Part One, An Analytical Look at the Cross

The Crown
The crown of thorns wasn’t blackberry thorns that tear the hide from your hands. These thorns were 4 to 6 inches long. The crown was placed on Jesus’ head and then a rod was used to smash it down. The thorns pierced Christ’s head to the skull. It hit the nerves that would set off migraine-like pain at every point of entry from each thorn. We whine and cry over one little headache and grab a handful of pills. I don’t belittle migraine sufferers because I am one. But Jesus couldn’t grab some Ibuprophen or Tylenol. He suffered thru every scrape and puncture the crown of thorns made.
Thank you, Father, for sending Your Son to stand in proxy for me.

The Scourging Post
Jesus was beaten about the face so much his own mother did not recognize him. The soldiers took Jesus by his beard and yanked the whiskers out by the handfuls. They blindfolded him and took turns beating his face. Then the laughed and heckled Him, “Come on Prophet, tell us who hit you this time?” We aren’t talking about just an old street fight on the corner. We are talking about cruel soldiers of the Roman guard. They were trained to inflict pain. Their job was to torture to the point of death. Muscle bound men, intent on knocking Jesus out. He was bound and brutally beaten. His teeth knocked out. His jaw likely became disjointed and would have become difficult to open and close. His eyes swelled shut. His teeth sticking through the cuts on his cheeks. Perhaps, even his cheek bones shown through the cuts under His eyes. His forehead swelled from the thorns and the massive beating as his sinus cavities collapsed. “He was bruised for our iniquities…” Or better said, because of our sins. “The chastisement of our peace was upon Him”.

The Stripes
By His stripes (lashes) we are healed. Those stripes were brutally applied. First Christ was strapped to a scourging post by his wrists. He was forced to kneel and then was hoisted up just far enough where his knees couldn’t touch the ground, putting his body into a very awkward and painfully tiring position. This stretched his skin on his back and caused his shoulder blades to flare out.

The whip wasn’t that of the ones you see in western movies. This whip was called the cat-of-nine-tails. It had 9 strands coming out of a handle. On these were attached pottery shards that were jagged and sharp. There were fragments of sheep bone and the end had round metal balls to add an impact that helped the rest of the whip penetrate the flesh. The whip was dipped in animal blood prior to its use so that the whip strands would stick and grip the victim’s body. Then, yanking it back would rip the skin. The one doing the whipping would twirl it around and around until it was whistling in the air, then, with a sickening thud, strike the victim. As it was pulled away flesh would tear from the body drenched in blood. It literally shredded the hide. This was repeated time and again. Eventually exposing rib bones and the internal parts of the back to dirt and disease and contamination of the blood on the whip. Christs’ back looked more like chunks of hamburger than human skin.

This also caused breathing to become excruciatingly painful. Thank you, Jesus, for suffering that we can proclaim our healing. If we could only truly picture this and believe it was done so we could walk in divine health and healing.

Utter Shame
“Marvel not if you are hated because they first hated me.”

I can’t imagine the shame Jesus bore as he was paraded around after the beating. They placed a purple robe on his tattered and bruised body. The blood causing the fabric to glue to his body as it dried. All the taunts and mocking, “Hail King of the Jews. Look at him, look at his crown and robe.”

A week prior they were praising him, singing, “Hosanna to the Highest.” Now they are making fun of him. The betrayal he must have felt mentally. Remember He gave up all to become human with like feelings as we have. The only difference between us and Him was He stayed focused on His mission. To unite the human race back to God. To reconcile a debt that He never incurred. Can you imagine?

“Here it is! I know you didn’t borrow this money because a pure stranger across the nation borrowed it. But if you don’t pay it, we will garnish your wages. We will take you to court and have a lien put on everything you own. If you fail to pay it, we will take it away and sell it. But you will still owe us. Everything!”

Back to the robe. After being paraded around, mocked and scorned, donkey dung likely thrown at Him, humiliation at the highest level, his blood caked into the fabric, a soldier walks up and brutally rips the robe off. Thereby reopening all the wounds on his back, exposing him once again to the dirty environment and infection, creating pain we can only imagine.