Day 191: Luke 23:26–31

A great multitude of the people followed Him, including women who were mourning and lamenting Him (v. 27).

According to ancient custom, the cross, or at least the crossbeam, was placed upon the ground, then Christ was stretched out upon it. I cannot imagine being the one who actually targeted the nail to the proper place in the skin and struck the blow. Do you think he at all costs avoided Christ’s eyes?

They probably secured His hands before His feet so that His arms would not flail when His feet were nailed. We often picture that the nail wounds were in the palms, but the delicate bones in the hands could not hold a victim to the cross. The nails were usually driven through the wrists. In Hebrew, the wrist was considered part of the hand rather than the arm.

Without becoming more graphic than necessary, crucifixion, almost always preceded by a near-to-death flogging, was unimaginably painful and inhumane. This kind of capital punishment was targeted as a deterrent for rebellious slaves and was forbidden to any Roman citizen, no matter how serious his crime. Crucifixion was a totally inhumane way for even the two criminals to die. But this was the King of glory! They took a hammer and nails to the “Word made flesh.”

I want you to sit and “listen” to the sound of the hammer striking. I’m not trying to be melodramatic. I just want us to come as close as possible to being eyewitnesses. You don’t have to open your eyes and “look,” but I want you to open your spiritual ears and listen. Move close enough to hear the conversation of the marksman as he positions the nail at the wrist of Christ. You’ll have to fight the crowd to get close enough. Then listen to the hammer hit the nail—several times at each hand and foot to make sure the nails are securely in place. I’m not trying to make you wince. I only want you to hear the sound as the nails are driven securely into the wood.

As painful and horrendous as the pounding hammer sounds to our spiritual ears, Colossians 2:13–14 says that while we were dead in our sins, God made us alive with Christ. He “canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.”

I will never fully grasp how such human atrocities occurred at the free will of humanity, while God used them to unfold His perfect, divine, and redemptive plan. Christ was nailed to the cross as the one perfect human. He was the fulfillment of the law in every way.