Last week we talked about the trial of Jesus. It wasn’t a trial like today, nor was it fair. The people who wanted him dead found people to testify against him—to tell lies—and in the end they found something to take him before the Romans. At any point in the series of trials, someone with power could have let Jesus go. Instead they gave into the crowds, and Pilate—the Roman governor—sentenced Jesus to death.
Someone read Matthew 27:27-30.
27 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole cohort around him. 28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29 and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on his head. They put a reed in his right hand and knelt before him and mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 30 They spat on him, and took the reed and struck him on the head.
Pilate had already had Jesus beaten, and now he had the guards take him away. But they didn’t just take him away to prison and leave him. These solders gathered around Jesus. They stripped him of his clothes—which were probably already bloody—and gave him a new bright red robe. This would have been an expensive garment. It’s not like today where you can go down to the store and get clothes of any color for about the same price. Dyed clothes were expensive in Jesus’s day—most people probably wore undyed clothes. Browns and beiges, whatever the natural color of the fiber or skin was. So they put this expensive robe on him and then they give him a crown—not of metal or even a nice little tiara. No, it’s like a daisy chain of thorns and they shove it onto Jesus head. These thorns would be biting into his skin, tearing up his head and forehead.
Then they give him a reed—for him to hold like a scepter—and mock him, calling him the King of the Jews. They then take the reed from him and hit him across the head with it. These are Roman soldiers, mocking this man who dared called himself a king, taking the very idea of being a king and using it to torture and hurt him.
We haven’t even gotten to Jesus death yet and he has already been tortured and beaten.
Someone read Luke 23:26.
26 As they led him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus.
You guys probably already know that a cross is very large and is made of wood. Prisoners were usually made to carry parts of their cross. It’s not necessarily very clear whether they would carry the whole cross or just the crossbar of the cross. But regardless, they were usually given something very heavy to carry. Probably over a hundred pounds.
Jesus had already been beaten—his back whipped. He was weak and in pain, which was why he was not able to carry his own cross. He was already so weak that he would just crumple under that extra weight. So they grabbed a random dude from the crowd—a guy named Simon—and made him carry the cross. Jesus still had to walk to his crucifixion, and this random dude Simon carried the cross behind him.
Someone please read Luke 23:32-38.
32 Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. 33 When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. [[34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”]] And they cast lots to divide his clothing. 35 And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” 36 The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, 37 and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38 There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”
Jesus wasn’t the only one to be crucified that day. There were two other criminals. They got to the location—Golgotha, translated the Skull—and that’s where they crucified him.
Crucifixion is not a fast death. Today when we put criminals to death, we inject them with a shot of lethal chemicals that basically puts them to sleep—very similar to the way we put dogs to sleep. It doesn’t hurt, and it’s very quick and painless. The Romans were not about quick and painless. They did have quicker death penalties, but crucifixion was the worst one.
They would take the person—in this case Jesus—and nail him to the cross. They would nail his hands to the cross bar and his feet to the vertical piece. That in itself would be incredibly painful! It hurts enough when you step on a goat head! But hammering a nail into his palms and feet would break those bones. It would be terribly painful.
And then they lift the cross and stand it up. Suddenly all his bodily weight is being held to that cross by those three nails—the ones in his hands and feet. Your hands are not a great place to hold your weight from, this would be terribly painful. It would hurt so much.
So Jesus is going through all this awful pain and what does he say? “Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” Even then Jesus wanted to forgive them, wanted to forgive everyone.
But the people didn’t care. They took his clothes and gambled them away. They taunted him, telling him to save himself—if he was God’s chosen one. And then they put a sign on his cross calling him the king of the Jews—mocking that he was a king and his thrown was this pain and cross.
Someone read Luke 23:39-43.
39 One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Even one of the criminals who was also going through this terrible torture starting mocking Jesus. Why? I don’t know. Maybe to see if the crowd would turn in his favor? Maybe to distract himself from the fact he was in terrible pain and dying. I don’t know. But he mocked Jesus. But the other criminal shut him down. He was like, “What is wrong with you? We’re dying here too! And by the way, you and I are actually criminals, we deserve this, but Jesus hasn’t done anything! He’s done nothing and he’s getting the same punishment as us.” Then the criminal spoke to Jesus and said, “Jesus, please remember me when you get to your kingdom.”
He believed Jesus was who he said he was, and wanted Jesus to remember him when he got to God’s right hand side. And Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
This criminal who deserved his punishment, Jesus forgave, and said he would be in heaven with him even that day. Because it’s never too late in life to turn to Jesus.
Alright let’s flip to the book of John. Someone read John 19:25-27.
25 And that is what the soldiers did.
Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
When we talk about the crucifixion, we often talk about how all of Jesus’s followers abandoned him. And we did talk about before how all of his disciples abandoned, even loyal Peter. They were so scared and terrified, that they would be next. But it is false to say that all of Jesus’s followers abandoned him. They did not.
Only most of the men did. The women stayed. John stayed. The women were at the foot of the cross, openly weeping, openly crying at his feet, crying for him. They were not afraid to be associated with him. They knew it was more important to support Jesus in this moment, than it was to fear for their own lives.
I think sometimes many of the men who followed Jesus followed him because of what they thought he was going to do—what they thought he was going to do for Israel and the world. They wanted him to lead a revolution. But the women—even though they also did not fully understand Jesus—they followed him because of him. Because Jesus had already revolutionized their lives, by healing them, by treating them as equals, by being their friend. They just wanted Jesus in their lives.
John was also there—not all of the men left Jesus. He stood by Jesus’s side. The gospel of John was written by John, and he usually refers to himself as the “disciple whom Jesus loved.” What he basically means is “Jesus’s BFF.” John had equal reason to be afraid like Peter and the rest that he too could be arrested if they were trying to clean up the entire Jesus operation. And originally John did flee, when Jesus was arrested. But he came back, he came back for the cross, to sit one last time at Jesus’s feet.
Jesus is on the cross and looking at the weeping women and John. And he asks John, as his BFF, for one last request: to take care of Mary after Jesus’s dies. Because Mary was already a widow, and now her oldest son was being killed as a criminal. Women without their husbands or oldest sons to look after them often ended up in poverty. Jesus wanted Mary to be taken care of, he didn’t want to leave her desolate. So he made John promise to take care of her, to adopt her as his mother, and for Mary to look to John as her son. And the Bible says from that day forward, John looked after Mary as if she was his own mother.
Now let’s flip to Matthew. Someone read Matthew 23:45-49.
45 From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 46 And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 47 When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “This man is calling for Elijah.” 48 At once one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink. 49 But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.”
Jesus is on the cross dying and a darkness come over the whole land. It’s the middle of the day, not night—from noon until three it says. At three, Jesus cries out in a loud voice in Aramaic. Remember the New Testament was written in Greek, so when it has another language like this in it, it’s usually Aramaic—and the writer is keeping the words in their original language, and then translating it for the reader. Jesus said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”
This darkness that is across the whole land? This is God turning his back on Jesus. All of the sins of humanity, the sins of the world, are being laid on Jesus in this moment. The sin of those people who wanted him dead, the sins of the people in the Old Testament, my sins, your sins. Every sin is on Jesus. The weight of those sins is filling him, and it’s so much that God can’t even look at him.
Every sin humanity has ever committed and ever will commit is on Jesus, and God turns his back on him. That would be something Jesus had never experienced before—God the father not being with him, and this would be the worst part out of all the torture.
The people who hear Jesus cry out don’t understand why he’s crying out. They think maybe he’s crying out for Elijah. They think maybe he’s thirsty, so someone offers him some sour wine to drink. And then they’re like, “Well if he cried out to Elijah, maybe Elijah will save him.” So they sit back to watch.
Someone read Matthew 27:50-52.
50 Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. 51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split.
Jesus cries out one more time and it says he breaths his last. He dies. And in that moment the veil in the temple is torn in two. We’ve talked about the Temple before. Remember the Temple was viewed as the place where God lived—God’s home on earth. We talked about before how the Temple was set up, that it was a building with a courtyard. Most people were allowed in the courtyard, but only certain people were allowed in the building. But even in the building itself not everyone was allowed everywhere. There was a special place in the back of the Temple, called the Holy of Holies. That’s where God’s spirit was said to dwell.
Jesus dies, and the veil separating the Holy of Holies from the main temple is torn in two, torn wide open. Why? It’s symbolic, it tells us what Jesus’s death means. The thing that has separated us from God is gone. It’s open. God is no longer just in the Holy of Holies. You don’t just have to go in there to meet God.
The whole world is the Temple now.
Someone read Matthew 27:54.
54 Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”
There is a Roman centurion who is watching over this. He sees the darkness, feels the earthquake, and he’s like, “Wow. This man must really have been who he claimed he was. He must have been the Son of God.” This soldier saw everything that happened, and it made him believe. This is just one of many examples of Jesus reaching non Jewish people. Jesus’s death was for all of us. Not just the Jewish people there that day, but for all of us.
Someone please read John 19:31-37.
31 Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the sabbath, especially because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed. 32 Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. 35 (He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth.) 36 These things occurred so that the scripture might be fulfilled, “None of his bones shall be broken.” 37 And again another passage of scripture says, “They will look on the one whom they have pierced.”
Jesus was crucified on a Friday. The Sabbath is Saturday—but the Sabbath technically starts on sundown on Friday and lasts until sundown on Saturday. Technically Jewish people aren’t supposed to do work on the Sabbath, and taking bodies off a cross would definitely count as work. So they wanted to get the bodies down before sundown.
Because of that, they wanted to hurry the deaths along. So they asked Pilate—the Roman governor if they could hurry the deaths on a little faster by breaking the legs of the men. Why does this hurry their deaths? Well it makes it harder for them to breathe, because they can no longer push up on their feet.
But when they get to Jesus, they discover he’s already dead, so they don’t break his legs. Instead they stab him in the side just to make sure he’s dead for real, and he totally is.
Jesus is dead.
The man who claimed to be God. The man who said he had come to save them. The man who said he was going to bring the Kingdom of God.
He’s dead.
And everyone knows there is no coming back from death. That’s why Peter is scared and why Mary is weeping. Everyone dies. And sure a few prophets had the ability to raise the dead—like Jesus did—but Jesus was their last prophet and now he is gone.
There is no one left to raise Jesus from the dead. So there’s no coming back for him.
Or so they think.
And that’s today’s lesson. We’ll take a break next week for the Retreat and when we get back we’ll talk about the resurrection of Jesus.