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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