Luke : Day 39

Read Luke 23:26-56

It’s hard for us to grasp how massive this event was: the eternal Son – God in human form – nailed to a wooden cross by soldiers and hung up to suffocate and die. The word excruciating, meaning intensely painful, comes from crucifixion, the Roman method of execution. The other gospels include more details, such as the crown of thorns that was pushed onto Jesus’ head and the fact that He was flogged (whipped). For these floggings, the Romans used a flagram – a multi-tailed whip with chunks of metal or bone at the ends, designed to rip through flesh. Some victims died just from the flogging.

The crucifixion itself involved the victim being nailed or tied to a wooden cross, which was then lifted up and dropped into a hole in the ground. The victim would have been naked, and the crucifixion would have happened beside a major route, so that as many people as possible would see – the Romans wanted people to fear the consequences of rebellion. So even as He hung on the cross, Jesus was subjected to mockery, as people challenged Him to save Himself.

Centuries before Christ’s death, the prophet Isaiah foretold that the Messiah would suffer:

“He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. 

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” 

(Isaiah 53:3-7)

Jesus did not save Himself. It wasn’t that the Messiah who had calmed the storms and raised dead people back to life had suddenly lost His power. It was because He was laying down His life for us.

One final detail – verse 45 says that the curtain of the temple was torn in half. This heavy curtain acted as a barrier to the Most Holy Place. Only the High Priest was allowed to enter God’s presence. But God tore the curtain, showing that because of the death of His Son we can come to the Father without animal sacrifices or priests. The person who trusts their life and future to Jesus Christ has peace with God, because their sin, which separates them from Holy God, has been completely paid for.

“Surely this was a righteous man.”

Luke 23:47