Today’s passages
describe events in the first three of the six hours Jesus was on the cross,
where He bore our sins and our guilt.
The journey from the Praetorium to Golgotha was difficult because of the
terrible physical condition of the One being crucified; that is why the help of
Simon of Cyrene was demanded by the Romans.
The journey itself was not likely difficult because the cross was to be
placed next to a busy road, not up on top of a hill as we commonly
imagine. As we often tell people at the
Garden Tomb, it was not up on a hill where you could see it for miles; it was
next to a road where you were up close and personal with someone in a lot of
pain. We are told that many people
passed by the cross of Christ (John 19:20).
The mockery which had
started in the Praetorium with the soldiers continued at Calvary. As an insult the soldiers offered Jesus sour wine which might have been
different that the wine mingled with
myrrh of which Mark speaks. Both the
mockery (Ps. 22:6-8) and what He was offered to drink (Ps. 69:21) were fulfillments
of specific Messianic prophecies. The gall, according to Gesenius (FG), the
Hebrew scholar, may have been the anesthetic-like drug from the poppy offered
to victims of crucifixion to deaden the pain.
Jesus refused this. In no way did
He mitigate His suffering for us.
Another specific
fulfillment of prophecy was that Psalm 22:17 predicted the soldiers dividing
His garments by casting lots. It was
typical for four soldiers to attend to a crucifixion, along with their
centurion, their purpose being to keep anyone from removing the body from the
cross. In a passage that may not be in
the original (Mk. 15:28) we are reminded, as Jesus was crucified with two criminals,
that Isaiah prophesied He would be numbered
with the transgressors (53:12).
Whether the passage is genuine or not it is true.
Jesus also spoke from
His cross. The seven words He spoke are all memorable and worthy of our meditation. Let us consider the first of those sayings.
First: Father forgive them, for they do not know what they do.
What did Jesus mean by
this? We should note that the New
Testament gives us answers to this question.
For example, according to 1 Cor. 2:7-8, the rulers of this world did not
understand the wisdom of God that was
at work in the death of Christ. To them
it was a mystery. We also know that Peter, in Ac. 3:17,
acknowledged the ignorance of the
Jews in killing the Prince of life. Paul used the same term of himself, that what
he had done in persecuting Christians, he had done ignorantly in unbelief (1
Tim. 2:13). The Scriptures tell us that
Israel suffered under a blindness, a blindness that was the result first of
their unbelief, but then by the hand of God lest
they should see … and hear … and understand
with their hearts and turn (Isa. 6:9-10; Mt. 13:15). God was working His will in the death of
Christ that, having loved the world, those in the world might believe on the
Lord Jesus and have everlasting life.
Is Jesus excusing what
they did? Note carefully what He said: Father forgive
them! Where forgiveness is necessary
there is sin; there is accountability. The
rulers of this world (i.e. Pilate and Herod and those who served them)
committed a sin in condemning this One in whom they found no fault. The Jews were wrong to unjustly condemn an
innocent Man and to reject the One whose life had been a powerful statement of
His Messianic office. Peter said this
much in his Pentecostal sermon: Jesus … a
Man attested by God to you … you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified,
and put to death … God made this
Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ (Ac.2:22,23,36).
So Jesus made a true
statement. Those involved in the
crucifixion were sinners and they were committing sin with Him. But they did not, they could not, understand
the deep truth of this event. What is
amazing is that forgiveness from God, whatever the situation, whoever the
sinner, is unavailable apart from the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. What He asked the Father for He was providing
by this brutal and shameful death.
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