Matthew 27:34Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

However, Christ dies on the cross to sanctify the very tree that brought our curse and to bless everything, including the heavenly realms represented by the top of the cross, the earth below symbolized by its base, and the ends of the earth—east and west—illustrated by the horizontal beams of the cross. Furthermore, by dying on the cross, He extends His arms to call forth and unite the scattered children of God.

It is noteworthy that while Jesus did not consume the wine mixed with myrrh, deeming it unnecessary, He later tasted vinegar and gall with the purpose of fulfilling the Scriptures which declare, "they gave me gall to eat." Thus, when He was crucified, He drank only vinegar, aligning with the prophecy stating, "and in My thirst ye gave me vinegar to drink."

Clearly, as Jesus tasted the vinegar and gall, these prophecies found their fulfillment; however, it specifies that He thirsted, which did not occur until after He was lifted on the cross. Therefore, John explains that Jesus, aware that all was now complete and to fulfill the Scripture, proclaimed, "I thirst." Initially, the soldiers offered their mockery to Jesus, and later, when they recognized His thirst, they proffered Him vinegar. Yet, the Scripture states, "they gave me gall to eat"; this prompts the question of why they then offered Jesus gall to drink. It is possible that pieces of dried gall were soaked in vinegar, thus vinegar acted as a substitute for wine while the pieces of gall functioned as a form of nourishment, creating a drink that also served as food. Typically, wine is given to the utterly weakened along with bread, allowing the individual to first drink the wine before consuming the bread. If we do not perceive it this way, we cannot find any instance of Jesus being provided gall as sustenance, unless we interpret gall in a more profound sense, symbolizing the bitterness they cast upon Him instead of genuine nourishment, bringing Him continual sorrow.

Thus, He endured suffering but returned goodness; He embraced death yet bestowed life. It was fitting that He was crucified in the spot believed to be the burial place of Adam. The crucifixion of Christ occurred where Adam was laid to rest, so that life could be revived in the same place where death first occurred, allowing life to emerge from death. Death entered through Adam, while life came through Christ, who descended for the purpose of being crucified and dying for us, so that the sin incurred by the tree of knowledge might be cleansed by the wood of the cross, and the consequence of death be abolished through the sacrament of His death.

Yet they were unaware that by presenting this vinegar mixed with gall, they were fulfilling the prophecy of David: “They gave me gall to eat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (Psalm 68:22). The Lord took the cup in His hands and, though He could have rejected it, without hesitation, He returned it. Despite the impending torment awaiting Him on the cross, the Son of Man desired to face it all with full awareness, confronting death with all its dread, without numbing any of His anguish: He was absorbing the wrath of God for all. Shortly before His death, overwhelmed by an intense thirst, He accepted just a few drops of vinegar offered by a soldier. But behold, the crosses were set firmly in place. Jesus was stripped of His garments, clad only with a coarse wrap around His lower body. Then He was elevated on the cross, with His holy hands extended, and the dread hammer came down upon them. The nails pierced His innocent hands, and blood flowed freely onto the ground. But our Savior humbly lifted His gaze to heaven and prayed: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do...” (Lk. 23:34). He forgot His own unbearable suffering; His sole concern was love for others - for whom? His adversaries, His executioners! His entire existence was devoted to loving humanity; He sealed His death with that love. This was His obedience to His heavenly Father, extending even to death, and the death of the cross. He instructed His followers to pray for their enemies, and now He demonstrated a truly divine example of such prayer in the midst of His profound suffering. He interceded not only for the soldiers executing Him but also for Annas, Caiaphas, Herod, Pilate, and all who were blinded by wickedness and duplicitousness, who genuinely did not realize the gravity of their actions; for had they understood, as the Apostle Paul notes (2 Corinthians 2:6-8), they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Yet they could have known, had they chosen to seek the truth. Could it be that without this divine intercession, creation itself could not have withstood the insult to its Creator, and His enemies, like those of Moses and Aaron, might have been swallowed up by the earth beneath His cross (thoughts of St. John Damascene)? The Lord’s prayer encompassed all humanity for whom He bore sin. He stated: “let it go,” but His word is eternally fulfilled, and anyone willing can receive forgiveness. The holy Evangelists succinctly describe the crucifixion of our Lord, and rightly so—no human or angelic language can adequately express the profound suffering and anguish endured by our sinless Lord as He hung on the cross amidst the derisive cheers of the Jewish chief priests and elders who, despite the imminent Passover feast, could not resist gathering at Golgotha. Never had human cruelty devised a punishment more horrific and disgraceful than crucifixion. This was a fate reserved for the most wretched of criminals, the most despised, and slaves, deemed less than human at that time. A pagan remarked that it was “the most brutal and horrendous punishment, which should be removed from the very thought of humanity” (Cicero). “The foundation of the cross,” states Innocent, Archbishop of Kherson, “was a vertical post or plank secured to the ground. A crossbeam for the hands was fastened at the top or just below it, giving the cross a T-shape, though slightly lower than the apex, in proportion to the hands nailed to it. At the center of the post was a horn-like support to hold the body, preventing it from being pulled down by its weight.” Thus, according to St Irenaeus, the cross had five points: two vertical, two horizontal, and one central. The torment of crucifixion was excruciating; even the slightest movement, vital for survival, wrought unbearable pain into His scourged back, and the weight of the body hung heavily, worsening the wounds in His hands and feet with each passing hour. No other part of the body contains as many nerves and veins as the hands and feet; an injury to a single nerve causes intense pain. With so many nerves and veins crushed, torn, and stabbed by the nails in His hands and feet, the Savior endured unspeakable agony! Meanwhile, His blood, deprived of natural circulation, surged toward His head and heart, creating dizziness and weakness that were more torturous than death itself. The scorching sun and fierce midday wind exacerbated His wounds, inflaming them with every moment. His tongue and throat parched; an unbearable thirst tormented Him. He experienced hellish suffering. To the pagans, nothing was more disgraceful than crucifixion; to the Jews, the crucified one was the accursed of all accursed. The heavenly Father chose this suffering for His beloved Son, for the redemption of sinners. This is the humiliation that the Lord of glory, the Ruler of heaven and earth, willingly endured: measure, if you can, the profound humility of the Son of God who became flesh for our sake! Engrave in your heart all that He experienced for you, and turn away from the sins by which, as the Apostle states, your Savior is crucified anew. Who can fully grasp the immense mystery of these redemptive sufferings of our Lord? The angels of God themselves “long to look into these things,” and amongst men, only those who unite their sufferings with Christ and bear their crosses in deep humility and complete surrender to their Savior can touch this truth. The holy fathers, in reflecting reverently on the Savior's voluntary suffering, express the following enlightening insights: 1) The Lord Himself chose and foretold through prophecy the manner of His death: “it is fitting that the Son of Man should be crucified.” Delve into the meaning of "fitting," St. Gregory of Nyssa urges, and you will find that it implies only the cross could fulfill this divine mandate. Everything in the universe—above, below, and on earth—finds its existence and purpose under the shadow of the cross and in the love of God that transcends understanding. “Christ dies on the cross,” notes Blessed Theophylact, “to sanctify the very tree that brought about our curse, and to bless all creation—both heavenly, represented by the upper part of the cross, and earthly, represented by its base, as well as the transverse parts symbolizing the boundaries of the earth; all the while extending His arms to call the fallen children of God back to Him. “Through the parts of the cross,” states St. Basil the Great, “the entirety of the world is saved. 2) From the tree of knowledge of good and evil, death entered and spread to all humanity through the first Adam; but through the tree of the cross, life pours forth from the second Adam to the entire Christian world. “A tree for a tree, and hands for hands,” says St. Gregory the Theologian, referring to the outstretched hands as an antidote to the grievous act of the first Adam who reached out in disobedience. “You see,” St. Chrysostom explains, “the devil's defeat comes about by the same means; he conquered Adam through a tree, and Christ overcame him through that same tree. The tree condemned us to death; this tree has the power to redeem those who fell into death. 3) The Word of God proclaims, “Cursed is everyone who does not continuously do all that is written in the book of the law” (Galatians 3:10), meaning that anyone who fails to observe the Lord’s commandments is under a curse. Since no one could fully adhere to the law, all became subject to this curse. The same holy scripture states: “Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” (Deuteronomy 21:23). Thus, our Savior was lifted up on the cross and, in doing so, became bound by this curse, bearing it for us, removing it from our shoulders, nullifying it, and liberating us from its condemnation. 4) The Lord ascended the cross as an offering for our sins, presented in obedience to divine justice. His blood spilled on the Cross purifies our sins, which He offers to us in the Sacrament of Communion, this unbloody sacrifice through which we become, as the Apostle Peter states, “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). 5) Our Lord stretches forth His holy hands as a Priest in the order of Melchizedek, as the supreme High Priest, offering the sacrifice of redemption for us, conducting the great liturgy not on any earthly altar, but on the universal altar of the cross. Could He not pray in these most sacred moments? He prayed fervently, a petition to the heavens. 6) “He chose to die the death of the most despised and lowly men, ensuring there would be none who could not follow Him.” “He embraced the most despicable and shameful form of execution, to eradicate all death” (Blessed Augustine). 7) Through five wounds that He bore on the cross, the Lord purified our five senses, the very gateways through which sin enters and exits. 8) “Jesus Christ did not suffer the death of John—by beheading,” observes St. Athanasius the Great, “nor the death of Isaiah—by being sawn in two, to preserve His body intact even in death, thus taking away occasion from those who might dare to assault His Church. 9) The one who is crucified is exalted above all and visible to all; hence, the cross was chosen to signify that Christ would be visible and exalted, drawing all the nations to Himself. He extended His arms to demonstrate that every nation would be sheltered beneath His wings, gathering a great multitude of believers from every tribe and tongue. He spread His hands to draw the ancient people of Judah with one and the Gentiles with the other, uniting them. He foretold: “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to Myself” (John 12:32). 10) “The enemy of our race, the devil,” says St. Athanasius the Great, “descended from heaven and wanders through this lowly realm. The Lord came to overthrow the devil, to purify the atmosphere, and open the pathway to heaven—this was realized through His death, endured in the skies; only he who dies in the air fulfills his destiny on the Cross.” Finally, the holy fathers observe: “Since man was created on the sixth day and partook of the fruit at the sixth hour, it is at this hour of eating that the Lord, in recreating man and mending his fall, is nailed to the tree on the sixth day and the sixth hour.” Yet the mysteries of the Lord’s cross are so unfathomable and boundless for the human mind that in contemplating them, one cannot help but echo the grand hymn heard by the visionary in the Book of Revelation: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing… By His blood, He has redeemed us to God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation… To Him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen” (Rev. 5:12, 9, 13).