The Penalty of Sin
Much has been said of the suffering of Jesus on the cross. I'm sure many of you have heard sermons about the physical details of the crucifixion: about the length of the nails used, position of the body on the cross, construction of the whips used, size of the thorns on the crown, etc. Certainly, all this needs to be said and understood, and if some of you have never learned of the workings of the Roman crucifixion, I recommend that you do, perhaps before reading the rest of what I write. Now the rest of you, after hearing the details of a crucifixion, might think that the physical pain was the main component of Christ's suffering on the cross. Actually, the physical side of the cross is not all that important. It is almost trivial.
I think that the most terrible thing Jesus endured while on the cross was being abandoned by God. When he cried out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", that was when he suffered for the sins of the world. That was the pain that you and I will never know, because Jesus took it upon himself instead. If we're to consider just the physical pain, there have been others besides Jesus who had been crucified, and some have even endured worse things. However, the price of sin that Jesus paid on the cross, that of being abandoned by God, has never been experienced by any other person (God promises that he will never leave nor forsake us). The physical punishment laid upon Christ is an insignificant portion of the whole wrath of God, and it is bearable by man. But the full penalty of sin, which we are saved from, came upon Christ in a form that is completely alien to us. The fullness of Christ's passion is therefore incomprehensible to man and incomparable to any of man's experiences.
So the next time you hear about how much it physically hurts to be crucified, remember that the real pain that Jesus went through for you is infinitely greater. We are given the physical side of the cross because we can actually understand it, but even after you understand the physical pain, remember that what actually took place on the cross was so much more.
I don't want to leave you with this theme of suffering, so I encourage you to look a little further. Once I was talking to someone about the cross, and I was focusing on the pain aspect of it, much as I have done in the above paragraphs. At the end of the conversation, this person reminded me that "Christ, for the joy set before him, endured the cross..." Let us say again, "For the joy set before him". And meditate on this joy, his and ours.
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