When Jesus was brutally whipped….
Just before His crucifixion, Jesus was scourged by the Romans (John 19:1). The Bible does not directly indicate how many lashes Jesus received. Deuteronomy 25:3 states that a criminal should not receive more than forty lashes.
In order to avoid possibly accidentally breaking this command, the Jews would only give a criminal 39 lashes.
The Apostle Paul mentioned this practice in 2 Corinthians 11:24, “five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.” Again, though, Jesus was scourged by the Romans, not by the Jews. There is no reason to believe that the Romans would follow a Jewish tradition.
Scourging was the punishment ordered for Jesus by Pontius Pilate: He was to be flogged (Matthew 27:26) but not killed in that way. His death was to be carried out by crucifixion after the scourging.
My mind filled with the brutality of Jesus punishment the other night as I was reading the Bible. I stopped for a moment and realized how long and how brutal this scourging had to have been. I even contemplated making a mock whip and flaying it with full force in my yard against a post 39 times just to see firstly how long such a beating took, and secondly how exhausting it would have been for the Roman soldiers carrying out the cruel act.
This was pain, suffering and cruelty at its worst.
A relentless, long and horrific beating that our Lord took and yet He did not utter a word of complaint – not one!
Isa 53:7
He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we should everyday simply be overwhelmed by His amazing love for us that was revealed in this horrific beating.
There is NEVER a right time to force worship, service, obedience, to make some one read God’s Word, to have to rev up one’s devotion to God.
No, our worship, praise and reverence of Him should automatically be the result of our realizing what Jesus did for each of us – personally!
The true example of how we all clearly are to follow Him is revealed by a woman who came to a Pharisees house, slipped in and demonstrated a true followers heart of worship – Luke 7:…… 36 Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to eat. 37 And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, 38 and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil.
You know the story, Jesus later on reveals what it meant to Him in this woman’s actions..
Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”
Covid, Covid lockdowns, nothing, nothing should ever cause us to neglect or take for granted our walk with God, our desire to fellowship with His church, or to give our all for Him – nothing!
See you Wednesday for our study in 2 Corinthians and to go before our Lord in prayer as the body of Christ here in Calvary Chapel Secret Harbour!