Getting to the Heart of the Matter - What would an Autopsy on the Death of Jesus Show? [View All]

Especially given recent world events, I wish to describe (using primarily medical terms derived from the available scholarship and biblical testimonies) the humiliation, torture, and death of Jesus Christ in a way that I believe can be appreciated not only by the faithful, but by all people of conscience, as an example of what's wrong with our society today.

I begin by noting that the avidity for punishment is something Thomas Paine noted in his "First Principles of Government" is always dangerous to liberty. To punish him for his perceived atheism in later works, bones of the "architect of the American Revolution" were denied burial in the USA on grounds he was an atheist, yet here he nevertheless grounds his principles in a secularized iteration of the Golden Rule:



Crucifixion, or being nailed to a tree or cross, is a deliberately painful agonizing form of torture, specifically designed in Roman Times especially to humiliate, mutilate, dishonor, and lower the social status of the victim. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion#Roman_Empire In the Roman Empire specifically, crucifixion was used for, and usually reserved for, slaves, pirates and other especially-despised persons. Id. Its "relevance" survives to this day not only in some cases of modern crucifixion, but in language, rhetoric and imagery when we speak of "nailing" someone for something.

The "Passion" of Jesus begins prior to being taken into custody in the Garden of Gethsemane, in which Jesus, knowing his path and fate, prays continually and is reported to literally sweat blood.

For centuries, this blood-sweat, unlike the tears of agony, has been either taken on faith or suggested as metaphorical. But is now known to be a real medical event, known to medical science by the term "Hemathidrosis" - a rare phenomenon reported at least 12-14 times in world medical literature and seen specifically in people under tremendous stress and agony. In hemathidrosis, because each sweat gland has a small blood vessel around it, a person actually exudes blood from every sweat gland in their body as a method of perspiration. http://www.antioch.com.sg/article.php?story=20050202083844249 During the night of Gethsemane, Jesus is arrested. Certainly, the scourging, or whipping with metal ends, causes bleeding and more.

The movie Ben-Hur (1959) is reportedly the first showing the nails being driven through Jesus' wrists, rather than his palms, which is the most likely method used, given that nails in most parts of the hand, unless very carefully placed, will not support enough body weight. The Hebrew word for "hand" includes the area of the wrist, the usual place of impalement that will not cause enough blood loss by itself to kill. Of importance to the central crucifixian purposes of torture and humiliation are the signs placed near the victim, and other events like the crown of sharp thorns (in light of the charge "King of the Jews"). Seven phrases or sentences of Jesus are reported.

Yet, people have survived crucifixion for up to 63 hours in more modern reports, and up to six days in ancient reports, so it is not precisely accurate in most cases to say that crucifixion is an immediate cause of death. Usually it is other actions by soldiers or guards both before and after nailing the alleged criminal that hasten and actually cause the death. Often, this is done so that their torture-duty may end. Soldiers grow tired or bored and they break your legs so that in about four to six minutes you smother or asphyxiate -- no longer push up with your legs to gasp for breath.

A medical analysis of the crucifixion story based on the applicable biblical accounts combined with modern medical scientific knowledge is posted for all to see at http://www.konnections.com/Kcundick/crucifix.html Other medically based accounts can be found here: http://pinakidion.org/archives/medical-accounts-of-the-crucifixion Another in rough agreement with the conclusion of this former account is here: http://www.antioch.com.sg/article.php?story=20050202083844249

Three people were crucified that day, two thieves and Jesus. Jesus had previously declined a drink including wine and myrrh, a mild pain-reliever, thus declining some relief offered by medical science of that day. He also declined the Roman legionnaire's sour wine as well, declining the soldiers' relief or prolongation of torture. The thieves' legs were broken causing death, but it's reported Jesus was already dead at that point. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2019:14,31-42&version=31 Instead of breaking the legs, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+19:34

The medical reports, sort of like autopsies based on the medical available evidence available in modern times, conclude:

That is, there was an escape of water fluid from the sac surrounding the heart, giving postmortem evidence that Our Lord died not the usual crucifixion death by suffocation, but of heart failure (a broken heart) due to shock and constriction of the heart by fluid in the pericardium. -- Dr. C. Truman Davis at http://www.konnections.com/Kcundick/crucifix.html

Whether or not you as reader accepts the divinity of Jesus Christ, it seems to me that all persons of conscience can agree, on at least a metaphorical level, that taking upon one's self all the sins of the world, including its tortures and humiliations and denials of human dignity and human rights, are indeed enough to break one's heart.

Enough to cause blood, sweat and tears.

And for any, in the broadest sense, doubting Thomases out there, those wounds were still there eight days later when Jesus said to Thomas "Observe my hands" -- inviting him to feel the wounds in his wrists. Those wounds still exist today, in the body of Jesus for all who believe, and in the victims of torture, and in the hearts of all people of conscience.

It is the dehumanization of things like sheer mockery, or the humiliation dismissed as mere "frat prank", that makes the most horrible crimes imaginable much more readily possible.

The Christian churches would do well to tell the story of Jesus' broken heart, instead of merely repeating that Jesus "bled and died" for our sins. He did not merely bleed to death, hardly anybody who's crucified does. In the final analysis, many who reject the teachings of churches utterly do so because they observe the hands of the church failing to feel the Heart, and know the history that so often teaches that religion has too often been a powerful force for making otherwise good people do horrible things.

GETTING TO THE HEART OF THE MATTER: IT'S THE ONE UNIQUE THING WE ALL HAVE

“The heart is the chief feature of a functioning mind.” (Frank Lloyd Wright)

“A book ought to be an ax to break the frozen sea within us.” (Anton Chekhov)

“I believe there are two journeys which every one of us must make: into our own heart, accepting what we find there, and into the world, accepting it as our home.” (Lillian Smith, “Killers of the Dream” at p. 252).

“Peace is not won by those who fiercely guard their differences but by those who with open minds and hearts seek out connections.” (Katherin Paterson)

“Everyone can be great … because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't to make your subject and verb agree. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

“And I always have to stop and try to define the meaning of love in this area. And interestingly enough, Greek philosophy comes to our aid in this point. Agape {love} is more than friendship, agape is not something affectionate, agape is understanding, creative redemptive goodwill to all men. It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. Theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart. When one rises to this level, He loves men not because he likes them, but he loves every man because GOD loves him.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Speaking about being a published author to a combined class of first and third graders that included my own two children, I urged them not to “write about what you know” but to write about what’s in your heart, because if it’s in your heart, then you will KNOW it. I told them they could, if they wished, learn everything I’ve ever learned if they put their minds to it, but the one unique and irreplaceable addition they can make in the world is sharing with others what they have in their hearts.

One’s heart, or one’s soul if you prefer to think of it that way, is the one unique contribution all of us can make in the world, and that nobody else can do FOR us.

On every level, we must get to the heart of the matter, or else we perish in our uniqueness if not in our physical life, and nobody will remember our name. True heart doesn’t simply turn tables and drive the stake through evil. It joins hands together instead. Then we lift each other up -- and we can all breathe free once again.

Have a heart-filled holiday!