Proof of Death ...

Before one can come back to life, one must have first lost their life in the first place.  CNN carried a story recently of a man who was pronounced dead for 45mins and after a prayerful declaration by his teenage son, his pulse rate resumed, and he was quite literally brought back to life.  The man appeared on television with his family.  He had no stories of bright lights, or ascending over his body, or seeing departed loved ones.  His testimony was only that he fell asleep at home and awoke several days later in the hospital without any knowledge of what took place in between.  His doctor conducted research and to the best of his knowledge has never heard of anything like this in the medical / scientific community.  So is this a modern day resurrection, akin to Lazarus in the past?  Skeptics will dismiss this story, as being mistaken, facts incorrectly relayed, timing’s being in question.  Perhaps the man in question was never “really” dead.  But skeptics will always find a way to discount that in which they refuse to believe by choice.   There were those I am sure who dismissed the story of Lazarus who spent four days in a grave before being called back to life.  And now, John was to record the final events of the life of Christ, those events that led up to His death.

 

John begins in chapter 19 of his gospel in verse 16 saying … “Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.”  Pilate had finally given up his efforts to spare the innocent blood of Christ, and had acquiesced to the fervor of the religious zealots who demanded Christ be killed through the power of the state.  From a human perspective, all hope was gone for Christ.  The hate of the Pharisees, combined with the muscle of Roman power, was a combination that no man could overcome.  But therein lies the irony.  This was no ordinary man.  Christ, with the power of His divinity, could have at any time removed himself from this situation.  He had done so on every occasion where the people intended to make Him their earthly King.  But while He exercised divine power to escape fame and earthly glory, He used none of it to escape His own torture and death.  He chose to submit through each agonizing moment, all the way to His death.  It is why He had said that no man takes His life, that He alone must lay it down.  All the power of hate and Rome was nothing against His own will, should He have willed it, He could have stopped the process in an instant.  But He did not.

John continues in verse 17 … “And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: [verse 18] Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.”  No sense in wasting an execution, Pilate determined to go ahead and execute two other captured criminals with Christ.  In yet another Roman expression of efficiency, the criminals were to carry the heavy load of the instrument of torture they were to be put to death upon.  They carried their own crosses (though we know this burden at some point in the journey became too much for Christ, and another was tasked to help Him with it).  Crucifixion was not the same as beheading, or a bullet to the head, or a mortal wound from a sword or spear.  It was intended to be a slow death.  The victim must hold themselves up in order to keep breathing properly.  When the muscles in their legs finally give out, they become unable to breathe, and die of asphyxiation.  Their last ounce of strength would be spent trying to stay alive for just one more moment, with a knowledge that at some point, they would lose strength and die.  Christ had already exhausted Himself, in the beating He had taken that nearly had Him bleed out.  He had been mocked, spat upon, lost more blood from the crown of thorns placed in His head, and again exhausted from trying to carry His own cross.  He would not last long.

Pilate however, had one parting shot at those religious zealots who had refused to listen to reason.  Pilate knew that the Jews believed their Messiah was to be their king.  So John records in verse 19 … “And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. [verse 20] This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. [verse 21] Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. [verse 22] Pilate answered, What I have written I have written.”  Pilate did believe Jesus was indeed the Messiah of the Jewish prophecy, his brief encounter with Truth taught him that.  So, Pilate gave to Christ the title the common belief in that prophecy warranted.  In effect, Pilate was saying to the Jews, whether you see it or not, you have asked me to crucify your only hope.  And Pilate remained firm in keeping this title posted in every common language, near to Jerusalem during a Passover, a year of Jubilee, and a time when every worshipper would be heading into the city.  This was something the Pharisees could not stand, but were forced to endure.

Modern artistic renderings of Christ always show Him clothed during this final torturous death.  It is hard enough for us to bear that He died in our place, but to add the humiliation of seeing our God on earth naked, and exposed for all to see, for His enemies to further mock, is too much for most artists to represent.  But scripture tells us in verse 23 … “Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. [verse 24] They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.”  His clothing was divided among the soldiers (spoils of war), and He would have no further need of it.  His robe however, was decided by dice as it was a garment woven without seam.  Even in the details of their greed, scriptural prophecy was fulfilled.  The Pharisees were present during these events.  They knew the prophecies.  They had spent their lives debating the scriptures and their meaning.  These events were not lost on them, but they simply did not choose to care, or to truly see their own error and repent.

In another act of cruelty, the Romans freely permitted the women related to the victims of crucifixion to attend these events.  The women who loved these victims would openly grieve for them, pleading for mercy which would not come.  The victims seeing the pain of their loved ones, would struggle harder to survive, thus extending the torture of their own inevitable death.  All of this spectacle only added to the pain and torture for everyone concerned.  The men who were friends of the victim would largely stay away, as they did not want to risk a confrontation with the attending soldiers, or risk being associated with the victim and perhaps find themselves the subject of further Roman prosecution in coming days.  So no matter what the motivation may have been, the remainder of the disciples of Christ were not recorded as being present at His death.  Perhaps they were there and unnoticed, or perhaps they had already fled to the upper room.  In any case, John does record who had come in verse 25 … “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.”  Four women had come to grieve and spend what little time there was left, with the One who they had all come to love.  I do not know, if the sister of the mother of Christ may have been the mother of John the Baptist or not, but at least Mary had some family present with her. 

Death was now very near.  Strength had given way to the exhaustion of human limits.  For most of us, our thoughts would have been centered on living, on keeping alive just a bit longer.  But even unto death, despite everything that has happened to Him, and all the pain He has personally endured.  The thoughts of Christ are on the pain of those He loved.  Instead of crying out for His own agony, He looks to address the concerns of His family.  John records in verse 26 … “When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! [verse 27] Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.”  Widows were the poorest of Jewish society, without a male to earn, and buy, and manage affairs, a woman could do little to preserve her own life.  So Christ first thinks of us once again, and in so doing affirms that we are family by choice, as much or more, as we are family by blood.  To His mother, He offers yet another son.  To His most loved friend, He offers the care and love of yet another mother, His very own mother.  To care for the widows, and orphans, is not just a lesson to be preached in the Temple, but to be lived by example, even at the point of death.  Even at the door of death itself Christ is thinking about us, trying to care for us, looking out for our best interests.  With all the divine power at His disposal, He does not make miracles to insure the wealth and ease of the life of His mother.  Instead He asks John to love her and care for her.  He asks Mary to treat John as her own son, and to love and care for Him.  It is not miracles that are needed to make our lives filled with wealth and ease, it is only love.  It is love that is truly important.  It always was, it will always be.

Now there was only one more prophetic scripture to be fulfilled.  John records in verse 28 … “After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. [verse 29] Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. [verse 30] When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”  Every prophecy of scripture regarding the true mission of the Messiah had been fulfilled.  Christ had died.  He had yielded up His own life.  He had laid it down for us.  He had died of a broken heart.  But I do not believe we were the direct reason for His so great sadness.  There was something else going on, something of far more significance, and caused Christ far more sadness.  The burden of our sins were upon Him.  As such, for the first time in His existence (which is without time and space to measure), He was forced to be separated from His Father.  This separation constitutes the very definition of hell itself.  To be pulled away from the source of love and life and be hidden from its view, was more than the heart of Christ could bear.  Sin could not exist in the presence of God the Father.  Therefore though He Himself was sinless, the weight of our sins that He carried, forced a separation between Himself and His Father.  This was just too much for Him.  This separation was more than even His own divine nature could endure.  It would be this separation that would cause Him to yield up His own life, and see His heart broken because of it.   This was the ultimate sacrifice on His part for us; to be willing to endure separation from His Father in order that we might not suffer that fate.

But there was even more at stake for Christ than the separation that was causing His eminent demise.  What if, having been stained with the weight of our seemingly endless evil, He could no longer return to the presence of His Father?  What if this separation was to be permanent?  What if the sacrifice He was making was simply not enough to redeem mankind, or be removed from His being?  He was not just risking a human life in the sacrifice of His life with taking on our sins.  He was risking divine existence as the universe had come to know it.  He was risking everything for us.  He was giving up everything for us.  The scale of His sacrifice was not to be measured in merely His mortal human existence, but in His divine eternal one as well.  This was the question the atheists delight to ponder, could God create a rock so big He could not move it?  But of more eternal significance, could Christ carry the sins of us all, and still return to the side of His Father, having once been stained with the evil of our species from time and memorial?  This answer was not visible from the cross.  Jesus would have to die first, and find out if it was enough later.  His divinity could not answer this mystery before He experienced it.  Thus everything was at risk for our God.  And the pain of separation was that which would cause His own heart to break.  And still He went forward with it.  Still He submitted, and did the will of His Father, without a guarantee it could be undone, or overcome, only a faith that this is the road He must take, and the choice He must make … for us.

And while the fate of the universe itself hung in the balance, the Pharisees had larger concerns, they must insure that preparation for the religious rituals they were to perform would not be distracted by the death of Love and Life itself on a cross outside their city.  These men firmly believed that holiness was achieved through their own actions, not through simple submission.  As such they must “do” what they needed to do in order to be made “pure” before the day of rest and atonement.  John records the height of hypocrisy in verse 31 … “The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.”  The religious leadership of the only one true religion on planet earth, the one established by the Man hanging on the cross, was determined that their murder of their founder would not distract from the ceremonies they had been directed to perform.  Thus they wished to accelerate the deaths of those hanging there, in order to wrap things up by Sabbath.  Ironically there was not even need of this where Christ was concerned, He was already resting.

John records the events in verse 32 … “Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. [verse 33] But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: [verse 34] But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. [verse 35] And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. [verse 36] For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken. [verse 37] And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.”  Now even after He was dead, scriptural prophecy was still being fulfilled.  But beyond this, a lethal spear wound was inflicted JUST to make SURE Christ was dead.  It was already visibly evident.  The darkness as nature refused to witness the death of her creator was unearthly and unprecedented.  The thunder and earthquake that occurred when Christ had given up the ghost, which had woken some of the dead from Adam to Christ and would now bear witness of His divinity until His first ascension in three days, would rock Jerusalem to its core.  And most interesting, the rip from top to bottom of the heavy curtains that separated the Most Holy place from the rest of the temple, allowing EVERYONE to stare straight at the Ark of the Covenant without death.  All of these miraculous events testified at the death of Christ, of His divinity, of the magnitude of His sacrifice. 

But skeptics are not convinced by the miraculous, only by the practical.  So a mortal spear wound through the ribs of Christ would have to suffice for proof of death.  After all, a Roman soldier knew how to kill if nothing else.  They had plenty of practice at it.  And there has never been any dispute that Christ was killed in these events.  There has only ever been a dispute about whether He emerged from death.  The proof that He died seems to have been sufficient for even the most die-hard atheist who examines this record.  Indeed there seems to be ample evidence that He died.  But as said in the beginning, the only way to prove a resurrection is to first prove a death has occurred …