The Price Jesus Paid

The Romans didn’t invent crucifixion, but they certainly perfected it. Crucifixion had been around for centuries before the time of Jesus; the Persians crucified people as early as the sixth century BC. But prior to the rise of the Roman Empire, crucifixion was more about shame than pain. It wasn’t even a death sentence at its inception: convicted criminals were simply tied to beams to publicly humiliate them for a day or two, after which they were taken down and sent to prison.

The Roman philosophy was that frightened, intimidated people were easier to control, so Rome upped the ante and began to strip criminals naked before putting them on crosses. Then they began to leave guys up on their crosses until they died from hunger or thirst, or until predators devoured them. Eventually, Roman crucifixion evolved (or devolved, depending on how you look at it) into the use of long nails instead of ropes to bind a convict to his cross. This was all meant to frighten foreigners and non-citizens into submission to the Roman government.

Government records and other accounts from ancient historians paint a grim picture, as crucifixion was a commonplace, almost daily occurrence at the peak of the Roman Empire. On several notorious occasions, such as the mass crucifixion along the Appian Way (73-71 BC), thousands of people were crucified on the same day.

Modern historians estimate anywhere from 100,000-500,000 people were crucified by the Romans. So as far as Rome was concerned, Jesus was just one of many others in a long line of deserving criminals, and the day Jesus died was no different from any other day under the Roman sun. Most of the things they did to Jesus, they did to countless others.

The gospels tell, in great detail, the sadistic punishments Jesus endured on his way to Calvary. The first instrument of torture the Romans employed was the flagrum – an instrument of torture featuring leather strips adorned with stones, bone fragments, and glass shards that pulled flesh from bone with every crack of the whip.

It’s hard to fathom the levels of pain and damage that the flagrum caused. For reference, a 19th Century American published this photograph of a slave who had been flogged in a similar manner, and his scars reveal the brutal toll that a flagrum can take on the human body.

After whipping and beating him half to death, the soldiers took Jesus and dressed him up as a “king,” draping a robe on his severed, bloodied back and forcing a crown of thorns on his head.

The crown probably looked something like this:

Head wounds are notorious for profuse bleeding, so at this point on Good Friday, Jesus most likely had blood covering his hair and face, and running into his eyes.

The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. They blindfolded him and demanded, “Prophesy! Who hit you?” And they said many other insulting things to him.
– Luke 22:64-65

After flogging, beating, crowning, mocking, and spitting on Jesus, they put the crossbeam on his back, and led him away to be crucified. They stripped Jesus naked before hanging him on the cross, and then they cast lots for his clothes – another common practice among Roman soldiers.

Casting lots involved a roll of the dice to decide which one of the soldiers got to keep Jesus’ clothes as a trophy – yet another torture technique designed to further humiliate the victim and intimidate onlookers.

At around 9am they attached Jesus to the cross by driving nails through his hands and feet. Most people think they used three nails – one for each hand, and one for both feet – but the evidence suggests they most likely used four. In June 1968, archaeologists discovered, just north of Jerusalem, the foot-bone of a man who was crucified around the same time as Jesus.

This artifact clearly shows how the Romans drove nails through feet – not through the top of both feet, but through the side of each foot. Something like this:

Can you even begin to fathom how painful that must have been for Jesus? Adding insult to injury, all of this happened on a busy street, with passers-by mocking and making fun of Jesus as he hung there in agony, bleeding out and struggling to breathe, for six long hours.

As Jesus suffered on the cross, someone offered him wine vinegar to drink from a sponge attached to a stick.

Of all things to offer a dying man who was thirsty, why would anyone give him wine vinegar – and why would they offer it on a sponge attached to a stick?

Whenever the Romans conquered a city, they often retrofitted certain buildings as public bathhouses and latrines. This, for example, is an image of an ancient theater near Jerusalem that the Romans transformed into public toilets…

You can see how they carved holes into the benches. The men would come and sit and catch up with each other while they did their business. Here’s the shocker: in ancient ruins like these, archaeologists have found dozens of these artifacts – calcified sponges attached to long, wooden sticks:

In many of these ancient latrines, archaeologists have also uncovered wall placards with inscriptions that say things like, “Rinse sponge when finished.” It takes very little imagination to begin to understand what sponges attached to sticks were used for in ancient Rome.

Seneca, the well-known 1st Century historian, left no doubt in his account of a gladiator’s demise:

“Recently, in the games between gladiators and ferocious beasts, one of the Germanics, while he was preparing for the morning show, secluded himself to go to the latrines, as it was the only time he could be alone unsupervised. There he took a stick, with a sponge attached used for cleaning excrement, and stuck it down his throat and choked to death. Thus he died an outrageous death. Exactly so, in an unclean and indecent manner…”

It should be clear to us that the drink the soldiers offered Jesus was no act of mercy. It was just one more vile attempt to humiliate and degrade the only man who never did anything wrong.

The resurrection we’ll celebrate on Sunday is the most consequential event in human history, but without Jesus’ suffering on Friday, there would be nothing to celebrate on Easter Sunday. Before giving us his very best, Jesus had to face our very worst. They left him beaten and bloodied, they stripped him naked and drove nails through his hands and feet, they mocked him, laughed at him, spit on him, and cursed him. And all he had to say was “Father, forgive them – they don’t know what they’re doing.”

That’s our Jesus. That’s the price he paid for us. That’s how we know that, no matter what evil things we’ve done, we are forgiven and free. And that’s precisely what we’ll celebrate this weekend.