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Death on the Cross - John 19:16 - 37

Tuesday, November 17 –

As we continue to read through John’s Gospel we come today to John 19:16 – 37.  Read this slowly and allow the scripture to speak to your heart and mind about Christ Jesus on the cross.  After you’ve finished reading, please come back and we’ll look at it together, and thank you.


The crucifixion of Jesus was done by the Romans to maximize their response to anyone who threatened their rule.  Pilate had washed his hands of the Jewish unrelenting cry to “crucify him, crucify him”.  He turned Jesus over to his soldiers, and along with two others, Jesus is taken to a place outside of the city walls – Golgotha, the place of the skulls!  Jesus carried his the cross-beam of the cross outside to this place, and John omits the agonizing picture of Jesus being nailed to the cross.  Nails were like railroad spikes.  Thick iron, about 5-6 inches long, with a sheer edge at the bottom to pierce through the wrist and the ankle joints. 

“Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. So the soldiers took charge of Jesus.  Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha).  There they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle” (19:16-18).

The crossbeam was attached to the vertical beam while still on the ground.  A tiny platform is attached where his feet are nailed so that he might be able to push up to breathe.  It was a horrifying, public way of torture, and meant to remind all who witnessed it that this is what we do to those who do not yield to Roman rule.  Pilate had the last word posting a notice to the cross for all to see: “Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.  Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek.  The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.”  Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written” (19:19-22). For a man who claimed no one knew what the “truth” was, he spoke the truth about Jesus as he hung on the cross.  I cannot help but wonder if Pilate wrote in the three known languages of the world that he was giving us a glimpse of the extent of Jesus’ death – “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…” (3:16).

Jesus had said it, but now it was happening – “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified”.  On the cross hung the Son of God as the Son of Man – the one who took upon himself the Sin of all who would put their trust in Him for their own sinfulness.  Jesus is glorified by going through the shame of the cross in order to demonstrate that he truly was God-in-flesh.  The “grain of wheat has to fall into the earth, die, be buried, in order to bring about life” (12:26).  It is Good Friday morning for us!

John does not give us lots of details about Jesus on the cross.  Instead, he points out two specific things that happened at the foot of the cross.  First, the soldiers, whose task it was to stoically carry out the crucifixion and, who grown accustomed to the gruesomeness of it all, stripped Jesus of his clothing, leaving him naked for all to behold.  It was the Roman custom to march their conquered enemies naked through the streets to publicly humiliate them.  Jesus was publicly made a spectacle to announce he had been conquered by the Romans.  Little did they know that within three hundred years Rome would be destroyed and Christ’s Kingdom would extend over all of the earth.  They took Jesus’ clothes and after dividing them up, decided to shake dice for the one-piece tunic undergarment that remained because it would have some value (19:23-24). John makes the point that this action on their part was prophesied in Psalm 22:18. It is another of John’s commentary inserted to remind us that God was in control of all that was occurring. 

Second, watching near the cross is Jesus’ mother, and at least two others, maybe three.  “Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene” (19:25).  It’s not clear whether there were three people: Mary’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene, or whether Mary the wife of Clopas was Mary’s sister.  Whether there were three or four women there, John, our author of the Gospel was also there - the disciples “whom Jesus loved”. There is a very tender moment that now happens.  Jesus nailed to the cross in what had to be agonizing suffering takes a moment to speak to His mother, and to John also.

“When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home” (19:26-27). 

We realize from this that Joseph is dead, and Mary is a widow.  She is watching the prophetic word spoken to her when Jesus was dedicated in the Temple as a baby come true. Then, Simeon had picked up the baby Jesus and spoke to God the Father first, but then to Mary also – “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised...my eyes have seen your salvation:  a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel… Then Simeon said to Mary, his mother: “a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
(Luke 2:29-35).  Mary sees the words coming true before her.  Yet, Jesus speaks to her, “Woman, here is your Son”.  It might sound impersonal to our ears to refer to his mother with the word “woman”, yet the language is endearing.  John tells us that Jesus spoke to her as “gune” (goo nay).  The word is part of the root word for “gynecology”.  Dr. Sproul in his commentary speaks of the significance of the word: “It is used frequently to refer to a woman of honor, a title of endearment. He was using a term of tenderness. He used this same term when He spoke to His mother at the wedding feast in Cana (2: 4), and He also used it to address the woman caught in adultery (8: 10); in the midst of her shame and embarrassment, He spoke to her with tenderness, to his mother.”[1] 

Jesus’ brothers do not yet believe him to be their Savior – that won’t happen until after the resurrection when Jesus appears to James and his other brothers, and sister.  Jesus tells Mary to consider John her son, and to John he said, consider my mother to be your mother.  When John often omits his name but instead inserts “the one Jesus loved” – now we understand why. Among all of his disciples, his followers, his own family, and friends, it is John who Jesus wants to take care of his mother. 

Six hours have passed and John only shares two of the words Jesus spoke.  First to his mother and John, and secondly at the end of life.  “ After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.”  A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.  When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (19:28-30).  The word spoke “finished” is “tetelestai”, and it means something is totally completed – it is done, finished, nothing more can be added to it.  The Roman and Greek world used the word as a stamp on a debt that is owed – “paid in full”.  Jesus is done, and he gives up his spirit.  He had said he would lay down his life under his own authority, and so he did! 

The Jews are worried that with Sabbath soon approaching they wanted all of the crucified to be dead, and so they appeal to Pilate to kill them if they are still alive (19:31 – 34).  The soldiers are ordered to speed up the death of the three being crucified by breaking the legs, so that the condemned would not be able to lift their bodies up to get oxygen, but when they get to Jesus they discover he was already dead, and so they pierce him in his chest with a long Roman spear, and blood and water from his heart and lungs come spilling out. 

Again, John’s commentary (19:36-37) is that the Scripture had predicted both, that his legs would not be broken (Psalm 34:20), and that they would see our Savior who was pierced (Zechariah 12:10).  As he recalls the fulfilled prophetic words, he prefaces it with his own comment: “He who saw it has borne witness – his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth – that you also may believe” (19:35). Why did John write this?  It was fifty years later when John wrote His Gospel and a heresy had entered into the church – Gnosticism – which said that the Jesus on the cross only “seemed” to be physical, and instead was merely a spirit-being.  John wants us to know, he was there, he saw it, and it was really blood and water that came from the body of Jesus.

In the last part of chapter 19, we read of Jesus’ burial by Joseph of Arimathea, and the now-believer, Nicodemus (19:38-42).  They sought Pilate’s permission to take his body and place it in a tomb.  The Roman custom was to take crucified bodies and dump them in a burning garbage pit outside of the city called Gehenna.  Golgotha – the place of the skull - was at the edge of this garbage pit of decomposing bodies.  Nicodemus came with burial spices which were infused into strips of linen that were wrapped around the body – about 75 pounds of spices were used.  Traditional burials were temporary, that is the body was placed in a hewn-out tomb for about a year.  After a year, everything but the bones had decomposed and the bones were then taken and placed in a small box called an “ossuary”, or “bone box”, where it could be placed alongside of its ancestors.  The sun was about to set and Nicodemus and Joseph had just enough time to get the body of Jesus to the tomb Joseph owned.

“Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.  So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there” (19:41-42).

My friends in Christ, it is finished, paid in full.  The old Spiritual song – “Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they crucified my Lord?  Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble, were you there when they crucified my Lord?  Let me add the immortal words I heard forty-some years ago…words of hope, promise: “It’s Friday, Sunday’s a coming”.

Peace



[1] R.C. Spoul, St. Andrews Expositional Commentary: John, Reformation Trust Publishing, page 368 

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