Stuck in someone else's frames? break free! Easter with Spike and Jamie - this page tells about the Crucifixion - not for the faint-hearted.
|
An Account of the Crucifixion |
An Account of the Crucifixion
Christ's body was not suspended from the cross by nails being driven through his palms. Nails through the palm, was medieval artists'
conceptions of the crucifixion, could not possibly hold the weight of a human body. (A French doctor, Pierre Barbet, proved this by nailing
up a freshly amputated arm and attaching weights to it.)
The Romans, to whom crucifixion was an exact science, always placed their nails with meticulous accuracy to cause the maximum possible
pain. At the crease of the wrist there is a strong muscle over substantial bone structure, and between the bones an open space of
about three-eighths of an inch in diameter. The Roman nail passed through here, easily supporting the weight of the body, piercing the
great median nerve in the process, and causing the victim terrible agony. Death was caused from tetanic cramp.
Having been scourged and crowned with thorns, He was led to Calvary. There He was stripped, the clothes sticking to the skin with the dried
blood of the flogging and taking most of the skin with them.
The upright of the cross was already in position. Christ was thrown to the ground and held over the crosspiece. The nails were then careful
positioned and driven through with a hard blow of the hammer.
Have you ever had the dentist touch a nerve with his drill? That is only a very small nerve. The wave of pain that followed the piercing
of the great median nerve in the wrist is known only to someone who has had an arm or leg cut off. It caused the muscles of the arm, neck,
head, and chest to contract and cramp in atrocious agony.
Then the crosspiece was lifted and the victim dragged backwards along the ground to where the upright was standing. He was then lifted and
the crosspiece dropped into the position prepared for it and fixed in place. To prevent the uncontrolled threshing of the legs from tearing
the wrists free, a single nail was driven through both feet, pinning them to the cross. The only movement possible was a ceaseless sinuous
writhing of the entire body. To ease the terrible pain and to stall off suffocation, the victim could attain a few minutes respite by the
dreadful method of straining upwards, literally standing on the nail in his feet. This posture could only be maintained for a short time;
He would then slump, exhausted, hanging by the wrists, and the frightful cycle of torture would begin again.
After three hours of ceaseless torment, weakened by the flogging and the strain of the agony in the Garden, Jesus was no longer able to
strain upwards and away from the killing agony in His arms and chest. As graphically told in the Gospel narrative, death, caused by
constriction of the chest muscles stopping the breathing and possibly the heart action as well, finally intervened to end the agony which
paid in full for the sins of the world.
And what about the 'water' that flowed from the lance thrust after Christ had died? Did it prove that He shed every drop of his blood on
the cross? Far from it. Doctors tell us that the flow of blood from wounds in the hands and feet must have been negligible. The 'water'
was actually a fluid from the heart, released by the lance. In the words of Caselle di Fano, a doctor of medicine, giving evidence at the
scientific investigation into the shroud of Turin in 1939: 'The thrust must have pass through
the mediastinum and opened the heart. The blood was mixed with an abundant pericardia exudation. This points to
pericardia contusion or bruising, due possibly to flagellation.'
Centuries of contemplation of the cross as an instrument of salvation have, I fear, hardened us somewhat to the monstrosity of death by
crucifixion and made his infamous gibbet respectable for us. For the early Christians it meant something so horrible that for centuries
they shunned it in religious art, preferring the symbolical fish or the
Christograph.
Next time you visualize Christ crucified, don't imagine Him as a graceful meditative figure. Because we have become used to the idea,
somehow we do not imagine crucifixion to be quite so bad as the Saracen custom of impaling a man by sitting him on a sharpened stick.
But it is worse; scientifically and diabolically worse.
Australian Monthly, 12\49
[The Crucifixion: Matthew 27:33-44, Mark 15:22-32, Luke 23:33-44, John 19:17-24]
The song playing on this page is
Crown Him with Many Crowns
Please do NOT link to any of the midis. I change the names frequently.
They are here for your listening pleasure and enjoyment
and are believed to be in the public domain.
All copyrights belong to their respective authors.
|
SHALOM FROM SPIKE & JAMIE |
