Identity Theft (24 page)

The soldiers then moved to secure His feet to the vertical beam. They placed one over the other, and then pounded a single nail through the center of His feet, causing agony beyond description. Once done, they levered the cross into position using ropes and dropped it into a hole about three feet deep in the hard ground, jarring Yeshua’s entire body. At the sound of the jolt the onlookers involuntarily shuddered, as the impact pushed His body first upward, then downward on the nails through His hands and feet. The pain He felt would have divided time as He hung there between Heaven and earth.

Thankfully, the scene transformed at this point, as I didn’t know how much more of that I could watch. The flat screen reemerged and this time the setting was a university lecture hall where a professor was delivering a clinical, forensic analysis of death by crucifixion to a class of students.

A death by crucifixion seems to include all that pain and death can have of the horrible and ghastly. Dizziness, cramp, thirst, starvation, sleeplessness, traumatic fever, tetanus, shame, publicity of shame, long, continuous torment, horror of anticipation, mortification of untended wounds, all intensified just up to the point at which they can be endured at all but all stopping just short of the point which would give to the sufferer the relief of unconsciousness. The unnatural position made every movement painful. The lacerated veins and crushed tendons throbbed with incessant anguish. The wounds inflamed by exposure gradually gangrened. The arteries, especially at the head and stomach, became swollen and oppressed with surcharged blood and while each variety of misery went on gradually increasing, there was added to them the intolerable pang of a burning and raging thirst. And all these physical complications caused an internal excitement and anxiety which made the prospect of death itself, of death, the unknown enemy at whose approach man usually shudders most, bear the aspect of a delicious and exquisite release.
³

Hung completely naked before the crowd, the pain and damage caused by crucifixion were designed to be so devilishly intense that one would continually long for death, but could linger for days with no relief.

According to Dr. Frederick Zugibe, piercing of the median nerve of the hands with a nail can cause pain so incredible that even morphine won’t help, “severe, excruciating, burning pain, like lightning bolts traversing the arm into the spinal cord.” Rupturing the foot’s plantar nerve with a nail would have a similarly horrible effect.
⁴

In crucifying someone, one thing is for sure—no one was concerned with a quick and painless death. No one was concerned with the preservation of any measure of human dignity. Quite the opposite. Crucifiers sought an agonizing torture of complete humiliation that exceeds any other design for death that man has ever invented.
⁵

As the lecture ended I was returned once again to the most amazing history lesson I had ever had. I looked at the Man hanging from the Cross—He was unrecognizable. The flogging alone had bloodied and torn His flesh from His bones. The beatings and the pulling out of His beard had so ravaged His face as to make Him unrecognizable. Again I heard Isaiah’s voice in my mind.

…his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness…
(Isaiah 52:14).

The soldiers who had removed His clothes before, placing His naked body on the Cross, were now, like this whole thing was a game, callously casting lots to see who would get His garments.

I thought of the movie I had seen as a teenager,
The Robe
, where Richard Burton plays the Roman tribune who not only oversees Yeshua’s crucifixion, but wins His seamless robe. The robe brings a curse on him until he finds peace in Yeshua. But this was no movie. I heard a whisper in my mind: “They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment” (Ps. 22:18).

Was this also foretold?
I wondered.

Some among the crowd cruelly mocked Him. Even passers-by hurled insults, saying, “If You are the Son of God, then prove it. Come down from the Cross.”

I remembered the words that Ariel shared with me when he quoted Yeshua: “No one takes my life from me. I give my life of my own free will. I have the authority to give my life, and I have the authority to take my life back again” (John 10:18 GW).

Even some of the religious leaders taunted Him, “He saved others, but He can’t save Himself! He’s the King of Israel! Ha! Let Him come down now from the Cross, and we will believe in Him,” they laughed. The Roman soldiers joined in.

Astonishingly, a man was suffering a torture unlike anything I had ever seen and they acted as if it was nothing more than a show. They had no idea who they were messing with!
He should destroy them!
Call down fire from Heaven! My blood was boiling! Don’t they know that He is doing this for them!? My anger
at
them was suddenly overridden by my fear
for
them. This was the Messiah, the Son of the living God, they were daring to crucify.

I would find out later that He could indeed have destroyed them. For when Kefa had sought to prevent His arrest in Gethsemane by lashing out with a sword, Yeshua told him: “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt.26:53).

A couple of soldiers offered Him some vinegar on a sponge to quench His thirst, laughing and mocking as they did so. I didn’t know what was in it, but I soon found out, as the screen emerged again. The young Bible teacher was back and this time he shared something that literally made me gag:

During a trip to Greece, Israel and Turkey, in one archeological dig, we saw seating from an ancient public restroom. And people would sit on marble slabs and water would roll underneath as a sort of shared bathroom. And underneath the seat there was an opening, so I asked one of the archeologists, “What was that for?” They said that the servants would be paid to take a stick with a sponge on the end and use it to clean the person while they were seated upon the toilet. But then they found that as they reused the sponge people would get sick and they would develop infections. So they began dipping it in wine vinegar as an antiseptic to kill the germs.

I literally, in that moment, lost it. I just sat down and started tearing up and fighting back complete weeping. It dawned on me. When they took the stick with the sponge on the end, dipped it in wine vinegar and tried to shove it into the mouth of Jesus on the cross, they used a soldier’s ancient toilet brush. It was the kind of thing he had used to clean himself on the battlefield. And he took that and tried to shove it into the Messiah’s mouth, to silence and shame Him.
⁶

The tablet reentered the ground and I felt nauseated. As they offered Him the vinegar-filled sponge, the soldiers laughed at Him and shouted, “If You are king of the Jews save Yourself.”

And then, looking heavenward, Yeshua cried out for all to hear, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

My God, they have beaten Him, ripped the flesh from His body, hit Him in the head repeatedly, shoved a crown of thorns on His brow and now, hanging from a cross by His hands and feet, in excruciating pain—
He forgives them!

I began to weep.
Who is this Man who so generously pardons His tormentors?

His friends and family looked on in utter anguish. His mother, Miriam, being supported by a young man as she sobbed—wait!—he looked familiar. It was a younger version of the old man John I had met earlier. Yes, he’d been at the Passover meal as well. He did say he was one of the original twelve. Standing with them were several other women.

Suddenly darkness came over Jerusalem—and possibly over the whole world. It was around noon on what had just been a cloudless spring day. In a matter of minutes, it became so dark I could barely make out the Cross. Then in my spirit, a voice recited a prophecy.

“In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight”
(Amos 8:9).

My God! It was as if Elohim wanted to reinforce the fact that we were extinguishing “The Light of the World” when we crucified Yeshua.

I looked straight at Him. He was in agony as He hung there. The whole weight of His body was being brought to bear on the single spike driven through the middle of His feet. There was no little platform for Him to stand upon, as has so often been depicted in movies and paintings. No, His full weight came down upon that rusty nail, sending every nerve of His body into spasm.

Every breath brought searing pain, as He had to push up from His feet using only the spike for leverage to inhale, while His back—which was bloodied and raw, the nerves exposed—would drag against the crudely hewn wood inflicting excruciating pain.

It came as no surprise to me, therefore, when I later discovered that the very word
excruciating
is derived from the word
crucify!

For six endlessly long hours He hung there as a sense of abandonment and desertion pervaded the hearts of those who kept vigil that day. It must have been the middle of the afternoon, as an eerie foreboding hung over the city, that Yeshua emitted an anguished cry in Aramaic, “
Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?
” Which, translated, is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (See Matthew 27:46.)

As I heard these gut-wrenching words, I was engulfed with a feeling of utter despair, of anguish, of horror, and questioning desperation. I didn’t just cry, I groaned. Such a feeling I had never imagined possible. Again, I was reminded of what Isaiah had said, “Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer….”

I yelled out loud, “How? How could this be God’s will?”

Again, the prophet’s voice: “…and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

I couldn’t stop crying.
He was doing this all for me
. He was taking my punishment.

“
You killed Him, David
,” Ariel had said.

I wept for my sin. I hated what I was. I looked up to find the Messiah’s glazed eyes resting on me, as He uttered the words, “It is finished,” and exhaled His final breath.

At that very moment, the earth shook violently. I could hear the sounds of rocks splitting as the very ground beneath us heaved and cracked. The soldiers, even their commander, seemed to finally understand that they had committed a terrible crime against Heaven. Cries of terror and fear accompanied the awful realization of everyone that they had perpetrated a horrible evil that day.

In the ensuing stillness, the inner conviction that had fallen upon all present was encapsulated in the centurion’s solemn summation,
“Surely, this man was the Son of God!”

Notes

1
.   Driscoll, “Jesus Died.”

2
.   I understand that there is much debate as to whether Yeshua was pierced in the hands or the wrists. In my research I found strong arguments on both sides, but at the end of the day, who cares? The focus must remain in the fact that He went to the Cross for us. While it is fine, even commended, to study out these issues, to place too much focus on them obscures the greater issue. He died for us. Nevertheless, if you would like to discuss this, please go to
http://on.fb.me/itheft
.

3
.   Frederick W. Farrar,
The Life of Christ
(Dutton, Dovar: Cassell and Co., 1897).

4
.   As quoted in Paul S. Taylor, “How Did Jesus Christ Die?” Christian Answers Network, 2003,
http://christiananswers. net/q-eden/jesusdeath.html
(accessed August 11, 2012).

5
.   Farrar,
The Life of Christ.

6
.   Driscoll, “Jesus Died.”

The verdict was out, but even as the centurion pronounced those words, I felt myself being ripped from the scene—pulled back heavenward. However, this was no casual flight through history with my angel—there was
violence
in the air. I was being forcefully pulled back through time. The images I now saw were no longer below, at least not at first, but above.

This was war.

Angelic beings took their stand against one another. I saw one, a general, dressed in battle armor—instinctively I knew his name was Michael. He was tall, and valiant, and he commanded the respect of all. On Michael’s side in the battle were orderly rows of huge angelic beings, warrior angels ready to fight for the cause. Thousands lined up; their devotion to Him was evident.

The demons they fought against all had other names connected to regions. A hideous being, equally muscular and grotesque at the same time, was named the Prince of Persia, while another was called Caretaker of Jerusalem.

But the one that really nauseated me was the king of Rome. He was dressed, not in armor, but in religious garb. He was grossly overweight, reminding me of Jabba the Hut of
Star Wars
infamy. He would eat until he would vomit, and then eat the vomit. He seemed to enjoy every form of perverted behavior there was. Their foot soldiers were a disorderly but vicious crew of demons. They would fight with one another for rank, as ego and arrogance governed them, and yet hate and fear bound them together in a perverse unity.