Roman brutality

 

Chapter 19v1-37    Christ condemned

·      19v1-3      Abuse by the soldiers

·      19v4-15    Abandonment by the Jews

·      19v16-24  Abdication by Pilate

·      19v25-27  Adoration by faithful women

·      19v28-37  Allegiance in His burial

 

The prophecy from Psalm 69v4 comes to mind when reading this chapter, concerning His tormentors, “They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies, wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away.”

From Isaiah 50v5-7  concerning His own mentality in the situation, “…I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.  I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.  For the Lord God will help me: therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face as a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.”

In silent, majestic dignity, He bore all that they heaped upon Him.  With reverence, we tabulate the atrocities committed, and borne patiently by the One who came to save us. 

Abuse by the soldiers         v1-3    “Then Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged Him.  And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and they put on Him a purple robe, and said, Hail! king of the Jews! and they smote Him with their hands.”

The use of crucifixion as a means of capital punishment, was invented by the Thracians, a particularly savage people, whom the Romans feared; they adopted this method to instil fear among those over whom they ruled, and had added their own brand of cruelty to the already cruel procedure.

Crown of thorns    This was symbolic of the mocking which followed the scourging; first creating bodily torture, then mental distress by mocking the victim.  There had been much discussion of Him as a king, so they gave Him a crown made from the twigs of a thorn tree.  In their mock humour, they did not realise how apt this was, for thorns are symbolic of the curse (Genesis 3v18) which is why Jesus died.  He was there to remove the curse, by taking all the sorrow of the world on His head. Unwittingly they were fulfilling the work planned by God by taking the thorns to the cross!  Comparisons with the other gospel records portray their callous cruelty-not content with taunting Him with a mock crown, they used reeds to imbed the sharp thorns into His scalp.  It was a shocking display of brutality.

A purple robe     A robe in mock obeisance to a supposed king, yet how fitting it was, for purple is the colour of royalty; although the soldiers had fun in mind, yet they had to place the inscription on the cross declaring Him to be king, an assertion which Pilate refused to alter when asked by the Jewish hierarchy.

Smote Him with their hands         The abuse was not only verbal but violent.  He was buffeted with the fists of cruel men, who delighted to use their power for self-gratification.  They were simply acting in a way that pleased their overlords, whose agenda was brute force to quell the rebellion.