Jesus dies on the cross. He was
crucified. Executed. Murdered. Killed. Tortured to death.
We don’t know who invented
crucifixion as a form of execution. Some historians suggest a likely candidate was
the Carthagian empire in the third or fourth century BC. Today we’d call it
Tunisia. Even by ancient standards it was a savage regime. Its leaders used
barbarism as a means of keeping its own people in subjection, and its
neighbours at bay. The most famous son of Carthage was Hannibal, famous for
taking a herd of warrior elephants across both the Pyrenees and Alps and less
famous for using those same elephants to trample his opponents to death, using
them much as modern soldiers use tanks.
Crucifixion was last used on an
industrial scale by Islamic State during the recent civil war in Syria, because
it was such a horrendously painful form of execution that it inspired terror
and hence obedience. The previous mass murder by crucifixion occurred during
the Armenian genocide of 1915. Under Henry VIII, a man could be executed for
stealing 12 pence — a shilling — or taking five loaves of bread. While they did
not use crucifixion, in parts of England the Tudors killed almost one sixth of
the population.
Amnesty International suggest that Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq are responsible for carrying out 85% of all reported death sentences worldwide. These countries know that illing your opponents
is a good way of keeping order and getting rid of enemies. Interestingly, an
early dictator of Athens was once asked why he sentenced so many criminals to
death, and replied that he killed everyone because he couldn’t think of
anything worse to do to them. That’s how Draco gave his name to our language
because we still talk of someone, something, as being ‘Draconian’ if it’s
excessively harsh.
Like people through the ages, most
of us today are afraid of death. We avoid death at all costs … quite literally.
For example, the NHS spends a large proportion of its budget on treating people
in the last few months of their lives, keeping them alive, trying to prevent
them dying.
We talk of something bad as
being ‘a fate worse than death’, but can
anything be worse than death? For a Christian, death is not necessarily a bad
thing at all. True, we leave the people we love and the process of dying might
be very unpleasant; but we are joining the God of love. We know this God
through the relationship that is faith. That’s why John Wesley famously said of
the early Methodists, ‘Our people die well’. He meant they were not afraid to
die.
Jesus dies on the Cross and his
earthly life come to an end. Well … for a short time it does. He returns to
life. Death was not the end for Jesus. We too die, and death is not the end for
us: like Jesus, we too die and then enter a new form of life.
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