A Look Into The Suffering And Death Of Jesus

At the age of 33, Jesus was condemned to the death.
At that time, crucifixion was the “worst” death. Only the worst criminals were condemned to be crucified. Yet it was even more dreadful for Jesus, for unlike other criminals condemned to death by crucifixion, Jesus was nailed to the cross by His hands and feet.

Each nail was 6 to 8 inches long.
The nails were driven into His wrist, and not into His palms as is commonly portrayed. There’s a tendon in the wrist that  extends to the shoulder. The Roman guards knew that when the nails were being hammered into the wrist that tendon would tear and break, forcing Jesus to use His back muscles to support himself so that He could  breath. 

Both of His feet were nailed together. He was forced to support Himself on the single nail that impaled His feet to the cross. Jesus could not support himself with His legs because of the pain so He was forced to alternate between arching His back then using his legs just to continue to breath. Imagine the struggle, the pain, the suffering, the courage.

Jesus endured this reality for over 3 hours. Yes,  for over 3 hours! Can you imagine this kind of suffering? A few minutes before He died, Jesus stopped bleeding. He was simply pouring water from his wounds.

From common images we see wounds to His hands and feet and even the spear wound to His side… But do we realize His wounds were actually made in his body?

A hammer driving large nails through the wrist, the feet overlapped and an even large nail hammered through the arches, then a Roman guard piercing His side with a spear. Before the nails and the spear Jesus was whipped and beaten. The whipping was so severe that it tore the flesh from His body. The beating so horrific that His face was torn and his beard ripped from His face. The crown of thorns cut deeply into His scalp. Most men would not have survived this torture. 

He had no more blood to bleed out, only water poured from His wounds. The human adult body contains about 3.5 liters (just less than a gallon) of blood. Jesus poured all 3.5 liters of his blood; He had three nails hammered into His members; a crown of thorns on His head and, beyond that, a Roman soldier who stabbed a spear into His chest.

All these without mentioning the humiliation He suffered after carrying His own cross for almost 2 kilometers, while the crowd spat in his face and threw stones (the cross was almost 30 kg of weight, only for its higher part, where His hands were nailed).

Jesus had  to endure this experience, to open the Gates of Heaven,
so that our sins could be washed away, and so that we can have free access to God.

JESUS CHRIST died for us!!!

As we do our stations of the cross, let us remember everything that Jesus underwent just to save us. This is a time to repent our sins and a time to transform ourselves that we may be more like Christ.