<p>27:39 <em>And they that passed by</em>- The idea of crucifixion was that it was public. The invitation to carry the Lord's cross is an invitation to likewise be public and open in our identification with Him. But these people repeated the false accusation raised in the Sanhedrin trial, that the Lord had planned to destroy the temple (:40). One wonders, therefore, whether these people were indeed passers by. To have access to that information means they may have been close to the Jewish leadership. Perhaps they simply made out that they were 'passers by', and the Biblical record is at times written from the standpoint of how things appear to men, even if that is not the actual case consider the language of demons. Or it could be that these people continually passed back and forth in front of the Lord in order to try to provoke Him repeatedly with their blasphemy.</p><p><b><font size=3>&ldquo;Those that passed by&quot; were not only comprised of casual passers-by who thought &quot;Hey, there's a crucifixion, let's go and have a look&quot;. Golgotha was a little way out of the city. The size of the crowd must have been considerable; &quot;crowds came to the spectacle&quot; (Lk. 23:48 Gk.). It seems more reasonable that the reference is to those who passed by, back and forth (the Greek could imply), 'passing along' (Mk. 15:29) in front of the cross, taunting the Lord, as if they were making a wave offering in front of the presence of God in the crucified Christ. The connection between Ps. 22:7 and Mt. 27:39 would suggest that these 'passers-by' were there with the express intent of taunting Him. Because His eyes were inevitably downward, it would have been difficult for the Lord not to look at them. Their words were exactly those of the Sanhedrin (Mt. 26:61), so presumably they came from there- the work colleagues of Joseph and Nicodemus. </font></b></p><p><em>Derided him, wagging their heads</em><strong>- </strong>The reproach broke the Lord's heart (Ps. 69:20). It could even be that He suffered a heart rupture, a literal broken heart, some hours prior to His death- hence when His side was pierced, blood flowed out- and corpses don&rsquo;t usually bleed. It has been commented that severe emotional trauma is enough to cause such a rupture. He wasn't hard and impervious to it all. He knew who He was, and where He was going. To be treated as He was, was such an insult to the God of all grace. And He keenly sensed this. Heb. 12:2,3 parallels the Lord's enduring of the cross with His enduring &quot;such contradiction of sinners against Himself&quot;. These mockings were therefore part of &quot;the cross&quot;. The &quot;cross&quot; process began before His impalement; in the same way as some verses which evidently concern the crucifixion are applied to the Lord's earlier life. His was <em>a life</em> of cross carrying. And we are asked to live the same life, not just the occasional 'cross' of crisis, but a life embodying the cross principles. As &quot;the cross&quot; means more than the impalement which epitomized it, likewise &quot;the blood of Christ&quot; means far more than the red liquid. These concepts found their physical epitome in the crucifixion process, but there is so much more to these things than the physical. The blood of the covenant, the Son of God and the Spirit of grace are bracketed together in Heb. 10:29. The Lord <em>was </em>His blood. The pouring out of blood from His side, the trickles down His cheeks from the crown of thorns, quickly drying in the hot dust beneath... this was <em>Him</em>. We take the wine in memory of <em>Him</em>; not just His blood. And He <em>is</em> the Spirit of God's grace. By Himself He purged our sins (Heb. 1:3); and yet this purging was through His blood (Heb. 9:14). He was His blood; His cross was the essence of all He was.</p><p><b><font size=3>&nbsp;</font></b></p>