The crucifixion and death on the cross

Today is the start of Holy Week as it is Palm Sunday, where our Lord Jesus Christ enters Jerusalem in triumph, riding on a donkey or burro amidst the cheers and accolades of the people waving their hands and palms in greeting the Lord. It is quite a dramatic scene where one would think that the Jews have embraced the message of peace and love given by our Lord Jesus Christ and peace would reign in God’s people. But we all know that before the week ended, the Jews crucified Jesus on the cross! Hence today’s Gospel reading comes from Mark 15:22-39 about the Crucifixion and Death of Jesus.

“[The soldiers] brought [Jesus] to the place of Golgotha (which is translated Place of the Skull). 23 They gave him wine drugged with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24 Then they crucified him and divided his garments by casting lots for them to see what each should take. 25 It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. 26 The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.”

27 With him they crucified two revolutionaries, one on his right and one on his left. [28] 29 Those passing by reviled him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, 30 save yourself by coming down on the cross.” 31 Likewise the chief priests, with the scribes, mocked him among themselves and said, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32 Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also kept abusing him.

33 At noon darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 34 And at three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi lema sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” 35 Some of the bystanders who heard it said, “Look, he is calling Elijah.” 36 One of them ran, soaked a sponge with wine, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to take him down.” 37 Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 The veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 When the Centurion who stood facing him saw how he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God.”

At the end of this gospel, notice that it is the Centurion who confesses that the man they just crucified was “Truly the Son of God.” The Roman Centurion is considered a gentile or pagan in the eyes of the Jews. Yet because the Jews and the Sanhedrin coaxed Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor of Judea to crucify Jesus and release Barrabas they instead crucified the Messiah that God had promised the people of Israel. This is why even today, 2,000 years later, the Jews are still waiting for the Messiah to come simply because they failed to recognize Jesus as the one sent by God.

Jesus was crucified from nine in the morning and expired at exactly three in the afternoon; he therefore endured six hours of suffering while hanging on the cross. This is on top of the brutality that the Roman soldiers inflicted on him by the scourging on the pillar, not to mention the insults that he had to go through. Those insults continued when he was already hanging on the cross.

Lest we have already forgotten, Christendom believes that Jesus Christ was true God and true Man. So the man Jesus endured the brutality inflicted on his body, the thirty-nine lashes and yes, the crown of thorns and the carrying of the heavy cross. Here we read that Jesus while on the cross shouted out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Why did Jesus feel abandoned by God, his Father, despite the fact that he knew that he was sent to the world to be lifted up and die so he would bear much fruit?

From my viewpoint, this was the human side of Jesus, who felt abandoned and even betrayed by his friends. But this was the final hour of him who was sent to redeem us. It was not a statement of regret; rather he was merely expressing something that perhaps all of us will feel someday when we are on the throes of death… that when death comes knocking on our doors, no matter how many friends or doctors who will be at our side, we have to face it alone and no one can help us.

What a horrifying, albeit a glorious death to culminate God’s salvific plan, a plan that found its beginnings from Genesis and ending in Revelations. Even today, scholars are still debating why Jesus had to die in order to save the human race, while the Jews are still awaiting the coming of the Messiah. But for us Catholics, ours is not to question why all this had to come to pass, ours is to accept and embrace all these things that have happened with a child-like faith, that God kept his covenant with mankind and if we all believe in the one whom God has sent, then we will certainly be saved.

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