"Greater love hath no man than this,
that a man lay down his life for his friends"
John 15:13
The greatest example of one laying down his life for his friends is
Christ. We can never fully comprehend the spiritual aspect of Christ’s
suffering and shame, but medical studies shed glimpses of light on the
physical agony and all the horror that Jesus endured on the cross.
"For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners
against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds"
Hebrews 12:3
The physical trauma of Christ begins in Gethsemane with one of the
initial aspects of His suffering— the bloody sweat. It is interesting
that the physician of the group, St. Luke, is the only one to mention
this. He says, "And being in agony, He prayed the longer. And His sweat
became as drops of blood, trickling down upon the ground."
Though very rare, the phenomenon of Hematidrosis, or bloody sweat, is
well documented. Under great emotional stress, tiny capillaries in the
sweat glands can break, thus mixing blood with sweat. This process alone
could have produced marked weakness and possible shock.
After the arrest in the middle of the night, Jesus was brought before
the Sanhedrin and Caiaphas, the High Priest. A soldier struck Jesus
across the face for remaining silent when questioned by Caiaphas. The
palace guards then blindfolded Him and mockingly taunted Him to identify
them as they each passed by, spat on Him, and stuck Him in the face.
In the early morning, Jesus, battered and bruised , dehydrated, and
exhausted from a sleepless night, is taken across Jerusalem to the
Praetorium of the Fortress Antonia, It was there, in response to the
cries of the mob, that Pilate ordered Bar-Abbas released and condemned
Jesus to scourging and crucifixion.
Preparations for the scourging are carried out. The prisoner is stripped
of His clothing and His hands tied to a post above His head. The Roman
legionnaire steps forward with the flagrum in his hand. This is a short
whip consisting of several heavy, leather thongs with two small balls of
lead attached near the ends of each. The heavy whip is brought down
with full force again and again across Jesus’ shoulders, back and legs.
At first the heavy thongs cut through the skin only. Then, as the blows
continue, they cut deeper into the subcutaneous tissues, producing first
an oozing of blood from the capillaries and veins of the skin, and
finally spurting arterial bleeding from vessels in the underlying
muscles. The small balls of lead first produce large, deeps bruises
which are broken open by subsequent blows.
Finally the skin of the back is hanging in long ribbons and the entire
area is an unrecognizable mass of torn, bleeding tissue. When it is
determined by the centurion in charge that the prisoner is near death,
the beating is finally stopped.
The half-fainting Jesus is then untied and allowed to slump to the stone
pavement, wet with His own blood. The Roman soldiers see a great joke
in this provincial Jew claiming to be a king. They throw a robe across
His shoulders and place a stick in His hand for a scepter. A small
bundle of flexible branches covered with long thorns is pressed into His
scalp.
Again there is copious bleeding (the scalp being one of the most
vascular areas of the body). Then the soldiers take the stick from His
hand and strike Him across the head, driving the thorns deeper into His
scalp. Finally, they tire of their sadistic sport and the robe is torn
from His back. This had already become adherent to the clots of blood
and serum in the wounds, and its removal, just as in the careless
removal of a surgical bandage, causes excruciating pain— almost as
though He were again being whipped and the wounds again begin to bleed.
The heavy beam of the cross is then tied across His shoulders, and the
procession of the condemned Christ, two thieves and the execution
detail, begins its slow journey. The weight of the heavy wooden beam,
together with the shock produced by copious blood loss, is too much. He
stumbles and falls. The rough wood of the beam gouges into the lacerated
skin and muscles of the shoulders. He tries to rise, but human muscles
have been pushed beyond their endurance.
At Golgotha, the beam is placed on the ground and Jesus is quickly
thrown backward with His shoulders against the wood. The legionnaire
feels for the depression at the front of the wrist. He drives a heavy,
square, wrought-iron nail through the wrist and deep into the wood.
Quickly, he moves to the other side and repeats the action, being
careful not to pull the arms too tightly but to allow some flexion and
movement. The beam is then lifted in place at the top of the posts and
the titulus reading "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" is nailed in
place.
The left foot is pressed backward against the right foot, and with both
feet extended, toes down, a nail is driven thought the arch of each. As
He pushes Himself upward to avoid the stretching torment, He places His
full weight on the nail through His feet. Again there is the searing
agony of the nail tearing through the nerves between the metatarsal
bones of the feet.
As the arms fatigue, great waves of cramps sweep over the muscles,
knotting them in deep, relentless, throbbing pain, With these cramps
comes the inability to push Himself upward. Hanging by His arms, the
pectoral muscles are paralyzed and the intercostal muscles are unable to
act. Air can be drawn into the lungs, but cannot be exhaled. Jesus
fights to raise Himself in order to get even one short breath. Finally,
carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the blood stream and the
cramps partially subside. Spasmodically, He is able to push Himself
upward to exhale and bring in the life-giving oxygen.
He endures hours of this limitless pain, cycles of twisting,
joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain as
tissue is town from His lacerated back as He moves up and down against
the rough timber. Then another agony begins. A deep crushing pain deep
in the chest as the pericardium slowly fills with serum and begins to
compress the heart.
The compressed heart is struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood
into the tissues--the tortured lungs are making a frantic effort to gasp
in small gulps of air. The markedly dehydrated tissues send their flood
of stimuli to the brain. Jesus gasps, "I thirst."
He can feel the chill of death creeping through His tissues. With one
last surge of strength, He once again presses His torn feet against the
nail, straightens His legs takes a deeper breath and utters His seventh
and last cry, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit."
Apparently to make double sure of death, the legionnaire drove his lance
through the fifth interspace between the ribs, upward through the
pericardium and into the heart. Immediately there came out blood and
water. We therefore, have rather conclusive post-mortem evidence that
our Lord died, not the usual crucifixion death by suffocation, but of
heart failure due to shock and constriction of the heart by fluid in the
pericardium. As some have said, a broken heart is what killed our Lord.
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