The Anatomy of the Cross Isa. 53:5
Hands: The Hebrew reckoning of hands includes the wrist and it was the Roman custom to lay the guilty across the crossbar, or patibulum, of the cross and drive a nail, approximately the size of a railroad spike about 7-9 inches long and 3/8” wide through the wrist right between those two bones there. It was positioned in such a way as to pierce the median nerve causing shocks of pain and paralysis of the hands.
“Hands” is used throughout the Bible to describe who is responsible for a particular act. All greatness and power is attributed to the hand of God, and while he occasionally delegates this greatness tot eh hand of men, all the wickedness of this natural world is realized at the hands of men. God told Cain that the earth received the blood of Abel from his hands. Many a self-righteous soul has given their life over to concealing the blood guiltiness realized at their own hands, but God knows that no amount of washing with water can take away such guilt. In fact, every time a person would carry a trespass offering to the priest, that priest would take the blood of that animal and apply it to the tip of his own ear, the big toe of his foot, and to the thumb of his hand. He would then do the same for the trespasser, because only blood can cleanse the point of contact where wickedness is carried out. That’s man’s hands. The trouble with this practice as recorded in Leviticus 14 is that it had to be repeated with each offering. Throughout scripture the hands of God are seen judging, strengthening, saving, delivering, upholding, leading, and healing, but at Calvary, some 2000 years ago the hands of God could only be found bleeding.
Feet: We often see the cross as being raised and dropped in the ground, but recent discoveries suggest the upright bar, or the stipe, was a permanent fixture and that the patibulum was raised and attached. The feet would be nailed to the cross with those same 7-9 inch spikes either through the top or through the side above the heel. As the terrible pain shot through the Lord’s back and into his head the only relief would shift the weight to the legs likewise causing terrible shooting pain.
Just as the hand was cleansed upon each trespass offering so was the foot by applying the blood to the big toe. Just as all wickedness is wrought at the hands of sinners it takes the feet of the unrighteous to get us there. Among the seven abominations recorded by Solomon in Proverbs 6 are feet that be swift running to mischief. Because our very feet have taken us so many places the Lord never wanted us to go here are the feet that walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, the feet at which Joshua worshipped before conquering Jericho, the feet washed with tears just days before, here wounded for our transgression. Wounded for the feet that have allowed us to walk after the flesh and stand in the way of sinners.
Head: On the crown of the head of the Lord Jesus, placed their hours before the nails in his hands and his feet, was a crown of thorns. The thorns on this crown are up to an inch long. It couldn’t have been pressed into his brow without scarring the hands of the soldiers so they placed it gently on the head of the Saviour, and took a reed with which they beat the crown into His head.
The was for the sinfulness of our minds because even as wickedness is wrought at man’s hands, and our feet carry us to mischief, all of it is born in our mind, and begins with our thoughts. The third place that the priest would purify with blood upon receiving a trespass offering was the tip of the ear, one of the two primary entrances into the mind of an individual. The unregenerate mind is spoken of in scripture as being blind, reprobate, defiled, and alienated from God. With God’s help we’ll try never to review the wickedness that has come across the waves of our mind, but even without review any soul present in this place should understand that for the wickedness of what the flesh and the devil has sown in our minds that we are the ones deserving of that crown of thorns imbedded into our skull. But here by the grace of God its been placed on the head from which the fashion of the universe was born, from which the composition and redemption of man was thought up, all so that he might reconcile this evil mind to a Holy God and give an undeserving believer the very mind of Christ.
You recall of course that when they went to break the legs of those being crucified so to get them off the cross before the High Holy Day to follow beginning that evening, that they found Jesus was already dead. The Roman Soldier with the charge to make sure the Lord was indeed dead picked up a spear and thrust it into his side causing blood and water to flow out.
See ultimately the trouble we have with our hands, and with our feet, and with our minds, they all begin with our heart. And here the Lord was wounded at the point of our greatest need. In spite of what we’d like to say of the goodness of man, the Bible declares that the heard is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. (Jer 17:9) Even the Lord Jesus declared that out of the abundance of the hear man speaketh and out of it proceeds evil thoughts. He even went so far as to say, on the subject of adultery, that if a man look on a woman to lust after her, he has committed adultery in his own heart. And yet here is the heart that cared for my soul to such an extent as to give to leave the splendor of heaven, and the fellowship of the Father, to take on imperfect flesh and then die this horrible death all so that I might be saved, here is that heart being pierced at the hands of sinful men. And out of the heart of the Lord Jesus’ flowed the last of his life’s blood so that we might enter it, accepted in the beloved, forever.
While the blood of millions of unborn babies stains the hands of this nation, and as the body of Christ argues over who is the hands and who is the feet, the Lord Jesus says to an unbelieving world “Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands.”
As the feet of mankind tramples the truth of the Scripture and the church props there’s up in defiant inaction, the Lord says, “Behold my feet.”
As the carnal minds of the ungodly concoct new methods of lasciviousness and debauchery, exploiting the poor and addicted, blood drips from the thorns of the crown atop the head of Jesus.
As the heart of every sincere and insincere soul on the planet continues to fail him for the inadequacy of it’s nature, the Lord Jesus says, “Reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.
As Jesus hung on that cross between Heaven and earth the Lord Jesus reached forth his pierced hands to take yours.
As Jesus trekked up Mt. Calvary he walked on the sinless feet that would be driven through, the walk toward the place of sacrifice that only he could walk.
As he hung in agony it was yours and my sin sick soul that was on his mind.
As he braved eternity outside of the view of His Heavenly Father it was his great love for you and I in his heart that kept him on the cross.
Wounded for our transgression.
I fear that as many people that have heard the word of God preached so many times over, privileged as they are to hear the Gospel, become callous to the voice of God and cold toward the conviction of His Spirit. Some of you are likely in that state this morning and perhaps the hardness of your heart has kept you deaf to the beckoning of the Lord. The body of our Lord was pierced that day so that we might enter in. Paul stated that indeed we that are born again are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. And while that opening into the Saviour’s side is ever opened to receive you if you’re willing, the door of your heart has to be opened from the inside out in order to let him come in. You know how easy it is to get saved? It’s like opening a door. The Lord Jesus said, Behold I stand at the door and knock, if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me. (Rev 3:20) I want to ask you this morning to look deep into your heart this morning with spiritual eyes, and to listen very carefully with spiritual ears. Maybe its been a long time since you’ve heard from Jesus. Let me ask you. Is that a knocking sound at your heart’s door.