Hanging on the cross was excruciating and specifically designed to avoid a quick death.
Like most victims, Jesus is weak and limp from the hours of torture leading up to this moment. His muscles are shredded. He has lost immense amounts of blood. And now he endures the pain of his body weight pulling on the nails that hold him to the cross. Jesus occasionally has to muster the strength in his legs to push up to open his throat gasping for air.
Victims of crucifixion suffer this pattern endlessly. Eventually the Roman soldiers would have to break their legs to end their ability to breathe. Jesus however dies before this is performed. Around three in the blackness of an eclipse, he shouts out for mercy “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” and breathes his last.
Read Mark 15:33-41
ART BY JARED BOGGESS
“New Stations of the Cross” is an adaptation of Mark 14–16.
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