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December 13, 2009
Community Article 4441
What Jesus' Birth & Presence On Earth Means To Us
Christmas, A Time to Reflect - Meditate
December 13, 2009
By: Julie McCallum,
Senior Staff
The (scientific) death of Jesus . . .
At the age of 33, Jesus was condemned to the death penalty.
At the time crucifixion was the 'worst' death. Only the worst criminals
condemned to be crucified. Yet it was even more dreadful for Jesus, unlike
other criminals condemned to death by crucifixion Jesus was to be nailed to
the cross by His hands and feet.
Each nail was 6 to 8 inches long.
The nails were driven into His wrist. Not into His palms as is commonly
portrayed. There's a tendon in the wrist that extends to the shoulder. The
Roman guards knew that when the nails were being hammered into the wrist
that tendon would tear and break, forcing Jesus to use His back muscles to
support himself so that He could breath.
Both of His feet were nailed together. Thus He was forced to support
Himself on the single nail that impaled His feet to the cross. Jesus could
not support himself with His legs because of the pain so He was forced to
alternate between arching His back then using his legs just to continue to
breath. Imagine the struggle, the pain, the suffering, the courage.
Jesus endured this reality for over 3 hours.
Can you imagine this kind of suffering?
From common images we see wounds to His hands and feet and even the spear wound to His side. But do we realize His wounds were actually made in his
body.
A hammer driving large nails through the wrist, the feet overlapped and an even large nail hammered through the arches, then a Roman guard
piercing His side with a spear. But before the nails and the spear Jesus
was whipped and beaten. The whipping was so severe that it tore the flesh
from His body. The beating so horrific that His face was torn and his beard
ripped from His face. The crown of thorns cut deeply into His scalp. Most
men would not have survived this torture.
He had no more blood to bleed out, only water poured from His wounds.
The human adult body contains about 3.5 liters (just less than a gallon) of blood.
Jesus poured all 3.5 liters of his blood; He had three nails hammered into
his members; a crown of thorns on his head and, beyond that, a Roman
soldier who stabbed a spear into his chest.
All these without mentioning the humiliation He passed after carrying his
own cross for almost 2 kilometers, while the crowd spat in his face and
threw stones (the cross was almost 30 kg of weight, only for its higher
part, where his hands were nailed). Jesus had to endure this experience, so that sinners could have free access to
God.. So that sins could be 'washed' away. So sinners were saved from going to hell and did not have to experience the torment and agonies of hell. At anytime he could have been relieved of this torture, but then his mission would have not been fulfilled, which was to save sinners.
This Christmas let us focus and spend time on meditating on the meaning of Christmas and what Jesus Christ's presence on earth meant and means to us today.
For Our Freedom - One Man Had to Pay The Price
0202 nd 05-02-2025
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