The Bible Book

264

life drains from His body, Jesus

grows weaker, but then He calls

out in a loud voice: “Eloi, Eloi, lama

s a b acht ha n i,” Aramaic for “My

God, my God, why have you

forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

Again, the words draw directly

on Psalm 22, the ancient Hebrew

poem written by David. Having

memorized the psalm as a young

boy, Jesus now recognizes that it

describes His present experience:

“All who see me mock me. ... all

my bones are out of joint” (Psalm

22:7–14). Some of those around the

cross mishear Jesus, thinking He

is calling for the prophet Elijah to

come and save Him.

In the heat of the afternoon

sun, with pain taking its toll on

His body, Jesus cries out “I thirst.”

Some of those nearby find a jar of

sour wine—a vinegarlike liquid

considered to be a thirst-quenching

drink for the poor—and offer it to

Jesus on a sponge at the end of a

stick. The Israelites had often been

likened to a vineyard, charged with

producing fine wine of holy lives for

God. Here, Jesus tastes the best

they can offer, and it is sour.

Last breath

Just as Jesus had told His disciples

during His last supper with them

the night before, He had now given

His life for them. Speaking with a

loud voice, Jesus cries out, “It is

finished” (John 19:30). With a final

prayer of trust in God, quoting from

Psalm 31, Jesus takes His last breath

and dies: “Father, into your hands

I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46).

Matthew’s Gospel goes on to record

how the ground then shakes, tombs

split open, and the curtain of the

Temple in Jerusalem is rent in two.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke record

one of the Roman guards, who

has witnessed many frantic last

moments of the crucified, being

astonished at Jesus’s dignified

death, trusting in God as His Father

THE CRUCIFIXION

Deposition from the Cross, by

Antonio Allegri, c.1525, shows Mary

swooning over the dead Christ, a detail

that became a popular embellishment

of the story in the Middle Ages.

right to the end. The centurion

unwittingly blurts out the truth:

“Surely this man was the Son of

God” (Mark 15:39).

As Jesus hangs dead on the

cross, the Jewish authorities

ask the soldiers to finish off the

crucifixions and take down the

bodies before nightfall, since the

next day would be the Sabbath.

One of the soldiers pierces Jesus’s

side with a spear, proving beyond

doubt that Jesus is dead.

Two Jewish noblemen and

scholars, Joseph of Arimathea

and Nicodemus, then get Pilate’s

permission to take Jesus’s body

for burial in Joseph’s garden tomb.

Anointed in sweet spices and

wrapped in linen, Jesus’s body

is sealed in the tomb by a stone.

Why Jesus died

The fact that Jesus died was

central to early Christian belief.

Crucially, Jesus is innocent of

And being found

in appearance as

a man, He humbled

Himself by becoming

obedient to death—

even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:8

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the charges that are brought

against Him. Although He is

convicted and condemned to death

in an alarmingly short space of

time, both Pilate and Herod are

unable to find any grounds for

capital punishment. Jesus does not

die because He presents a military

threat against the Roman Empire.

His ministry has been filled with

miracles of healing and teaching

to “love your enemies” (Matthew

5:44), not with criminal behavior

or political revolution. Even the

Sanhedrin’s charge that Jesus

had blasphemed against God

by claiming to be God’s special

representative, the Messiah, is

false, since Jesus is, in fact, who

He claims to be.

This lays the foundations for

the Church’s teaching about

Jesus’s death: He did not die

because of His own wrongdoings,

but because of those of humankind.

By trying to protect their own

positions of authority by getting

rid of Jesus as a troublemaker,

and condemning an innocent

man to death, the opponents of

Jesus represent the pride and self-

centeredness that characterize

the whole of humanity.

Even though Jesus is innocent,

the crucifixion narrative does not

present Him as a passive victim.

All through His suffering, Jesus is

in control and not at the mercy of

His circumstances. As Jesus had

taught earlier, “No one takes my

life from me, but I lay it down of

my own accord” (John 10:18). The

sinless Jesus took humanity’s sin

onto Himself, willingly drinking the

world’s cup of suffering (Matthew

26:39) in order to save others from

doing so. On the cross, Jesus was

not a victim, but a savior.

Dying to save sinners

Jesus’s cross is seen as the

culmination of His life’s work, rather

than an unfortunate ending. When

Jesus declares, “It is finished,”

Christians believe He means that

the mission He had been sent to

achieve is now complete: the

kingdom of God has been set up

as Jesus’s cross was raised into the

air. This kingdom, in which Jesus

is the king, is not a military state

that uses violence to coerce

people into obedience, but rather

a kingdom of love, in which King

Jesus lays down His life so people

can be free from the sin that would

THE GOSPELS

otherwise drag them into eternal

death. By dying, the sinless for

the sinful, Jesus clears the way

for a new relationship with God

to which all people are invited.

Yet, as Jesus’s body is sealed

in the tomb for the Sabbath day,

no one has yet understood how

Jesus’s death is, in fact, good

news. That life-transforming

awareness would only be possible

after the Sabbath had passed,

as the story continues on the

morning of Easter Day. ■

The symbol of the cross

For Christians today, the cross

is a symbol of God’s love and

forgiveness. Yet, when Jesus

died, it was clearly a symbol of

Roman power and oppression

and of violence and torture.

Many early Christians were also

crucified for their belief in Him.

As early Christian believers

shared the message that God

had set up His kingdom on

Earth through Jesus, God’s true

Son and king, they explained

that Jesus’s death on the cross

was not an embarrassing end to

Jesus’s life’s work, but rather

the means through which He

fulfilled His greatest task of

triumphing over sin and offering

forgiveness. This turned the

symbolism of the cross on its

head. As the Apostle Paul put

it, “the message of the cross

is foolishness to those who are

perishing, but to us who are

being saved it is the power of

God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). The

cross became the universal sign

of Christian faith after the

Christian conversion of the

Roman Emperor Constantine

in the early 4th century.

Crosses still represent death and

sacrifice, as at the Auckland War

Memorial Museum, New Zealand,

remembering soldiers killed in war.

Fixing our eyes on Jesus,

the pioneer and perfecter

of faith. For the joy set

before Him He endured

the cross, scorning its shame,

and sat down at the right

hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:2

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