jesus of nazareth
the jewish carpenter
capitally killed in a method
more horrifying than the electric chair or hanging

with crucifixion a man could hang from a roman crossbeam
for over a week dying of blood loss hunger and thirst
a slow torture tedious death
historians wrote about the atrocity

to ready him to be crucified
soldiers flogged him with thirty nine lashes
roman laws said that forty was legal death
so if he survived forty which was unlikely
he was free from all charges
so they subtracted one
with a whip of shards glass bone and metal
tied into the knotted cords
this lacerated his flesh like a meat rake that
shredded him so badly that
he didn't look as a man but hung butchered meat
reddening the ground under him
it is written by his whip wounds (stripes) we are healed

lifted up with nailed hands and feet
thorn encircled head
to the wooden tree
lifted as the spectacle for all to see









.06 10/8
© Brian Peter Hodgkinson