Infinitum Lent JourneySample

Today we will continue to consider Jesus & Mission in the context of Lent.

Do we have to spend a ‘day’ on suffering in mission? Well, the text invites us to. Jesus carried his cross out of the city to Golgotha (after the beating in the hearings previous to our text), and he was crucified. When you cobble together the various Gospel accounts, you tally six hours on the cross.

For the two others crucified with Jesus, six hours of suffering was not enough to kill them, so to appease the Jewish religious sensitivities (see verse 31), soldiers smashed their legs, expediting their death. But six hours of hanging from nails after inhuman thrashing was sufficient to kill Jesus, and he was already dead when it was his turn for this ghastly Roman form of mortal kneecapping (although they did puncture his side with a lance just to make sure).

Alright—we’re not going to go full Passion of the Christ here. You can search online if you want the gruesome details. The point is, Jesus definitely underwent excruciating (this word derives from the Latin, ‘from a cross’) suffering through this whole process, emotionally, relationally, existentially, not to mention physically.

Only John, of “the twelve,” hung around for the crucifixion. Jesus had been deserted by eleven of the twelve fellows in whom He’d invested the three most intense years of his life.

Praying overnight, he sweated what seemed like drops of blood in his conversation with God the Father (Luke 22:44).

He was mocked mercilessly, humiliated, and beaten.

Now, we’re not about to assert that Jesus did this; therefore, we must all undergo similar missional pain and hardship. However, the writer of Hebrews does note this distressing observation: “For in your struggle against sin you have not yet had to resist to the point of being killed” (Hebrews 12:4 GNT).

The stakes are eternal.