Welcome to the
'Books of the Book.'
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A special series on 3ABN
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featuring each of
the books of the Bible.
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It's a wonderful
series to be part of.
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I'm Glenn Russell,
professor of Religion
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at Andrews University.
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I'm here with a good friend
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and New Testament
scholar, Dr. Ranko Stefanovic.
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Ranko, as you teach
there in the seminary,
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it's great to
partner with 3ABN ministry
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and to come and share
the insights of scripture.
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So you're sharing as teacher,
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but you're also a
student of the word
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of all the way
through the process.
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You know Glenn, we
are there in the classroom
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and our purpose is always,
whatever we teach our students
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what we present to them,
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we want them to use that
material one day for preaching.
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So I try to balance my
teaching with traveling around,
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because I've like to share
the word of God with others.
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And this is what our mission is.
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I'm really grateful to
God that He gave me privilege
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that I've more time
than pastors in the churches
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to study the word of God.
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So we need to help each others.
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I learned many
things from others
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and I try to make
my own contribution.
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We need each other in
order to understand the Bible.
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We certainly do and we need
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the Holy Spirit
to guide us. Yes.
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Let's pray as we continue.
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Lord as we open Your word,
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we ask that once again
You'll open our hearts.
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Father, we are not able
to know You by ourselves.
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We could never understand You
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and we thank You
for Your revelation.
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We realize that we
will still only know enough
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to give us a taste of
Your wondrous awesome glory.
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And we look forward to eternity
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when we can sit at Your feet
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and you'll
teach us face to face.
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But until then
thank You for Your spirit.
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May You be our teacher now,
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in Jesus name, amen. Amen.
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We've been with Jesus
following Him on his journey
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as He goes through His baptism,
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through His
temptations of the worldliness
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through His
three and half years,
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and now He is
coming to the cross.
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He's gone through Gethsemane,
that great agony of heart.
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He's faced the
mob in the garden.
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He has been taken into arrest
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and now we find Him
heading to the cross. Yes.
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So Jesus is
standing before Pilate.
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Pilate was Roman
Governor who was in charge
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of the entire political
situation in Palestine.
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He was also in charge
of collecting taxes. Yes.
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And his main mission was to keep
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peace in
Palestine for any price.
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If keeping peace
meant torturing people
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and kill many
innocent people doesn't matter
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as long as the peace is there
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and then he can
collect taxes, that was all.
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So he gives the people a choice
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for Barabas or Jesus
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and the devil and
the priest stir up
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the people to say,
"We'll take the Barabas.
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Crucify Christ."
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So see the Jewish
leaders first presented
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charges that were religious one.
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Pilate did not
buy it. Didn't work.
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But then he know that
they went to another thing.
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They changed their acquisitions
to the political ones.
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It was at that point
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that Pilate
actually became concerned.
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We don't have a king but Caesar.
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Yes. What a tragic
pathetic confession? Yes.
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We will take
Caesar instead of Christ.
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And this cruel procurator
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who did not care
about innocent people.
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Actually did not have the peace.
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He wanted to release
Jesus to make Him free.
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He's got a
message from his wife.
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He sees Jesus
eyes, he senses this man.
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There's something
different about Jesus.
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But he thinks
one more thing to do.
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You see, he's moved
with compassion. Yeah.
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But what about Jewish leaders?
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The cost is too high.
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He even presents Barabbas
to them to make their choice.
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They'd rather
chose Barabbas than Jesus
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and then he moves
to the last action
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hoping, hoping to save
Jesus and what was that?
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May I pick it up in
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Matthew Chapter
27 verse 24? Please.
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"So when Pilate saw
that he was gaining nothing,
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but rather that a
riot was beginning,"
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You can see how
fearful he be of that.
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Verse 24, "He took
water and washed his hands
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before the crowd and said
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I am innocent of
this man's blood,
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see to it yourselves."
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Of course he wasn't innocent.
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Verse 25, "And all
the people answered,
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''His blood be on us
and on our children!''
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Then he released
for them Barabbas,
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and having scourged Jesus,
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he delivered him
to be crucified."
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Yes. And then we
have the description.
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Can you just read
description of scourging?
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Ah, this is so tragic.
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"Then the
soldiers of the governor
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took Jesus into the praetorium,
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and they gathered the
whole battalion before him.
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They stripped him and
put a scarlet robe upon him.
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And plaiting a crown of
thorns they put it on his head,
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and put a reed
in his right hand.
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And kneeling before
him, they mocked him,
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saying, ''Hail,
King of the Jews!''
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And they spat up on
him and took the reed
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and struck him on the head.
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And when they had mocked him,
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they stripped him of the robe
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and put his own clothes on him
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and led him
away to crucify him."
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So many times I hear
when people are taking
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about scourging of Jesus,
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how Jesus was
whipped or beaten etcetera.
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We have to keep in mind that
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people then go
to another extreme
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and we have that--
There is a famous movie--
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Famous movie where people went
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to completely
another extreme that--
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Jesus was so
beaten in that movie
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that He could die three
four times there etcetera.
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The question is how
to keep the balance.
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We have to understand
what scourging was all about.
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Actually, there
were-- let their thongs,
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at the end there were pellets
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out of which sharp lead
or bones were coming out.
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So they're five, six of them.
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They would bind the
person for a pillar there.
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They would stripped, you
know, person of the clothes,
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so nothing was just a skin.
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And one of the strongest
soldier would take that scourge
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and beat the
person so many times.
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After the scourging,
the person was beaten,
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there was no skin left there
on the back and on shoulder.
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Actually if the soldier was
not careful in beating, Yes.
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The person could easily die
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and they must say something is,
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we don't know, which
of the two was worse,
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scourging or the
crucifixion? Yes.
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It's a terrible
beating as they whipped Him.
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And they had limit,
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you can only beat Him
so many times otherwise--
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Among the Jews, 39 times. Yes.
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Yes. Now--
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Actually scourging
was a dreadful punishment.
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Yes. Almost equal to the cross.
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And Ranko, I'd like
to pause for a moment.
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Someone might get the impression
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that we're saying the Jews,
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because the text--the
Gospel sometimes say the Jews.
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We should pause and reflect,
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this is not an ethnic
term as it's used here. No.
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It's dealing with the
leadership at the time.
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So there is n o justification
for any anti-Semitic behavior
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or anything thing like that.
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This is not against the people.
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They probably behaved as
human beings would behave.
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Sure, of course,
many of ordinary people
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were prompted by Jewish leaders
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to shout at and stood up,
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you know,
against Jesus etcetera.
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But when the Holy
Spirit served them up
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on the day of Pentecost,
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they responded
in repentance. Yes.
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So to talk
about any consequences
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or anything you know,
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it will be
against Biblical teaching.
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We are talking about
Jewish leaders of course,
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they had the consequences.
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And so many times
Christians they are so ready
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to judge those people,
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but we don't have any judgment
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that was coming from Jesus.
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Actually the only
reaction of Jesus was a prayer,
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"Father, forgive them
because they don't know
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what they are doing."
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They really did not
know what they were doing,
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because few weeks
later they repented
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and actually they
were among the first one
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who joined the Christian church.
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By the thousands. Yes.
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"And when they
went out of that place,
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they came upon a
man of Simon of Cyrene
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and they compelled
Him to carry His cross."
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So we see now we're moving
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on that Via
Dolorosa, the Way of the Cross.
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Let's keep in
mind what happened here
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in Garden of Gethsemane there,
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drained Jesus, I
mean you remember,
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sweat was mixed with blood.
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Then the whole night
evidently Jesus did not sleep.
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I mean He was beaten there
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and mistreated. Mocked, abused.
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There mocked, abused
in the house of Kayafa's.
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Now He was scourged.
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We know what it means
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and finally He
had to carry His cross
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to the place of the crucifixion.
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Let's talk a little
about crucifixion and cross
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and what that
was in Roman times?
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Actually
crucifixion has been considered
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to be one of the
cruelest method of execution.
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It wasn't simply
to kill someone? No.
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That could have
been done very quickly.
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You know what
they're supposed to do to--
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to kill a person
but to make torture
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and suffering as
long as possible.
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Crucifixion was
not done by anybody.
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In the court of
the Roman soldiers,
00:10:30.93\00:10:33.18
there was a specialist for
nailing person on the cross.
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It means to put the
nails into the places
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where the pain
was the most severe.
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So to make the person to
suffer as long as possible
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and to make, you know,
that pain as great as possible,
00:10:52.22\00:10:59.40
does that make sense--
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And the reason would be
not just for the prisoner,
00:11:00.83\00:11:03.63
it's to show everybody else.
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So they would crucify people
usually on the crossroads,
00:11:05.07\00:11:08.39
on the prominent places,
usually the gate of the city.
00:11:08.42\00:11:12.13
So when people were
coming in or going out,
00:11:12.16\00:11:16.62
there was a message,
00:11:16.65\00:11:18.35
you'll see this is
what will happen to you
00:11:18.38\00:11:21.62
if you do not surrender
yourself to the Roman authority.
00:11:21.65\00:11:23.99
Spectacle of the
cross. Spectacle of the cross.
00:11:24.02\00:11:26.38
By the way, Roman
citizens could not be crucified
00:11:26.41\00:11:30.41
because it was too humiliating
00:11:30.44\00:11:33.81
for any
dignified status of Romans
00:11:33.84\00:11:37.49
who claim to
have Roman citizens.
00:11:37.52\00:11:39.37
And the pathway
from trial to the cross
00:11:39.40\00:11:42.49
was not the most
direct route. Yeah.
00:11:42.52\00:11:44.13
He would take them
through the places.
00:11:44.16\00:11:46.28
You've walked through those
00:11:46.31\00:11:47.68
narrow streets
of Jerusalem. Yes.
00:11:47.71\00:11:49.11
You've been on
that tragic journey
00:11:49.14\00:11:51.69
for as many people
as possible to see,
00:11:51.72\00:11:53.65
this is what happens to someone
who rebels against Romans.
00:11:53.68\00:11:56.33
So let's provide
few more details.
00:11:56.36\00:11:58.60
You know the traditional
picture of crucifixion of Jesus
00:11:58.63\00:12:01.35
is how Jesus
carries the whole cross.
00:12:01.38\00:12:05.58
However it does not
fit the historical reality.
00:12:05.61\00:12:09.12
You see on the shoulder
of that scourged--shoulder,
00:12:09.15\00:12:16.62
okay, a cross beam
which was called in Latin,
00:12:16.65\00:12:21.70
patibulum, so that cross beam.
00:12:21.73\00:12:23.27
So the upright is there?
00:12:23.30\00:12:25.05
It's there, it's
fixed already in the ground.
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So that cross beam
would be put on this,
00:12:27.98\00:12:30.54
it was very heavy. Oh, yeah.
00:12:30.57\00:12:32.11
It was very heavy.
00:12:32.14\00:12:33.51
So the person had
to carry it, okay,
00:12:33.54\00:12:37.65
to the place of the crucifixion.
00:12:37.68\00:12:41.11
Okay, so they
would come to the place,
00:12:41.14\00:12:43.39
they would put that cross beam,
00:12:43.42\00:12:45.12
they would put the-- Prisoner?
00:12:45.15\00:12:48.70
The prisoner, they'll
put that on cross beam,
00:12:48.73\00:12:50.88
they will tie the
hands and after that
00:12:50.91\00:12:53.64
they would put the nails there.
00:12:53.67\00:12:55.46
Because people are
fighting, I mean it was--
00:12:55.49\00:12:59.36
That's a gory
and 12:59] graphic.
00:12:59.39\00:13:00.84
But according to the gospels
00:13:00.87\00:13:03.63
there was no need
for Jesus to be bound.
00:13:03.66\00:13:06.72
Jesus put His hands there
and then He was crucified.
00:13:06.75\00:13:10.99
By the way, the problem is that
00:13:11.02\00:13:17.36
we don't know too
much about crucifixion.
00:13:17.39\00:13:19.64
We have information, we
have ancient inscriptions
00:13:19.67\00:13:22.84
telling us about,
but the problem is
00:13:22.87\00:13:25.83
we don't have any tomb of
any crucified person, why?
00:13:25.86\00:13:28.96
Because a crucified person,
00:13:28.99\00:13:30.71
see crucifixion
was so humiliating
00:13:30.74\00:13:33.46
that crucified
person could not be buried,
00:13:33.49\00:13:36.98
the person would be thrown
on the garbage place there.
00:13:37.01\00:13:41.60
Cor Gehenna.
That's why we understand
00:13:41.63\00:13:44.98
why Nicodemus and Joseph,
they had to go to ask Pilate,
00:13:45.01\00:13:49.13
did to God,
please would you give us.
00:13:49.16\00:13:51.06
Actually they
brought a lot of money,
00:13:51.09\00:13:53.45
they bribed Pilate in
order to get the body of Jesus
00:13:53.48\00:13:56.89
to prepare Him for the funeral.
00:13:56.92\00:13:59.97
And we're saying that
it was not simply nails
00:14:00.00\00:14:02.78
that held Jesus to the cross,
00:14:02.81\00:14:04.20
it was His love for
you, His love for me.
00:14:04.23\00:14:07.03
We're going to explore that love
00:14:07.06\00:14:08.43
a little bit further
right after our break.
00:14:08.46\00:14:10.04
We'll be right back.
00:14:10.07\00:14:11.44