Lest We Forget– Jesus was executed

 

Because Jesus was crucified, a method of death that polite society no longer uses, I think that sometimes people of faith forget how bad Good Friday was.  Jesus didn’t exactly die of natural causes. He was executed. On the list of ways that one can die, crucifixion is high on the list. Even if you believe that Jesus is God, Jesus apparently felt every bit of crucifixion as any human would. 

Just in case I didn’t make it clear that crucifixion is awful, I’m repeating it again. How bad is crucifying someone? When we use the word “excruciating” to describe pain that’s agonizing, sever, violent or intense, it comes from a similar root word as crucifixion. When you read Harry Potter and hear about the Cruciatus Curse, that also comes from the same root word.  Just to be clear, the Cruciatus Curse is the one that inflicts unbearable pain on the victim. When I looked up the curse, I found this quote describing what it took to use it correctly  “You need to really want to cause pain... to enjoy it...” I also think that this is also a good description for the type of sadism required to desire a man’s crucifixion. In summary, crucifixion is the type of pain that other unbearable pain is measured against, including fictional torture.

Crucifixion was a way to inflict the death penalty. The name of the game wasn’t quick death, it was death in a public, sadistic fashion. After carrying your piece of wood to the spot of your death, you would be nailed to that piece of wood. In Jesus’s case the amount of time it took for him to die was within hours, but apparently it could take days. Best case scenario, you die of heart failure; worst case scenario you died of exhaustion, amongst a litany of other things. In Jesus’s case, he was speared in the side, ensuring that he would not survive for long. Crucifixion also interferes with your breathing, which is how many died from it. On top of the psychological knowledge that you were going to die, there was the actual hanging which made it harder to breathe, exasperated by the fact that you were nailed to the cross.  For other criminals, animal attacks were another concern. Birds and other vermin would just pick at your dying body. With your arms and legs nailed down, you were defenseless.

All of this was done to ensure that no one would ever commit that crime again. (Like most methods of punishment, the effectiveness of crucifixion as a crime deterrent is questionable at best). That Jesus didn’t just die, but was killed in the way that other pain is measured against might be useful to remember.