Ep. 141: The Day of Preparation

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JOHN 19:31-37

The brief spring day was verging towards the evening of the Sabbath. In general, the Law ordered that the body of a criminal should not be left hanging unburied overnight. Perhaps in ordinary circumstances, the Jews might not have appealed so confidently to Pilate as actually to ask him to shorten the sufferings of those on the cross, since the punishment of crucifixion often lasted not only for hours but days, before death ensued. But here was a special occasion. The Sabbath about to open was a ‘high day’ - it was both a Sabbath and the second Passover Day, which was regarded as in every respect equally sacred with the first.

And what the Jews now proposed to Pilate was, indeed, a shortening, but not in any sense mitigation, of the punishment. Sometimes there was added to the punishment of crucifixion that of breaking the bones (crurifragium) using a club or hammer. This would not itself bring death, but the breaking of the bones was always followed by a coup de grâce, by the sword, lance, or stroke, which immediately put an end to what remained of life. Thus, the breaking of the bones was a sort of increase of punishment, by way of compensation for its shortening by the final stroke that followed.

Perhaps it was when John consulted with Joseph of Arimathea, with Nicodemus, or the two Marys, measures for the burying of Christ, that he learned of the Jewish deputation to Pilate, followed it to Praetorium, and then watched how it was all carried out on Golgotha. He records, how Pilate agreed to the Jewish demand and gave directions for the crurifragium and permission for the removal of the dead bodies, which otherwise might have been left to hang, till putrescence or birds of prey had destroyed them.

When, in the crurifragium, the soldiers had broken the bones of the two thieves and then came to the cross of Jesus, they found that he was dead already, and so no bone of him was broken’. Had it been, otherwise, the Scripture concerning the Passover Lamb, as well that concerning the righteous Suffering Servant of Jehovah, would have been broken.

The prophecies of Zechariah foretold how, on the day of Israel’s final deliverance and national conversion, God would pour out the spirit of grace and of supplication and as ‘they shall look on him whom they pierced’. The soldiers, on finding Jesus dead, broke not one of his bones, yet, as it was necessary to make sure of his death, one of them, with a lance, ‘pierced his side’ with a wound so deep that Thomas would afterwards have thrust his hand into his side.

This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £12 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)

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