Easter—Crossbeams, Elbows & Missed Meaning
It is Holy Week, and this season, always grabs me by surprise. The word of its coming blows past my unlistening ears carried away on winds of hurry, work, and inattention. The days approach, but my soul may be prepared—unprepared. How precisely, does one prepare for the greatest solemn gift without somehow diminishing its value? Does analyzing facts prepare the heart? Do studies of the methods and means of crucifixion transfix our eyes in studied loss of the mightier truth? We so often shift our focus.
Crossbeams & Elbows
As Resurrection Day approaches the radio blares attempts at holy, only to gush pious silliness. The radio preachers mock what, by right, is God’s perfect narrative of grace, with their manufactured efforts toward misguided applications.
Today, this morning, as I sat alone at the table, a radio preacher nagged unceasingly about the weight of the crossbeam He carried. The preacher had determined that beam was a load of 150 pounds, pretty heavy for any man. For a broken man, a beaten, and whipped, and punched man, a very heavy load. Yet, another preacher (some years ago) proclaimed in punctilious detail, that the crossbeam was only 40 pounds. That is not so much for a man, a beaten, broken and crowned with thorns man to carry. Perhaps He had such difficulty because He had become weak from His torments? The preachers preach and their words lead not to this cross, but to the thinnest vapor of air. They fill our ears with gusts of emptiness.
This morning’s preacher preached again, that the word for hand meant anything from the finger tips to the elbow. This, to allow that the word hand in that crucifixion account, in fact meant, the wrist. So, we are asked to believe that the Greek language is so inexact, that anything below the elbow was called a hand. I would suppose that anything below the knee was called a foot and that anything below the waist was called a knee. I have begun investigating the New Testament text to verify these things.
Missed Meaning of the Crucifixion
Every Easter season we are badgered to believe that the physical death of Christ was the most horrific death any man anywhere has ever suffered. Somehow, the equation is constructed that the payment for our sins could only be rightly made by a Messiah who suffered more physical agony than any man ever born since Adam. It is almost sacrilege to believe otherwise. Yet, I ask, as with these other fables, where is the text to which we may turn? Is Maundy Thursday truly about the need for a Messiah to suffer more physical pain than any other man? Are we really supposed to be calculating the weight of the crossbeam? Have we perhaps missed the meaning of the whole blessed story by chasing phantoms about wrists, hands, and elbows?
It’s Not the Pain but the Sacrifice
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God… 1 Peter 3:18
The supreme truth about the crucifixion was not that it was painful but rather that it was unjust and sacrificial. All of that suffering, spilled blood and the crucified body, these elements, prove that the Just died for the unjust, meaning us. The death stroke that we deserved was expended on the living Savior who suffered and died in our place.
The Biblical narrative relating to the suffering of Christ is not important because the physical torment was immeasurably painful. It is important because His suffering fulfilled the prophetic words about Him. Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 describe, in some detail, the Messiah, as a suffering servant. The New Testament accounts affirm this man Jesus was surely the Messiah. He was the One who fulfilled the predicted path of suffering God had revealed hundreds of years before. These accounts are there to inspire and remind us that our God is almighty and that His Son is the final sacrifice that allows us into His very presence.
I am rejecting meaningless talk about crossbeams and wrists. These artifices add nothing to God’s presentation of our salvation’s surety or our Savior’s perfections. Through His obedience many have been made righteous (Romans 5:19). That is the message. Speculative theology adds nothing we need, turning our hearts away from solid doctrine. Let us rejoice in what God has given. Let us rejoice in Jesus.
He is Risen!
Don Schanzenbach, 3-23-13
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Suspender Man™, Don Schanzenbach, has long been an outspoken advocate of recapturing culture for Christ. He holds a MA in applied Biblical studies and a doctorate in applied theological studies in the field of political philosophy and government from New Geneva Seminary. He has been thinking, writing and speaking on Christian culture for two decades.
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