The last lesson ended with John 19:15-16 where Pilate, exhausting all his options in his attempts to free Jesus, finally turned Him over to be crucified. We’ll be jumping around from one Gospel account to another to see what is recorded between the time Jesus is condemned to the point where the crucifixion actually takes place.
But first I want to quickly review everything Jesus has endured up to this point. When looking at the six different trials that took place, it is evident that He had no rest that night. As we saw in the last lesson the scourging was severe and the combination of no rest, no food or water, the beating He took and the resulting loss of blood had weakened Him to the point of extreme fatigue. The fact that He could still function at all is a testament to His physical health and strength and determination to endure what He knew still lie ahead.
In addition to this we know He was cruelly mocked and mistreated by the Roman soldiers. Mark 15:16 tell us after Jesus was scourged “the soldiers led Him into the hall called the Praetorium, then they called together the whole band.” The “band” referenced here is the speira, a full cohort consisting of 600 men. They stripped His clothes off of Him (Matthew 27:28), and put a purple robe on Him (Mark 15:17) to make fun of His claim to be a king. Then they forced a crown of thorns down onto His head (Mark 15:17) and began to mock Him with “Hail (good health), King of the Jews” (Mark 15”18). It should be noted that Jesus never claimed to be the king of the Jews (see John 18:33-37).
They continued the mockery in Mark 15:19 when they continually beat Him on the head with a reed (given to Him to represent an emblem of His supposed authority), took turns spitting on Him (the ultimate sign of contempt) and bowed to Him in mock worship. Then, when they finally tired of all this, they took the robe off, put His own clothes back on Him and led Him away to be crucified (Mark 15:20).
Then in Mark 15:21 we find this, “And they compelled one Simon, a Cyrenian, who was passing by from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry His cross.” This is mentioned in both Matthew and Luke, but without any reference to Alexander and Rufus. Let’s look at this a little further. Simon was probably a Jew who lived in Cyrene on the coast of North Africa, the capital of the province of Libya, about 11 miles south of the Mediterranean Sea. There is no evidence Simon was a black man, as depicted in popular artist’s paintings and religious traditions.
Simon was most likely in Jerusalem to observe Passover and was coming into the city that morning “from the country” because lodging was difficult to obtain in the city proper during that time and he was forced to find accommodations in a nearby village. It is supposed that Mark mentions Alexander and Rufus because they were known to be prominent members of the Christian community and personally acquainted with Mark by the time he wrote his account some 30 years or so after the crucifixion. Both Rufus and his mother were mentioned by Paul in Romans 16:13. It is safe to assume that the chance events of that day caused Simon and his family to become believers.
From here we have to go to Luke 23:27-31 to see something that is found only in Luke. “And there followed Him a great multitude of people, including women who beat their breasts in grief and wept after Him. But Jesus, turning to them, said, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. The time will come when you will say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never gave birth and the breasts that have never nursed. Then they will begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us! And to the hills, Hide us! If they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
It is obvious Jesus was looking forward in time to the destruction of Jerusalem about 40 years later in 70 AD (see Luke 21:20-24); and that He is speaking to women from Jerusalem, not the women from Galilee mentioned in Luke 23:49, 55. During this time of unspeakable horror, hundreds of thousands of women and children will die of starvation, be killed or forced into slavery.
Verse 31 is a proverbial expression (the green tree and the dry or the healthy, fruitful tree and the dead, unfruitful tree) used to compare Jesus’ suffering to that of Jerusalem when the Romans would utterly destroy the city and its inhabitants. The comparison could be expressed this way: if these things were being done to Him, how much worse will it be for those who were unjustly condemning Him? Or, if an innocent person is being treated this way, how will the guilty and corrupt be treated? Look at I Peter 4:17 for a similar comparison.
At this point I want to begin to describe our Lord’s crucifixion in some detail. This is necessary to dispel certain misconceptions perpetuated by traditional religion. As previously mentioned in Mark 15:25 Jesus was crucified “the third hour”. Mark used Jewish time, which would be 9:00 AM in the morning.
The Persians may have been the first to practice crucifixion. It appears that Alexander the Great introduced it to Egypt and Carthage, and the Romans learned it from the Carthaginians. And, even though the Romans may not have invented it, they certainly perfected it as a form of spectacular public torture and capital punishment. There are some who give Semiramis, Nimrod’s queen and co-founder with him, of the ancient Babylonian church, which was the first true example of institutional religion, credit for the invention of crucifixion.
Regardless of who started it, crucifixion was designed to produce a slow death and the extremes of pain and suffering in the process, as we will see. During Jesus’ day, this disgraceful and most cruel form of execution was reserved only for slaves, foreigners, revolutionaries and the worst criminals. Roman law protected Roman citizens from crucifixion, except in the case of desertion by Roman soldiers.