The Centurion's Epiphany

The people demanded a barbarous thing when they cried out for Jesus to be crucified!

Even for the guilty person, it is important that his humanity not be destroyed, for he is still made in the image of God.

And yet, in our society, how often we hear of demands for the most barbaric treatment of people we assume are guilty of some crime. Gratuitous cruelty is a grievous sin, and yet we indulge in it. There was a time when western Europeans burned those they disagreed with alive at the stake, and called it their Christian duty. What blasphemy!

But Jesus was not guilty of any crime, or of harming anybody. He was acquitted by Pilate, and yet they screamed that He be crucified.

Most amazingly, they demanded that the Roman occupiers, the ones they hated most, carry out the barbarous act! They called upon Rome to cruelly murder one of their own!

They hated the occupiers, but desired them to destroy a Jew for them.

But when He was crucified, there was a remarkable testimony given to the fact that Jesus made Himself a deliberate offering for sin.

The centurion who oversaw Jesus' murder, when he saw how Jesus cried out loudly, and surrendered His life deliberately, exclaimed that surely, this Man was the Son of God!

Crucifixion victims died after a prolonged, slow, agonizing death by asphyxiation and cardiac failure, due to the physical strain placed upon their thoracic cavity by being strung up by their arms.

Jesus was far from expiring naturally, because He could still cry out loudly, and yet He bowed His head, and deliberately surrendered His life to His Father in Heaven.

The Centurion knew, all at once, that Jesus was in charge of His own death!