So he then handed Him over to them to be crucified.
John 19:16 NASB
Tarrying on the road of Suffering
“Father, the hour is come,” the Lord Jesus had prayed in a most personal prayer just hours before.
Then in the darkness of Gethsemane Jesus had asked Peter, “Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me?”
It it the Cup of the Blood of His suffering; some by scourging just witnessed, when 39 times Jesus had NO SIN to confess.
“Crucify ben ‘elyown ‘elyown,” they had shouted; CRUCIFY the SON OF GOD!
And shortly Jesus will cry out from His final pain:
“ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” which is translated, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?”
Mark 15:34 NASB
What Father remains silent on suffering?
And what Man must suffer silently for sin?
John 19:17 They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, carrying His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which in Hebrew is called, Golgotha.
Hours before: Sanctification of the Sacrifice
Jesus spoke these things; and raising His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, so that the Son may glorify You, just as You gave Him authority over all mankind, so that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.
And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
John 17:1-3 NASB – The Son’s High Priestly prayer
The Pangs of Death
‘I feel your pain,’ some must have mocked toward Jesus at His suffering the 39 lashes of scourging. No one ever truly feels the pain of another’s suffering.
But for His dear friends the Apostles the Son of God had assured:
“A little while, and you no longer are going to see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.”
John 16:16 NASB
Jesus had not dwelled on His prophesied suffering. Yet by the scriptures perhaps the Disciples denyingly sensed what He must suffer this day.
Isaiah 53:
Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
The Apostles did not want to believe all of it, but to them the LORD revealed the Son embraced by the Father’s right arm.
For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
They also grew up near Him and even though some knew Jesus’ family, they were not attracted to Him until by Him they were called. In these three years Jesus became their Lord, Teacher and beloved friend.
He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Jesus was despised by the ruling council and leading Jews. The Disciples continually witnessed the Jews hatred for Him.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
Isaiah 53:4 NASB
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
John 8:
Temple officials had previously despised and did not esteem Him. These Jewish scholars had never believed His message or the Prophets.
21 Then He said again to them, “I am going away, and you will look for Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.”
25 Then they were saying to Him, “Who are You?”
These politically powerful religious officials most likely asked this mockingly, as they did while striking their blindfolded Messiah during the mockery of a trial before Caiaphas High Priest of the Jews and later in the presence of Pilate.
‘Who are YOU to talk of God or teach us the Law?‘
So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am, and I do nothing on My own, but I say these things as the Father instructed Me.
John 8:28
And the Apostle John adds this witness then in his Gospel:
30 As He said these things, many came to believe in Him.
Many believers will follow Jesus Christ in a victorious procession to the place of worship, but only a remnant remains following a captive King to the Cross of Calvary.
Roger Harned – talkofJesus.com
The Pangs of Pain
Returning to Jesus’ metaphor of suffering, He prophesies this day to His Apostles:
John 16:
20 Truly, truly I say to you that you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy!
As the Disciples had scattered as sheep from the wolves, surely they did not recall this at the time of Jesus’ arrest, trials, scourging and crucifixion.
Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come;
but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world.
22 Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one is going to take your joy away from you.
And why this suffering? – SIN!
The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!
..Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
The LORD God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this, Cursed are you..
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.” – Genesis 3
The Prophesy of Christ’s Suffering
But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
Isaiah 53:5 NASB
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
..
‘By oppression and judgment He was taken away,‘ prophesied Isaiah in the generation of Uzziah king of Judah. It was more than seven centuries Before Christ.
Isaiah, by the mouth of the LORD, indicts those who falsely convict Jesus.
They have just sent innocence to the Cross as the Substitute Lamb of Sacrifice for their own transgressions (sins).
‘And as for His generation,
who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living
for the transgression of my people,to whom the stroke was due?
Isaiah 53:8 NASB
The Good News of John:
1:10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
מֵעֲמַ֤ל נַפְשֹׁו֙ יִרְאֶ֣ה יִשְׂבָּ֔ע בְּדַעְתֹּ֗ו יַצְדִּ֥יק צַדִּ֛יק עַבְדִּ֖י לָֽרַבִּ֑ים וַעֲוֹנֹתָ֖ם ה֥וּא יִסְבֹּֽל׃
Yeshaiya 53: WLC
29 .. “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
And now sinners take the sinless Sacrifice to the altar of the shedding of Blood.
They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, carrying His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which in Hebrew is called, Golgotha. There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between.
John 19:17-18 NASB
To be continued...
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