A more extensive discussion is the book “A Doctor at Calvary: The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ As Described by a Surgeon” by Pierre Barbet, There is also a DVD “How Jesus Died: The Final 18 Hourse” which is a discussion of the pathophysiology of His death. This is available at several sources including Vision Video.
A summary of multiple sources may be found at http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=145.
I just finished “Killing Jesus”... a very difficult read at best. This account pretty much squares with the description in the book. However, and I have also seen this in another documented piece, that the route taken to Calvary was not the Via Dolorosa.
ping
His death was meant for us.
Christ’s crucifixion becomes even more meaningful when you consider that with a word, He could have spared Himself that agony. He suffered it willingly.
That is Love.
Thank you Lord Jesus for dying on the cross for pitiful me.
Another term for what Christ suffered in the garden at Gethsemane is hematohydrosis, in which a person under extreme stress begins bleeding from the pores, nose and eyes. It is usually a totally debilitating condition and followed soon by death. Which is why it is my own strong feeling that Jesus feared He would die in the garden and not make it to Calvary to fulfill the prophesies.
It was in the garden that Jesus began to taste the full bitterness of the cup of God’s wrath being poured out. The dying he was prepared for, and since the transfiguration experience a few weeks earlier, as prophesied He had marched with his face set as flint to Jerusalem to accomplish his sacrificial mission. But Jesus the man could not have begun to imagine the horror He would face in the garden. He was overwhelmed with sorrow “even unto death,” He told Peter, James and John. Three times He went into extreme prayer mode, calling out and falling on his face. And, as stated in Hebrews 5:7, he was “heard because of his reverence.” As Luke, the physician records, “there appeared an Angel from heaven strengthening him.” Without that, it is inconceivable from a medical perspective that Jesus would have been able to endure the flogging, the cross-bearing and three hours of crucifixion itself.
This understanding is crucial to make sense of Jesus’ prayer: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” Jesus was asking for relief from the cup of wrath so that he might survive and go to the cross. Otherwise, He feared dying in the garden or failing to reach the Cross, a mark of failure in his consummate mission. Those who think he was trying to get out of being crucified miss the point and make him out to be a wimp, chickening out at the last minute and only half-heartedly carrying out the purpose to which his entire life had led him. The angel was there to restore his physical capability to perform the sacrifice, not to give him a pep talk and persuade a reluctant Christ to do what He had all-along been preparing for.
Indeed, if Jesus did not go entirely willingly and eagerly to the cross, then the whole sacrificial process would have been vitiated. It would have been invalid. God did not cruelly kill an unwilling lamb in Jesus. He inflicted all the redeeming violence on Himself (Christ), willingly, for our sake.
I seem to recall reading this in an issue of JAMA the AMA Journal of Medicine. THe backlash was absolutely extreme from some Jewish physicians believing that this was beyond the pale. Forget the fact, that Historical Medicine accounts have been written on the illnesses and deaths of many many other famous people from Mozart to Lincoln.