Appreciating Jesus’ Physical Suffering Should Motivate Us

If we properly appreciate Jesus’ horrendous physical suffering for us, that should motivate us to follow his teachings exactly and to serve him with our whole heart. So let’s try to develop some much deserved appreciation.

John 19:1 says “Pilate … took Jesus and scourged him.” Those are so few words that we might overlook it, but packed with so much pain! I found this on the internet describing said procedure – “Jesus was stripped of His clothes and tied to a stone pillar. He was surrounded by a blood thirsty mob who were shouting and encouraging the cruel Roman soldiers as they lashed His divine flesh with leather whips tipped with sharp stones. Blood flowed forth as His flesh was torn from His sacred body.”

John 19:2 says “the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head.” Don’t think they put this crown on his head so gently that the thorns didn’t draw blood.

John 19:2 also says “they put on him a purple robe.” I am told purple is the color of majesty, so they were mocking Jesus here. Verse 3 confirms that as they said “Hail, King of the Jews!” Nobody enjoys being mocked – nobody.

Vese 3 also says “they smote him with their hands” – I am guessing across the face. They were inflicting pain upon Jesus from all directions.

Psalms 22:16 and John 20:25,27 show Jesus was nailed to the cross through his hands and feet. When I was a boy, that was the scariest part of all to me. Can you imagine stakes being driven through your hands and feet, stakes large enough to hold up your weight? I don’t see how Jesus remained conscience through all this horrific pain!

And texts like John 19:18 say “they crucified him.” If you’ve ever watched any westerns on TV, you know hanging has been the traditional way of executing a criminal throughout the history of North America. Why did they switch from hanging to the electric chair and lethal injection? Wasn’t it because they wanted to execute the criminal with the least amount of pain possible? Crucifixion was the exact opposite of that. It was intended to exact the most amount of horrific pain as possible. I am told we get our word “excruciating” as in “excruciating pain” from the word crucifixion. Most of us just cannot even imagine the intense pain.

You might say Jesus had it made in heaven. But he voluntarily left that lofty position, became a man, a servant at that, knowing full well He was going to have to endure such a tortuous death (Phil 2:6-8). And he didn’t really get any benefit out of it; we are the ones that eternally benefit from his death (Matt 26:28). He must have loved us a whole lot to be willing to go through all that.

Why bring all this up? I think studying, thinking about the suffering and death of Christ helps us to appreciate more what he has done for us. And the more we appreciate it, the better motivated we are going to be to serve him faithfully (John 12:26) – doctrinally (Matt 15:9), morally (Gal 5:19-21), benevolently (Matt 25:31-46), and etc.

hear Bible Crossfire Sunday nights at 8:00 central on SiriusXM radio Family Talk 131 or at http://www.BibleCrossfire.com