Sounds of the Passion: Pounding Hammer :: John 19:17-18

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We’ve heard many sounds during this season of Lent ... ripping cloth, chiming coins, crying tears, tramping feet, a rooster’s crow, shouting mobs, and sloshing water. Now tonight ...

THE SOUNDS OF THE PASSION HIT HARD WITH THE POUNDING OF THE HAMMER

2.

After flogging him, the soldiers led Jesus out of the city. They marched him past the shouting mob out for blood ... down the Via Delorossa ... through the city gates ... to a lonely hill just east of the temple. The people called that place Golgotha, which means “the place of the skull” ... the place of death and destruction. They didn’t think there was any way to come back from that.

Coming to the hill, the soldiers stripped Jesus naked for the last time, yet one more way to humiliate him. They laid his bloody body down on the cross and stretched out his arms like a lamb being sacrificed. Then a soldier approached with a leather bag filled with heavy spikes and a hammer. Three would do the job ... one for each wrist and one for the feet. Laying a heavy knee on Jesus’ forearm, one soldier placed the five-inch spike in the middle of Jesus’ wrist. He lifted the heavy hammer and drove the nail into the wood. 

[Pound! Pound! Pound!]

Already bleeding and bruised for our iniquity from the flogging they inflicted upon him earlier, Jesus was now pierced for our transgression, our rebellion, our insistence on doing things our way ... instead of God’s way. I don’t want to imagine the pain that shot through his arm. The first blows surely took his breath away. 

Satisfied with the job, the soldiers did the same to the other arm. 

[Pound! Pound! Pound!]

Then it was time to nail the feet. Setting one foot on top of the other, with his knees bent so that he couldn’t push up effectively, Jesus was pierced again.

[Pound! Pound! Pound!]

Crucifixion is quite possibly the most painful means of execution ever invented by mankind. Our word excruciating is derived from crucifixion. It is a slow, methodical process designed to cause maximum agony. Death comes primarily through asphyxiation ... in other words, because you can’t breathe ... but massive blood loss and extreme dehydration certainly play major roles. 

By being nailed to the cross, Jesus had an impossible position to maintain. His knees were flexed at about 45 degrees, forcing him to bear his weight with the muscles of his thighs. But because of the position, you can’t do that for more than a few minutes without severe cramping. So he shifted his weight to his feet, which ... as you know ... had nails driven through them. 

As the strength of his leg muscles cramped, he was forced to collapse. Suddenly, his body weight was transferred to his hands, wrists, arms, and shoulders. Within minutes of being raised on the cross, his shoulders were dislocated by his weight. So too his elbows and wrists. The result: His arms were stretched. We’re not talking just a little bit. Using the Shroud of Turin as an example, his arms may have been stretched nine inches longer than normal. 

With his wrists, elbows, shoulders dislocated ... his body weight caused traction on his rib cage, drawing it up and out. Jesus would have struggled to breathe. This made his heart race and blood pressure plummet. Yet somehow, he found enough strength to speak seven times. His most striking words: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

1.

You should know ... it was not the nails that kept Jesus pinned to the cross. And it was not the flogging, nailing, and suffocation that caused his death. It was not merely because of the blood loss. Nor was his suffering simply physical. There was something much sinister than heavy spikes pounded by hammers into flesh and wood that delivered our Lord into death. Jesus endured humiliation by both men and his heavenly Father. 

The people mocked him with gossip. And the Father forsook him. 

All the sin that has ever existed was laid on Jesus. As Paul writes, On our behalf, he who knew no sin was made to be sin (2 Cor 5:21). And that’s why God died on a cross! 

He had to destroy sin. So he took it upon himself ... it in the body of Jesus. All of our hate ... all of our wickedness ... all of our pride and our haughty eyes ... all of our lies ... all of our adultery ... all of our spite ... every heart that devises evil and retribution ... every refusal to forgive ... God finds all of it to be an abomination. And he placed it all on Jesus, who came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mt 20:28).

The price was terribly heavy ... death by crucifixion. Jesus didn’t deserve death, let alone that one. He was ... as both Pilate and the centurion at the cross both declared ... truly innocent ... not just not guilty. And it was our sin ... yours and mine ... the soldiers ... the mob ... Jews and Gentiles alike ... that killed him.

The result was that Jesus found himself alone ... forsaken by people ... stricken, smitten, and afflicted ... abandoned by the Father. 

But now ... It is finished. 

There is no punishment left to be paid for those who believe in Jesus. 

Jesus bowed his head and gave up his Spirit (Jn 19:30). And behold, the curtain of the temple ... the one that separated man from God ... was split from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split (Mt 27:51). 

Now when the centurion saw what had happened, he praised God, saying, This man really was righteous! (Lk 23:47).

THE PUNISHMENT OF ALL OF OUR SIN WAS PAID IN FULL WHEN JESUS DIED, NAILED TO THE CROSS.

He has forgiven you. And now we can forgive one another ... in Jesus’ name.

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