Crucifixion

‘And they crucified him.’ Mark 15:24 NIV

In The Expositor’s Bible Commentary C Truman Davis MD writes, ‘What is crucifixion? A medical doctor provides a physical description: As he slowly sags down…on the nails in the wrists, excruciating pain shoots along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain; the nails in the wrists are putting pressure on the median nerves. As he pushes himself upward to avoid stretching torment, he places the full weight on the nail through his feet. Again he feels the agony of the nail tearing through the nerves between the bones of the feet. As the arms fatigue, cramps sweep through the muscles, knotting them in deep, relentless, throbbing pain. With these cramps comes the inability to push himself upward to breathe. Air can be drawn into the lungs but not exhaled. He fights to raise himself in order to get even one small breath…hours of this limitless pain, cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain as tissue is torn from his lacerated back as he moves up and down against the rough timber. Then another agony begins: a deep, crushing pain in the chest as the pericardium slowly fills with serum and begins to compress the heart. It is now almost over; the loss of tissue fluids reaches a critical level; the compressed heart is struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood into the tissues; the tortured lungs are making a frantic effort to gasp in small gulps of air. He can feel the chill of death creeping through his tissues…finally he can allow his body to die.’ The Bible records it in these words: ‘And they crucified him’. What wondrous love is this?