Tag: crucifixion

During this Lenten season, we have been reading through the Gospel of John together. I hope this Challenge has been a blessing to you. As we begin Holy Week, we now turn to Jesus’ final days leading up to and including his crucifixion. Each day this week, I’ll be posting excerpts from my latest book, John: The Gospel of Light and Life.   The soldiers took Jesus prisoner. Carrying his cross by himself, he went out to a place called Skull Place (in Aramaic, Golgotha). That’s where they crucified him—and two others with him, one on each side and Jesus in the middle. Pilate had a public notice written and posted on the cross. It read “Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city and it was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek. (John 19:16b-20) Notice the sign that was placed over Jesus’ head. Every criminal who was crucified had a sign that named his crime. The sign over Jesus read “Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the Jews.” Only John tells us that this inscription was posted in three languages: Aramaic, the language of the Near East; Latin, the language of the West; and Greek, the language of the Hellenistic world. Why does John tell us this? Because these were the languages of the Roman Empire; these were the languages of the world. In other words, in the very inscription meant to name Jesus’ crime, the Roman governor inadvertently became the first to declare that Jesus is the King, not just to the Jews but to the whole world. This detail leads to a really important idea for John, something that he’s been driving toward for the entire Gospel: here, on the cross, Jesus is enthroned and his glory is revealed; he is a king who embraced death to save his people. We’re meant to wonder and to reflect in awe: What kind of king would willingly give himself as a ransom, an offering of redemption, to save his people? John goes on to tell us that as Jesus hung on the cross, those nearby offered him a drink of wine. They affixed a sponge to a hyssop branch, dipped it in sour wine, and raised it to his lips. Isn’t it odd that John would feel the need to tell us the type of branch that was used? But hyssop wasn’t just any branch. Listen to Moses’ instructions to the elders of Israel on the night of the first Passover: “Go pick out one of the flock for your families, and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood that is in the bowl, and touch the beam above the door and the two doorposts with the blood in the bowl.” (Exodus 12:21b-22a) Hyssop was used to ensure that the children of Israel wouldn’t die, even as they were being delivered from slavery! Once again, John is seeking to make it clear that Jesus came to liberate us and save us from death, and the hyssop branch is one of several clues and symbols John uses to that end. But there was another use of hyssop in the Old Testament: hyssop branches were used in rites of purification (see Leviticus 14 and Numbers 19). It became associated with God’s work in cleansing his people. Thus David would say, “Purify me with hyssop and I will be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7). We find two things happening at the same time in John’s version of the story. Jesus the Passover lamb sets us free from slavery, and Jesus the King sacrifices himself to purify God’s people and to save them (us!) from sin and death. We look at the cross and ask: Exactly how does this work? How can someone who died two thousand years ago save us from our sins? It’s okay to scratch your head. I certainly have at times in my life. Sometimes you’ll hear Christians say they’ve got it all figured out. They have a theory of atonement that explains it all, sort of like an equation in math. The sum weight of the world’s sin is x. Jesus’ righteousness is y. So x minus y results in our being forgiven. I don’t think Jesus’ death works like that. To me, it’s not math; it’s more like poetry or a divine drama. The way we see the cross of Christ changes, like a kaleidoscope, at different times in our lives and affects us differently. At times his death is primarily about our need for forgiveness and his willingness to purify us. At other times the cross will convey God’s power to liberate us from what enslaves us emotionally or spiritually. At still other times the cross becomes a reminder of the selfless love of our King, who laid down his life for his people. Today’s post is an excerpt from John: The Gospel of Light and Life. To find out more about this best-selling book and small group study, click here.  

During this Lenten season, we have been reading through the Gospel of John together. I hope this Challenge has been a blessing to you. As we begin Holy Week, we now turn to Jesus’ final days leading up to and including his crucifixion. Each day this week, I’ll be posting excerpts from my latest book, John: The Gospel of Light and Life.   In many ways, John’s account of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion parallels the one found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But I want to focus on several differences regarding what one might think to be minor details. Remember, the details matter in John, and when there’s a divergence from what we might call the normative tradition (the story as it came to be told by Matthew, Mark, and Luke), we may want to pay particular attention. Allow me to point out just a few of the details that are unique to John’s Gospel. Notice that in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, when Jesus is sent to be crucified he is unable to carry his own cross, hence Simon of Cyrene is pressed into service and forced to carry it instead. But in John we read, “The soldiers took Jesus prisoner. Carrying his cross by himself, he went out to a place called Skull Place (in Aramaic, Golgotha). That’s where they crucified him” (John 19:16b-18a). Why did John emphasize that Jesus carried his own cross? Once again John seems to want us to see Jesus as the strong and dignified Son of God. In crucifixion, the vertical portion of the cross, called the stipe, was kept at the site of the crucifixion. But victims were forced to carry the horizontal portion, a seventy-pound crossbeam, which in Latin is the petibulum, and it became the instrument of their own torture and death. In John’s Gospel, Jesus picked up the heavy crossbeam with strength and intentionality, changing it into an instrument of salvation. It’s as if Jesus was saying, “This is not only the instrument of my death but also of the fulfillment of my mission.” Again we return to John’s text: “It was about noon on the Preparation Day for the Passover” (19:14). In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus was crucified on the first day of the Passover in the morning. But John tells us Jesus was crucified at noon on the Preparation Day, one day before the first full day of Passover. As always in John, the differing details—in this case date and time—turn out to be important. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Passover Seder is the Last Supper, and the lambs have been sacrificed and prepared earlier on the Day of Preparation. But in John, Jesus is crucified on the Day of Preparation. Why does John tell us that Jesus was crucified as the lambs were being slaughtered? Because he wants his readers to see Jesus as a kind of Passover lamb. In John 1:29 he has already introduced this theme when John the Baptist looks at Jesus and announces, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” On that first Passover, the lambs were slaughtered not to take away sin but to spare the firstborn of the Israelites from death. From that time on, the lambs were slaughtered at Passover as a visible reminder of God’s deliverance of the Israelite children from death and of the Israelite people from slavery. This is part of what John wants his readers to see: Jesus, by his death, delivers us from slavery to sin, and he frees us from the fear and power of death. How are we slaves to sin? The Apostle Paul captures it well when he writes, “I’m sold as a slave to sin. I don’t know what I’m doing, because I don’t do what I want to do. Instead, I do the thing that I hate” (Romans 7:14b-15). Sin seems to “own” us. But, like the death of the Passover lambs and the Israelites’ liberation from slavery in Egypt, the death of Christ is intended to free us from slavery to sin. John wants us to understand that Jesus, like the Passover lamb, liberates us from slavery and bondage. And Jesus frees us from death. There are many metaphors in the New Testament by which the apostles sought to explain the significance of Jesus’ death, but for John this idea of liberation is essential. To make further sense of it, we’ll take a closer look at John’s account of the Crucifixion in tomorrow’s post. Today’s post is an excerpt from John: The Gospel of Light and Life. To find out more about this best-selling book and small group study, click here.  

During this Lenten season, we have been reading through the Gospel of John together. I hope this Challenge has been a blessing to you. As we begin Holy Week, we now turn to Jesus’ final days leading up to and including his crucifixion. Each day this week, I’ll be posting excerpts from my latest book, John: The Gospel of Light and Life.   Unlike what is described in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in John’s Gospel Jesus did not appear before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. He appeared briefly before Annas, the former high priest, and again before Caiaphas, the reigning high priest, but very little is said about these trials except that the priests apparently agreed Jesus should be executed for claiming to be the Son of God. Then Jesus was bound over to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. Pilate’s job was to maintain the peace of Rome, making sure Rome’s power was exerted in the land of Judea. The charge the high priest made against Jesus was insurrection—that he was claiming to be King of the Jews in rebellion against Caesar. Insurrection was a crime punishable by death. This charge sets up the theme of Jesus’ kingship. In John’s account of Jesus’ trial before Pilate and his crucifixion, the word king or kingdom is used fifteen times. Pilate went back into the palace. He summoned Jesus and asked, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this on your own or have others spoken to you about me?” Pilate responded, “I’m not a Jew, am I? Your nation and its chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus replied, “My kingdom doesn’t originate from this world. If it did, my guards would fight so that I wouldn’t have been arrested by the Jewish leaders. My kingdom isn’t from here.” “So you are a king?” Pilate said. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. I was born and came into the world for this reason: to testify to the truth. Whoever accepts the truth listens to my voice.” (John 18:33-37) John’s account depicts Jesus as a King whose Kingdom is not like those of this world. It is a Kingdom that transcends geographic boundaries and even time. It is a Kingdom made up of all who believe in him, follow him, and seek to love God and neighbor. It is a Kingdom of truth, light, and life. When John describes Jesus as King, his hope is to persuade his readers to accept Jesus as their King—for us to accept him as our King. His kingship comes before our earthly political allegiances. In Jesus’ trial before Pontius Pilate, again and again Pilate said he found no basis for putting Jesus to death. But the crowd, including the religious leaders, demanded Jesus’ crucifixion. Would Pilate do the right thing, or would he do the politically expedient thing? Pilate knew that the right thing was to release Jesus, but he didn’t do it because he was afraid. What would it do to his career? What would it do to his stature? In this account, Pilate represents all of us, because at some point in our lives we will face this trial and this test. What will we do when given that choice? Is it Christ or career? Christ or status? Christ or money? What is the trial you face? Of course, in a very real sense this wasn’t Jesus’ trial at all; it was the trial of Pontius Pilate and the religious leaders. Pilate stood in conversation with the King of kings, sensed that this man was more than he seemed, and referred to him repeatedly as a king. Yet because of Pilate’s concern for himself, he sent Christ to die. He may have helped his political career, but he failed the test. Today’s post is an excerpt from John: The Gospel of Light and Life. To find out more about this best-selling book and small group study, click here.  

During this Lenten season, we have been reading through the Gospel of John together. I hope this Challenge has been a blessing to you. As we begin Holy Week, we now turn to Jesus’ final days leading up to and including his crucifixion. Each day this week, I’ll be posting excerpts from my latest book, John: The Gospel of Light and Life.   The Gospel of John reaches its dramatic climax with the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus. One of the major themes in John’s account is that it was precisely here, in his suffering, that Jesus was revealed to be the long-awaited messianic King, and it was here that we see his hour of glory as he suffered and died on the cross, giving himself to save the world. The Arrest of the King It was late Thursday night of what came to be known as Holy Week. Jesus and his disciples left the upper room and made their way down Mount Zion. They passed the temple and walked through the Kidron Valley to a garden that the Synoptic Gospels call Gethsemane, at the base of the Mount of Olives. It was likely around midnight that they made this journey. There, in Gethsemane, Jesus was arrested. Let’s take note of the differences in John’s account of the arrest, as compared with the accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. When Matthew, Mark, and Luke describe Jesus’ arrest, the focus is on Jesus’ human agony. Mark tells us, He began to feel despair and was anxious. He said to them, “I’m very sad. It’s as if I’m dying. Stay here and keep alert.” Then he went a short distance farther and fell to the ground. He prayed that, if possible, he might be spared the time of suffering. (Mark 14:33b-35) Matthew parallels Mark’s account, and Luke adds that Jesus was in such anguish that his “sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground” (Luke 22:44). But John doesn’t include any of this. He merely says, “Jesus went out with his disciples and crossed over to the other side of the Kidron Valley. He and his disciples entered a garden there” (John 18:1). Why doesn’t John include the story of Jesus’ anguish in the garden, or his prayers that “this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39 NRSV)? It’s because, in contrast to the Synoptic Gospels’ focus on Jesus’ humanity, John’s Gospel stresses Jesus’ divinity. John does not show Jesus in agony in the garden. He was a King firmly in control of his destiny. He was the Divine who, with strength and dignity, approached his destiny. Only in John are we told that a cohort of armed Roman soldiers came to arrest the unarmed Jesus. A cohort was approximately six hundred soldiers (though the term could occasionally be used for as few as two hundred). Picture six hundred police officers showing up to arrest someone. John’s mention of the size of the arresting force is likely intended to show the perceived threat Jesus represented. John reports what took place next: Jesus knew everything that was to happen to him, so he went out and asked, “Who are you looking for?” They answered,  “Jesus the Nazarene.” He said to them, “I Am.” (Judas, his betrayer, was standing with them.) When he said, “I Am,” they shrank back and fell to the ground. (18:4-6) This detail is not found in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. The words “I Am” in Greek—ego eimi—are roughly equivalent to the Hebrew word Yahweh—a personal name for God that means “I am that I am” or “I am life (or being) itself.” When Jesus spoke that name, the soldiers shrank back and fell to the ground. Why? What does John intend for us to understand by including this detail? Once more in this passage, Jesus was identifying with God, and at his words the soldiers retreated in fear. By depicting the scene in this way, John captures the authority, courage, and hidden identity of Jesus. In the garden, the six hundred soldiers shrank back as Jesus, the mighty King, willingly presented himself for arrest. This was hardly Jesus in anguish throwing himself to the ground, asking for the cup to pass from him, as he is portrayed in other Gospels. In fact, in John’s account Jesus said to his disciples, “Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me?” (John 18:11b). Both pictures of Jesus are important, but here John wants us to see Jesus’ divinity and to understand that Jesus was in complete control of the situation. Today’s post is an excerpt from John: The Gospel of Light and Life. To find out more about this best-selling book and small group study, click here. Above image is of an ancient olive tree in the Garden of Gethsemane.