John 19:17-27 The Power of the Cross: The Power of Suffering
Our Text this morning is John 19:17-27. John 19:17-27. I’ll actually start with the last sentence of verse 16:
So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. 17 Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle.
19 Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 20 Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. 21 The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.”
22 Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”
23 When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.
24 “Let’s not tear it,” they said to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.”
This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said,
“They divided my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment.
So this is what the soldiers did.
25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman,[b] here is your son,” 27 and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
In the Gallows of Christ I Glory?
The cross has become the symbol of Christianity. It is an easily recognized indicator of faith in Jesus. And so, crosses mark the steeples of churches. Here at Trinity, we have a huge bell tower topped by a cross. We have another hanging in the sanctuary.
Crosses have become decorations. Jewelry. Works of art. We hang gold crosses on chains around our necks and stick them in our ears and get them tattooed on our forearms. Stock photographs of crosses proliferate the internet for use as background slides and screen savers. We can get crosses built from nails, carved from crystal, or made from wood to use as mantelpieces or to hang on our walls. I’ve described the cross we set up here for the season of Lent as “pretty”.
And, of course, we sing about the cross. We sing things like “I’ll cherish the old rugged cross” and “In the cross of Christ I glory.” We call it the “wondrous cross” and the “beautiful cross.”
But all of this would sound quite strange to the ears of someone living in the 1st century. Because in the first century, the cross was not a fashion accessory or a cool architectural detail; it was an instrument of state sponsored execution. To someone from Jesus’ day, wearing a cross around your neck would be as strange as wearing a little electric chair on a chain. Setting up a cross in the sanctuary would be as weird to them as setting up a hanging gallows.
I’m not saying there is anything wrong with our use of crosses today. I’m not saying we have to take all the crosses down or that you have to get laser treatment on that tattoo. But I do want us to understand how much we’ve sanitized what the cross really is. All our stylized and pretty crosses might lead us to forget that it was actually a cruel, grotesque, and brutal tool of torture. To the people of the first century, anyone who ended up on a cross was considered cursed by God.
The cross is not pretty.
“The Most Violent Film I’ve Ever Seen”
In 2004 Mel Gibson released the film The Passion of the Christ about the final 18 hours or so of Jesus’ life. It set all sorts of box office records for a movie so explicitly Christian. Special screenings were held for pastors, and churches bought blocks of tickets so their people could see the movie. It was a powerful depiction of what Jesus went through.
It was also rated “R”.
And you know what? It deserved an “R” rating. Roger Ebert, the thumbs up/thumbs down guy who had seen a lot of movies, wrote in his review of The Passion: “It is the most violent film I have ever seen.” Several years ago I thoughtlessly showed a video in a worship service that had some clips from The Passion. I didn’t think to warn parents that we would be showing it. And we should have. Because that movie is not for children. Nor is it for the faint of heart.
Of course, the reason that movie is so hard to watch is because it tries to give a realistic portrayal of what death on a cross would have been like. Being a witness to an actual crucifixion would be exponentially worse than anything Mel Gibson put on film.
And while I’m not going to show the movie—nor am I going to try to be inappropriately sensationalistic--I do think it is important that we have some idea of what happened to Jesus when the Bible says, very simply, in John 19:18:
They crucified him.
The Bible doesn’t actually describe what Jesus went through. Just these brief words.
“Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). There they crucified him…” You could almost miss it for its brevity. While we get some description of things happening while Jesus is on the cross, and some of the words He spoke, this is all we get about how He was killed: “They crucified him.”
And yet, central to everything we believe about who Jesus is and why He came—central to our understanding of what it means to be Christian—is the fact that Jesus was crucified. We cannot truly understand the verses I just read unless we understand what that means. We cannot truly comprehend what Jesus went through without seeing what it meant to be crucified.
What Jesus Went Through
The practice of crucifixion has been variously described as torturous, heinous, grim, horrific, and brutal. Among ancient methods of execution, it was considered to be the worst. The Ancient Jewish historian Josephus called it “the most wretched of deaths.” We get our modern word for pain–excruciating–from the word crucifixion.
Apparently, the practice of crucifixion began in Persia. Alexander the Great and his armies brought it back to the Mediterranean world—to Egypt and to Carthage. The Romans apparently learned it from the Carthaginians and, as they did with almost everything, they quickly developed a high degree of efficiency and skill at it.
The actual punishment began with a flogging beforehand. As we saw last week, Pilate had hoped to have Jesus beaten and released; but even if he had intended for Jesus to be executed all along, the flogging would have been a part of it.
The point of the scourging was to weaken and dehumanize the victim before he was crucified. It was awful.
The victim would be tied to a post, leaving his back entirely exposed. The whip the Romans used had several leather strands which were fitted with bone or lead or other metal. It was called a flagellum.
The number of strikes Jesus received is not recorded in scripture, though Jewish law in Deuteronomy limited the number of lashes that could be legally given at 40. Later Jewish practice was to limit blows to 39, in case of a counting error. 39 blows with the lash were said to leave the criminal “one from death.”
Of course, the Romans were not limited by Jewish law. The practice was for Roman soldiers to take turns and swing the flagellum until they were exhausted or their commanding officer called them off. The results were devastating. Skin would be stripped from the back. Eyewitness accounts report that some scourgings would leave victims with muscle, bones and even vital organs exposed. Sometimes victims died from the beating alone.
But the goal at this point was not yet to kill Jesus but to make an example out of Him. So the next step was to have the victim carry his own cross to the actual execution site.
No one today knows precisely where Jesus was forced to go, but tradition has marked out a path on which 14 stations of 'events' are supposed to have occurred. If you were to visit Jerusalem today, you could walk over this Via Dolorosa--or 'way of suffering'--including a section where the road is still paved with stones dating back to Jesus' time.
The place where Jesus was killed was known as 'the Skull'--or, in Aramaic, Golgotha (Latin=Calvary). Again, no one is certain where this place is today, or even where it got its name. Some speculate that it was a hill in the shape of a skull, others think it might have been a rocky mound on which no vegetation could grow, while still others guess that it got its grisly name because it was the place where executions took place. There is a place, known as Gordon’s Calvary--just north of Jerusalem’s city walls, that can still be seen today that is said to bear an uncanny resemblance to a human skull.
At any rate, it would have been near a busy road so that travelers could learn a lesson from those being killed--and hurl insults at them. The mocking was an important part of the process. The Romans wanted to make a mockery out of Jesus’ claim to be a king. Thus the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Thus the sign Pilate had hung upon the cross. Part of the punishment of the criminal was to make an example out of him. To have him serve as a warning to any others who might consider defying the power of Rome.
Of course, carrying His own cross would also have contributed to Jesus’ agony.
There is some debate as to whether Jesus carried the whole cross, or just the cross beam. If Jesus was crucified on a cross like we are familiar with—the ones that look like a small letter “t”, known as a Latin Cross—then He probably was made to bear the entire thing. But, if He was executed on what is known as St. Anthony’s cross, which looks more like a capital letter “T”, without the top part of the upright—then He would have been made to carry only the cross beam—known in Latin as the patibulum. In this case, the upright would already be fastened in the ground—waiting for him at Golgotha.
Either way, carrying the rough wood which could have weighed anywhere from 100 to 200 pounds would have been agony on his naked, shredded back and shoulders. John doesn’t record it, but the other gospels tell us the soldiers had to conscript an onlooker—Simon of Cyrene—to carry Jesus’ cross for Him.
Once at Golgotha, Jesus would have been made to lie flat on His back and His outstretched arms would have been attached to the crossbeam. In some cases, the Romans would use ropes to attach their victims to the cross. It would kill just as well as nails. But we know from later in John’s gospel--when Thomas says he will not believe in the resurrection unless he sees the nail prints in Jesus’ hands (John 20:25)--that Jesus was fixed to the cross by heavy metal spikes.
These nails would have been driven through the wrists (not the palms) because neither the tendons nor the bone structure in the hands could support the body’s weight. Nails in the palms would simply tear the flesh between the bones. Nails in the wrist would shatter carpal bones and tear carpal ligaments, but the structure of the wrist would nonetheless be strong enough to support the body’s weight.
Once His arms were fixed, Jesus would have been lifted into place. If he was executed on a Latin Cross, the whole thing would have been rotated up and dropped into a waiting post-hole. If a St. Anthony’s Cross, then the patibulum would have been hoisted up and dropped onto the waiting post. Either way, Jesus’ entire body would have experienced a violent jerk as He was literally dropped into place.
Then nails would have been driven through Jesus' heels--probably one nail per foot, to the sides of the post (though some have long believed only one nail was used on the feet, fixing them both to the front of the post)--and Jesus would have been left there to die.
The terrible thing about crucifixion was not the beatings or the nails, but the hanging. Those other things would have been terrifically painful, but they didn't usually kill. It was the hanging--with arms outstretched and gravity pulling the body down--that resulted in an agonizing and slow death.
Several medical doctors have written articles describing just how crucifixion killed someone. Again, I don't mean to be gross by telling you what they had to say, but I think it is important that we understand what crucifixion involved.
When the cross was upright, there was a tremendous strain put on the wrists, arms and shoulders, often resulting in a dislocation of the shoulder and elbow joints. With the arms being held up and outward, the rib cage would be trapped in an inspiratory position—that is, it would be very hard to breathe out. The victim would only be able to take very shallow breaths, which may explain why Jesus made very short statements while on the cross.
In order to exhale, then, the victim would have to push himself up in order to relax the tightening on his diaphragm. This, of course, put tremendous strain on the nails through the victim’s feet. When the pain in the feet became too much to bear, the victim would slump down, again putting incredible strain on the rib cage and diaphragm. Thus, the one being crucified would struggle for breath until he could take it no more, and then he would again force himself upward.
To make matters worse, the Romans often included a small seat on the upright of the cross. This seat—called a sedulum—was not for the victim’s comfort but was intended to bear just enough weight that the victim could still breathe a little; thus encouraging the struggle to go on all the longer.
This alternation between lifting the body off the sedulum in order to breathe and slumping down on the sedulum to relieve pain in the feet went on until the victim became exhausted or lapsed into unconsciousness so that he could no longer lift his body. In this position, with the respiratory muscles essentially paralyzed, the victim suffocated and died.
The point was not to kill someone quickly, but slowly. People on crosses could sometimes live on for several days. This is also why, if the Romans wanted to speed death—as they do later in John 19 in order to have the bodies off the cross in time for Passover—they would break the legs of their victims (John 19:32).
There are several different theories on the actual cause of death. One theory states that there was a filling of the pericardium--the sac surrounding the heart--with fluid, which put a fatal strain on the ability of the heart to pump blood. This may explain why, in John 19:34, when the soldier pierces Jesus’ side there is a sudden flow of blood and water. Another theory states that Jesus died of "cardiac rupture." The actual cause of Jesus' death, however, "may have been multifactorial and related primarily to hypovolemic shock, exhaustion asphyxia and perhaps acute heart failure. A fatal cardiac arrhythmia may have caused the final terminal event.”
Crucifixion, then, was a horrible way to die. Jesus would have experienced waves of nausea, fever, intense thirst, constant cramps, and incessant, throbbing pain from all parts of his body. He would have suffered from fatigue, muscle atrophy, and a constant struggle to breathe. Jesus suffered in ways we can’t even imagine.
The Passion of God
This would be terrible enough to contemplate if this was just another 1st Century criminal dying in this way. But this is no ordinary man. This is the Son of God. This is the one who was there when the earth was still formless and void. He was there when the light first pierced the darkness. He’s the one through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made. He’s the Good Shepherd. Living Water. The Bread of Life. The Way. The Truth. He’s the Alpha and Omega. The Beginning and the End.
This is Almighty God suffering on this cross.
Here’s the one truth for us to take home today:The God of the Universe has come to earth and suffered. The King of Glory, the Lord of Creation, the great “I AM”, was stripped naked, beaten bloody, spit upon and mocked, hung on a rugged piece of wood, and left to die.
The story is told of a mother whose little girl is late coming home from school one day. As the minutes tick by the mother gets more and more worried. Five minutes go by, ten minutes go by, and the mother does not know where her little girl can be. Fifteen minutes go by, twenty minutes and the mother starts to imagine the terrible things that may have befallen her daughter. Twenty-five minutes go by and the mother is convinced something awful has happened. Thirty minutes and the mother is on the verge of calling the police.
Suddenly the little girl waltzes through the back door without a care in the world. The mother sweeps her daughter up in her arms, deeply relieved she is safe. But as is the way with parents, relief quickly turns to anger:‘Where have you been?!’ the mother cries. ‘Didn’t you realize how worried I would be about you?’
Well, it turns out that all this while the little girl had been next door at the house of a woman who had recently lost her husband. ‘What have you been doing worrying that poor lady next door?’ the mother asks crossly.
‘I haven’t been worrying her,’ says the little girl. ‘I’ve been comforting her.’
‘Comforting her!’ retorts the mother. ‘What could you possibly do to comfort her?’
The little girl replies, ‘I climbed into her lap and cried with her.’ (Stephen Cottrell, ‘I Thirst’, p. 18-19)
This story gets to the heart of Jesus’ suffering. For this is what God is like. In Jesus, God shares in our humanity. And at the cross, He climbs up into our laps, as it were, and cries with us. He shares in our suffering.
You see, we all experience a great deal of suffering in this world. Because of sin, we are all subjected to heartache and frustration. We encounter illness and injury. Sometimes suffering is inflicted upon us by the sin of others. We suffer the loss of loved ones and suffer the knowledge of our own, inevitable, deaths.
And it is natural for us to cry out against this suffering. To wonder why God doesn’t stop it. Why doesn’t He come down and bring all suffering to an end?
But God doesn’t do that. Instead, He comes down and suffers with us. He redeems our suffering by His own.
Now, don’t get me wrong. My purpose today is not to diminish your suffering by comparing it to Jesus’. I’m not trying to say that your suffering isn’t so bad because Jesus suffered so much worse.
But instead, I am saying that God does understand. When you suffer, God knows what you are going through, because He’s been there too.
The author of Hebrews puts it like this:
15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (4:15-16)
“Wherever there is pain in the world, wherever someone cries out, thirsty for water, afflicted with grief, tormented by pain or craving love, we hear the cry of the one who has come down to earth to show us what God is like.” (Cottrell, p. 19) We discover that God is suffering too.
In the suffering of Jesus, we find the suffering love of God.
God in the Dock
Imagine, if you would, a courtroom in which God is on trial for being cruel and heartless. Accusing Him of allowing suffering, the prosecution would bring example after example against Him. From the past few years alone, exhibits could include the Uvalde school shooting, the October 7 attacks in Israel, the recent earthquakes in Myanmar.
In His defense, God would call but one witness: His incarnate Son Jesus Christ. His only evidence would be the nail prints on His hands, and the scars on His back. The wounds of Jesus are both the sign of God’s involvement in the world and the most vivid examples of the world’s suffering.
The case would be dismissed.
For the one who stands condemned in the dock cannot be the perpetrator of the crime, for He is also its victim. As I said, this revelation of God’s suffering does not make our suffering any less, nor does it explain why the world is the way it is, but it does tell us that God is involved in it.
The cross tells us that God is not responsible for our suffering, nor is He indifferent to it. Rather, He too has suffered. He has plumbed the depths of pain. And He knows what it is like to be human.
