What is Crucifixion?
What is Crucifixion?
A medical doctorprovides a physical description:
The cross
is placed onthe ground and the exhausted
man is quickly
thrown backwardswith his shoulders against the wood.
The legionnaire
feels for thedepression at the front of the wrist. He
drives a
heavy, squarewrought iron nail through the wrist deep
into the wound.
Quickly he movesto the other side and repeats the
action, being
careful not topull the arms too tightly, but to allow
some flex andmovement.
The cross isthen lifted into place. The
left foot is
press backwardagainst the right foot, and with both
feet extended,
toes down, anail is driven through the arch of each,
leaving the
knees flexed. The victim is now crucified. As he
slowly sags down
with more weighton the nails in the wrists,
excruciatingfiery pain
shoots alongthe fingers and up the arms to explode in
the brain-the
nails in thewrists are putting pressure on the median
nerves. As he
pushes himselfupward to avoid this stretching
torment, he places
the full weighton the nail through his feet. Again
he feels the
searing agonyof the nail tearing through the nerves
between the
bones of hisfeet. As the arms fatigue, cramps sweep
through his
muscles, knottingthem deep relentless, throbbing
pain. With these
cramps comesthe inability to push himself upward to
breathe. Air
can be drawninto the lungs but not exhaled. He fights
to raise
himself in orderto get even one small breath.
Finally, carbon
dioxide buildsup in the lungs and in the blood
stream,
and the crampspartially subsided.
Spasmodically,
he is able topush himself upward to
exhale and bring
in life-givingoxygen. Hours of limitless pain, cycles
of twisting,
joint wrenchingcramps, intermittent partial
asphyxiation,searing
pain as tissueis torn from his lacerated back as he
moves up and
down againstrough timber. Then another agony begins:
a deep,
crushing paindeep in the chest as the pericardium
slowly fillswith
serum and beginsto compress the heart. It is now
almost over-the
loss of tissuefluids has reached a critical
level--the compressed
heart is strugglingto pump heavy, thick, sluggish
blood into the
tissues--thetortured lungs are making frantic effort
to gasp in
small gulps ofair. He can feel the chill of death
creeping through
his tissues.Finally, he can allow his body to die...
All this the
Bible recordswith the simple words, "and they
crucified Him"(Mark
15:24).
What wondrouslove is this? Many people don't know
that pain and
suffering ourLord, Jesus Christ went through for
us...becauseof
the brutality,crucifixion was given a sentence to
only its worst
offenders ofthe law. Thieves, murderers, and rapists
would be the
types of peoplewho got crucified. Yet here, Jesus is
being
crucified betweentwo hardened criminals...What did
Jesus do? Didhe
murder anyone?Did he steal anything? The answer as we
all know is
NO!! Jesus didnothing to deserve this type of death,
yet he went
willing to die,in between 2 thieves, so that we might
be saved. And
there, in betweenthe sinners, was our slain Savior
for our sins.
Author unkown.
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