Jesus’ Death as a Criminal
Reading:
Using a sketchboard:
A good logo is key to any business or group nowadays
- let’s have a go – tell me if you recognise what I’m drawing
[start drawing a gallows – then a stake with wood & flames, then electric chair]
- Christians have the very best logo ever [draw a cross]
- but it was a couple of centuries before we used it, because it was so shameful
- crucifixion was the most shameful and painful legal execution ever practiced
[prison]
A member of my family was in prison several years ago during an execution
- he was there as a prisoner (this was before he became a Christian)
- he was there during a hanging - one of the last executions in the UK.
- he said that the prisoners couldn’t see anything, but they all knew about it
- and the whole prison was quiet and subdued on the morning it happened
- perhaps it made them think more deeply, or just be thankful it wasn’t them
We don’t have a death penalty anymore, though many want to bring it back
- in that respect we are similar to the society of Jesus’ day
- not many Jews liked the death penalty, even though the OT prescribed it
- they preferred to say that God would carry out his own execution
- if someone deserved death, they would die early, probably soon after 50
In the OT the death penalty was handed out for all kinds of things
- murder and rape of course, but also adultery and blasphemy
- and even repeated drunkenness. After all, what else could they do?
- early Israel lived in tents, and you can’t lock up a dangerous person in a tent
- but by Jesus’ time they had stone jails and a Roman police force keeping peace
- so Israel didn’t need the death penalty. Anyway, the Romans didn’t let them
[stoning mob]
There were still some zealots who, like some in the UK, wanted death penalties
- and occasionally a mob killed a sinner, like the adulteress Jesus had to rescue
- but generally they were happy to let God look after the death penalty
So why did they take so much trouble to make sure Jesus was killed?
- they saw that this was the only way to stop him and his followers
- they could have arranged a mob, or a private stabbing, but they wanted it public
- and they were probably glad to let the Romans kill him by crucifixion
- if Jesus was killed this way, then his followers couldn’t respect his memory
[mass crucifixion]
You see, crucifixion was reserved for only the very lowest or most evil people
- no Roman citizen could be killed this way: they were garrotted or stabbed
- only slaves and the worst kinds of terrorists were crucified
- though when Jerusalem was besieged in 70 AD, they crucified thousands
- anyone who tried to escape the city was crucified- up to 500 per day
- the soldiers got so bored, they tried out lots of novel ways of hanging them
- these solders were so battle hardened, nothing could make them squeamish
- but eventually even Roman law banned crucifixion as too barbaric
[crucifixion1-waist up]
We are too used to thinking of the cross as a glorious thing, and it wasn’t
- crucifixion is cruel, not so much because of the pain but the slow suffocation
- the only way you can breath is to pull or push yourself up on the nails
- the strongest urge you have, from the moment of your first breath is to breath
- and this kept them going, in pain, sometimes for days of slow death
[crucifixion2-waist up]
And then there is the shame.
- in pictures, Jesus has a loincloth, but that’s just to make things sanitised
- criminals were stripped naked for crucifixion, for maximum shamefulness
- and now I have to tell you what they don’t normally tell you about crucifixion
- crufixtion was slow asphyxiation, and so the men would get an erection
- this used to happen in the middle ages when hanging took a long time
- (later, they worked out how to tie the knot so that the neck broke as they fell)
- old woodcuts of crucifixion show that a hanged man sometimes ejaculated as
he hung
- and crucifixion there was an added shame: the pain made people defecate
The shame of all this can’t be imagined by us in our open society
- but imagine how a reserved Iraqi Muslim feels, and you’ll understand better
- this was the most shameful death ever invented, and any followers shared the
shame
- their leader was up there, publicly, and they’d never lift their heads again
[flogging]
Jesus was by no means the only person to be crucified in this way
- though possibly he was the only one to be flogged as well as being crucified
- according to John, Pilate ordered his flogging instead of the crucifixion
- he hoped that the crowd would be appeased by this horrific spectacle
- if you’ve seen Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ you know what it was like
- and you’ll probably agree that the film warranted an 18 certificate
- it had more blood and gore than most horror films, and it was accurate
- it is graphiti by a non-Christian, depicting Jesus as a crucified ass
- the words say: “Alexamanos worships his god”.
The flogging was designed to injure, not just inflict pain
- the whip had several leather straps, with bits of metal tied at intervals
- these dug into the flesh and tore as the whip was withdrawn
- although you wouldn’t die under the whip, you were likely to die later as a
result of the injuries and blood loss
- this was probably why Jesus died after only a few hours on the cross
[crucifixion3]
Little did they know that this death, this pain, this shame was all God’s plan
- Jesus was taking on not only our sin, but our whole humanity,
- he didn’t just wear our skin and pretend to be human for a bit
- like a do-gooder going to live with the homeless one day at Christmas
- Jesus became completely human and shared the worst of our existence
[dirty baby Jesus]
Jesus came to share the flies and faeces from his birth to his death.
- that silent baby sleeping in a blow-dried straw bed didn’t exist
- Jesus was a normal crying baby who had plenty to cry about
- he was born in a barn, and placed in the cleanest bit - the animal food trough
- he grew up in a village where everyone knew that his mother wasn’t married
when he was conceived
- when he returned to preach there, having made good elsewhere, they tried to
stone him
- but other simple folk liked his stories and his talk about his Father God,
- though the educated elite thought his teaching was dangerously heretical
- especially as his miracles and made it look like God was on his side.
- they wanted everyone to know that God had cursed him, and left him to die
[crucifixion4]
When you look at the earliest Christian art, you don’t see the crucifixion
- you see Jesus as shepherd carrying a lost sheep, or a teacher, and even as a
sacrificed lamb
It took a long time for Christians to come to terms with the crucifixion
- even though Paul said how important it was, theologically and for prophesy
- even though they remembered Jesus saying he would die and rise again
- even though the resurrection meant that he had to die, they didn’t like it
- it was bad enough that Jesus died, and as a criminal, but crucified!
- it was that detail which the church had such a hard time with
This is the only ancient art in which Jesus is crucified
[Alexamanos]
The idea of God himself suffering in this way seemed like madness
- so it was a perfect way to ridicule this poor Christian Alexamanos
- who could worship a God like that, who was so weak and defeated
- it wasn’t till Constantine saw the cross in heaven just before victory, that
Christians started to use the cross as a symbol of victory
- Paul said long before that the Cross was where Jesus had his victory
- John said long before that the Cross showed Jesus at his most glorious
- but for normal Christians the cross was just too shameful as a symbol.
[Cross jewelry]
We’ve cleaned up the cross, and made it respectable
- we’ve cleaned off the blood, the shit, the bits of skin, and polished it
- we made gold crosses, crosses with jewels, crosses in neon lights
- we wear crosses, we put them on walls, on public show outside churches
- we put crosses on our letter heads, and even draw them on babies heads
- we’ve appropriated the most distinctive logo ever invented
We’ve forgotten what it means – the execution of a criminal
- the most painful, prolonged, shameful legal execution ever invented
- we’ve forgotten what Jesus went through, and how he suffered
[nailing]
There’s something I didn’t mention. Jesus had one more terrible thing to bear
- it was all voluntary. He could have called a halt to it all at any time
- imagine you are wrestling someone, and they twist your arm behind you
- very soon you’re shouting: OK, stop. But imagine you don’t, and they continue
- they hit you, then kick you, then whip you, then hammer nails into you
- and you still don’t cry Stop. Then they leave you hanging, and you stay there
- who could do that? What motive would make anyone do that?
[crucifixion5 – Dali?]
Jesus not only did it, but planned to do it. He said it would happen to him
- and he told us why and for who he did it. He did it to save us. To save me.