29. The Crucifixion, the Sufferings on the Cross, the Death, and the Burial of Jesus Christ

Crucifixion was the most terrible and shameful form of capital punishment in antiquity—so shameful that, as Cicero says, “its very name should never approach the thoughts, eyes, or ears of a Roman citizen, still less his person.” It was of Eastern origin and long before its penetration into Europe was used among the Persians, Phoenicians, and Carthaginians. In Palestine it was first introduced by Alexander the Great when, after the capture of the stubbornly defended Tyre, he used this native form of punishment as an exemplary punishment for its rebellious inhabitants and crucified two thousand Tyrians. In Rome it was introduced by Crassus, who made a terrible application of it in punishing the slaves who had revolted under the leadership of Spartacus—lining the entire road from Rome to Capua with crosses bearing crucified rebel slaves—and it was then definitively adopted into the system of punishments under Augustus and was employed on a large scale in punishing various rebels and major criminals, violators of state law and order. For the Jews, this form of capital punishment was all the more terrible in that it was exclusively pagan. In the Old Testament, if there are references to “hanging on a tree,” this hanging was usually performed on a body already dead, or was in general an exceptional phenomenon permitted by certain kings under the influence of the surrounding pagan peoples. In any case, to crucify a Jew would, under ordinary conditions, have been entirely out of the question for the Jews themselves, since the national feeling of the people would have revolted against it. And if now the chief priests, Jewish leaders, and rabble furiously demanded crucifixion for Christ of Nazareth, this shows to what incredible degree of malice and hatred the “chosen people” had been brought by the prince of this world, who wished thereby to prove the complete triumph of the dark principle on earth.

But now the sentence began to be carried out. The soldiers knocked together a cross, loaded it on the shoulders of the condemned man, and the terrible procession moved beyond the city toward the place of execution—Golgotha, or “the place of a skull,” so named for its dome-like shape. After the condemned man, as was customary, a crowd of people moved; and now it was all the larger because the very person of the Prisoner and all the circumstances of His trial had stirred the entire city with its numerous pilgrims. Along the way, the weight of the cross—on which hung the sins of all the world—broke down Christ’s organism, exhausted by all the preceding spiritual and bodily sufferings, and He fell beneath His burden. So as not to delay the execution, the soldiers accompanying the Prisoner loaded the cross onto a certain Simon of Cyrene whom they encountered along the way, who was thereby granted the great honor of participating in bearing the redemptive cross. The whole character of this terrible procession was heartbreaking, and many women, unable to endure all its horrors, wept bitterly. The Divine Sufferer noticed them and urged them to weep not for Him but for themselves and for the terrible things that awaited the entire Jewish people and the promised land. Along with Christ two robbers were also led to execution, whose crucifixion in the present terrible setting Pilate wished to strike fear into other robbers and thereby at least partially undermine the widespread banditry of the time, which often crossed over into political insurrection.

Upon arrival at the place of execution, all three crosses were laid on the ground, and the cross of Jesus as the chief prisoner was placed in the middle for greater mockery. After this, all His garments were stripped from Him and the most terrible moment of the execution followed—the nailing to the cross. Christ was laid on the instrument of torture, His arms were stretched along the crossbeam, and in the middle of each palm a great iron nail was positioned and driven by hammer blows into the wood. A nail likewise was driven through His feet, and then the soldiers with great effort began to raise the cross with its nailed living burden in order to set it in the prepared hole. And in this terrible moment of unimaginable suffering there rang out the voice of the Savior of humanity with an all-forgiving plea for His bestial and merciless killers: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” It is understandable what unbearable torments the crucified could experience; but these torments were all the more terrible in that the unfortunate victims could languish on the cross for a long time, and the sufferers themselves with a cry begged those around them to put them to death, which they considered a deliverance. Such was the death to which Christ was condemned; and though for Him it was mercifully hastened by all He had previously endured, He still languished on the cross from midday and almost until sundown before He “gave up the spirit.”

When the cross had already been raised, the Jewish leaders for the first time clearly noticed the mortal insult to themselves from Pilate’s side. In their blind fury they had imagined that the manner of the crucifixion was a mockery directed at Jesus; but now, seeing Him hanging between two robbers but on a higher cross, it became instantly clear to them that this execution was a public mockery of themselves. On a white wooden board smeared with gypsum, projecting so visibly above the head of Jesus, there appeared on the cross a black inscription in the three civilized languages of the ancient world—in those three languages of which at least one was surely known to everyone in the assembled crowd—namely, in official Latin, common Greek, and the native Aramaic. The inscription proclaimed that this man, suffering in this manner a shameful slave’s death, this man crucified before all the world between two criminals, was “the King of the Jews.” The inscription read: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” When the Jews grasped what wicked mockery Pilate had subjected them to, this entirely poisoned the pleasure of their malicious triumph, and they sent a deputation to Pilate requesting him to change the inscription that offended them. “Do not write,” they said, “King of the Jews; but that He said, I am King of the Jews.” But the boldness of Pilate, which had so quickly evaporated at the mention of Caesar, now revived afresh. He was glad by whatever means to spite and thwart the people whose seditious cries had forced him in the morning to act against his will and conscience. Few could express their haughty contempt with such force as the Romans. Without deigning even to justify his action, Pilate at once dismissed the proud hierarchs with a short and contemptuous reply: “What I have written, I have written.”

To prevent the possibility of any attempt to take Him down from the cross (there were known cases of criminals being taken down and restored to life), a guard of four soldiers with a centurion was posted by the crosses. The garments of the victims always fell as plunder to those who had to bear this heavy and unpleasant duty. Therefore the soldiers, not suspecting in the least how precisely they were fulfilling the mysterious predictions of an ancient prophecy, proceeded to divide the garments of Jesus Christ among themselves. The cloak they tore into four parts, probably ripping it along the seams; but the tunic was made of one continuous fabric, and to tear it apart would only ruin it. So they resolved to give it as the property of the one on whom the lot should fall. Having finished the division, the soldiers sat down and kept watch over the crucified, passing the tedious hours with food and drink, conversation, and dice.

The spectacle was revolting. The majority of the people apparently stood in silence and watched the crosses; but some of those passing by the cross—perhaps some of the false witnesses and other plotters of the preceding night—continued to mock Jesus in insulting exclamations and jeers, in particular proposing that He come down from the cross and save Himself, if He was so almighty as to be able to destroy the temple and build it in three days. And the chief priests, scribes, and elders themselves—less restrained, less compassionate than the mass of the people—were not ashamed to disgrace their gray hairs and their office, and by their taunts to make yet more unbearable the already unendurable sufferings of the Divine Sufferer. They mockingly consulted among themselves before the very cross: “He saved others; He cannot save Himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” The rabble and the soldiers echoed these taunts, and around the Sufferer there was as it were a wild celebration of bloodthirstiness and heartlessness. But Christ now stood above all the pitiful humanity that was madly celebrating the execution of its Savior, and remained silent. And this divine silence was for certain hearts more eloquent than any sermon. It particularly struck one of the robbers, who not only ceased the coarse taunts with which both unfortunate criminals had been addressing the Crucified among them, but began to rebuke his companion for his inappropriate abuse. A profound change had taken place in his soul. According to tradition, this “good thief” had once saved the life of the holy Infant and the Ever-Virgin during their flight to Egypt; and he had surely heard not a little about the Galilean Prophet who called to Himself all sinners and tax collectors. Seeing the infinitely meek and all-forgiving face of the Crucified, there revived in him all that was best remaining in his heart; and he, turning to Jesus, cried out with tenderness: “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” And to this humble prayer of the repentant criminal, Christ—who had until then kept silence—immediately replied: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

But near the cross there were not only enemies of the Crucified. There were also people whose hearts suffered for the Divine Sufferer. At a distance stood several women who watched Him with agonizing horror and compassion. Most of them were the women who had served Him in Galilee and had come thence to the feast with other Galilean pilgrims. Most prominent in this horror-stricken group were His mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Clopas, the mother of James and Joses, and Salome the wife of Zebedee. Some of them drew closer and closer to the cross, and the languid gaze of the Savior fell upon His Most Holy Mother, when she stood with the weapon of sorrow piercing her soul beside the disciple whom He loved. Her present orphaned condition smote His tender filial heart with grief, and even on the cross He showed concern for her. After the resurrection she was destined to be with the apostles, and to that apostle whom He loved the most—who was closest to Him in heart and life—it was best to entrust the care of her as well. To him therefore—to John, whom He loved more than His brothers, to John whose head at the Last Supper had inclined upon His breast—He gave her into his care. “Woman,” He said to her in few words breathing profound tenderness, “behold, your son”—and turning to John: “Behold, your mother.” He could not move His nailed hands, but could indicate by an inclination of His head. In silent emotion they heard these words, and from that time forward, leading her away from the spectacle that only tormented her soul with fruitless pain, “that disciple took her to his own home.”

It was already midday, and in the holy city the sun should have been illuminating the terrible spectacle with the scorching rays of our summer. But instead the sky was dark, and the midday sun on this great and terrible day of the Lord “turned to darkness.” This could not be a natural eclipse, because at Passover it was the full moon; but this was one of those “signs” which the Pharisees had sought in vain during Christ’s earthly ministry. The very air seemed full of portents, and underfoot the earth trembled and shook. All this must inevitably have brought even the most senseless to reason, and the mockeries ceased because everyone—guilty and innocent alike—was seized with awe and trembling. But still more terrible than this outer darkness was the horror that seized Christ’s soul, bearing now upon Himself the entire burden of the sins of humanity; and He cried out at the ninth hour in the vernacular: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” — that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Amid the dull stirring of the crowd, many did not catch the whole exclamation and catching the word “Eli” imagined He was calling Elijah, and waited in fear to see whether indeed this terrible avenger of justice would come. Meanwhile Christ was experiencing unimaginable torments, and at this moment, weakened by suffering, He said in a faint suffering voice: “I thirst.” One of those present filled a sponge from a vessel standing nearby containing a mixture of sour wine and water—the usual drink of Roman soldiers—and placing it on a hyssop stalk, offered it to the parched lips of the Sufferer, mockingly remarking at the same time: “Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him.” Now the end of the sufferings of the Son of God drew near. Feeling the approach of death, He cried out in a loud voice: “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit!” Then, making a last effort, He uttered the final word: “It is finished!” — and immediately gave up the spirit, His head falling lifelessly upon His chest.

Thus ended the earthly life of the God-man, who came to save the world. In order to redeem sinful humanity from the ancestral curse and death, He took upon Himself the entire immeasurable burden of the world’s sin and, as its redemption, endured all the physical as well as moral sufferings that can fall to the lot of man. But upon the infinite depth of the moral torment He endured—considering that He had to endure all this from precisely that people which for whole millennia had been raised and cherished by God as a chosen and beloved people above all other peoples, a people upon whom precisely rested all the hopes of the future as a beacon amid the deep religious-moral darkness—one remarkable circumstance points, determining the physiological cause of Christ’s death. He, as is known, died on the cross earlier than the robbers, so that the Romans did not need to apply to Him the barbaric custom of breaking the legs, and death generally ensued more quickly than was usual. There were cases when the crucified lived on the cross two or even three days; whereas Christ gave up the spirit after six hours (from the third to the ninth hour) of being nailed to the cross; and this circumstance—especially in view of the fact that He was in the full bloom of years and had enjoyed blessed health throughout His earthly life—had already seemed remarkable to Christian antiquity, which ascribed it to a supernatural cause. But there was also a more immediate cause. When a soldier, in order to make sure of the actual death of the crucified Christ, thrust a spear into His side, blood and water flowed from the wound thus made, and this clearly indicates that the immediate cause of death was a rupture of the heart, occurring as a result of immeasurable mental shock. An excess of joy or grief, as is known, often causes the rupture of certain tissues of the heart, the consequence of which is the penetration of blood into what is called the pericardium or the sac filled with a colorless watery fluid in which the heart is suspended. Under ordinary circumstances only an examination performed after death makes it possible to establish this fact; but in the case of Christ it is fully attested for us by the soldier’s lance thrust. Furthermore, at death from a rupture of the heart a constant phenomenon is observed: the dying person suddenly convulsively raises a hand to his chest and utters a sharp, piercing cry. The Savior could not make such a movement with His hand, since His hands were nailed; but the evangelists clearly testify to the final loud cry after which came instantaneous death. Thus the Savior of the world literally died of a broken heart. This infinitely loving heart could not endure the shameful self-blindness to which men had succumbed, who in their frenzied malice did not know what they were doing; could not endure that boundless madness which had caused men with their own hands and in furious rage to cut down their own tree of life with their own hands—to torture and put to death by their own hands their greatest Benefactor and Savior. Truly great is the dark force of evil that caused humanity with its own hands and in furious rage to undermine its own tree of life, to tyrannize and put to death with its own hands its greatest Benefactor and Savior. At the sight of this, not only such a tender, infinitely loving heart as was the heart of Christ, but even the granite heart of the mountains, might have burst. It was not for nothing that at the moment of Christ’s death the rocks were split and the sun was darkened. The completed crime appalled even soulless nature.

The death of Christ was indeed accompanied by extraordinary signs. A priest who was entering the sanctuary at that very hour to offer the evening sacrifice saw to his horror that the temple veil was torn in two from top to bottom. This veil was a special symbol of the body of Christ as the tabernacle of the Godhead, and by its tearing it testified that henceforth a new and living way of entry into the sanctuary was opened—a way that Christ “opened for us through the veil, that is, His flesh” (Heb. 10:19). At the same time the earth shook and the rocks were split; great stones rolled away from the tombs, “and the tombs were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.” These astonishing circumstances, together with everything that had been observed in the Crucified, disturbed even the cruel and careless indifference of the Roman soldiers. Upon the centurion commanding them, the whole spectacle produced a particularly deep impression. Standing before the cross and watching the dying Savior, he glorified God and exclaimed: “Truly this Man was righteous”—nay, even more: “Truly this Man was the Son of God.” Even the people, now utterly sobered from the intoxication of fury, began to feel in their guilty conscience that the spectacle they had witnessed was more terrible than might have been expected, and, returning to Jerusalem, beating their breasts, they wailed. And well they might wail! This was the last drop in the overflowing cup of lawlessness; it was the beginning of the end for the city and for the people.

The day was drawing to a close, and with sunset the Sabbath began—“and that Sabbath was a high day,” for the Passover coincided with the Sabbath. It was necessary to see to the removal from the crosses, so as not to leave traces of the terrible event for the bright festival. Therefore the Jewish elders addressed Pilate with a request to remove the crucified, and he, finding it superfluous to further irritate his dangerous enemies, assented to this request and sent soldiers to examine the crucified and, if they were still alive, to break their legs to hasten death, so that they could then be buried. The soldiers broke the legs of only the two robbers, whereas Christ was already breathless; and the actual fact of His death was ascertained by a soldier piercing His side with his spear, from which blood and water flowed—clearly attesting the onset of death. Thus over Christ was fulfilled the prophetic word of Scripture: “Not one of His bones shall be broken.”

The elders took no concern for the burial of the crucified criminals, leaving it to friends and relatives, if any existed, to bury the executed in their obscure graves. But the burial of Christ was taken care of by one important person, who asked Pilate’s permission to bury Him out of his own devotion and desire. This was Joseph of Arimathea—a wealthy man of noble character and unblemished life, a prominent member of the Sanhedrin. He was one of those secret disciples of Christ who, sympathizing with Him in their souls, did not have sufficient courage because of their social position to openly confess their faith in Him. Only now the terrible death of the Teacher had driven away all fear from him, and he went to Pilate with a request for permission to bury the body of Christ. Pilate, out of respect for the prominent petitioner, agreed to his request after first making certain of the actual death of the Crucified; and the noble Joseph quickly set about the work. His courage infused boldness also into another similar follower of Christ—Nicodemus, who as a wealthy man provided for the most sumptuous burial—with every manner of spices, as was done at the burial of Jewish kings. The approach of the Sabbath, however, made it impossible to perform all the burial rites. They took the body down from the cross and, hastily wrapping it in costly white linens, laid it in a newly hewn tomb that Joseph had prepared for himself in the neighboring garden and now yielded to his adored Teacher. Present at the burial were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses, who—when the burial was completed and after the great stone had been rolled to the entrance of the tomb—sat for a while at the tomb in sorrowful meditation and then went home to prepare spices and perfumes for the body of their beloved Teacher and Lord. There they were met by the other disciples and female followers, who, recovering from the horror of the day just past, were gradually gathering together in order to spend the coming great feast in brotherly unity and fellowship—a feast that for them was a feast of deep sorrow, hopeless grief, and inconsolable tears.

Meanwhile the extraordinary circumstances of Christ’s death did not go unnoticed by His enemies either, and into their malicious hearts an inexplicable fear began to steal. On the very next day after the crucifixion—that is, on the Sabbath—contrary to all custom and law, a council of the elders was convened at which the members of the Sanhedrin evidently congratulated one another on the success in achieving their important goal of destroying the Galilean so hated and dangerous to them, and discussed how to finally erase all traces of the Crucified. They evidently feared that with the crucifixion of Jesus not everything was yet over. Some of them recalled that “that deceiver” had foretold His resurrection on the third day, and therefore considered it necessary to take precautionary measures, “lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away and say to the people, He has risen from the dead. And the last deception will be worse than the first.” To this end they addressed Pilate with a request for a guard at the tomb; but Pilate declined this new concern and left it to them to take care of it themselves, “as they knew how.” Having received this permission, they—despite the sanctity of the great Sabbath, for the slightest violation of which they had with such fury persecuted the Teacher they had now crucified—“went and set a guard at the tomb, and set a seal on the stone.”