For Your Salvation

Palm Sunday…or as it is now being called, the Sunday of the Passion. What we miss on a this day is the narrative of Jesus entering Jerusalem riding on the donkey with everyone shouting hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Instead, what we find ourselves in, on this Lord’s day, is Jesus being brought before Pilate at the end of the week that began with His triumphant ride into Jerusalem. We find ourselves following behind a bruised and bloodied Jesus as Simon of Cyrene carries Jesus’ cross where He is subsequently nailed hand and foot to die a criminal’s death, our death.

We are all very familiar with this narrative. Jesus is falsely accused by the Jewish religious leaders, and brought before Pilate. His accusers refuse to listen to Pilate and demand that Barabbas be released and Jesus be crucified. But have you ever wondered what happened to Jesus while He was nailed to that cross? Perhaps what follows will help you to understand the depth of love that our Father in heaven has for us through His Son, Jesus.

As Dr. Truman Davis contemplated the story of Christ, it dawned on him that he didn’t know the actual immediate cause of death for a victim of crucifixion; so he began to study the ancient practice of torture and death by fixation to a cross.

The preliminary scourging was done with the victim naked, his arms tied to a post above his head. The heavy whip is brought down with full force again and again across Jesus’ shoulders, back and legs. At first the thongs cut through the skin only. Then, as the blows continue they cut deeper until the half-fainting victim is untied and allowed to slump to the pavement, wet in his own blood.

A heavy crossbeam is tied across his shoulders, but in spite of His efforts to walk erect, the weight of the heavy wooden beam, together with the shock produced by copious blood loss, is too much. He stumbles and falls. The rough wood gouges into the lacerated skin and muscles of the shoulders. He tries to rise, but human muscles have been pushed beyond their endurance.

At the site of execution, the crossbeam is thrown down, and the victim is pushed to the ground, his arms stretching over the wood. The legionnaire feels for the depression at the front of the wrist. He drives a heavy, square, wrought iron nail through the wrist and into the wood. Quickly, he moves to the other side. Jesus is hauled up an lifted onto the upright post.

The left foot is now pressed backward against the right foot, and with both feet extended, toes down, a nail is driven through the arch of each, leaving the knees moderately flexed. The victim is now crucified. As He slowly sags down with more weight on the nails in the wrists excruciating pain shoots along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain—the nails in the wrists are putting pressure on the median nerves. As He pushes Himself upward to avoid this stretching torment, He places His full weight on the nail though His feet. Again, there is the searing agony of the nail tearing through the nerves between the metatarsal bones of the feet.

At this point, as the arms fatigue, great waves of cramps sweep over the muscles, knotting them in deep, relentless, throbbing pain. With these cramps comes the inability to push Himself upward. Hanging by the arms, the pectoral muscles are paralyzed and the intocostal muscles are unable to act. Air can be drawn into the lungs, but cannot be exhaled. The victim frights to raise Himself up in order to get even one short breath. Finally carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the blood stream and the cramps partially subside. Spasmodically, He is able to push Himself upward to exhale and bring in the life-giving oxygen. It was undoubtedly during these periods that Jesus uttered the seven short sentences recorded.

The common method of ending a crucifixion was by crurifracture, or the breaking of the bones of the legs. This prevented the victim from pushing himself upward; thus the tension could not be relieved from the muscles of the chest and rapid suffocation occurred. This was unnecessary for Christ, who died after six hours of crucifixion.

Apparently to make doubly sure of death, the legionnaire drove his lance through the fifth inter space between the ribs, upward through the pericardium and into the heart. There was an escape of water fluid from the sac surrounding the heart,giving post-mortem evidence that our Lord died not the usual crucifixion death by suffocation, but of heart failure (a broken heart) due to shock and constriction of the heart by fluid in the pericardium.

This is what Jesus endured for you! But if this alone was not enough suffering let’s look at the passion of our Lord. From John 1 we read that “He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him.” (v. 11) Imagine, Our Father in heaven sends His own Son to His own people, the people He redeemed from slavery in Egypt, the people He gave a land to, the promised land flowing with milk and honey, and yet His own people refused and rejected God’s own means of permanent redemption from their sins and death.

Jesus’ earthly ministry was beset with grumblings and complaining, hardened hearts and power hungry, corrupt shepherds of His people. Instead of accepting Jesus they worked tirelessly to try to trip Him up, to make Jesus a criminal deserving of death. Hence, “And as soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council (or what is better known as the Sanhedrin). And they bound Jesus and led Him away and delivered Him over to Pilate.” (v. 1). The religious leaders of Jerusalem, the ones who should have been looking for the Christ and rejoicing that He has come to redeem them, are the very ones fighting against Jesus and break their own judicial rules in order to kill the One who came to save them.

In order to pass the verdict of death required a second session of the Sanhedrin after an interval of at least a day; moreover, night sessions were illegal. But the Sanhedrin once having hold of Jesus, was determined to rush Him to death because it feared the uprising of the people in case of delay. So the illegality of the night session was simply disregarded. But the formality of holding a second session was found feasible even though in this case it was illegal as confirming an illegal night session; yet it lent at least a show of legality by being a second session.

So they bound Jesus as a dangerous criminal and handed Him over to Pilate. Jesus was now in the hands of the Gentiles. Pilate reexamined Jesus as to whether or not He was liable for the charges the Sanhedrin levied against Him. Pilate was amazed at Jesus’ lack of response. He asked Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?” The question shows how little Jesus appeared like a king to Pilate; to which Jesus responded, “You have said so.”(v. 2). In the Greek, this was the answer to affirm the question.

However, the chief priests accused Jesus of many things. Here we don’t get what those “many things” were. Regardless, Jesus remained silent. Just as Isaiah prophesied, “He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.” (53:7).

Jesus is found not guilty by Pilate yet as he was on his last leg, so-to-speak, instead of insisting on true justice, Pilate washes his hands of the whole affair and hands Jesus over to be crucified. But Pilate tried one more time to get Jesus released. He would release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. According to the text, “And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas” (v. 7). So, Pilate entreated them to release Jesus, as he did not pose a real threat to Rome. Yet the chief priests riled up the crowd to have Pilate crucify Jesus and release this criminal, Barabbas, which is a very interesting name. In Hebrew, Barabbas, ironically means, “Son of the father”. They had made their decision: release the imposter Barabbas, and crucify the Eternal Son of the Father.

Christ is led away to be mocked, whipped to within an inch of His life and led away to be crucified. And once they reached Golgotha, it was done. Evil seemingly wins the day and the Christ suffers and dies.

Injustice! All of this Jesus suffered for you. The point of Jesus’ coming in the first place was to procure for the entire world the one thing needed most in life: Redemption - the forgiveness of your sins.

The crowds that gathered the week before, shouting hosannas to Jesus, as they celebrate the King of the Jews riding into Jerusalem are a lot of the same people who just a few short days later would be demanding His crucifixion.

You were there, and so was I. Not in a real/physical way, but spiritually, we were there. We were the sin filled crowd shouting for Jesus’ death on the cross. We were the ones dressing Jesus in purple robes and smashing a crown of thorns into His head. We were the ones holding the whip that stripped the flesh off of Jesus’ back, sides and legs. We were the ones who carried the hammer and nails to Golgotha. We were the ones who drove those spikes through Jesus’ flesh and left Him hanging there for the world to ridicule and mock, torturing Him with our sin filled blasphemes. The point of this is that it is our sin, the sin of the whole world that Jesus had to die in order that we might be saved from God’s eternal wrath in hell.

All our sin was laid on Jesus. Every slip of the tongue that mocks Jesus. Every thought that we do not hold captive to the Word of God. Every sin that we have allowed to grow within us until we acted upon it. These are the things that held Jesus to the cross. And it was entirely necessary that Jesus give His innocent life into death. All of this, Jesus did for you and for your salvation.

The centurion thrusts his spear through the side of Jesus to make sure He was dead, released blood and water mixed from Jesus’ heart. This blood and water flows into every baptismal font, river, stream and lake, cleansing you from your sins and a partaker of the eternal salvation procured by Jesus’ selfless sacrificial act. God gives to you all of Jesus’ benefits of forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.

And here in just a moment, we will be partakers of His true body and blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. Simple wafer and a sip of wine, Christ is truly present with us in this supper in His own mysterious way. He enters our bodies making His home with us, becoming part of us. His body and blood working a stronger faith in you, forgiving you your sin.

This is how much our God and Father has loved you and continues to love you. This is what He has done for you and for your salvation.

Let us then rejoice in our perfect salvation won for us by Jesus alone on the cross. His selfless sacrificial love continues in your life each and every day. Therefore we can rejoice in Jesus for all He has done for each and everyone of us. And now we are freed from our bondage, and free to love our neighbor as He has loved us.

In the name of Jesus and for His eternal glory. Amen.