It’s hard for us to imagine the insult of the Cross.
Although all of us have probably been insulted, and we may have been insulted by those we love, I don’t know if any of us can completely understand the depth to which the Son of God was insulted by the sentence of the Cross.
At the time He died, a sentence of crucifixion was given exclusively to those who were the dregs of society. Because of its cruelty, it wasn’t a sentence given to Roman citizens or anyone with the slightest amount of honor. Although the Roman and Hebrew officials may have wanted to get rid of Jesus with a death sentence, I don’t think even they wanted to convey that much disdain for Him.
The Roman leaders wanted to remove Jesus’ authority because he was leading people to question Roman authority. Jewish leaders heard him arguing with officials in the temple and considered him a threat to their authority on how God wanted people to live. Jesus’ teachings were at odds with these people, who wanted to retain their own authority.
Yet, the authorities probably didn’t plan for Him to be crucified. Even if He were to be put to death to stop His mission, they probably planned to stone Him – as they would later stone Stephen. Yet, when Pontius Pilate asked the angry crowd what to do with Jesus, they called for His crucifixion. Even if they were driven to punish Him to appear compliant with the Roman leaders’ wishes, why was crucifixion their choice?
The crowd may not have known it, but the insult conveyed upon Jesus by His sentence to the Cross was part a fulfillment of a prophesy spoken about Him in Isaiah. Isaiah 53:5 predicted he would be “wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities … and with his stripes we are healed.”
The punishment that Jesus had to endure was purposely insulting because sin is an insult to God’s goodness. God created man with a choice between good and evil, but, because of our sin nature, we all choose sinful things. Jesus had to not only become the embodiment of sin, but of all its disgrace. By enduring the insult of the Cross, Jesus would identify not only with our sin nature, but with each time we were thought of as “less than” by others in our lives.
The physical cruelty of the Cross is unimaginable to modern people. But, to Jesus, the transformation from God’s beloved and honored Son to a scorned sinner Who had to endure the most cursed death imaginable must have been the worst pain He could have imagined. On top of that, He became – for the first time in His existence – unable to commune with His beloved Father.
An insult? That’s putting it mildly.