Mission Accomplished

Medical science tells us that another horrible agony began as Jesus’ end approached. A suffocating, crushing pain began in the chest in the sac around the heart called the pericardium, as it slowly filled with serum and began to compress His heart. A thousand years earlier the Psalmist in the twenty-second Psalm had prophesied of its intensity when He said, “I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted in the midst of my bowels.” Yeshua, the Jew, was almost dead now.

Dr. C. Truman Davis described the final agony. “The end was rapidly approaching. The loss of tissue fluids had reached a critical level. The compressed heart was struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood to the tissues. The tortured lungs were making a frantic effort to inhale small gulps of air. The markedly dehydrated tissues sent their blood of stimuli to the brain.”

Here’s when Jesus uttered His fifth tormented cry. “I thirst.” He could feel the coldness of death quietly sweeping over His mangled body. Perhaps His sixth saying was little more than a whisper of agony. “It is finished.” Mission accomplished.

But He knew that you and I had been bought and paid for in those hellish, horrible hours when He hung suspended like a piece of meat between heaven and earth. It seems His breathing was almost ready to stop. But then there followed a last great surge as He summoned a hidden reservoir of strength for a final cry. “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Suddenly, yet quietly, the struggle was over. The chest stopped heaving. The eyes no longer rolled. The great head hung limply with the chin pressing softly against the chest.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”? Could it be true? My heavenly Father now looks at me as we slowly walk away from the scene of death. He knows—and I know—that it’s all too true. Thank God! It’s all too true. Because just as spring follows winter, so too did resurrection follow death. It had to. You see, you can’t kill love. You can curse love, reject love, nail love to a cross, but you can’t change it. It’s still love and so it rises again to repeat the refrain, “I love you, I love you.”

But now, having watched Him die—having witnessed such sacrificial love—we must settle the argument. Who crucified Jesus? Some point the finger at the Jewish crowd that shouted, “Let Him be crucified!” But does that take in all of the Jewish people? The prior reaction of the Jews showed that great multitudes loved Jesus.

But then, how do you explain the crucifixion? Was it political opportunism? Or fickle human changeableness? (After all, the Bible describes the human heart as “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,” Jeremiah 17:9). Or was it plain jealousy? Or a fear of Jesus? It was all that and more. The crucifixion involved Satan’s rage against God as well as God’s love for His world.

We also know that certain Jewish leaders did not want to provoke a riot. For example, in Mark 14:2 they decided not to arrest Him on the feast day “lest there be an uproar of the people.” An uproar of the people? What people? Not Gentiles. Those were Jewish people who would have championed the cause of Jesus. We also know that they judged Jesus during the night in a false court trial that was a mockery of justice. Why did they do it at night (according to Matthew 26:31 and 27:1)? Because to do this during the day would have been to put themselves in jeopardy with the Jewish multitudes who would not have stood for it. These leaders feared the Jewish people.

Judas had tried to force Christ’s hand. He may have wanted Jesus to assume all powers, restore the kingdom to Israel, and take His Messianic prerogative as the King of kings. Or he may simply have been a common thief. Jesus called him “the son of perdition” (John 17:12). But even Judas the betrayer cried out and said Jesus was innocent.

Then there were the people. Some were caught in a frenzy. Reason had fled. We know that Scripture says the priests incited a mob and “the chief priests moved the people that he (Pilate) should rather release Barabbas unto them” (Mark 15:11). But this mob certainly did not constitute the Jewish populace that held Jesus in such esteem. Who crucified Jesus? We must continue our search for the answer. (To be continued)

"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ" (I Corinthians 11:1)
The ST. PAUL SCHOOL, with Frank Eiklor, Eileen Young and Cecilia Contreras