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

It is midmorning, and now that Jesus is dangling in the air, the Roman soldiers turn their attention to his clothing. What is Jesus’s net worth on the day of his execution? Nothing but the clothes off his bloody back. The Romans divide his outer himation cloak into four pieces, then cast lots to see who gets to keep his cheap one-piece chiton tunic.

As people go about their morning business, some recognize the rabbi and hurl insults in passing. “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!”

The high priests Annas and Caiaphas, the aristocrats, and their lawyers, even though it is Passover weekend and they’ve been up all night, cannot help but venture out of the temple to taunt their dying enemy (Mark 15:31; Matthew 27:41–43): “He saved others; he cannot save himself.” “Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.”

The great irony is that the two “robbers” being crucified with Jesus are called lestai (Matthew 27:44), the exact same thing Jesus called Annas and Caiaphas when he purged the temple. The gospel writers leave readers to wonder if the Romans didn’t execute the wrong pair of thieves on April 3, 33 AD.

Inspired by the House of Annas, the Roman soldiers pile on the indignities, offering Jesus sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” Even one of the two criminals rails against this so-called Savior.

So, who of the disciples are left to witness this scene? Of the tens of thousands who ate Jesus’s bread, of the hundreds who acquired his healing, of the seventy-odd disciples who accepted his teaching, who remains at the foot of the cross?

All four gospel writers admit the truth: It is the female disciples who stay faithful and courageous to the end. Matthew says, “Many women were there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him” (27:55). Mark says that some women were watching from a distance. “When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem” (15:41). Luke says that “the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things” (23:49). John names Jesus’s mother Mary, Jesus’s aunt Salome, Mary Magdalene, and Aunt Mary the mother of Jesus’s disciple Little James (John 19:25). Notice John’s wonderful literary juxtaposition: the four plundering soldiers versus the four prayerful women.

In total, the full count of named witnesses numbers just five: Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Aunt Mary the mother of Little James, Aunt Salome mother of the Thunder Sons, and “the disciple who Jesus loved,” likely cousin John, who has likely been awake all night, staying close to his rabbi for the duration of this horrific affair.

Where are all the cocksure young men now? Eleven of the inner twelve disciples are entirely absent from the story, yet nearly a third of their mothers show up. While the other female disciples hang back at a distance, the four closest women and John stand near the cross, within earshot of Jesus’s weakening voice. It is at this moment that Jesus touchingly commits his mother Mary to his cousin John’s care, suggesting that her husband Joseph has indeed passed away and Jesus has been caring for her. The rabbi’s cousin reports in John 19:27 that “from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.”

It is surreal to stop and consider the reality that crucifixion victims continue to speak while being crucified; even more so if it happens near eye level. We have seven recorded sentences from Jesus’s hours on the cross, and it is not hard to imagine that he doesn’t say much more than that over the six hours his lungs slowly drain of oxygen. They are words of forgiveness (Luke 23:34), salvation (Luke 23:43), provision (John 19:26), petition (John 19:28), trust (Mark 15:34), faith (Luke 23:46), and triumph (John 19:30).