An Easter Devotion about crucifixion

 What is crucifixion? A medical doctor provides a physical description:


 The cross is placed on the ground and the exhausted man is quickly
 thrown backwards with his shoulders against the wood. The legionnaire
 feels for the depression at the front of the wrist. He drives a heavy, square
 wrought-iron nail through the wrist and deep into the wood. Quickly he moves
 to the other side and repeats the action, being careful not to pull the arms too
 tightly, but to allow some flex and movement. The cross is then lifted into place.

 The left foot is pressed backward against the right foot, and with both
 feet extended, toes down, a nail is driven through the arch of each,
 leaving the knees flexed. The victim is now crucified. As he slowly
 sags down with more weight on the nails in the wrists, excruciating, fiery
 pain shoots along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain--the nails
 in the wrists are putting pressure on the median nerves.
 As he pushes himself upward to avoid this stretching torment, he places
 the full weight on the nail through his feet. Again he feels the searing agony
 of the nail tearing through the nerves between the bones of his feet. As the arms
 fatigue, cramps sweep through the muscles, knotting them in deep,
 relentless, throbbing pain. With these cramps comes the inability to
 push himself upward to breathe. Air can be drawn into the lungs but not
 exhaled. He fights to raise himself in order to get even one small
 breath. Finally carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the blood
 stream, and the cramps partially subside. Spasmodically he is able to
 push himself upward to exhale and bring in life-giving oxygen.

 Hours of this limitless pain, cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps,
 intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain as tissue is torn from his lacerated
 back as he moves up and down against the rough timber.
 Then another agony begins: a deep, crushing pain deep in the chest as the
 pericardium slowly fills with serum and begins to compress the heart. It is now almost over--the loss
 of tissue fluids has reached a critical level--the compressed heart is
 struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood into the tissues--the
 tortured lungs are making a frantic effort to gasp in small gulps of
 air. He can feel the chill of death creeping through is tissues. .
 .Finally he can allow his body to die.

 All this the Bible records with the simple words, "And they crucified
 Him." (Mark 15:24). What wondrous love is this?

 Adapted from C. Truman Davis, M.D. in The Expositor's Bible
 Commentary, Vol. 8

This is from an email forward that I received many years ago, but go back to every Easter to remember the pain that I do not have to go through, because HE did it for me.