Paper 187 Overview: The Crucifixion

Jesus was led to the crucifixion by Roman soldiers under the direction of a centurion, the same captain who had arrested him in Gethsemane. Following Roman custom, four soldiers were assigned to each person being crucified. While the two thieves were scourged before their execution, Jesus received no further physical punishment as the captain believed he had already been sufficiently scourged before his condemnation.

The crucifixion began at nine o'clock on Friday morning at Golgotha, with Jesus dying after approximately five and a half hours, much more quickly than most crucifixion victims. Throughout his suffering, Jesus displayed remarkable dignity, forgiveness, and spiritual mastery. He spoke several significant phrases from the cross, including words of forgiveness for his executioners, a promise of paradise to the repentant thief, provision for his mother's care, expressions of physical suffering, and finally his declaration of completion before commending his spirit to the Father.

After the two thieves were prepared for execution, the soldiers began their journey to Golgotha under the direction of a centurion. This captain oversaw twelve soldiers according to Roman protocol, which assigned four soldiers to each person being crucified. While the thieves were properly scourged before being taken to be crucified, Jesus was spared further physical punishment because the captain recognized he had already suffered enough.

Jesus approached his death on the cross as a voluntary act of his own free will. He had previously told his followers, "The Father loves and sustains me because I am willing to lay down my life. But I will take it up again. No one takes my life away from me—I lay it down of myself. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up." Just before nine o'clock that Friday morning, the soldiers led Jesus from the praetorium toward Golgotha, followed by approximately two hundred onlookers. This crowd consisted of enemies, curious spectators, and some who secretly sympathized with Jesus, while only a few Jewish leaders ventured out to witness his death.

Before leaving the praetorium courtyard, the soldiers placed the crossbeam on Jesus' shoulders, following the custom that required condemned prisoners to carry this beam to the execution site. The condemned did not carry the entire cross; the longer upright pieces for all three crosses had already been transported to Golgotha and firmly planted in the ground. According to protocol, the captain led the procession carrying small white boards inscribed with the criminals' names and crimes, which would later be mounted above their heads on the crosses. The board for Jesus, written by Pilate himself in Latin, Greek, and Aramaic, read: "Jesus of Nazareth—the King of the Jews," which greatly angered the Jewish authorities who unsuccessfully tried to have it modified.

As the procession moved through Jerusalem's streets, many Jewish women who had heard Jesus teach and witnessed his ministry of compassion wept openly at the sight of him being led to such a dishonorable death. Some even dared to follow alongside him, despite the fact that showing sympathy for a condemned criminal was strictly prohibited by law. When Jesus noticed their grief, he turned to them and said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but rather weep for yourselves and for your children," before prophesying the coming troubles for Jerusalem. By this point, Jesus was physically exhausted, having had neither food nor water since the Last Supper, no sleep, and having endured multiple trials and scourging. Shortly after passing through the city gate, Jesus collapsed under the weight of the crossbeam, and the Roman captain ordered a passerby named Simon from Cyrene to carry it the rest of the way. The procession arrived at Golgotha shortly after nine o'clock, where the soldiers began the process of crucifixion.

The soldiers first bound Jesus' arms with cords to the crossbeam, then nailed his hands to the wood. After hoisting this crossbeam onto the upright post and securing it firmly, they bound and nailed his feet to the wood using a single long nail to penetrate both feet. The cross was positioned relatively low to the ground, with Jesus' feet only about three feet above ground level, allowing him to hear all the mockery directed at him and enabling those present to clearly hear his words during the hours of torture and slow death that followed. Following Jewish objections to public nakedness, the Romans provided Jesus with a loin cloth before placing him on the cross.

When offered drugged wine that would have lessened his suffering, Jesus refused to drink it despite his thirst. He deliberately chose to maintain full human consciousness until the end, meeting death through voluntary submission to the complete human experience. Before Jesus was placed on his cross, the two thieves were already hanging on theirs, cursing and spitting at their executioners. In stark contrast, Jesus' only words as they nailed him to the crossbeam were, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." This profound expression of mercy revealed that such compassionate devotion had been the guiding principle of his entire life. After Jesus was secured on the cross, the captain attached Pilate's inscription above his head, infuriating the Jewish leaders who protested but could not change it since Roman soldiers stood guard.

As Jesus hung on the cross, his mother Mary arrived with John, Ruth, and Jude, just as the title was being mounted above Jesus' head. When Jesus saw them, he smiled but remained silent. Meanwhile, following tradition, the four Roman soldiers assigned to Jesus' crucifixion divided his garments among themselves - one taking his sandals, another his turban, the third his girdle, and the fourth his cloak. This left only his tunic, a seamless garment reaching to his knees, which they decided to cast lots for rather than dividing it. The Roman soldiers' possession of Jesus' clothing prevented his followers from later engaging in superstitious relic worship, as the Master wanted people to remember only his life of spiritual dedication, not to associate material objects with his earthly existence.

By half past nine that Friday morning, Jesus hung upon the cross with an increasingly large crowd gathering to witness the spectacle. Before eleven o'clock, approximately one thousand people had assembled, while throughout these terrible hours, unseen celestial hosts throughout the universe stood in silent witness as their Creator endured the most ignoble death of a condemned criminal. Standing near the cross at various times during the crucifixion were Mary (Jesus' mother), Ruth, Jude, John, Salome (John's mother), and several devoted women believers including Mary Magdalene and Rebecca. These friends watched in silent anguish as they observed Jesus' remarkable patience and fortitude amid his intense suffering.

Many passersby mocked Jesus, calling out taunts like "You who would destroy the temple and build it again in three days, save yourself" and "If you are the Son of God, why do you not come down from your cross?" Even the Jewish rulers joined in the ridicule, saying "He saved others, but himself he cannot save," while the two thieves also shouted insults at him. As noon approached on this special preparation day for Passover, the crowd dwindled to fewer than fifty observers. The soldiers settled in for their deathwatch, drinking cheap sour wine and mockingly toasting "the king of the Jews," yet they were surprised by Jesus' calm tolerance of their ridicule. When Jesus said, "I thirst," the captain moistened his lips with wine-soaked sponge on a javelin point, demonstrating that Jesus had chosen to live and die as an ordinary mortal without resorting to his supernatural powers.

While one of the thieves berated Jesus, saying, "If you are the Son of God, why do you not save yourself and us?", the other thief, who had previously heard Jesus teach, rebuked his fellow criminal. This second thief acknowledged their guilt compared to Jesus' innocence, saying, "Do you have no fear even of God? Do you not see that we are suffering justly for our deeds, but that this man suffers unjustly?" He then turned to Jesus with newfound faith and requested, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom." In response, Jesus looked at him with approval and promised, "Verily, verily, I say to you today, you shall sometime be with me in Paradise."

This moment demonstrated that even amid his own suffering, Jesus had time to listen to this confessor's faith and offer salvation. The thief, who had previously been aware of Jesus' teachings, finally surrendered his heart completely to the Master's message in his final hours of life. When witnessing Jesus' dignified manner of facing death, the thief could no longer resist the conviction that Jesus truly was the Son of God. This conversion story wasn't witnessed firsthand by John, who had temporarily left to bring Jesus' mother and other women to the crucifixion scene, but was later recorded based on the testimony of the Roman captain who eventually became a believer himself.

Shortly after the repentant thief received Jesus' promise, John returned with Jesus' mother and several women followers. Jesus then made provision for his mother's care, saying to her, "Woman, behold your son!" and to John, "My son, behold your mother!" He instructed them to leave the crucifixion site, and John took Mary to his temporary lodging in Jerusalem. Mary later returned to Bethsaida after Passover, where she lived in John's home for the remainder of her life, which lasted less than a year after Jesus' death. The other women withdrew a short distance but remained nearby until Jesus died and his body was removed from the cross.

Although it was early in the season for such weather, shortly after noon the sky darkened due to a sandstorm blowing in from the Arabian Desert. By one o'clock, the sky was so obscured that the sun was hidden, causing most of the remaining spectators to hurry back to the city. When Jesus died shortly after this hour, fewer than thirty people remained - the thirteen Roman soldiers and approximately fifteen believers, most of whom were women except for Jude (Jesus' brother) and John, who had returned just before Jesus died.

Around one o'clock, as the sandstorm intensified, Jesus began to lose human consciousness. Having already spoken his last words of mercy, forgiveness, and concern for his mother, his mind turned to passages from the Hebrew scriptures, particularly certain Psalms. Though too weak to speak clearly, his lips moved as these memorized passages passed through his fading consciousness. A few phrases were audible to those nearby, including "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" - a direct quote from the twenty-second Psalm. Jesus wasn't expressing doubt about God's presence; he was simply reciting scripture in his final moments. His last physical request came around half past one when he again said, "I thirst," and the captain once more moistened his lips with sour wine.

Just before three o'clock, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "It is finished! Father, into your hands I commend my spirit," and then bowed his head and died. The Roman centurion who witnessed Jesus' death was so moved that he struck his breast and declared, "This was indeed a righteous man; truly he must have been a Son of God," marking the beginning of his own belief in Jesus. While crucifixion victims often survived for days, Jesus' intense emotional and spiritual anguish brought his mortal life to an end in less than six hours. Because this was the preparation day for both Passover and the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders requested that the bodies be removed before sundown. When soldiers came to break the legs of the crucified men to hasten their deaths, they found Jesus already dead, but pierced his side with a spear to confirm his death.

In the midst of the darkness of the sandstorm, about half past three o’clock, David Zebedee sent out the last of the messengers carrying the news of the Master’s death. The last of his runners he dispatched to the home of Martha and Mary in Bethany, where he supposed the mother of Jesus stopped with the rest of her family.

After the death of the Master, John sent the women, in charge of Jude, to the home of Elijah Mark, where they tarried over the Sabbath day. John himself, being well known by this time to the Roman centurion, remained at Golgotha until Joseph and Nicodemus arrived on the scene with an order from Pilate authorizing them to take possession of the body of Jesus.

Thus ended a day of tragedy and sorrow for a vast universe whose myriads of intelligences had shuddered at the shocking spectacle of the crucifixion of the human incarnation of their beloved Sovereign; they were stunned by this exhibition of mortal callousness and human perversity.