⁷ When Jesus and his disciples had traveled farther north and were near Mount Hermon, the Bible record says: “Jesus Christ commenced showing his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the older men and chief priests and scribes, and be killed.” How remote such sufferings must have seemed to them!

TRIALS CAN COME SUDDENLY

 9. What trialsome experiences did Jesus finally suffer, and did he faithfully endure them?

⁹ It was less than a year after telling his disciples what would befall him that Jesus suddenly experienced the very sufferings of which he had spoken. He was in Jerusalem, in the garden of Gethsemane, when a mob armed with clubs and swords came by night and took him into custody. That night, as he was being tried, “some started to spit on him and some to cover his whole face and hit him with their fists.” (Mark 14:65) But this was only the beginning of his ordeal. The next day Pontius Pilate had Jesus “whipped” or “scourged.” (Matt. 27:26-30; John 19:1-3) Commenting on what this might have involved, the Medical World News of October 21, 1966, observed: “The tragic pantomime of crowning Christ with thorns and the heckling of the crowd may have been accompanied by flagellation. The whip (flagrum) had several thongs ending in lead balls or sheep astragalus bones.” Finally, weakened by such brutal beating, Jesus was nailed to a torture stake and hung up to die an agonizing death. But Jesus faithfully endured. He had trained for these severe trials.