Appendix IV: The Shame-filled Trauma of the Mashiach

In the first century the Messianic believers (both Jew and Gentile) knew what was involved in the association of the idea of "shame" in relation to that which was involved in the trauma of Roman sentence and crucifixion.

[1] In some Middle Eastern countries even today it is considered "normal" for Arab men to rape victims (male and female) captured in war. This practice has not changed in thousands of years. And not just in war.

Roman practice of sexual humiliation of captured male victims was the same back during the imposition of the Pax Romana. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews noted (decades after the crucifixion) that the Messiah had been tried in all things (by which He can readily identify with those who have been so exposed to such vile treatment). Female victims of rape can be assured Our Lord knows precisely what they have been through (let alone males).

[2] In Jewish thoughtform sacred male prostitutes were referred to as "dogs." In Torah there is a euphemistic reference to "the price of a dog." Cocker Spaniels, German Shepherds and American Red-nosed Pit Bulls, obtained for a good cost from the local dog pound, were not under discussion in the biblical text.

There can be no doubt at all of the ordeal Yeshua went through in the horrific scourging that took place (in which his body was lacerated with the Roman, not Jewish, scourge); the sharpened flint, metal and bone pieces embedded in the tails of the scourge, so that the skeleton of our Messiah (yours and mine) was finally clearly visible (Psalm 22.17) not to mention the fact that the entire cohort was unleashed on him in the barracks, subjecting him to cruel treatment, horrific torture and pack rape. Its all there in the Greek version: see Mark 15.16 where "the whole company" released onto Yeshua should properly read "the entire cohort" -- that's 600 brutal war-seasoned soldiers.

Small wonder his fatigue was so acute, his energy exhausted and depleted, that a man named as Sh'mon was conscripted by Romans from among the onlookers to carry the stauros. The stauros was a short wooden length of timber which would be fastened to the tree of crucifixion -- a tree large enough to have three men firmly secured to it -- and on which the hands of Yeshua would be nailed. Yeshua also expired long before he was supposed to have done so which prompted Pilate's statement of surprise: "What! Is he dead already?" (Mark 15.44).

[3] The Psalmist tells us a number of things about the crucifixion which we would not have known from the silence of the Gospel accounts. In one Psalm Yeshua is described as being surrounded and tortured by "dogs" (Psalm 22.16).

Clearly, Christians have been subjected to a variety of extremely SANITIZED VERSIONS of the crucifixion of the Messiah. It was anything but a simple nailing, and spear thrust. How often do we conjure up images of a silent and quietly mournful "Christ on a cross" so delicately hanging there, neatly wrapped about the loins with a clean white napkin, a sorrowful image with a trickle of blood on the forehead and another on His side just beneath the chest cavity? In such presentations there is hardly a hair of His head out of place.

The reality however is that of a tortured, writhing, screaming, and heaving young Jew twisting his body further out of shape in a desperate attempt to get air into exhausted burning lungs. Totally naked; excrement-covered lower limbs; bloodied to a pulp; eyes gouged out; skeletal details apparent for everyone to view; urine pumping in ejaculated squirts from pain and graffiti carved into His forehead. The legs may even have been tucked up and nailed behind Him, rather than neatly stretched in an elongated manner.

Not pleasant? We don't want to know about such "pornography." I would suggest it is about time we did.

My husband gave a detailed sermon many years ago in a Salvation Army citadel on the crucifixion of Yeshua. Two women fainted and a tough Army officer broke down in loud sobs, God bless him.

Away with sanitized Catholic and Protestant drivel, and let us not be ashamed of Our Lord who cares for us so much that He was more than willing to experience all that life -- and death -- had to offer on our behalf.