The Crucifixion

187:2.1The sol­diers first bound the Mas­ter’s arms with cords to the cross­beam, and then they nailed his hands to the wood. When they had hoisted this cross­beam up on the post, and af­ter they had nailed it se­curely to the up­right tim­ber of the cross, they bound and nailed his feet to the wood, us­ing one long nail to pen­e­trate both feet. The up­right tim­ber had a large peg, in­serted at the proper height, which served as a sort of sad­dle for sup­port­ing the body weight. The cross was not high, the Mas­ter’s feet be­ing only about three feet from the ground. He was there­fore able to hear all that was said of him in de­ri­sion and could plainly see the ex­pres­sion on the faces of all those who so thought­lessly mocked him. And also could those pres­ent eas­ily hear all that Je­sus said dur­ing these hours of lin­ger­ing tor­ture and slow death.

187:2.2It was the cus­tom to re­move all clothes from those who were to be cru­ci­fied, but since the Jews greatly ob­jected to the pub­lic ex­po­sure of the naked hu­man form, the Ro­mans al­ways pro­vided a suit­able loin cloth for all per­sons cru­ci­fied at Je­ru­sa­lem. Ac­cord­ingly, af­ter Je­sus’ clothes had been re­moved, he was thus garbed be­fore he was put upon the cross.

187:2.3Cru­ci­fix­ion was re­sorted to in or­der to pro­vide a cruel and lin­ger­ing pun­ish­ment, the vic­tim some­times not dy­ing for sev­eral days. There was con­sid­er­able sen­ti­ment against cru­ci­fix­ion in Je­ru­sa­lem, and there ex­isted a so­ci­ety of Jew­ish women who al­ways sent a rep­re­sen­ta­tive to cru­ci­fix­ions for the pur­pose of of­fer­ing drugged wine to the vic­tim in or­der to lessen his suf­fer­ing. But when Je­sus tasted this nar­co­tized wine, as thirsty as he was, he re­fused to drink it. The Mas­ter chose to re­tain his hu­man con­scious­ness un­til the very end. He de­sired to meet death, even in this cruel and in­hu­man form, and con­quer it by vol­un­tary sub­mis­sion to the full hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

187:2.4Be­fore Je­sus was put on his cross, the two brig­ands had al­ready been placed on their crosses, all the while curs­ing and spit­ting upon their ex­e­cu­tion­ers. Je­sus’ only words, as they nailed him to the cross­beam, were, “Fa­ther, for­give them, for they know not what they do.” He could not have so mer­ci­fully and lov­ingly in­ter­ceded for his ex­e­cu­tion­ers if such thoughts of af­fec­tion­ate de­vo­tion had not been the main­spring of all his life of un­selfish ser­vice. The ideas, mo­tives, and long­ings of a life­time are openly re­vealed in a cri­sis.

187:2.5Af­ter the Mas­ter was hoisted on the cross, the cap­tain nailed the ti­tle up above his head, and it read in three lan­guages, “Je­sus of Naz­a­reth—the King of the Jews.” The Jews were in­fu­ri­ated by this be­lieved in­sult. But Pi­late was chafed by their dis­re­spect­ful man­ner; he felt he had been in­tim­i­dated and hu­mil­i­ated, and he took this method of ob­tain­ing petty re­venge. He could have writ­ten “Je­sus, a rebel.” But he well knew how these Je­ru­sa­lem Jews de­tested the very name of Naz­a­reth, and he was de­ter­mined thus to hu­mil­i­ate them. He knew that they would also be cut to the very quick by see­ing this ex­e­cuted Galilean called “The King of the Jews.”

187:2.6Many of the Jew­ish lead­ers, when they learned how Pi­late had sought to de­ride them by plac­ing this in­scrip­tion on the cross of Je­sus, has­tened out to Gol­go­tha, but they dared not at­tempt to re­move it since the Ro­man sol­diers were stand­ing on guard. Not be­ing able to re­move the ti­tle, these lead­ers min­gled with the crowd and did their ut­most to in­cite de­ri­sion and ridicule, lest any give se­ri­ous re­gard to the in­scrip­tion.

187:2.7The Apos­tle John, with Mary the mother of Je­sus, Ruth, and Jude, ar­rived on the scene just af­ter Je­sus had been hoisted to his po­si­tion on the cross, and just as the cap­tain was nail­ing the ti­tle above the Mas­ter’s head. John was the only one of the eleven apos­tles to wit­ness the cru­ci­fix­ion, and even he was not pres­ent all of the time since he ran into Je­ru­sa­lem to bring back his mother and her friends soon af­ter he had brought Je­sus’ mother to the scene.

187:2.8As Je­sus saw his mother, with John and his brother and sis­ter, he smiled but said noth­ing. Mean­while the four sol­diers as­signed to the Mas­ter’s cru­ci­fix­ion, as was the cus­tom, had di­vided his clothes among them, one tak­ing the san­dals, one the tur­ban, one the gir­dle, and the fourth the cloak. This left the tu­nic, or seam­less vest­ment reach­ing down to near the knees, to be cut up into four pieces, but when the sol­diers saw what an un­usual gar­ment it was, they de­cided to cast lots for it. Je­sus looked down on them while they di­vided his gar­ments, and the thought­less crowd jeered at him.

187:2.9It was well that the Ro­man sol­diers took pos­ses­sion of the Mas­ter’s cloth­ing. Oth­er­wise, if his fol­low­ers had gained pos­ses­sion of these gar­ments, they would have been tempted to re­sort to su­per­sti­tious relic wor­ship. The Mas­ter de­sired that his fol­low­ers should have noth­ing ma­te­rial to as­so­ciate with his life on earth. He wanted to leave man­kind only the mem­ory of a hu­man life ded­i­cated to the high spir­i­tual ideal of be­ing con­se­crated to do­ing the Fa­ther’s will.