Lenten reflections - Jesus on the Cross 

This is the third of our weekly Lenten reflections run on a Wednesday for five weeks of Lent. 

How much does God love you? Let’s just leave that one there for a moment. For the time being we are heading back to the first ever Good Friday. Your name is Jesus and you’ve had a seriously bad night. It started off ok. It started with dinner with your disciples. A good feed, and your last feed. 

Since then, you’ve been arrested and questioned. You’ve been betrayed and one of your closest followers has denied ever knowing you. Three times! But you knew that was going to happen. It’s all part of the plan. The plan is in place. It has to happen this way, for the sake of mankind. The prophets have been prophesying about this for years, and now it’s here. The stress is immense, and you’ve been sweating blood since the early hours. And not just a bit of blood from your forehead. No, the hemathidrosis means you’ve been sweating blood from every single sweat gland in your body. Though the cool night air from praying in the garden of Gethsemane has helped to keep the blood loss to a minimum. As the blood reached the surface of your skin in the cold night air, capillaries in your skin would constrict and help slow the bleeding. 

By this point you’ve been awake for over 24 hours. It’s barely daylight and you are standing before Pilate, the Roman Governor. The religious leaders need Rome to approve your death sentence. 

Pilate questions you. 

You are accused, amongst other things, as “claiming to be the Messiah”. Pilate asks, “Are you the king of the Jews?” You offer little and reply. “You say so”. You decline to make any further comments. 

Pilate finds nothing to warrant charging you. As you are under King Herod’s jurisdiction, he sends you off to see him instead, who just happens to be in Jerusalem at the time. Herod was immensely pleased to see you. He’d heard about you and wanted to see you perform a miracle or two. You haven’t got time for his shenanigans and offer nothing at all. After trying to get you to talk, Herod gets bored and sends you back to Pilate. 

Pilate was disheartened by this. He had hoped that Herod would sort it from his end, but no. Jesus is back. With a large crowd already gathered, he announces that he will have you flogged and then released. The crowd are having none of it though and demand that a man called Barabas is released and to crucify you instead.

Pilate pleads on your behalf, but the crowd grow more insistent chanting: “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

Reluctantly, Pilate released Barabas knowing that the crowd would riot if he didn’t relent. Your fate is sealed; you are to be flogged and crucified.

Flogging was horrific. The whip (flagrum) was made with leather thongs often embedded with metal balls or sheep bones. To be flogged, first you are stripped of your garments and tied to a post. There are two men to your left and right who take it in turns to use the whip.

The whip is used with full force across your shoulders, back and legs. The first few blows break the skin. As it continues though, the blood loss starts in earnest as the metal or bones start tearing away tissue etc. The pain you feel from this is off the scale. By the end of the flogging your back is wide open with exposed tissue, muscle and all that was not meant to be seen. It is perhaps unsurprising that victims would die from these injuries before getting to the crucifixion part. Thirty-nine lashes later they finally stop. 

To add insult to injury, a crown of thorns is placed on your head. More blood loss. The head contains one of the most vascular parts of the body. Part of the consequence of having a crown of thorns was that your vision has now deteriorated due to the blood pouring down from your head and into your eyes. The soldiers are laughing at you and place a robe around you. The robe is an added way of mocking you as they shout: ‘hail king of the Jews!’ 

Next you are given your cross. Part of your cross is already at Calvary. But the cross bar is placed across your shoulders. Of course the cross bar is heavy and probably splintered. To give you an idea, the horizontal part of your cross weighs similar to that of an adult. Imagine carrying another person on your shoulders for around half a mile. In normal circumstances, the journey you took should take around 10 minutes. However it took you around an hour. This is partly due to exhaustion. You’ve been up for a long time and you’re severely injured. Also there were a huge number of people there mocking you, jeering you and generally making things harder for you. As if they weren’t hard enough already. You fall several times adding to your injuries. 

Finally, you arrive at Calvary. It smells of death. An overwhelming stench of blood, sweat, waste and decay. Not the place to be if you have a weak stomach or sensitive nose. On arrival, you are again stripped of all garments. Even your loin cloth was removed adding to your humiliation.

Everything was laid bare. Next your cross is assembled, and the cross beam is attached to the vertical part. Once that is done you are then nailed to the structure and ropes may also be used to make sure you stay there. The nails are big. Around 7 inches in length. To get an idea place two bank cards next to each other and that is the sort of length of one nail. Imagine that going through your wrists and feet. The pain was excruciating - the very word comes directly from the crucifixion meaning out of the cross. Once hoisted up the cross stays upright with you on it. Both your shoulders are dislocated by this point, and your body weight is transferred to your diaphragm. Breathing is agony but essential.

Mockery comes in many forms. Above your head is a sign saying, “This is Jesus. King of the Jews”. The soldiers keeping the mockery going, they offer wine for the king. The wine was a mixture of wine and gall. It tasted really bitter, really sour and most unpleasant. You taste it briefly but spit it out immediately. The concoction you’ve been offered actually serves as a mild anaesthetic, intended to ease the suffering of crucifixion. You look down at the soldiers. They don’t understand why you are doing this. They don’t understand that you need to do this for the sake of mankind. This is a crucial part of your earthly mission. You are dying in the place of humans worldwide. You are paying for the sin of the whole world. By doing this you are rebuilding the bridge and making a clear path where our sins are atoned for and paid for with your crucifixion making God accessible to all. You need to keep a clear head.

During the next few hours, the blood loss continues. If your face could be seen through all that blood, you would be very pale. But of course your face is covered in blood due to your stress and that crown of thorns that continue to pulsate through your skull. In total during that day, you will have lost 3 to 4 pints of blood. Everything is so hard. Whilst you are part of the Holy Trinity, you are also a man, and with it man's limitations. You know what is at stake and that it is a massive payment to take away the sins of the world.

Our sins are heavy and hard to bear on the cross and you cry out “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”

Just then in the distance flies a single white dove. Out of the darkness comes the light. The dove flies directly to you, circles and then lands on the cross bar near your head. To the crowd below it is just some random bird. But you know exactly who it is. This is the Holy Spirit sent from the father to remind you and all of us, that God is always with us. Even in our darkest moments we are never abandoned by God. How comforting is that? Bracing yourself, the last few sins of the world are received. Payment has been made in full. Every sin accounted for. The dove still by your side, coos in recognition. It is done.

With one final breath, you say simply, “It is finished.”

You close your eyes and bow your head. And with that, the pain, the blood and the exhaustion are gone. Time to rest. If only for a little bit…

Questions to provoke thought and conversation.

• How uncomfortable did putting yourself in Jesus’ place feel? Why?
• What struck you the most hearing these words (whether a feeling or an experience)?
• What do you think this says about Jesus’ love for you?