On This Day

After His scourging, Jesus’ condition must have been grave. By now, He had not slept, He had been abandoned by His disciples, He had been tried several times, being beaten along the way. And then, He was scourged. He was surely very weak from fatigue, pain and blood loss. Typically, the crucifixion victim was made to carry the horizontal cross-post [patibulum] from the city to the outskirts where the vertical post was usually in the ground. But, the soldiers had to make someone else do that for Him. _{Luke 23:26}

Once at the crucifixion site [Golgatha, Place of a Skull], the soldiers removed His clothes and likely laid Him down so that they could nail him to the patibulum. This would now expose his open wounds to the dirt on the ground, contaminating them and causing pain.

Driving iron spikes through His wrists undoubtedly pierced the median nerves, which run down the middle aspect of the forearm and wrist and into the hand. This would cause EXTREMELY severe, electric, shooting pain in the fingers, hands, wrists and forearms.

Then, once He was lifted, nailed to the patibulum, onto the vertical post [stipes] and was actually hanging, He surely had another surge of back pain as His wounds rubbed along the rough wood. Next, His feet would have been secured to the stipes, again likely piercing another set of nerves called the common peroneal nerves [that run along the fronto of the legs and feet]. While these nerves are not as large as the ones in the wrists, piercing them with an iron spike would also cause similar, severe pain.

While up to this point, Jesus likely had bled significantly, the actual crucifixion would not have caused much more bleeding. At this point, His biggest challenges were to deal with the pain and to breathe.

Normally, breathing is a passive event, meaning a person does not have to think about doing it or making it happen…it happens automatically. This is partly because of how the breathing muscles in the chest cavity function. When hanging, suspended from the wrists, it becomes increasingly difficult to perform passive exhalation [breathing out]. Thus, inhalation [breathing in] still happens on it’s own, but exhalation becomes shallow. The only way to overcome it is to make it happen by forcefully breathing out. In order to do this, Jesus would have to lift up on His nailed wrists [painful] and push up on His nailed feet [painful], which would also grind the wounded back on the post [painful]. … You can see how EXHAUSTING and DRAINING and PAINFUL it would be just to take ONE BREATH. …How many breaths have you taken without even thinking about it while reading this description? Now, imagine going through all that He must have just to take ONE.

Although the final cause of Jesus’ death was surely multifactorial, the primary causes were most likely shock [from losing too much blood during the pre-crucifixion events] and asphyxia [lack of breathing] from the physical constraints of the crucifixion itself.

Bittersweet it is, to think about these things. The excruciation that resulted in such triumph, glory, victory. [excruciating- comes from Latin excruciatus- ‘out of the cross’]

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us,

that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. _{2 Corinthians 5:21}

Hallelujah! Praise HIM. Thank You, Lord!

Reference:

Edwards, WD. On the Physical Death of Jesus. Journal of the American Medical Association. Vol 256. March, 1986.