John 19:16b-17
So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha.
This is another detail unique to John…and easy to miss because it is tucked within and along side other more dramatic details like the gruesome name of the Romans’ execution site. I’m talking about John’s mention that Jesus carried the cross by himself.
In each of the other three accounts, Roman centurions press Simon of Cyrene into service to help Jesus carry his cross. That’s pretty understandable. Just earlier, Jesus had been flogged – that is, whipped 51 times with a whip that had bits of metal woven into the ends of the lash. That kind of scourging was brutal, enough to incapacitate even the strongest. And that was after being arrested the previous evening and tried, accused, and harassed all night long. No wonder he needed help.
But not according to John. John’s Jesus is, quite frankly, a very strong Jesus. Keep in mind that there is no temptation scene in John and that in the garden the evening of his arrest he does not pray to God to remove his cup of suffering but instead demands to drink it.
Jesus, in John, is a man on a mission, a spiritual warrior and muscular savior undeterred by hardship and unfazed by physical distress. John’s depiction of Jesus seemed so extreme, so nearly beyond human, in fact, that the early Church wasn’t entirely convinced it should be included in the New Testament canon. It seemed too Gnostic – an early view that Jesus wasn’t really human but was an angel or spirit in human guise, a view eventually declared heretical. John’s emphasis on an almost super-hero-like Jesus was especially glaring when compared with the other Evangelists’ far more “human” descriptions of Jesus.
So why does John characterize Jesus in this way? Keep in mind the distress most scholars believe his community experienced as Jewish followers of Jesus who had been rejected by, and likely expelled from, their local synagogue. In the face of such pain and brokenness, John wants to remind them that their Savior is strong, strong enough to weather the torment of his abuse and crucifixion, strong enough to turn the defeat of the cross into victory, and strong enough, therefore, to save them.
There are time that we feel low and need to know that God understands, that God identifies with us. At these times…read Mark! But there are other times when we are low and we need to hear that God will lift us up. That’s the time for John.
Prayer: Dear God, thank you for the witness of John to remind us that you will see us through even the darkest times of life and bring us to the other side victorious. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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