In describing the graphic nature of the Jesus’ suffering, some graphic language is used.
“For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrew 12:2 (emphasis added)
In our annual approach to Holy Week and Easter many tend to focus on the physical suffering of Jesus, suffering that was substantial. Crucifixion was a hideous punishment used by Rome to quell potential rebellions and always to make examples of the crucified. The suffering was immense lasting hours to days. In the end, the sufferers body becomes its own slow-motion executioner, the victim expiring in the midst of suffocation, uncontrolled bodily functions, insects gorging on the blood, open wounds and orifices, thirst, muscle cramps, pain from the nailed wrists and feet, the open, lacerated back and buttocks scraping against the wooden beams.
Thomas Cahill describes an end of life opposite what all people hope to experience. “[O]ne’s dignity and pride were torn away, then all shreds of one’s identity in life, and finally the last semblance of one’s humanity till one died the comic gargoyle of the moment.” (Desire of the Everlasting Hills, pg. 108)
Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ brought audiences about as close to the physical abuse as one can get, but even that wasn’t enough to convey everything happening in Jesus’ passion.
Fleming Rutledge writes,
Crucifixion as a means of execution in the Roman empire had as its express purposethe elimination of victims from consideration as members of the human race. It cannot be said too strongly: that was its function. It was meant to indicate to all who might be toying with subversive idea that crucified persons were not of the same speciesas either the executions or the spectators and were therefore not only expendable but also deserving of ritualized exterminations.
Therefore, the mocking and jeering that accompanied crucifixion were not only allowed, they were part of the spectacle and were programmed into it. In a sense, crucifixion was a form of entertainment. Everyone understood that the specific role of the passerby was to exacerbate the dehumanization and degradation of the person who had been thus designated to be a spectacle…According to the Christian gospel, the Son of God voluntarily and purposefully absorbed all of that, drawing it into himself. (The Crucifixion, pgs 92–93, emphasis in original)
Dehumanization is the locus of crucifixion and the place we can locate the shame Jesus despised. Scripture does not say Jesus despised the pain of the cross, as immense and nearly unimaginable as that was. It says he endured the pain[“the cross”] but despised the shame.
Richards and O’Brien in their excellent volume Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes remind us that residents of right/wrong cultures, like those in the West, are individualist. Honor/shame cultures located in the Middle East and Asia are collectivist. Western readings of scripture don’t usually see scriptural nuances from the honor/shame contexts that birthed them.
In shame cultures, people are more likely to choose right behavior on the basis of what society expects from them…A critical value in this sort of culture is preserving ‘face,’ or the honor associated with one’s name. As Duane Elmer notes, the Thai word for being shamed, for losing face, literally means ‘to tear someone’s face off so they appear ugly before their friends and community.’ Likewise, the word among the Shona of Zimbabwe denotes, ‘to stomp your feet on my name’ or ‘to wipe your feet on my name.’ (pg 116)
When reading Isaiah’s messianic prophecy “I did not hide my face from scorn [shame] and spitting,” perhaps we now see a dimension of shame we had not seen before. Jesus, not hiding his face from those who would abuse, beat, mock, and spit on it, accepts the shaming the entire world should experience but does not. Jesus the wholly innocent one who should not be shamed is on behalf of the whole world.
Jesus’ scourging, the way of the cross, and the crucifixion itself were designed to remove honor and implement shaming as a mechanism of abuse. Cahill again:
Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who condemned him after a hasty ‘trial,’ meant to have a little fun of his own with this execution and so had ordered a trilingual sign affixed to the top of Jesus’s cross, proclaiming him to be “The King of the Jews.” Yes, smirked the prickly governor, here was as much of a king as the annoying Jews would ever get: a pitiable, shuddering worm of a man, covered in bruises and rivulets of his own blood, his silly circumcised penis swelling for all to see, as he moaned incomprehensibly and died.” (Desire, pg 107)
Pilate’s identifying sign, which probably held a motive of aggravating the religious leaders who had arranged for Jesus’ death, also brought shame on Jesus, mocking the honor that was rightfully his.
Carrying the cross beam (or being too wounded to do so) left the victim open to ongoing derision and taunting from the courtyard to the Hill of the Skull. The soldiers give Jesus a mock robe, removed it, replaced his original clothes, then gambled for them at the foot of the cross. Once nailed to the cross, all hope of modesty was gone. Rutledge adds:
A naked victim of scourging and mockery would not be able to cover his genitals with his hands but would be utterly exposed to scrutiny, derision, and any obscenity that the spectators cared to hurl in his direction. (p 96, n 55)
The honor Jesus might have experienced from his community was gone; Palm Sunday’s coronation only a hazy, concussed memory. By the time of his crucifixion, only John, Mary (Jesus’ mother), her sister, Mary Magdalene remained, with some other women who stood at a distance. The bulk of the crowd were the religious leaders, Roman soldiers, and spectators who mocked and taunted Jesus, demeaning him to the crowd. Truly the prophet was without honor in his own country.
Paul says in Galatians that Jesus came in the “fulness of time.” That is, Jesus came at the right time and place in history and space to fulfill God’s plan of redemption. Is that related to the cross and crucifixion as opposed to another time and place where hanging or firing squad might have finished him off?
Jesus was crucified, for no other mode of execution would have been commensurate with the extremity of humanity’s condition under Sin.
Jesus’ situation under the harsh judgment of Rome was analogous to our situation under Sin. He was condemned; he was rendered helpless and powerless; he was stripped of his humanity; he was reduced to the status of a beast (damnatio ad bestias), declared unfit to live and deserving of a death proper to slaves…This is what happened on the cross. The Son of God gave himself up to be enslaved by Sin, condemned by the Law, and subject to Death.” (The Crucifixion, p 102–103, emphasis in original)
The hope of Good Friday and the promise of Easter is not only that Jesus took our sin, but that he took our shame. Those who place their faith in Christ will never be shamed by the Father and should never accept shame thrown by the Accuser. Jesus turns it around for those who follow him. Because he took our shame, we receive honor.
If anyone serves me, he must follow me. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. (John 12:26)
