THERE THEY CRUCIFIED HIM

Luke 23: 32-38

WHEN a criminal reached the place of crucifixion his cross was laid flat upon the ground. Usually it was a cross shaped like a T with no top piece against which the head could rest. It was quite low, so that the criminal’s feet were only two or three feet above the ground. There was a company of pious women in Jerusalem who made it their practice always to go to crucifixions and to give the victim a drink of drugged wine which would deaden the terrible pain. That drink was offered to Jesus and He refused it. (Matthew 27: 34). He was determined to face death at its worst, with a clear mind and senses unclouded. The victim’s arms were stretched out upon the cross bar, and the nails were driven through his hands. The feet were not nailed, but only loosely bound to the cross. Half way up the cross there was a projecting piece of wood, called the saddle, which took the weight of the criminal, or the nails would have torn through his hands. And then the cross was lifted and set upright in its socket. The terror of crucifixion was this – the pain of that terrible process was bad enough, but it was not enough to kill a man, and the victim was left to die of hunger and of thirst beneath the blazing noontide sun and the frosts of the night. Many a criminal was known to have hung for a week upon his cross until he died raving mad.

The clothes of the criminal were the perquisites of the four soldiers among whom he marched to the cross. Every Jew wore five articles of apparel – the inner tunic, the outer robe, the girdle, the sandals and the turban. Four were divided among the four soldiers. There remained the great outer robe. It was woven in one piece without a seam. (John 19: 23, 24) To have cut it up and divided it would have ruined it; and so the soldiers gambled for It in the shadow of the Cross. It was nothing to them that another criminal was slowly dying in agony.

The inscription which was set upon the cross was the same placard as was carried before a man as he marched through the streets to the place of crucifixion.

Jesus said many wonderful things, but He rarely said anything more wonderful than, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” Christian forgiveness is an amazing thing. When Stephen was being stoned to death he too prayed, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” (Acts 7: 60.) There is nothing so lovely, and there is nothing so rare, as Christian forgiveness. When the unforgiving spirit is threatening to turn our hearts to bitterness, let us hear again our Lord praying for forgiveness for those who crucified Him, and let us hear His servant Paul saying to his friends, “Be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4: 32).

The idea that this terrible thing was done in ignorance runs through the New Testament. Peter said to the people in after days, “I know that, through ignorance, you did it.” (Acts 3: 17.) Paul said that they crucified Jesus because they did not know Him. (Acts 13: 27.) Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman Emperor and the Stoic saint, used to say to himself every morning, “To-day you will meet all kinds of unpleasant people; they will hurt you, and injure you, and insult you; but you cannot live like that; you know better, for you are a man in whom the spirit of God dwells.” Others may have in their hearts the unforgiving spirit; others may sin in ignorance; but we know better; we are Christ’s men and women; and we must forgive as He forgave.

THE PROMISE OF PARADISE

Luke 23: 39-43

IT was of set and deliberate purpose that the authorities crucified Jesus between two known criminals. It was deliberately so staged to humiliate Jesus in front of the crowd, and to rank Him with robbers. Legend has been busy with the penitent thief. He is called variously Dismas, Demas and Dumachus. One legend makes him a Judaean Robin Hood who robbed the rich to give to the poor. The loveliest legend tells how the holy family were attacked by robbers when they fled with Jesus, as a little child, from Bethlehem to Egypt. Jesus was saved by the kindness of a youth who was the son of the captain of the robber band. The little baby Jesus was so lovely that the young brigand could not bear to lay hands on Him but set Him free, saying, “O most blessed of children, if ever there come a time for having mercy on me, then remember me and forget not this hour.” So, they say, that the robber youth who had saved Jesus when He was a baby, met Him again on a Cross on Calvary; and this time Jesus saved Him.

The word Paradise is a Persian word meaning a walled garden. When a Persian king wished to do one of his subjects a very special honour he made him a companion of the garden, and he was chosen to walk in the garden with the king. It was more than immortality that Jesus promised the penitent thief. He promised him the honoured place of a companion of the garden in the courts of heaven. Surely this story tells us above all things that it is never too late to turn to Christ. There are other things of which we must say, “The time for that is past. I am grown too old for that now.” But we can never say that of turning to Jesus Christ. So long as a man’s heart beats, the invitation of Christ still stands. As the poet wrote of the man who was killed as he was thrown from his galloping horse,

“Between the stirrup and the ground,
Mercy I asked, mercy I found.”

For us it is literally true that while there is life there is hope.