At the age of 33, Jesus was condemned to die on a cross.
At the time crucifixion was the "worst" death. Only the worst criminals were condemned to be crucified. Jesus was to be nailed to the cross by His hands and feet.
Each nail was 6 to 8 inches long.
The nails were driven into His wrist, not into His palms as is commonly portrayed.There's a tendon in the wrist that extends to the shoulder. The Roman guards knew that when the nails were being hammered into the wrist, that tendon would tear and break, forcing Jesus to use His back muscles to support himself so that He could breathe.
Both of His feet were nailed together. Jesus was forced to support Himself on the single nail that impaled His feet to the cross. Jesus could not support himself with His legs because of the pain, so He was forced to alternate between arching His back then using his legs just to continue to breathe. Imagine the struggle, the pain, the suffering, the courage.
Jesus endured this reality for over 3 hours.
Although this was a short time for someone to die after being crucified,
Jesus had been beaten so fiercely, He could only last that "short" time.
Can you imagine this kind of suffering? A few minutes before He died,
Jesus stopped bleeding. Water poured out from His wounds.
From common images, we see wounds to His hands
and feet and even the spear wound to His side... A hammer drove the large nails through His wrists.
His feet were overlapped then a large nail was hammered through His arches. To ensure that Jesus had died, a Roman guard pierced His side with a spear.
Before His Agony on the Cross began, Jesus had been whipped and beaten. The whipping was so severe that it tore the flesh from His body. The beating so horrific that His face was torn
and his beard ripped from His face.
Jesus was crowned Kin of the Jews with a crown of thorns. The crown of thorns cut deeply into His scalp. Most men would not have survived this torture.
Jesus, like other "criminals" facing death on a cross,
was forced to carry His cross, approximately 2 kilometers, to His death.
Jesus was so weak that the soldiers were afraid that He would die before reaching Golgotha.
A man in the crowd, Simon if Cyrene, was then forced into service to help Jesus carry
His cross to His death.
When Jesus died on the cross,
He had no more blood in His Body. When His side was pierced, only water flowed from His wounds. (The human adult body contains about 3.5 liters
(just less than a gallon) of blood.)
Jesus lost all 3.5 liters of his blood.
Jesus had three nails hammered into His body. Jesus had been crowned with a crown of thorns. The last act of violence against Jesus happened when Roman soldier pierced His side with a sword to guarantee that Jesus had already died.
