Jesus was condemned to the death penalty.
At the time crucifixion was the "worst" death.
Only the worst criminals condemned to be crucified.
Yet it was even more dreadful for Jesus, unlike
other criminals condemned to death by
crucifixion Jesus was to be nailed to the
cross by His hands and feet.
Each nail was 6 to 8 inches long.
The nails were driven into His wrist.
Not into His palms as is commonly portrayed.
There's a tendon in the wrist that extends to the shoulder.
The Roman guards knew that when the nails were being hammered into the
wrist that tendon would tare and brake, forcing Jesus to use His back
muscles to support himself so that He could breath.
Both of His feet were nailed together.
Thus He was forced to support Himself on the single nail that
impaled His feet to the cross.
Jesus could not support himself with His legs because of the pain
so He was forced to alternate between arching His
back then using his legs just to continue to
breath. Imagine the struggle, the pain, the
suffering, the courage.
Jesus endured this
reality for over 3 hours.
Yes,over 3 hours! Can you imagine this kind of
suffering? A few minutes before He died,
Jesus stopped bleeding. He was simply pouring water
from his wounds.
From common images
we see wounds to His hands and feet and even the spear wound
to His side... But do we realize His wounds
were actually made in his body.
A hammer driving large nails through the wrist, the feet overlapped
and an even large nail hammered through the arches, then a
Roman guard piercing His side with a spear.
But before the nails and the spear Jesus was whipped and
beaten.
The whipping was so severe that it tore the
flesh from His body.
The beating so horrific that His
face was torn and his beard ripped from His face.
The crown of thorns cut deeply into His scalp.
Most men would not have survived this torture.
He had no more blood
to bleed out, only water poured from His wounds.
The human adult body contains about 3.5 liters
(just less than a gallon) of blood.
Jesus poured all 3.5
liters of his blood; He had three nails hammered into His
members; a crown of thorns on His head and, beyond
that, a Roman soldier who stabbed a spear into His
chest.
All these without mentioning the humiliation He passed after
carrying His own cross for almost 2 kilometers, while the crowd spat in his
face and threw stones (the cross was almost 30 kg of weight,
only for its higher part, where His hands were
nailed).
Jesus had to endure this experience,
so that you can have free access to God.
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