The Horror of Crucifixion
00:00:00.000 | This week we celebrate the death of our Savior.
00:00:03.000 | Today we're going to look at the crucifixion from its historical and physical realities.
00:00:08.000 | Next time we'll look at the spiritual meaning and the theological implications of the cross.
00:00:13.000 | But we begin with the simple and deplorable reality of this form of human extermination.
00:00:19.000 | With that in mind, the following is a special reading for the Ask Pastor John podcast
00:00:23.000 | taken from Fleming Rutledge's book, "The Crucifixion, Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ."
00:00:29.000 | Pages 89 to 95.
00:00:32.000 | Her book is especially vivid and strong on this point.
00:00:37.000 | It is formidably difficult to understand the cross today in its original context
00:00:44.000 | after 2,000 years in which it has been domesticated, romanticized, idealized, and misappropriated.
00:00:52.000 | Occasionally a modern interpreter struggling to find some correspondence that can be grasped by people today
00:00:58.000 | will compare the cross of Roman times to the American electric chair.
00:01:02.000 | This is an inadequate analogy for a number of reasons as we shall see.
00:01:06.000 | We can learn a few things from it.
00:01:09.000 | Imagine revering an electric chair.
00:01:11.000 | Imagine using it as the focal point in our churches,
00:01:14.000 | hanging small replicas around our necks,
00:01:17.000 | carrying it aloft in procession,
00:01:20.000 | and bowing our heads as it passes.
00:01:22.000 | The absurdity of this scenario can readily be grasped.
00:01:27.000 | But other features in the comparison might help us too.
00:01:30.000 | For example, the electric chair, when it was still used,
00:01:33.000 | was almost always used for electrocuting the lowest class of criminal,
00:01:39.000 | a majority of them black,
00:01:41.000 | with no powerful connections or other resources.
00:01:45.000 | Similarly, the Romans virtually never used the cross for executing people who had occupied high positions,
00:01:51.000 | and never for a Roman citizen.
00:01:55.000 | Another point of contact is the contradictory response of revulsion and attraction
00:02:00.000 | familiar to anyone who has ever slowed to look at a wreck on the highway.
00:02:04.000 | Even the most fastidious person, when confronted by a photograph of an electric chair,
00:02:09.000 | let alone the real thing, will experience a disturbing fascination.
00:02:14.000 | There have always been people who specialized in coming to cheer and applaud executions when they took place,
00:02:19.000 | whether lynchings, hangings, or electrocutions.
00:02:23.000 | That is what undoubtedly happened on Calvary when Jesus was nailed to the cross and left there to die.
00:02:30.000 | Crowds of people, then as now, took pleasure in reviling the one who was being put to death.
00:02:42.000 | When they became bored with this pastime, they went home safely to their comforts
00:02:46.000 | and gave the victim no further thought.
00:02:50.000 | But there are very important differences.
00:02:54.000 | Electrocutions were at least theoretically supposed to be humane and quick,
00:02:59.000 | but crucifixion as a method of execution was specifically designed to intensify and prolong agony.
00:03:08.000 | In this sense, the cross was infinitely more dreadful than the electric chair.
00:03:13.000 | Odious, though, the chair was.
00:03:16.000 | Another difference is that the person to be electrocuted is permitted the dignity of a mask or a hood.
00:03:23.000 | But most important of all, electrocutions took place indoors, out of public view,
00:03:29.000 | with only a few select people permitted to watch.
00:03:32.000 | Crucifixion, on the other hand, was supposed to be seen by as many people as possible.
00:03:38.000 | Debasement resulting from public display was a chief feature of the method, along with the prolonging of agony.
00:03:46.000 | It was a form of advertisement or public announcement.
00:03:50.000 | "This person is the scum of the earth, not fit to live, more an insect than a human being."
00:04:00.000 | The crucified wretch was pinned up like a specimen.
00:04:04.000 | Crosses were not placed out in the open for convenience or sanitation, but for maximum public exposure.
00:04:14.000 | Crucifixion as a means of execution in the Roman Empire had as its express purpose
00:04:21.000 | the elimination of victims from consideration as members of the human race.
00:04:28.000 | It cannot be said too strongly. That was its function.
00:04:36.000 | It was meant to indicate to all who might be toying with subversive ideas that crucified persons were not of the same species
00:04:46.000 | as either the executioners or the spectators, and were therefore not only expendable,
00:04:53.000 | but also deserving of ritualized extermination.
00:04:58.000 | Therefore, the mocking and jeering that accompanied crucifixion were not only allowed,
00:05:04.000 | they were part of the spectacle, and were programmed into it.
00:05:09.000 | In a sense, crucifixion was a form of entertainment.
00:05:13.000 | Everyone understood that the specific role of the passerby was to exacerbate the dehumanization
00:05:20.000 | and degradation of the person who had been thus designated to be a spectacle.
00:05:27.000 | Crucifixion was cleverly designed, we might say diabolically designed,
00:05:33.000 | to be an almost theatrical enactment of the sadistic and inhumane impulses that lie within human beings.
00:05:44.000 | According to the Christian gospel, the Son of God voluntarily and purposefully absorbed all of that,
00:05:54.000 | drawing it into himself.
00:06:00.000 | Anyone seeking to interpret Jesus' crucifixion must decide whether or not to include a clinical description.
00:06:08.000 | Since the New Testament writers are conspicuously silent about the physical details,
00:06:12.000 | it is legitimate to ask whether it is suitable or helpful to introduce them.
00:06:16.000 | On the other hand, people in New Testament times had all seen crucifixions,
00:06:20.000 | and did not need a description.
00:06:22.000 | The evangelists and the other New Testament writers were able to assume a familiarity
00:06:27.000 | with the method that is unthinkable for us today.
00:06:30.000 | Most of us have never even come close to seeing anyone tortured to death.
00:06:35.000 | For this reason, Martin Engel writes,
00:06:38.000 | "Reflection on the harsh reality of crucifixion in antiquity may help us to overcome the acute loss of reality
00:06:45.000 | which is to be found so often in present theology and preaching."
00:06:51.000 | The early theologian Origen called Jesus' death the "utterly vile death of the cross."
00:06:58.000 | Cicero, the great Roman statesman and writer, referred to crucifixion as the "supreme penalty"
00:07:04.000 | exceeding burning and decapitation and gruesomeness.
00:07:09.000 | Some rudimentary knowledge of what was taking place will help us to understand these terms.
00:07:14.000 | The first phase of a Roman execution was scourging.
00:07:18.000 | The lictors, the Roman legionaries assigned to this duty,
00:07:22.000 | used a whip made of leather cords to which small pieces of metal or bone had been fastened.
00:07:28.000 | Paintings of the scourging of Jesus always show him with a loincloth.
00:07:33.000 | But in fact the victim would have been naked,
00:07:36.000 | tied to a post in a position to expose the back and the buttocks to maximum effect.
00:07:43.000 | With the first strokes of the scourge, skin would be pulled away and subcutaneous tissue exposed.
00:08:01.000 | As the process continued, the lacerations would begin to tear the underlying skeletal muscles.
00:08:08.000 | This would result not only in great pain, but also in considerable blood loss.
00:08:15.000 | The idea was to weaken the victim to a state just short of collapse or death.
00:08:21.000 | It was common for taunting and ridicule to accompany the procedure.
00:08:25.000 | In the case of Jesus, the New Testament tells us that a crown of thorns,
00:08:29.000 | a purple robe, and a mock scepter were added to intensify the mockery.
00:08:36.000 | The condition of a prisoner after scourging just prior to crucifixion would depend on several things.
00:08:43.000 | Previous physical condition, the enthusiasm of the lictors, and the extent of blood loss.
00:08:50.000 | In the case of Jesus, these things cannot be known,
00:08:53.000 | but the fact that he was apparently unable to carry the crossbar himself
00:08:57.000 | would indicate that he was probably in a severely weakened state,
00:09:01.000 | and he may have been close to circulatory shock.
00:09:04.000 | Those being crucified were then paraded through the streets,
00:09:09.000 | exposing them to the full scorn of the population.
00:09:14.000 | When the procession reached the site of crucifixion,
00:09:17.000 | the victims would see before them the heavy upright wooden posts permanently in place,
00:09:23.000 | to which the crossbar was to be attached by a mortise and tenon joint.
00:09:29.000 | The person to be crucified would be thrown down on his back,
00:09:32.000 | exacerbating the pain of the wounds from his scourging and introducing dirt into them.
00:09:38.000 | His hands would be tied or nailed to the crossbar.
00:09:42.000 | Nailing seems to have been preferred by the Romans.
00:09:46.000 | Ossuary finds have given us a clearer idea of how this was done.
00:09:52.000 | Two thousand years of Christian iconography notwithstanding,
00:09:56.000 | the nails were not driven into the palms,
00:09:58.000 | which could not support the weight of a man's body,
00:10:01.000 | but into the wrists.
00:10:04.000 | [Screams]
00:10:07.000 | The crossbar was then hoisted on the wooden posts where the victim depended from it,
00:10:30.000 | and the feet were tied or nailed.
00:10:33.000 | At this point, the process of crucifixion proper began.
00:10:38.000 | Victims of crucifixion lived on their crosses for periods varying from three or four hours to three or four days.
00:10:46.000 | Passive exhalation, which we do thousands of times a day without thinking about it,
00:10:52.000 | becomes impossible for a person hanging on a cross.
00:10:56.000 | The weight of a body hanging by its wrist would depress the muscles required for breathing out.
00:11:03.000 | Therefore, each exhaled breath could only be achieved by a tremendous effort.
00:11:09.000 | The only way to gain a breath at all would be by pushing oneself up from the legs and the feet,
00:11:15.000 | or pulling oneself up by the arms,
00:11:18.000 | either of which would cause intense agony.
00:11:23.000 | Add to this primary factor the following secondary ones.
00:11:27.000 | Bodily functions uncontrolled.
00:11:30.000 | Insects feasting on wounds and orifices.
00:11:34.000 | Unspeakable thirst.
00:11:36.000 | Muscle cramps.
00:11:38.000 | Bolts of pain from the severed median nerves in the wrists,
00:11:42.000 | scourged back scraping against the wooden post.
00:11:46.000 | It is more than any of us are capable of fully imagining.
00:11:52.000 | The verbal abuse and other actions,
00:11:55.000 | such as spitting and throwing refuse by the spectators, Roman soldiers, and passerbys,
00:12:01.000 | added the final touch.
00:12:04.000 | The New Testament shows us life lived between two worlds,
00:12:09.000 | the Roman and the near Middle Eastern.
00:12:12.000 | Crucifixion was noxious enough in Roman eyes.
00:12:16.000 | Palestinian attitudes would have found it perhaps even more so.
00:12:20.000 | Middle Eastern cultures still have to this day an acute sense of personal honor lodged in the body.
00:12:27.000 | An amputation, administered as punishment for instance,
00:12:31.000 | would be seen as much more than just physical cruelty or permanent handicap.
00:12:36.000 | It would mean that the amputee would carry the visible marks of dishonor and shame for the rest of his or her life.
00:12:44.000 | Anything done to the body would have been understood as exceptionally cruel,
00:12:50.000 | not just because it inflicted pain, but even more because it caused dishonor.
00:12:56.000 | Furthermore, the Passion accounts reflect in part a very ancient ritual of humiliation.
00:13:04.000 | The mocking of Jesus, the spitting and scorn, the inversion of his kingship,
00:13:10.000 | and the studious dethronement with the crown of thorns and purple robe
00:13:15.000 | would have been understood as a central part of a total rite of infamy,
00:13:21.000 | of which the crucifixion itself is the culmination.
00:13:26.000 | Another aspect of the crucifixion not widely noted
00:13:32.000 | is that a crucified person, gasping and heaving on his cross,
00:13:38.000 | is forced to be his own executioner.
00:13:43.000 | He is not even allowed the perverse dignity of having a human being corresponding to himself
00:13:51.000 | who hangs or decapitates him.
00:13:55.000 | He dies truly and completely alone,
00:14:01.000 | with the weight of his own body killing him as it hangs.
00:14:07.000 | Causing his own diaphragm to suffocate him.
00:14:14.000 | [wind]
00:14:17.000 | [fire crackling]
00:14:20.000 | [fire crackling]
00:14:23.000 | [fire crackling]
00:14:26.000 | [fire crackling]
00:14:29.000 | [fire crackling]
00:14:32.000 | [crow cawing]
00:14:35.000 | [crow cawing]
00:14:38.000 | [crow cawing]
00:14:41.000 | [crow cawing]
00:14:44.000 | This ends a reading from Fleming Rutledge's book, "The Crucifixion,
00:14:48.000 | Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ," pages 89 to 95.
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