So imagine our Lord - knowing that this was waiting for Him, being kept up all night and beat during a mock and unjust trial, and then having to undergo this.
Pilate appears to have decided to brutalize Jesus to try and satisfy the angry mob. After the expert torture squad had done their business to Jesus (and gone beyond, by humiliating Him, pulling out His beard, and jamming the thorny crown onto His head), Pilate shows the beaten Man to the crowd.
Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.” When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!” (John 19:4-5)
Think about this – Pilate admits to finding nothing to charge Jesus with, but yet had him flogged… I believe Pilate thought that after they saw His beaten, bruised, and bloody form standing there, their hatred would be satiated, and they could all move on. But this was not the plan, was it? Jesus knew it, and the Pharisees made sure of it.
As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!” (John 19:6)
Their blood lust would not be satisfied without His death.
Just one part of the unbelievable irony to me is that the Pharisees refused to kill Jesus themselves because it was against their law; yet they were asking for Pilate to execute the death of their Lawgiver!
So even after being brutally flogged, which was typically enough punishment to put someone near the brink of death, they took Him and drove large spikes through His Flesh, and hung Him to die. Notice in all the crucifixion stories in the Gospels, there is no mention of the two thieves being flogged, but only being crucified. Why do you think Jesus died so much more quickly than the other two? He had already been beaten within an inch of His life before they put Him on the cross!
In what I’ve read, it seems that flogging was a bad punishment, but crucifixion was the ‘ultimate’ punishment – one beating you senseless where you can’t cause trouble for a long time, and one killing you so you can never cause trouble again. But putting the two together seems to be something that was not ‘standard operating procedure’. Pilate expected the flogging to do the trick, and only when the mob refused to accept this did Pilate then agree to send Jesus to His death.
Jesus knew He was here to take our sins, and He knew that it required a blood sacrifice. He completed everything the Father had for Him on this earth, and only when that work was finished, did He allow death to come. And when death came for this Man, things would never be the same again!
I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades. (Revelation 1:18)
Will you choose to believe and follow the One who defeated death, so you too can stand with Jesus and say “I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever!” Or, will you join in with those who continue to shout “Crucify! Crucify!” No one makes it out alive – even the Author of Life had to die in His human form, to fully complete His work – how could any of us possibly hope to do better?
The question we all have to answer is - what happens next?