Lesson 19

Torture & Death.

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged."      John 19:1

"They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again."     Matthew 27:30

"There they crucified him."     John 19:18

Read John Chapter 19

This is where the "rubber meets the road," where you "walk the walk!" And Jesus Walks the Walk!

Throughout his ministry Jesus has been predicting his death, and the previous night he spent hours in prayer with his Father in preparation for what he was about to go through. Now the time has come! And yet it is so easy to pass over these few sentences without having a full comprehension of what Jesus endured. Therefore I am going to go into detail of these events and include some other scriptures that help to give us the full effect and a clearer picture, so that we can understand just how great the love and sacrifice of God truly is.

First "the flogging". Although the Romans didn't invent flogging, they perfected it! They would take their victim, strip him of his upper clothes and tie him to an upright post with his hands above his head so as to expose his back. A soldier would then take a whip which was made of a short wooden handle, leather braided thongs of variable length with small metal balls and sharp pieces of sheep bone tied in at intervals. They would then whip the victim approximately 39 times. The small metal balls were designed to pound the flesh (like a meat tenderizer) and the sharp sheep bone would cut deep gauges into the flesh and muscle. The torn flesh, the blood loss and the significant pain was meant to weaken the victim to a state of near death. This is what Jesus endured!!!

Why?

Next came "the beating." The book of John doesn't give us an account of the beating so I have included it from the book of Matthew 27:27-31. A Praetorium was usually a large hall, and it states that a whole company of the governors soldiers took him into it, So imagine Jesus in a near death state being dragged into a large gym by about somewhere between 80-150 hardened soldiers who are mocking him, jeering him and riduculing him. It's a frat party on steroids! They strip him, put a robe on him, jam a crown of thorns into his head and give him a staff...as if he was some kind of king. Then they grab the staff and take turns teeing him up and hitting home runs off his head. If you don't believe it, turn to Isaiah 52:14 to see what the prophet predicted about 700 years before Jesus was born. "His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness." BEYOND HUMAN LIKENESS.

In 1991 a young man named Rodney King was brutally beaten by 5 police officers and became national news, as a neighbor had taken amatuer footage of the incident. Photos were released of Mr King's beaten and swollen face for all to see. However, not to lessen what was done to him; you could still recognize him as Rodney King and you could certainly recognize him as a human being. The scriptures say that Jesus was so disfigured beyond that of "any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness." It was hard to recognize Jesus as a human being!!!

Why?

Finally "the crucifixion." So after all this there's no Red Cross or EMT's running to the rescue. No International Humanitarian Aid, no stretcher or gurney, no ER Stat with a roomful of doctors and nurses with a morphine drip and all kinds of bandages and medications to ease the pain. None of that! Instead it's more torture with pain and suffering! Now the Roman soldiers took Jesus, laid him on top of an upright beam with a crossbeam for his arms outstretched and drove thick nails through his wrists and feet. Then they hoisted the beams into an upright position with Jesus nailed to it. Crucifixion was the cruelest, most painful and most public humiliating death the Romans could come up with. And it was done in such a public manner so as to deter anyone form opposing Roman Rule. Death by Crucifixion was suffocation, but took many hours to die. To be able to breathe the victim had to pull up  from his nailed wrists or push up from his nailed feet. Both sending out searing pain. It took about six excruciatingly painful hours for Jesus to die. The next time you're at the gym doing pull-ups see how many seconds or even minutes you can do them for. Then imagine doing them with six inch nails driven through your wrists for six hours!

Why?

A question to ask.

!: Why would Jesus go through such pain & suffering?