The Crucifixion of Jesus: A Six-Day Meditation on Christ’s Ultimate Sacrificeনমুনা

Author’s note: What follows is extremely graphic but with a determined purpose; to sugarcoat or gloss over the crucifixion is to cheapen and dishonor Jesus’s vast sacrifice. We must not for a moment allow ourselves to romanticize the cross. While most Christian books gloss over the naked facts, the sheer brutality of crucifixion cannot be overlooked. We can get a sense of this truth by realizing that symbols of the cross appear nowhere in ancient Christian art for the first three centuries after Jesus’s murder. The early church simply could not bring themselves to face this horrific instrument of torture, as it was still in use against members of their own communities. The cross was the looming threat over all their lives, and when we see a cross, we should quake as they did.

———

Rome practices the vile art of capital punishment in many forms. Paul of Tarsus will be decapitated. Nero will burn Christians to death. Some are hurled from the eighty-foot-high Tarpeian Rock. Others are forced into the arena to compete as gladiators, or to play a role in savage war reenactments, or to be eaten by wild beasts for the entertainment of the bloodthirsty masses. Seneca will be forced to drink hemlock, while others will slit their wrists in warm baths. A few are tied in a sack with a snake or an ape and thrown in the Tiber River. But the summum supplicium—the supreme penalty—is crucifixion.

As a prelude to crucifixion, Pilate sends Jesus for a flogging. Deuteronomy 25:3 set a legal limit of forty lashes, with additional religionist rules ensuring one less (just to be safe), delivered in three sets of thirteen unlucky blows. But the Romans obey no such law and set no limit on their whippings, which are reserved exclusively for non-Romans.

The scourge in question is a flagrum or flagellum, made of two or three oxhide straps attached to a wooden handle. The leather thongs are knotted with bone, tooth, or shards of zinc or iron or bronze; perfect for flaying chunks of flesh from the bodies of its victims. Victims experienced disfiguring lacerations, the loss of eyes, and the exposure of veins, muscles, sinews, or even bone. Josephus proudly notes in Wars Book 2, 21:5, that he had a handful of Galilean rebels whipped until their entrails were visible. Multiple Roman historians report that flagellation victims occasionally died of shock and copious blood loss, though the idea is to beat them to within an inch of their life, leaving them with just enough strength to carry their own cross before crucifixion finishes them off.

Jesus is stripped naked and either tied to a low post (so the flesh on his back is loose and will easily rip) or strung taut from a high pillar (so the tight flesh will split upon contact). Roman floggings were not limited to the bare back but could range from the neck and shoulders to the lower back and buttocks to the soles of the victim’s feet. While none of the four gospel writers go into detail, we may assume Jesus takes an above-average beating—in moments, he will be unable to carry his cross, and the flagrum’s only consolation was that it shortened the agony of crucifixion by inducing death sooner, as will soon be the case for Jesus.

Jesus is unchained from the dreaded pole. He has not slept all night, his face is swollen from earlier punches, and the flesh of his back now hangs in shreds. It is around 9 a.m. (Mark 15:25), and the whole garrison comes out of their barracks to bid farewell to their latest victim. They dress him up in a scarlet-purple robe, set a crown made of twisted thorns on his head, and put a staff in his right hand. Upwards of six hundred Romans kneel and salute, taunting “Hail, King of the Jews!” They rise and spit on him, slapping his face and pounding him on the head with the staff. Roman mockery is well documented in history, and Jesus is just one of an untold number of victims to endure this shame and abuse. Once they’ve had their fun, they take off the royal robe, put his own clothes back on him, and lead him out to be crucified with two other criminals—political revolutionaries, in some translations.

But Jesus is too weak to carry his cross for long. As they leave the city, the Romans force a North African named Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross. They are headed for a notorious hill.