MEDICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CRUCIFIXION AND DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST

Easter is the most important festival in the Christian calendar. It celebrates the resurrection from the dead of Jesus, three days after he was executed.

The Easter story is at the heart of Christianity.

Three days between the arrest, crucifixion of Jesus, death and burial of Jesus, He went through a great ordeal.

Hebrews 12:2 - "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

In the last few hours of Jesus' life, what did He endure, what pain did He go through, what things went wrong with His body, how did He finally die?

The tone of this presentation can best be summarized in one word "EXCRUCIATE", which refers to something which causes great agony or torment. The Latin roots of the word are : "ex", meaning from or out of, and "cruciate", meaning cross. The word "excruciate" comes from the Latin for "from, or out of, the cross".

We'll be taking it, one ordeal at a time. . .

.• THE UPPER ROOM OR CENACULUM & JESUS AT GETHESEMANE (The Oil Press)

.• PILATE'S VERDICT.

• THE ROAD TO GOLGOTHA & SUFFERING ON THE CROSS AND THE PROCEDURE OF CRUCIFIXION.

.• PHYSICAL SUFFERING ON THE CROSS & DEATH BY CRUCIFIXION (I): SLOW SUFFOCATION AND A LAST DRINK OF WINE VINEGAR.

• JESUS LAID DOWN HIS LIFE AND DEATH BY CRUCIFIXION (II).

REFERENCE:

Tim Greenwood Ministries

Meeting Death at the Front Door

by Nina 

by Melina Meza

"Research shows that most Americans do not die well, which is to say they do not die the way they say they want to — at home, surrounded by the people who love them. According to data from Medicare, only a third of patients die this way. More than 50 percent spend their final days in hospitals, often in intensive care units, tethered to machines and feeding tubes, or in nursing homes.” —Dan Gorenstein from “How Doctors Die”

Yesterday I heard a very moving piece  How Doctors Die on NPR that made me think again about an issue close to my heart: being able to face death with courage.

My mother died of breast cancer at age 85, and she was able to die with hospice care at home without any invasive procedures, any time in a nursing home or being “tethered” to any machines. Because I was talking to her doctors for her and coordinating her care, I can testify that this was only possible because my mother was clear-eyed about her condition and was willing to admit she had a terminal condition. In fact, one of the requirements for beginning hospice care is for the patient to agree to no more potentially “curative” treatments (hospice provides comfort care only). So this means being willing to face the fact that you are dying.

The piece on NPR and the companion piece in the New York Times article How Doctors Die: Showing Others the Way made the same point. The doctors in the article were able to choose the way they died—and lived while they were in the process of dying—because their medical knowledge helped them face the truth of their situations. Realizing that her condition had become terminal, Dr. McKinley decided to turn down more treatment and to begin hospice care.

"What Dr. McKinley wanted was time with her husband, a radiologist, and their two college-age children, and another summer to soak her feet in the Atlantic Ocean. But most of all, she wanted “a little more time being me and not being somebody else.” So, she turned down more treatment and began hospice care, the point at which the medical fight to extend life gives way to creating the best quality of life for the time that is left."—Dan Gorenstein

While some people do very much want to die in a hospital, I believe that most of us do not. And to make that happen, either for ourselves or for our loved ones, we must be as clear-eyed and honest with ourselves as my mother and the doctors portrayed by NPR and the New York Times were. That takes a lot of courage.

"BRAVE. You hear that word a lot when people are sick. It’s all about the fight, the survival instinct, the courage. But when Dr. Elizabeth D. McKinley’s family and friends talk about bravery, it is not so much about the way Dr. McKinley, a 53-year-old internist from Cleveland, battled breast cancer for 17 years. It is about the courage she has shown in doing something so few of us are able to do: stop fighting." —Dan Gorenstein

How can yoga help you be brave? Of course I can’t write about my own death, but I did help both my parents die at home (and have all the clear-eyed conversations that entailed), so I know it is a very stressful process. So I expect that stress management, of whatever kind works for you, would be valuable. I tried to stay as calm as possible when I was helping my mother and found myself every day doing very long sessions of Legs Up the Wall pose combined with breath work (extended exhalation). And sometimes when I’m doing my breath work these days, I consider that this is a practice I will probably have access to until the very end. For information on various options for stress management, see The Relaxation Response and Yoga. Anxiety—which is fear of things to come—can also be a problem, and yoga can help soothe you when you’re anxious. Baxter and I have done a whole series of posts on anxiety, so see Yoga Solutions for Anxiety and check the index on the right side of the blog under the label "anxiety."

I also hope that yoga philosophy will come to my aid. The Yoga Sutras actually describes abhinivesha or “clinging to life” as one of the impediments to samadhi, describing it as inherent tendency.

Yoga Sutra 11.9 [The tendency] of clinging affects even the wise; it is an inherent tendency.  —trans. by Edwin Bryant

But the Yoga Sutras also tells us that truthfulness (the yama satya) is a crucial part of yoga practice. This is one aspect of the universal “great vow” that is the second branch of yoga.

Yoga Sutra 2. 36 When one is established in truthfulness, one ensures the fruitions of actions. —trans. by Edwin Bryant

And it seems that truthfulness—being willing to hear the truth as well as to tell it—will help you face your death and die the way you want to, and to be able to help your loved ones as they die. Just the other day a friend told me how she was trying to help a friend of hers who was dying. “But he won’t admit it to himself,” she told me. “And that makes it impossible for his friends to help him."

So it's my feeling that you have face the truth yourself. That you have to tell your family the truth. That you have to insist your doctors—and your loved ones—tell you the truth. And if you are helping someone else who is dying, facing the truth about their condition will allow you to provide them with the help they need.

In the audio version I heard, Dr. McKinley called her approach to her impending death as “Meeting Death at the Front Door.” Besides being able to do the things you love as you age (see Being Able to Do What You Love), isn’t an essential part of healthy aging being able to die the way you want?

"The front door at Dr. McKinley‘s big house was wide open recently. Friends and caregivers came and went. Her hospice bed sat in the living room. Since she stopped treatment, she was spending her time writing, being with her family, gazing at her plants. Dr. McKinley knew she was going to die, and she knew how she wanted it to go.

“It’s not a decision I would change,” Dr. McKinley said. “If you asked me 700 times I wouldn’t change it, because it is the right one for me.”

Dr. McKinley died Nov. 9, at home, where she wanted to be." —Dan Gorenstein

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect

MEDICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CRUCIFIXION AND DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST II

THE UPPER ROOM OR CENACULUM

The ordeal began in an upper room of a house at what we now call the Last Supper, where Jesus, in giving the first communion, predicted that His body and blood would be given.

JESUS AT GETHESEMANE (The Oil Press)

Luke 22:44: "And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground."

From the upper room, Jesus went outside of the city

walls where he spent time in prayer at the Garden of

Gethesemane.

It was here that Jesus agonized in prayer over what was to occur. Jesus agonizes over what He is to go through, feeling that He is at the point of death.(Mark14:34).

Of medical significance, Luke mentions Him as having sweat like blood. The medical term for this is "HEMOHIDROSIS" or "HEMATIDROSIS". This has been seen in patients who have experienced extreme stress or shock to their systems. The capillaries around the sweat pores become fragile and leak blood into the sweat.

A case history is recorded in which a young girl who had a fear of air raids in WW1 developed the condition after a gas explosion occurred in the house next door. Another report mentions a nun who, as she was threatened with death by the swords of the enemy soldiers, "was so terrified that she bled from every part of her body and died of hemorrhage in the sight of her assailants."

While in Gethesemane, Jesus is betrayed by Judas and arrested by the Jews. His disciples all desert Him, and ran away (Mark 14:51-52). He is bound (John 18:12) then brought back to the city to the court of the High Priest, which is located near the Upper room.

         THE HEALTH OF JESUS AND DEMANDS OF THE ORDEAL

It is reasonable to assume that Jesus was in good health prior to the ordeal that He faced in the hours before His death. Having been a carpenter and traveling throughout the land during His ministry would have required that He would be in good physical condition.

But before the crucifixion, however, He was forced to walk 2.5 miles over a sleepless night, during which He suffered great anguish through His six trials, was mocked, ridiculed and severely beaten, and was abandoned by His friends.

For the beginning and concluding part of this update, read HERE