours before he died.

We also believe that the crosses were no more than 6 – 9 feet tall. So, Jesus could have easily looked into the eyes of his mother and John. He could have easily seen the soldiers and the crowd as they mocked him and walked by. We often picture Jesus way up in the air, but he was actually very close to those standing by.

We know that in order to expedite the death, sometimes the Romans would strike a blow to the legs to crush them. We’re not sure exactly how this expedited the death, but it was common practice. The bones of the victim discovered in 1968 indicated that his legs had been crushed in this way. And this is what they would have done to Jesus, had he not already expired.

In the Holy Land there are two places that claim to be where Jesus was actually crucified. One is a more recent discovery, called Gordon’s Tomb. There is a hill there that resembles a skull and a tomb is nearby set within a Garden. When you go there, this place just feels like was surely the setting.

But the traditional site that has been claimed throughout the centuries as the sight of Jesus’ crucifixion is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. For as long as we know, it has been the place Christians have gone to honor the death of Christ. Historians say that the actual tomb of Jesus was destroyed by a Turkish ruler who tried to wipe out Christianity and that several Temples have been built over the sight throughout the centuries. But when Constantine established Christianity as the official religion, this sight was re-established.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was built over a rock hill. When you enter into the Church you ascend a set of stairs that takes you to where it is believed the Cross of Jesus was placed. There is an altar there that has been placed over the rock where it is said that Jesus was crucified. And you are able to go to this altar and get on your knees and you can touch the rock where Jesus is said to have been crucified. It is a very powerful experience to approach that sight and remember what Jesus did for us.

Well, this is what happened to Jesus as best as we can determine. But what we want to know is, “What does it mean for us? What does Jesus’ death mean for us today?” Over the last several weeks, I’ve been trying to answer this question by introducing you to our understanding of the Atonement … how God, through Jesus, reconciles us and makes us right with God.

As Christians, we believe that Jesus’ death upon the Cross is the central saving act in the history of humankind. Yet, the question throughout the centuries has been, “How does Jesus’ death upon the Cross save us from our sins?” But this is a challenging question, because the Biblical writers don’t give us just one answer to this question, but rather multiple ways to understand the Atonement.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve given you a couple of ways to understand this. We talked first of all about the “Substitutionary Theory of Atonement”. This is the idea that God came among us in the human flesh of Jesus and he suffered and died a punishment for all of the sins of humanity … he substituted himself so that we might not be punished, but rather be set free. Barabbas became a picture of this for us. The criminal, Barabbas, was set free and Jesus took his place on the Cross. Likewise, God took our place on the Cross and died for our sins. This is Substitutionary Theory of Atonement.

Last week, we looked at the “Moral” or “Subjective Theory of Atonement”. This is the idea that Jesus’ suffering and death was God’s way of trying to speak to us. It was God’s way of trying to move us toward repentance and draw us to him. So, Jesus’ death was not a way to try to change God’s heart so that he would forgive us or to fulfill some kind of just requirement of law. Instead, it was about changing our hearts. When we look at what happened to Jesus on that Cross, we should be broken by what we did to God and we should be moved by God’s love to follow him and live a life worthy of that price.

Another theory of Atonement is to be understood as “Sacrifice”. Throughout the entire Biblical story, we find that when people come to worship God they offered a sacrifice. They sacrificed grain, animals, wine, or oil … there were a variety of sacrifices that were offered. These things were part of people’s worship of God. It was their way of saying, “This is a way for me to express my love for you, God. This is my way of honoring you.”

We still do this today when we make our pledges and give our financial gifts and offerings to God. We don’t do that to make sure the church’s bills are paid. We know that when we do this, the church’s budget will be met, but we do this as a way of saying, “Of all that we have, we return this to you, O God, as our way of saying, ‘I love you. I honor you and I want to live my life for you.’” This is an act of worship for us … a sacrifice that we make to the Lord.

Now, there were also sacrifices in the Bible that were prescribed when people sinned. These were called “Sin Offerings” or “Guilt Offerings”. When someone violated or disobeyed God’s will, they felt guilty and so they would bring an offering to express their remorse and repentance. This was a way to seek God’s forgiveness and so, this was a regular part of people’s worship.

Once a year, the High Priest offered a sacrifice for the sins of all the people. Even before there was a Temple, when the Ark of the Covenant was in a Tent, once a year the High Priest would first sacrifice a bull for the sins of himself and his family. He would then go behind the curtain into the Holy of Holies and sacrifice a goat for the sins of all the people. He would go before God on behalf of the people, pleading with God to forgive them. A living thing would die to express their remorse and hope that God would forgive them. That day every year was known as Yon Kippur … the Day of Atonement. Our Jewish friends still celebrate this today, just not with goat sacrifices anymore.

Now, once the goat was sacrificed for the sins of the people, a second goat was taken in front of all the people. And so they would know that they were forgiven, he would symbolically place the sins of the people on this goat and this became known as the “scapegoat”. This goat was then taken out to the wilderness and let go, never to be seen again. The people came to see, that just as that goat was taken away and never seen again, so their sins had been carried away.

Now, I think we can understand this idea of atoning sacrifice. Husbands, when you’ve blown it with your wives … what do you do? You grovel and tell her how sorry you are and then you bring her an atoning sacrifice, right? It might be a dozen flowers or a night out. If you’ve really messed up, it might be a piece of jewelry, but you atone for your sins. And the bigger the mistake, the bigger the sacrifice! We understand how this works. Atonement is a way of saying, “We’re sorry and we want to make things right between us.”

So, when we look at Jesus and this idea of “sacrifice”, this is what we see. Jesus becomes our High Priest. And this High Priest didn’t offer a sacrifice of goats on our behalf. He said, “God, for all these pitiful human beings who continually do the wrong things, yet we love them still … I offer you the best gift I can give. I give myself on their behalf and I will plea on their behalf that you will forgive their sins and remember them no more.” And so, the Book of Hebrews calls Jesus our High Priest, who offers himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

And what Scripture teaches us, is that when God sees our sins, he also sees this sacrifice of his Son, Jesus and God is moved with compassion to forgive us. As Christians, we place our hope in this idea, that because of what Jesus did on that cross God will forgive us when we confess and repent of our sins. In Romans 5:18, Paul says, “Just as Adam's trespass led to condemnation for all, so Jesus' act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.” This is the idea behind the Sacrificial Theory of Atonement.

Now, again, this is not the only way of understanding the meaning of Jesus’ suffering and death. When we look at the Cross of Jesus, we see different things at different points in our lives. In the Cross is our forgiveness. In the Cross is a demonstration of our brokenness. In the Cross is a display of God’s love for us. In the Cross is a demonstration of the power of God. In the Cross is an example of how we are to live … sacrificially for others. In the Cross is our salvation. Ultimately, what we see in the Cross is that God was working through Jesus to reconcile this world unto himself. And we spend the rest of our lives trying to understand it all … but ultimately accepting what God has done for us.

I want to move now to the Last Words of Jesus upon the Cross. I wish we had time to cover all seven of them, but we only have time to look briefly at them. We all know that the last words of someone are really important. Jesus hung on that Cross for six hours and he probably said more than these seven sayings. Each Gospel Writer remembers different things, but when you put them together, we have these seven sayings. Let’s look at them for a moment.

The first thing he says is, “Behold your mother.” He’s talking to his disciple, John here. While he’s suffering and dying, what’s on his mind is, “Who’s going to take care of my mother when I’m gone?” What does this tell us about the heart of Jesus? The words of a dying man tell you a lot about what that person is really like.

In Luke 23:34 we have the next saying. No more majestic words have ever been spoken. As Jesus hangs there in agony, with all the people and the priests mocking him and jeering at him; with the soldiers making fun of him and gambling for his clothing; with the two thieves on either side of him mocking him. We see the apex of evil in humanity at this moment! We nail God to a Cross and while he is suffering we continue to hurl insults at him!

If you were not an atheist, seeing this, it would be easy to become one. I mean, seeing the evil in humanity and God seeming not to intervene. What I want Jesus to do at that moment is to call down his legions of angels and destroy all those people. But he doesn’t do this. At the very least, you’d expect Jesus to yell back at them, “Stop! Isn’t this enough for you?” But he doesn’t say that. He raises himself up on the Cross and says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Can you imagine that? That this was what was on his heart at that moment?

In response to this, one of the Thieves who has been insulting Jesus is both amazed and ashamed. One has to wonder if some of those standing around Jesus were also amazed and ashamed as they heard Jesus praying for them. For this Thief, his eyes were opened at that moment and he saw what Jesus was really about. So, he says to the other thief, “Stop insulting him! Can’t you see that we deserve this punishment, but this man is innocent?” Then he turns to Jesus and says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And I love this. Even on the Cross, Jesus is trying to seek and to save the lost. He turns to this man, raises himself up, and says, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

This man hadn’t learned much about the Bible. He didn’t have a handle on all the theological understandings. He didn’t have the chance to do anything righteous or to clean his life up. All he is able to do is to plead for mercy. He turns to Jesus and says, “Now that I see who you really are, I want to follow you.”

You know, this is really all it takes to be a follow of Jesus Christ. The starting point in the Christian journey is to look at Jesus on the Cross and say, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Help me to follow you.”

It is both sad and interesting, that the other thief, 3 feet away from Jesus, couldn’t see this. Here, God in the flesh was doing his greatest work for humankind and he just can’t see it. How often is this our story?

After Jesus hangs there on the Cross for several hours, the pain and the agony and the insults begin to take their toll. In John 19:28 he cries out, “I am thirsty.” This statement says something about the physical reality that Jesus was tired and thirsty. Tragically, the One who offers us living water was thirsting upon the Cross. His life was ebbing away.

The other Gospels tell us that Jesus was praying as he was on that Cross. He’s praying the Psalms … Psalm 22 specifically. It begins with these words: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” At that moment, the toll of the insults and the physical pain began to cloud any sense of God’s presence. He was experiencing the darkest moment of his life. Some people say that God turned away from Jesus while he was dying on the cross and this is why he felt this way. I don’t believe that. The Father never turned away from the Son. Psalm 22 tells us this.

But in this moment of agony, Jesus couldn’t see God’s presence … he couldn’t feel it. And there are times in life when we feel forsaken of God. There are moments when we don’t think God is there and we don’t see how God can turn this out for good. All we know in those moments, is that God seems to be far away and our prayers are not being answered. This story tells us that Jesus understands how we feel in those moments, because he felt it himself. But we know that God didn’t forsake him and God hasn’t forsaken you.

This Psalm starts out as a dereliction, but it ends up as a Psalm of praise, recognizing that God is the source of our life and we can trust in God. And this is how our prayers should be in moments of despair. Even though we can’t see God at work, we continue to trust in God.

And this leads us into the next saying, where Jesus says, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” “Even though I don’t feel your presence right now, I commit myself to you.”

And then finally, these words, which are really a cry of victory, not defeat: “It is finished.” What he came to do, he had done. He came to show us the way, the truth, and the life. He came to reveal our brokenness. He came to show us God’s grace and love. He came to atone for our sin. And “It is finished” on the Cross.

At that moment, in the Temple, the curtain that separated the Throne Room of God from the place where the people worship, was torn in two, as a way of saying that God has just torn down the barrier that separates us from God. We now have access to God and can have an intimate relationship with God, because of what happened on the Cross through our High Priest, Jesus.

Now, the question is, what do we do with this story? What do you do with the man hanging from the Cross offering himself as a sacrifice for you? There were soldiers there, who as God was doing his greatest saving act in human history, were arguing over who was going to get his clothes. There are some of us here today, who after hearing all of this, will leave here today and the only thing you’re going to care about is what you’re going to eat for lunch, or what clothes you’re going to wear tomorrow, or what’s the next house you’re going to buy. But there was another soldier there, who heard all the words of Jesus that we just described and his response was to say, “Surely, he was the Son of God.” The question we need to answer today is, “Which of these soldiers will you be?”

There were also two Thieves on either side of Jesus … both sinners. One of them continues to insult Jesus, making himself feel better by belittling someone else. All he cared about to his dying breath, was himself. But the other Thief turned to Jesus and realized that this is where life is found. “Remember me Jesus, when you come into your kingdom.” Where do you see yourself? Which of the two will you be?

Today, I want to invite you to make that decision. It’s a choice all of us have to make … “What will you do with Jesus?”