In our world today the crucifixion of Jesus Christ has been "made over" and "re-touched" with the brushes of cowardice and timidity at the hands of "preachers" who do not want to offend anyone to such an extent that the picture of that bloody day in the minds of many is simply one of a sweet, delicate, Spring setting with butterflies and blue birds everywhere as Jesus is mildly buffeted, sporting a pretty crown on His head made of ivy while tip-toeing through a field of wild flowers on His way to the Cross.  My friends, let me show you a picture of the REAL crucifixion of Jesus:

"....and when he (Pilate) had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified" (Matthew 27:26). Many Christians are not at all aware of what "scourging" means. Many think it means that Pilate simply gave Jesus a harsh "verbal" thrashing before sending Him away to be crucified. Let’s look at what this "scourging" really was and what it did to Jesus’ body.

Jesus would have first been stripped. His hands would then have been tied over his head and shackled to a metal ring to keep him from moving. He would then be securely tied to a post and the Roman soldier would begin his unimaginable torture. The "scourge" itself that they used to "whip" Jesus consisted of several 18 to 24 inch long straps of leather fastened to a wooden handle, and at the ends of those pieces of leather were unimaginable sharp pieces of metal, wire, glass, and jagged fragments of bone. Every time Jesus was struck with the whip those pieces of metal, glass, wire, and bone would sink deep into the flesh and be raked across His body, often times even catching Him in the face, neck, legs, and arms as well as His back. The sharp pieces of metal, wire, glass, and bone on the whip would embed themselves so deeply into Jesus’ body that as the soldier drew back the whip in preparation for the next agonizing blow it would rip away chunks of flesh with it. Historical records describe a victims back as being so mutilated after a Roman scourging that their spine would actually be exposed. Sometimes even the bowels of the victim would actually spill out through the open massive wounds created by the whip. With so many blood vessels sliced open blood would have begun pouring through Jesus’ open wounds turning the ground red, causing a drastic drop in blood pressure, an extremely rapid and irregular heartbeat, excessive thirst and much much more. After the scourging of Jesus, scripture says that the Roman soldiers beat Him a second time with their hands and with a reed. Then they put on him a "crown" of razor sharp thorns which was not laid gently upon Him, it was pressed hard so that the thorns were driven deep into His head. What toll did all of this have on Jesus’ body? Scripture states that Jesus’ physical body was shredded so badly that He was nearly beyond recognition. We must also remember that Jesus had not slept at all for some time before all of this and that a very short time before this horrible scourging He had already been very severely beaten and tormented by the Roman soldiers, including the plucking of His beard (meaning that they cruelly reached into His beard, wrapped their hand around a fist full of hair and then ripped it from His face.) This is the real scourging that Jesus received. As horrendous as all of this was it was merely an introduction to what was to follow. Matthew 27:26 tells us, "…and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified." This incredible scourging was merely the "preparation" for Jesus’ execution as He is then forced to carry his cross to the site of His own crucifixion. Once there He was laid upon the Cross with its rough splintery wood rubbing into the raw, bloody, open flesh of His back. Spikes about 7 inches long and 3/8 of an inch in diameter were then driven into His wrists which would hit the area of the median nerve, causing waves of severe pain up the arms to the shoulders and neck. The awkward way that they positioned His body before nailing His feet to the cross placed His rib cage in a fixed position which made it extremely difficult to exhale, and absolutely impossible to take a full breath. And yet even in the midst of all this unfathomable pain, Jesus thought of others rather than Himself. His very first words from the cross were words of compassion, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). He thought of His mother who stood by the cross weeping, and asked his beloved disciple John to take care of her. Neither you nor I can grasp the tremendous levels of pain and suffering that Jesus endured. And what needs to sink deep into your heart is a clear understanding that Jesus willingly took upon Himself all of this excruciating, humiliating, torturous treatment for one reason and one reason only....that reason is....YOU! Jesus took this agony and shame not because He was powerless to do anything about it, but because of His incredible love for humanity. Do you fully understand the enormity of this act of love? If it does not cause you to fall to your knees, sobbing, trying to wrap your mind around this incredible, incredible love of Jesus, then you are not even close to realizing its true depth, width, and height.

However, neither the scourging or even the crucifixion itself were the worst that Jesus endured. Rather, it was the moment when He cried out "my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46). Throughout all of eternity Jesus had never known anything less than constant, uninterrupted fellowship with the Father. But God cannot look upon sin, and when Jesus took upon Himself all the sin of mankind throughout all the ages, when "He Who knew no sin was made to be sin" on our behalf, God had to look away. He could not look upon His Son as He took upon Himself the sin penalty of the world. Among all of His sufferings it was this moment that far and above overshadowed all of Jesus’ physical pain. And then at the ninth hour Jesus said, "it is finished....and He gave up the ghost" (John 19:30). The ninth hour was the time at which every day a sacrificial lamb was killed in the Jewish temple for the sins of Israel. Fittingly, it was the ninth hour that the sacrificial Lamb of God, Jesus, was killed for the sins of the entire world. The Cross of Christ is not the symbol of a victim, the Cross is a demonstration of a love that neither you or I can comprehend.

Of course the story does not end there with Jesus hanging on the Cross for if it did, we would be no better off than we were before His sacrificial death. In reality, everything that I have written in this article up to this point has been only an "introduction" to my real message - a message consisting of ten little words that changed the world, words which have changed my life for all eternity, and I hope that you have allowed them to change your life as well........ "He is not here....He is risen from the dead" (Matthew 28: 6&7). HALLELUJAH, CHRIST AROSE!

God bless you,
Mark Shutts