The Crucifixion

Saturday, March 30 | by Dr. Brent Thomason

A Note About the Video

Video Transcript:

We're here on site in the Old City of Jerusalem, and just beyond these walls is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the place where underneath the cobblestone streets and the rubble is Golgotha, the place of the skull where Jesus was crucified.

It's Saturday of Passion Week. Now whereas on Palm Sunday, we stood rejoicing at the side of our King. Today, we're going to sit in sorrow at the side of our Savior.

And I want us to imagine the side of our Savior hanging on that tree. Now, by the time Jesus got to the cross, you need to realize He had already suffered to the point of exhaustion.

I mean, just consider the string of events leading up to the cross.

Thursday night, he's in the garden, sweating drops of blood and agony, until this angry mob appears and apprehends him and leads him away. He's then mocked and beaten by the Sanhedrin, spit upon,  he's blindfolded and then beaten in the face with fists. Only then are we told that the rooster actually crowed, which means Jesus has been up all night with no sleep and no rest.

He's been drugged all over the city, from Caiaphas' home to Pilot's palace to Herod's headquarters back to Pilot again.

He’s scourged with a cat of nine tails and 39 lashes.  The soldiers force this crown of thorns upon his head and then proceed to beat his head with the rods and slap him in the face.

You see, he's already so exhausted, he can't even carry his own cross something that the other two criminals obviously managed to do.

And when he arrives at the place of the skull, he's fastened to the cross by three spikes, one in each hand and, of course, one driven through both heel bones.

It's heartbreaking. It's despairing. It's this horrific scene.

But I want us to consider this scene from one person's eyes in particular, and those are the eyes of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Now I can imagine she is awoken in the middle of the night on Thursday night by a fellow disciple bringing this terrible news that Jesus has been taken into custody and carted off to Caiaphas' home.

Perhaps you're a parent, and you've been woken up in the middle of the night from a phone call; it's never good news. Perhaps this is also what happened to Mary.

I'm sure she waited outside in the courtyard of Caiaphas' home and then followed the crowd from the Sanhedrin to Caiaphas to Pilate to Herod and back to Pilate again.

Since Scripture tells us that Mary is there with several women at the foot of the cross, it's reasonable to believe that she would have been one of those included in that group of women following Jesus down the Via Dolorosa.  

At one point in time on that trip, Jesus pauses, and he turns to the women, and he commands them, "Stop sobbing. Stop breathing for me rather than weep for yourselves."

When Jerusalem is overrun. I can only imagine as she observed the soldiers hammering the nails, which pierced Jesus, that she recalled Simeon's own prophecy to her just when Jesus was a month old in her arms and the temple.

Simeon said, "Behold, this child is appointed for the Fall and Rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed, and the sword will pierce even your own soul."

I can imagine even Mary,  violently sobbing when Jesus looks down from the cross and says, "O, Woman, behold your son," and then turns to John and says," John, behold your mother."

That was the moment that Jesus turned over the care of his mother to His beloved disciple, John.

I mean, think about it. That is her baby boy on the cross, the one she cared for.

The one the angels announced. That one whose birth shepherds gathered from the fields and kings traveled from great distances bringing great gifts to Jesus.

She endangered even her own life, becoming a refugee to Egypt just to protect this baby boy from Herod's wrath. I mean, that is the boy that she lost in Jerusalem at the age of 12.

She was there for most of his ministry; it was even her who prompted him to perform his first miracle at Cana.

That's her baby boy, the one she's cared for her whole life. And now, in that moment when he needed such care the most it's actually Jesus who is caring for his mother from the cross.

What sobbing must have broken out in that moment from Mary. Imagine the despair when Jesus breathed his last. 

And while Mary might have been hoping that there was still just a little bit more life in him, the soldier's spear that pierced the Savior's side would have buried that hope.

The Gospels tell us that Mary accompanied Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus to the tomb and even tell us that she sat down opposite the tomb, probably just from exhaustion as she is crying.

Maybe she's even suffering this panic attack, being traumatized by what she's observed that day.

And it's in that state she sees the large stone being rolled down this track until its massive force and weight is abruptly stopped by the collision with the doors entrance.

Can you just imagine that sound for the next few days ringing in Mary's ears?

The sound of death. The sound of finality. The sound of despair.

On this Passion Saturday, I think we need to sit in that despair opposite the tomb with Mary. Because the deeper we seek and sit in this despair, the more glorious and joyous Resurrection Sunday will be.

Dr. Brent Thomason serves as Dean for the Graduate School of Ministry at Dallas Baptist University.