A medical doctor once gave a detailed description of what happens when someone is crucified:
"The cross is placed on the ground and the exhausted man is quickly thrown backwards with his shoulders against the wood. The legionnaire feels for the depression at the front of the wrist. He drives a heavy, square wrought-iron nail through the wrist and deep into the wood. Quickly he moves to the other side and repeats the action, being careful not to pull the arms too tightly, but to allow some flex and movement. The cross is then lifted into place.
"The left foot is pressed backward against the right foot, and with both feet extended, toes down, a nail is driven through the arch of each, leaving the knees flexed. The victim is now crucified. As he slowly sags down with more weight on the nails in the wrists, excruciating, fiery pain shoots along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain--the nails in the wrists are putting pressure on the median nerves. As he pushes himself upward to avoid the stretching torment, he places the full weight on the nail through his feet. Again he feels the searing agony of the nail tearing through the nerves between the bones of his feet.
"As the arms fatigue, cramps sweep through the muscles, knotting them in deep, relentless, throbbing pain. With these cramps comes the inability to push himself upward to breathe. Air can be drawn into the lungs but not exhaled. He fights to raise himself in order to get even one small breath. Finally carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the blood stream. Spasmodically he is able to push himself upward to exhale and bring in life-giving oxygen.
"Hours of this...pain, cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain as tissue is torn from his lacerated back as he moves up and down against the rough timber. Then another agony begins: a deep, crushing pain deep in the chest as the pericardium slowly fills with serum and begins to compress the heart.
It is now almost over--the loss of tissue fluids has reached a critical level--the compressed heart is struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood into the tissues--the tortured lungs are making a frantic effort to gasp in small gulps of air. He can feel the chill of death creeping through his tissues...finally he can allow his body to die."
The Bible records this process of death by crucifixion in just a few simple words. How often we take for granted the pain and suffering Jesus endured when He died on the cross for you and me. Let us remember this Easter the sacrifice He made.
PRAYER CHALLENGE:
Thank Jesus for the price He paid for your sins through His painful death on the cross.
From Senior Living Ministries
“The premise is that the Cross is unfair but it is still just. It is just because God’s wrath does have to be appeased, God’s anger toward sin. But when Jesus died, Jesus died in our stead, then the Cruxification is just because it paid the payment for our sin. This was Mercy because He didn’t owe the debt. It wasn’t His bill to pay. And it was Grace because He offers that forgiveness to me unconditionally. Salvation was done for me, Sanctification was done for me. Jesus buys my sin and Jesus is making me good. It’s done to me, it’s done for me. It is done so that now I do differently, act differently but I do so because I love Him.”
Dr Ergun Caner, former Muslim , turned Christian
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