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frederickz-8021 · 5 years

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THE ONE WHO SUFFERRED!

Christians all over the world go through some days every year which are considered holy-Christmas, Good Friday and Easter are few among them. Even though we go to church, we celebrate, how deeply does it influence our lives these days is a big question. So in this article I am putting forward a reminder how brutally Jesus Christ was put to death which in turn cleared away all the sins of mankind.

1. PRAYER AT GETHSEMANE GARDEN

As per the canonical gospels in the Bible, Jesus and his disciples after the ‘Last Supper’, went to Gethsemane garden on Mount Olive to pray. After giving instructions for disciples to stay behind and pray, he went forward, fell to the ground and prayed.

Jesus was under heavy emotional stress, knowing that he is going to be sacrificed in less than 24 hours. As per the bible, Jesus was sweating blood. Medially speaking as blood pressure increases, the blood vessels near the sweat glands rupture, bleeding into the glands, thus sweating blood. This condition is called Hematidiosis / hematohidrosis. 2. SCOURGING

As bible says, Pilate, after releasing Barabbas, instructed to scourge Jesus and later crucify him. As per Roman legionaries, scourging was the legal preliminary procedure before crucifixion. For scourging they used the scourge (whip) which included three threads tied together, each thread impregnated with metal/bone / porcelain.

The first few blows tears away the skin, Later it starts to go deep into muscles and tendon causing great blood loss and pain. Scourging is done with clothes stripped and the accused person tied to an upright post. Whipping is done on the back, buttocks and legs and is carried out with variable severity.

CROWN OF THORNS

After scourging, the Roman legionaries plaited him with a crown of thorns. The thorns were 2 inches long and was pushed deeply into the head or scalp. Since scalp has abundant blood supply, it resulted in a major injury with much blood loss and excruciating pain.

CARRYING THE CROSS

After plaiting the crown of thorns, Jesus was made to carry a cross to mount Golgotha. Carrying the cross was like carrying a heavy crossbar, weighing around 80-110 pounds, on his shoulders with hands stretched out. The cross consists of two parts, the horizontal piece called the Ptabulum and the vertical piece named Stipes. Both these were made of wood. Carrying such a heavy cross in his weak and wounded condition was a very gruesome task.

NAILING OF THE HANDS

After reaching Golgotha, Jesus was made to lie on the cross to nail his hands and feet. As per the rules followed by the Roman Legionaries, they used nails on the people who were crucified on Fridays, and ropes on other days. As per the norm they used long nails measuring up to 15-20 cm for crucifixion of Jesus.

In the Greek history, hand includes the part of wrist too. Nailing was not done on the palm, because it would tear out due to the heavy body weight. So Jesus was nailed on the place of his wrist bones injuring the large median nerve. Jesus suffered excruciating pain as it injured the nerve, and the palms became claw shaped.

NAILING OF THE LEGS

Along with nailing of the hands, Jesus’ legs too were nailed to the cross. A single long nail was used for this and the legs were kept in such a position that one feet overlapped the other. This caused bending of the knees leading to rotation of the legs to one side. Nail pierced the 1st or the 2nd metatarsal joints.

OFFERING THE DRINK

Offering the drink to the victim, to easily endure the cross, was the Roman custom. The drink offered to Jesus contained cheap wine mixed with gall. Jesus refused it first since he wanted to endure the suffering with a clear mind. Later before his death, he was again offered the drink with a sponge tied onto a hyssop stem (stem of a wild shrub) and was put into his mouth.

DEATH

The victims of crucification usually dies due to asphyxiation (acute lack of oxygen) and not by the physical torture to their bodies. A person nailed to a cross has to push upwards with his nailed leg to inhale and has to push downwards with his stretched out nailed arms to exhale. Even within a short period of time this activity becomes viciously agonizing each time when he tries to breath. Adding to this misery, rubbing of the wounded back (due to scourging) on the rough wooden surface cause d the opening of wounds leading to pain and bleeding. Jesus went through all these miseries with utmost acceptance.

The main reason for Jesus’ death might have been due to loss of body fluids from the innumerable wounds on his body, the scourging wounds and the asphyxiation on the cross.

SPEARING

As per the Roman custom to confirm death, they usually spear the body of victims. During Jesus’ death one of the Roman soldiers speared his right side of the chest. The deep wound caused by it surely might have injured his heart, right lung and other associated structures in that area.

As per the bible, when Jesus was speared water and blood came out. Medically, it was the pleural (fluid in the lung cavity) and pericardial (fluid in the heart cavity) fluids which came out.

Breaking victim’s legs (crucifracture), to quicken the death of victims was also customary. But that was not needed in Jesus ‘case because he was already dead by the time the Roman soldiers came to break his legs.

Jesus was dead within 3 hours of crucifixion. Even though he was crucified in man’s time his death occurred only in God’s time. It was on April 30 AD 7th Friday around 3 pm. When we look back on the above events, it become clear that Jesus was arrested and executed in less than 24 hours.

Even though Jesus knew about his time of death and how it’s going to happen, he never showed the power of God in him. He was the good son of his Father and chose to be human and died on the cross accepting all the miseries. Jesus crucifixion served two purposes, one was to grant forgiveness for all sins of mankind and other was to fulfill Old Testament prophecies.

Jesus Christ, the 2nd element of holy trinity, suffered more as the God man than any human being ever will. Each time as mankind go through the experience of Good Friday and Easter, he must remember that that a great man died on the cross for him, So that he can live peacefully with the hope that Jesus will resurrect on the third day and God’s kingdom will arrive in the near future.

By,

Freddy.P.Porathur

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frederickz-8021 · 7 years

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THE PERFECT SEVEN

To start off with this article, this subject has been in my mind for years and only now it has taken its form. It all got instigated in me when I was familiarizing the song “Ezhuvilakkin naduvil sobha poornanayi” (a famous Christian devotional song). I just wondered what’s all this about 7 lamps and its

importance. Later after reading the book of Revelation from the Bible, I got to know about the 7 lamps surrounding Jesus Christ, which enlightened him. Besides, reading through the

book of Revelation, I noticed a particular significance about the number 7, which is the sole reason why I’m writing this article.

The prominence of number of 7 is of utmost importance both

in our physical world as well as in the spiritual world. This humble attempt is only a very small speck of sand compared to the whole mount of knowledge both discovered and undiscovered.

REFERENCES OF SEVEN IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD

Nachmanides (12th century Spain) explains a beautiful kabbalistic concept: Seven is the number of the natural world. There are 7 days in the week, 7 notes on the musical scale and 7 directions (left, right, up, down, forward, back and center). “Seven” - represented by the 7 days of Sukkot, the world of nature.

The Sages teach that seven are the attributes of physicality:

1. Height

2. Width

3. Depth

4. Top and bottom (limits height)

5. Front and back (limits width)

6. Left and right (limits depth)

7. The connecting of the other six

We all know about the Seven Wonders of the World, the amazing works of human hand.

The human body, according to our Sages, is composed of seven major parts, namely: head, torso, right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg, and the Brit Mila (the organ of circumcision).Western musicians name the tones, or notes,

of a scale with the first seven letters of the alphabet--A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. The rainbow with its seven colors reflects the beauty. Seven seas is an ancient term describing all the seas and oceans of the world. Many people believe the seven seas referred to are the Arctic, Antarctic, North and South Pacific, North and South Atlantic, and Indian oceans. There are seven visible moving celestial objects: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Moon, and Sun. In mathematics, seven is the lowest natural number that cannot be represented as the sum of the squares of three integers.

REFERENCES OF SEVEN IN OTHER RELIGIONS AND CULTURES

Sanskrit's most ancient holy book, the Rig Vega, describes seven stars, seven concentric continents, and seven streams of soma, the drink of the Gods. In Hinduism, the Sanskrit word sapta refers to number seven. Indian Music has "Saptak Swaras," seven octats (sa re ga ma pa dha ni) which are basics of music, using which hundreds of Ragas are composed. Celestial group of seven stars (7Classical Planets) are named as "Sapta Rishi" based on the seven great saints. Seven Promises [Saptapadi], Seven Rounds in Hindu Wedding and Seven

Reincarnation. Seven hills at Tirumala also known as ezhu malaiyan [in Tamil] means Sevenhills of God.

The Egyptians mapped seven paths to heaven. The newborn Buddha took seven strides. For numerologists, seven signifies creation, because it is the sum of the spiritual three and the material four; for alchemists, there are clear parallels between the seven steps leading up to King Solomon's temple and the seven successive stages of chemical and spiritual purification. Iranian cats have seven lives, seven deities bring good

luck in Japan, and a traditional Jewish cure for fever entailed taking seven prickles from seven palm trees and seven nails from seven doors. In Islam, there are 7 verses in the first sura (chapter) of the Quran. During the Hajj (religious pilgrimage to Mecca), pilgrims walk 7 times around the Kaaba (most sacred site in Islam) the ritual called Tawaf. The Quran was revealed in 7 local dialects.

REFERENCES OF SEVEN IN CHRISTIANITY

The references of 7 in the bible is numerous both in the old and the New Testament. There about 700 times the number 7 is being referred of which 55 times in the book of Revelation alone.

So starting with Genesis, the number seven is a number of completeness, divine perfection or “something that is finished”, as in the creation week. God spent six days in creating the universe, and rested on the seventh day. The seventh day was to be the Sabbath, “set apart” for Israel, a holy day of rest.

In Exodus, we see the command for the animals to be sacrificed should be at least seven days old (Exodus 22:30). The command for leprous Naaman, the army commander was to bathe in the Jordan River seven times to effect complete cleansing (2 Kings 5:10). The instruction for Joshua was to march around Jericho for seven days (and on the seventh day to make seven circuits) and for seven priests to blow seven trumpets outside the city walls (Joshua 6:3-4). We find seven pairs of animals on the

Noah’s ark (Genesis 7:2); seven stems on the tabernacle’s lampstand

(Exodus 25:37); seven qualities of the Messiah (Isiah 11:2). The Lord would discipline Israel up to

sevenfold (up to seven times) if they refused to obey Him (Lev 26:18). Seven years of plenty and seven years of famine in Pharaoh's dream (Genesis 41). Seven days of the feast of Passover (Exodus 13:3–10).

The Bible, as a whole, was originally divided into 7 major divisions. They are The Law, The Prophets, The Writings or Psalms, The Gospels and Acts, The General Epistles, The Epistles of Paul, The book of Revelation. There are at least seven men in the

Old Testament who are specifically mentioned as the men of God. They are Moses (Joshua 14:6), David (2Chronicles 8:14), Samuel (1Samuel 9:6, 14), Shemaiah (1Kings 12:22), Elijah (1Kings 17:18), Elisha (2Kings 5:8) and Igdaliah (Jeremiah 35:4).

In the New Testament, Jesus told Peter to forgive a wrongdoer “seventy times”

(Matthew 18:22). Seven loaves of bread multiplied into seven baskets full of surplus (Matthew 15:32–37). Seven demons were driven out of Mary Magdalene (Luke 8:2). Jesus performed seven miracles on God's holy Sabbath Day (which ran from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset), thus affirming its continued sacredness to God and necessity in the life of the believer:

• Jesus healed the withered hand of a man attending synagogue services (Matthew 12:9)

• At a Capernaum synagogue he casts out an unclean spirit that possessed a man (Mark 1:21)

• Right after the above miracle Jesus heals Peter's wife's mother of a fever (Mark 1:29)

• A woman attending synagogue, who was made sick by a demon for eighteen years, is released from her bondage (Luke 13:11)

• At a Pharisee's house eating a meal with the host and several lawyers, Jesus heals a man with dropsy (Luke 14:2)

• A man who is disabled and unable to walk is healed at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:8 - 9)

• Jesus heals a man born blind at the pool of Siloam (John 9:14)

The seven sayings form part of the Christian meditation that is often used during Holy week and Good Friday. The last seven expressions of Jesus Christ on the Cross recorded in scripture (Seven Last Words from the Cross):

• (Luke 23:34): Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

• (Luke 23:43): Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

• (John 19:26–27): Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.

• (Matthew 27:46 & Mark 15:34) My God, My God, why hast thou you forsaken me?

• (John 19:28): I thirst.

• (John 19:30): It is finished. (From the Greek "Tetelestai" which is also translated "It is accomplished.")

• (Luke 23:46): Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.

In the book of Revelation there are seven churches, seven angels to the seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpet plagues, seven thunders and the seven last plagues. The first resurrection of the dead takes place at the 7th trumpet, completing salvation for the church.

There is a famous saying “If six stands for the physical creation and seven for the spiritual(Shabbat), then eight stands for that which is completely outside our world, for the World to Come.” So man is 6, always one short of God. But with our acts and behavior we must try to achieve goals nearing a perfect seven that is by serving God and serving humanity.

By,

FREDDY. P. PORATHUR

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