7: Jesus carries his cross
Jesus is already weary and perhaps delirious with pain; the heavy wooden beams are dragged along the ground as the crowd jeer. The heavy cross and placing one foot in front of the other is all he can focus on.
“So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha...”
John 19:17
Up a hill, overlooking the Temple, Golgotha was the site of many crucifixions, a public punishment designed to warn and deter trouble-makers. Crosses were heavy, long enough for a man to hang from them, of rough, unplaned wood.
Commentary by Revd Catherine Shelley