Why was Jesus crucified? (Mark 15:22 - 32)

Short teachings from Hillcrest Church exploring the background, context, meaning, and significance of the account of Jesus of Nazareth in the book of Mark.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, Tim here. We are diving deep into the book of Mark for Lend. So in the last episode, we looked at, we we talked about Simon S. Cyrene carrying the patabulum, the crossbeam. In this episode, I want to talk about the crucifixion itself. And just what crucifixion meant. Crucifixion was horrific. And I want to just, somebody emailed me the question this week: why crucifixion? Why, it's not just that Jesus died, but he died by crucifixion. Why crucifixion? In fact, the New Testament letters, if you pay attention, they actually make a big deal that Jesus didn't merely die, but he died on a cross. Why the emphasis on the cross? And what did the cross mean? The cross was the most dehumanizing, degrading way that someone could be killed in the ancient world. We read in the book of Mark. You know, after Simon Syrene, he helps carry the Pathbulum. And then in verse, in chapter 15, verse 22, it says they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha, which means the place of the skull. Golgotha is most likely just outside of one of the city gates of Jerusalem, and probably place of the skull because they regularly executed people there. And you need to understand this is this is what this is how crucifixion was done. It was done at um at major intersections, on highway on ramps. It was done, they didn't do it in the city because that wouldn't be allowed, right outside the city walls. And remember, this is Passover festival. Like Jerusalem is crammed with tens of thousands of people, the most public place possible, right outside of the city walls, right by the entryway to the city. This is where he's being crucified. We read that they uh verse 23, they offered him wine mixed with myrrh. This would have been understood to be a uh a painkiller, but Jesus doesn't take it. He takes the full pain upon himself. And then in verse 24, they crucified him. It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. And the written notice of charge against him read the king of the Jews, it was hung on the cross above him. And then in the next um, the next three or four verses talks all about the insulting, the humiliation. Um, those passed by hurled insults at him, shaking his head, their heads. The chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him. Um he saved others, but he can't say himself. Let the Messiah, the king of Israel, come down from the cross. And those crucified also heaped insults on him. And and just the emphasis of the public humiliation. And and you know, I've talked to before about this. This they live in an honor-shame society. Honor is the most important thing in a person's life. Shame or dishonor is the worst thing that can happen to you. To be um, to be mocked by others is dishonoring, to be naked publicly is dishonoring, to have physical violence done to you is dishonoring. Like every aspect of this is as dishonoring as possible. Jesus would have been stripped naked, the flogging would have taken the flesh off his back, um, then he is nailed through his wrists and his feet. They've even found in Jerusalem and the museums there you can find heel bones with rusted nails still in them from the first century from other victims of crucifixion in this time and place, and he's nailed up. And then the idea is the the whole point of crucifixion is not a quick and painless death. The point is to be nakedly held, nakedly pinned up, bleeding for as long as possible in a public place to maximally humiliate and degrade and dehumanize someone that would have lost their bowels. Ancient writers talk about birds picking at the victims and dogs picking at the victims. Um, that like the whole point. I mean, you can imagine like people spitting at them, throwing rotten food at them. Like the point is to degrade a human being and to treat them like refuse. This is what the cross is about. In ancient Roman society, like Roman citizens weren't crucified, they were beheaded. There was more dignified ways. Like crucifixion was reserved for slaves and for insurrectionists, like the lowest of the low. This is who is crucified, and this is what is happening to Jesus. Even the word, the Latin word crux, was basically considered a curse word. Like you didn't say it in polite society. Like the lower classes would hurl the word crux around like a swear word. But if you were in polite society, you didn't even say this word out loud. It was unmentionable. Crucifixion was horror. It was the worst possible fate. It discredited a person to the utmost degree. Looking at a couple books here. I've got uh one book on this. Martin Hangel has a wonderful book on the the uh crucifixion, it's kind of a historical study. Um it's a shorter book if you're interested. Hangel talks about the varieties of the ways people were crucified. There's no kind of one-way umgel uh reports what Seneca says. Seneca is a first century uh Roman writer. I see crosses there, not just one kind, but but made in many different ways. Some have their victims with their head down to the ground, some impale their private parts, others stretch their arms out on the gibbet. The point was um essentially these Roman soldiers, uh these men of violence, um they, I mean, just imagine like the most violent men being given permission, do whatever you want, entertain yourself in the way you abuse this other human being. That's ultimately what crucifixion is. There's no one way to crucify someone. It's these, uh, it's just the most violent imaginations of humanity being lived out on another human being. Um looking at Fleming Rutledge's book on the crucifixion here. She says, victims of crucifixion lived on their crosses for periods varying from three or four hours to three or four days. The whole point was to keep them alive. She goes on, another aspect of the crucifixion is that the crucified person gasping and heaving on the cross is forced to be their own executioner. The whole point is um, you may have heard this before, they suffocate, they lose the strength to hold themselves up. And when they finally give up, they suffocate themselves. They can't intake air anymore. And so to follow Jesus, to understand what God did on the cross, is to reflect upon the fact that God did not merely come and die, God died on a cross. God died the most degrading death that human beings have come up with. And if you begin to understand this, I think the things we read later on in the New Testament stand out in all the more stark relief. I mean, take everything that I've just told you, like the absolute dehumanizing reality of the cross and how it dishonors a person to the utmost degree. It strips them of their humanity and dignity, that you can't even say this word in polite society. And then imagine, I mean, Paul says things, Galatians 6.14. He says, May I never boast, boast honor, shame language, may I never have honor, may I never find value, my own self-honour in anything except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. I mean, he's essentially using these vulgar terms over and across, crucified, like over and over, because this is what the world did to his king. And it flips his world upside down. This is why in Philippians, when um when Paul writes about the descent of Jesus in Philippians 2.8, he says that he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

unknown 9:04

Why?

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Because the cross was the ultimate dismissal of another human being. Um Corinthians. Chapter one, verse twenty-two, Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. Stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. But for those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. And so, uh, I guess, friends, as we come, as we walk through Holy Week, I would encourage you to reflect on what does it mean that the Son of God did not merely die, but the Son of God was crucified. What does it mean that God was crucified? What does that say about just the heinousness of sin? What does it say about the death of love of our God to rescue us? What does it say about a God and his identification with the suffering of humanity in this world? To understand the story of Jesus is to grapple with the story of God, the ultimate being in all the universe, who comes down in the person of Jesus, the God man, the one truly good and just human who has ever walked this earth, the divinity in him, and that it is this one who is crucified for our sake. May we may we see the power of the good news more clearly this week. Because we've grappled with the question of God crucified. Praise and peace.