The Crucifixion

187:1.1Be­fore leav­ing the court­yard of the prae­to­rium, the sol­diers placed the cross­beam on Je­sus’ shoul­ders. It was the cus­tom to com­pel the con­demned man to carry the cross­beam to the site of the cru­ci­fix­ion. Such a con­demned man did not carry the whole cross, only this shorter tim­ber. The longer and up­right pieces of tim­ber for the three crosses had al­ready been trans­ported to Gol­go­tha and, by the time of the ar­rival of the sol­diers and their pris­on­ers, had been firmly im­planted in the ground.

187:1.2Ac­cord­ing to cus­tom the cap­tain led the pro­ces­sion, car­ry­ing small white boards on which had been writ­ten with char­coal the names of the crim­i­nals and the na­ture of the crimes for which they had been con­demned. For the two thieves the cen­tu­rion had no­tices which gave their names, un­der­neath which was writ­ten the one word, “Brig­and.” It was the cus­tom, af­ter the vic­tim had been nailed to the cross­beam and hoisted to his place on the up­right tim­ber, to nail this no­tice to the top of the cross, just above the head of the crim­i­nal, that all wit­nesses might know for what crime the con­demned man was be­ing cru­ci­fied. The leg­end which the cen­tu­rion car­ried to put on the cross of Je­sus had been writ­ten by Pi­late him­self in Latin, Greek, and Ara­maic, and it read: “Je­sus of Naz­a­reth—the King of the Jews.”

187:1.3Some of the Jew­ish au­thor­i­ties who were yet pres­ent when Pi­late wrote this leg­end made vig­or­ous protest against call­ing Je­sus the “king of the Jews.” But Pi­late re­minded them that such an ac­cu­sa­tion was part of the charge which led to his con­dem­na­tion. When the Jews saw they could not pre­vail upon Pi­late to change his mind, they pleaded that at least it be mod­i­fied to read, “He said, ‘I am the king of the Jews.’” But Pi­late was adamant; he would not al­ter the writ­ing. To all fur­ther sup­pli­ca­tion he only replied, “What I have writ­ten, I have writ­ten.”

187:1.4Or­di­nar­ily, it was the cus­tom to jour­ney to Gol­go­tha by the longest road in or­der that a large num­ber of per­sons might view the con­demned crim­i­nal, but on this day they went by the most di­rect route to the Da­mas­cus gate, which led out of the city to the north, and fol­low­ing this road, they soon ar­rived at Gol­go­tha, the of­fi­cial cru­ci­fix­ion site of Je­ru­sa­lem. Be­yond Gol­go­tha were the vil­las of the wealthy, and on the other side of the road were the tombs of many well-to-do Jews.

187:1.5Cru­ci­fix­ion was not a Jew­ish mode of pun­ish­ment. Both the Greeks and the Ro­mans learned this method of ex­e­cu­tion from the Phoeni­cians. Even Herod, with all his cru­elty, did not re­sort to cru­ci­fix­ion. The Ro­mans never cru­ci­fied a Ro­man cit­i­zen; only slaves and sub­ject peo­ples were sub­jected to this dis­hon­or­able mode of death. Dur­ing the siege of Je­ru­sa­lem, just forty years af­ter the cru­ci­fix­ion of Je­sus, all of Gol­go­tha was cov­ered by thou­sands upon thou­sands of crosses upon which, from day to day, there per­ished the flower of the Jew­ish race. A ter­ri­ble har­vest, in­deed, of the seed-sow­ing of this day.

187:1.6As the death pro­ces­sion passed along the nar­row streets of Je­ru­sa­lem, many of the ten­der­hearted Jew­ish women who had heard Je­sus’ words of good cheer and com­pas­sion, and who knew of his life of lov­ing min­istry, could not re­frain from weep­ing when they saw him be­ing led forth to such an ig­no­ble death. As he passed by, many of these women be­wailed and lamented. And when some of them even dared to fol­low along by his side, the Mas­ter turned his head to­ward them and said: “Daugh­ters of Je­ru­sa­lem, weep not for me, but rather weep for your­selves and for your chil­dren. My work is about done—soon I go to my Fa­ther—but the times of ter­ri­ble trou­ble for Je­ru­sa­lem are just be­gin­ning. Be­hold, the days are com­ing in which you shall say: Blessed are the bar­ren and those whose breasts have never suck­led their young. In those days will you pray the rocks of the hills to fall on you in or­der that you may be de­liv­ered from the ter­rors of your trou­bles.”

187:1.7These women of Je­ru­sa­lem were in­deed coura­geous to man­i­fest sym­pa­thy for Je­sus, for it was strictly against the law to show friendly feel­ings for one who was be­ing led forth to cru­ci­fix­ion. It was per­mit­ted the rab­ble to jeer, mock, and ridicule the con­demned, but it was not al­lowed that any sym­pa­thy should be ex­pressed. Though Je­sus ap­pre­ci­ated the man­i­fes­ta­tion of sym­pa­thy in this dark hour when his friends were in hid­ing, he did not want these kind­hearted women to in­cur the dis­plea­sure of the au­thor­i­ties by dar­ing to show com­pas­sion in his be­half. Even at such a time as this Je­sus thought lit­tle about him­self, only of the ter­ri­ble days of tragedy ahead for Je­ru­sa­lem and the whole Jew­ish na­tion.

187:1.8As the Mas­ter trudged along on the way to the cru­ci­fix­ion, he was very weary; he was nearly ex­hausted. He had had nei­ther food nor wa­ter since the Last Sup­per at the home of Eli­jah Mark; nei­ther had he been per­mit­ted to en­joy one mo­ment of sleep. In ad­di­tion, there had been one hear­ing right af­ter an­other up to the hour of his con­dem­na­tion, not to men­tion the abu­sive scourg­ings with their ac­com­pa­ny­ing phys­i­cal suf­fer­ing and loss of blood. Super­im­posed upon all this was his ex­treme men­tal an­guish, his acute spir­i­tual ten­sion, and a ter­ri­ble feel­ing of hu­man lone­li­ness.

187:1.9Shortly af­ter pass­ing through the gate on the way out of the city, as Je­sus stag­gered on bear­ing the cross­beam, his phys­i­cal strength mo­men­tar­ily gave way, and he fell be­neath the weight of his heavy bur­den. The sol­diers shouted at him and kicked him, but he could not arise. When the cap­tain saw this, know­ing what Je­sus had al­ready en­dured, he com­manded the sol­diers to de­sist. Then he or­dered a passerby, one Si­mon from Cyrene, to take the cross­beam from Je­sus’ shoul­ders and com­pelled him to carry it the rest of the way to Gol­go­tha.

187:1.10This man Si­mon had come all the way from Cyrene, in north­ern Africa, to at­tend the Pass­over. He was stop­ping with other Cyre­ni­ans just out­side the city walls and was on his way to the tem­ple ser­vices in the city when the Ro­man cap­tain com­manded him to carry Je­sus’ cross­beam. Si­mon lin­gered all through the hours of the Mas­ter’s death on the cross, talk­ing with many of his friends and with his en­e­mies. Af­ter the res­ur­rec­tion and be­fore leav­ing Je­ru­sa­lem, he be­came a valiant be­liever in the gospel of the king­dom, and when he re­turned home, he led his fam­ily into the heav­enly king­dom. His two sons, Alexan­der and Ru­fus, be­came very ef­fec­tive teach­ers of the new gospel in Africa. But Si­mon never knew that Je­sus, whose bur­den he bore, and the Jew­ish tu­tor who once be­friended his in­jured son, were the same per­son.

187:1.11It was shortly af­ter nine o’clock when this pro­ces­sion of death ar­rived at Gol­go­tha, and the Ro­man sol­diers set them­selves about the task of nail­ing the two brig­ands and the Son of Man to their re­spec­tive crosses.